By Kary Vannice—
The presence of Chinese New Year in Mexico is not a new-age novelty or recent cultural appropriation. It’s steeped in history and honors the tens of thousands of Chinese immigrants and their descendants’ migration story that started over a century ago. A story that unfolded through cheap labor recruitment, entrepreneurship, discrimination, expulsion, adaptation, and survival. To understand why Chinese New Year has a place in Mexico’s public calendar, it’s important to understand the impact that Chinese immigrants have had upon Mexican history.
Chinese immigration to Mexico began during the presidency of Porfirio Díaz. Railroads were expanding, mining operations were growing, and agricultural production was increasing, and like many countries undergoing rapid development, Mexico faced a labor shortage.
Chinese workers, primarily from Guangdong province in southern China, began arriving in Mexico in the 1880s and 1890s. Most didn’t come directly from China, they were already working in countries like United States, Canada, and Southeast Asia. Because of this, they were actively sought out by labor recruiters to work in northern Mexico.
By the early 1900s, it was estimated that there were between 13,000 and 20,000 Chinese immigrants living in Mexico, with the highest concentrations in northern states such as Sonora, Baja California, Sinaloa, and Coahuila. These numbers were small relative to Mexico’s total population, but their presence was highly visible in certain northern regions.
Chinese immigrants tended to settle where economic opportunity was most accessible, working in agriculture, railroad construction, mining, and commerce. Mexicali, in northern Baja California, became one of the most significant centers of Chinese settlement. Over time, Mexicali developed La Chinesca, a neighborhood that became home to Chinese businesses, associations, and families. At its peak, Chinese residents made up the majority of Mexicali’s population, and La Chinesca was considered one of the largest Chinese communities in Latin America.
Many Chinese men married Mexican women, forming families that blended language, customs, and traditions. Chinese businesses became permanent fixtures of local economies. This transition from laborers to neighbors marked a turning point in Chinese-Mexican history, and not a positive one.
What had been tolerated, even welcomed, began to be seen as a social and economic threat. Anti-Chinese sentiment began to grow, in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution.
By the 1920s, anti-Chinese movements had gained momentum, particularly in Sonora. Chinese immigrants were accused of unfair business practices, economic exploitation, and moral corruption. Propaganda portrayed them as unclean, dangerous, and incompatible with Mexican identity. Because of this, women who had married Chinese men were also targeted and portrayed as immoral, corrupted, or disloyal to their nation. These women were publicly shamed, pressured to dissolve marriages, and stripped of all social standing.
Several Mexican states passed laws that banned marriages between Chinese men and Mexican women, restricted where Chinese people could live, and limited the types of businesses they could operate. And these laws named the Chinese immigrants explicitly.
The same Mexican government that once encouraged Chinese immigration to help modernize Mexico, just a few decades later, labeled Chinese migrants as undesirable and even dangerous. And between the late 1920s and early 1930s, thousands of Chinese immigrants were expelled from Mexico, often with little warning and minimal legal protection. Entire families were affected. Mexican wives were forced to choose between remaining in Mexico or following their husbands to China. Children born in Mexico were deported to a country they had never known.
The Chinese population in Mexico dropped sharply. Thriving communities that had taken decades to build were dismantled in a matter of years. By the mid twentieth century, the once visible Chinese presence in many parts of Mexico had almost disappeared. Some families returned decades later. Others assimilated quietly into the local culture, and their histories and stories were lost…or deliberately forgotten.
And yet, not everything disappeared.
In Mexicali, Chinese-Mexican cuisine continued to evolve, becoming a defining feature of that city’s identity. Old world Chinese recipes were adapted to regional tastes and ingredients. What began as a way for families to survive became local tradition. Today, Mexicali is known nationally for its Chinese food, even by people who know little about how or why it came to be.
In recent years, Chinese migration to Mexico has increased again, though under very different circumstances. According to Mexico’s 2020 census, there are just over 10,000 Chinese-born residents living in the country today. Migration authorities report a steady rise in temporary and permanent residency permits issued to Chinese nationals since 2019.
This contemporary migration is driven by trade, manufacturing, education, and globalization rather than labor recruitment. Some arrive to work in Chinese-owned factories tied to North American supply chains. Others come seeking opportunity, stability, or a jumping off point to countries like the United States or Canada.
Alongside this renewed presence has come a renewed visibility. Chinese New Year celebrations in Mexico today are not just cultural performances. They are acts of recognition. Chinese immigrants are part of the history that shaped this nation, and their story, like so many migration stories, includes welcome and rejection, contribution and contention, loss and renewal.
The red lanterns and dragon dances seen in communities around Mexico are not a new chapter in that story, they’re what remains visible after more than a century of perseverance, persecution and integration.
Kary Vannice is a writer and energetic healer who explores the intersections of culture, consciousness, and daily life in Mexico.
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