New Chinese Immigrants to Urban Latin America: Migration and Entrepreneurship

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel brings together papers examining new Chinese immigrants to Urban Latin American in the wake of massive Chinese state investments in the continent in the 20th-21st century. Coming primarily from coastal provinces of South China, consisting of both men and women (and children), they represent a new kind of transnational and urban entrepreneurship in popular urban markets of cities such as Mexico City, Sao Paulo and Lima. The papers examine themes that include the significant role of women in commerce; economic expansion and spatial mobility; localization and practices of citizenship; and persistence of transnational relations to families, markets and production in China. Taken together, these papers beg the question: to what extent have new Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs become indispensable to the economic and spatial growth of Latin American mega cities?

Sub Track

• Migration, Displacements, Diasporas

Session Organizer

• Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Brown University

Chair

• Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Brown University

Discussant

• José Federico Besserer, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana

Individual Presentations

• From China to Tepito: Chinese women's experience with commerce in a Mexican street market - Ximena Alba Villalever

• From below and through the market: Chinese stallholders in Sao Paulo's popular markets - Douglas de Toledo Piza, New School for Social Research

• Mobility itineraries: migration and trade between Sao Paulo, Guangzhou and Yiwu - Carlos Freire da Silva

• New Chinese immigrants to Lima: economic and spatial expansion - Isabelle Lausent-Herrera, CNRS-CREDA - Centre de recherche et de documentation des Amériques; Miguel Situ