ABSTRACT
Almost from inception, the Chinese in Spanish America have experienced a curious paradox, a set of contradictions that can be captured in any number of paired oppositions: integration and exclusion, acceptance and rejection, admiration and contempt, gratitude and resentment, love and hate. How the Chinese might have, however inadvertently, provoked such ambivalence among their hosts, and, in turn, how they responded to their hosts’wild mood swings, is the subject of this chapter. By posing these questions about the history of the Chinese in that part of the Americas known as Latin America and the Caribbean, we expect to provide some new insights about Latin American society and culture, and, more importantly for this volume, enhance our understanding of the Chinese diaspora beyond the much more familiar territories of Anglo North America (the USA and Canada) and Southeast Asia.
