Lessons from a Lost Homeland: Chinese Schools in Mexico during the 20th Century

During the Second World War and the Cold War, Chinese immigrants to Mexico demonstrated considerable concern over the cultural attachments of their native-born mixed-background children. During the Second World War, there were as many as seven thousand Chinese Mexican native-born (tusheng) children; by the 1970s, that number grew to an estimated sixteen thousand. The vast majority were born of Mexican mothers, were educated in the Mexican school system, and were kept from visiting mainland China for most of the twentieth century by a Japanese invasion and a travel ban to the People’s Republic of China. Chinese Mexican parents not only felt that these children lacked lessons in Chinese language and culture – they feared that, exposed to Mexican education and leftist counterculture during the turbulent sixties, their children would eventually support the Chinese Communist government they despised.

            This paper – the first to examine Mexican born children of Chinese descent – will analyze repeated efforts to build Chinese schools in cities across Mexico, including Mexico City, Mexicali, Tijuana, Torreón, Tampico, and Tapachula. These schools imparted lessons in both Chinese language and culture, including the creation of the first lion dancing troupes in the country. They afforded a transnational connection to China even as Chinese Mexican children were unable to travel there and helped them identify with their Chinese roots. For the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China, Chinese education afforded it an opportunity to extend its influence to Chinese Mexican children and enlist their participation in its public diplomacy activities. Although language schools proved transitory – most tended to close within ten years of their creation – cultural schools remained open and became an enduring institution among the Chinese community in the country.