Identity Stew: Chinese Hispanics

An interesting post in HispaniCon titled "Chino Latino" led me to this New York Times article written by Erin Chan (9/5/04). It depicts yet another piece of the Hispanic puzzle that many tend to overlook. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to convey the idea that you should reach each and every sub-segment of the Latino community with a different message (many variables come into play when choosing how and to “whom” you should direct your marketing and advertising efforts). The whole purpose of this post is to break the paradigm of who exactly is a Hispanic. It is about stretching your brain (if needed, that is) to grasp the fact that in Latin America, as well as in the U.S., maybe in DIFFERENT degrees, there exists a cultural diversity that is imported to America every time one of these individuals settles here.

I went to school with many “Chinese Latin Americans” and they do have the multicultural thing going on down there. They, as the “average” Hispanic in the States, live a dual reality, changing seamlessly back and forth from their Chinese culture to Latin American culture. Now, if one of these persons migrates to the U.S. there is, as the article puts it “a tri-continental convergence”.

Here is an excerpt of the story:

Michael Lan traces his ancestry to Guangdong Province and has been waiting tables for 11 years at Dinastia China on 72nd Street on the Upper West Side, one of the city's major Chinese-Cuban restaurants. He often surprises his newest customers; not because he addresses them in perfect English or yells orders to the cooks in flawless Cantonese, but because he and most of Dinastia's waiters speak a Spanish as smooth as an ice-blended margarita.

Their Spanish, however, tends not to have the rapidity characteristic of Cuban Spanish, and this is significant because Mr. Lan was born in Uruguay, and he has no connection to Cuba. Neither does most of the staff of 10.

"See Roberto?" Mr. Lan said, pointing out a fellow waiter. "Chino-Venezuelano." Rafael? "Chino-Dominicano." Juan, the boss? "Chino-Peruano."

Though the restaurant still features lo mein with plantains, and six-ounce bottles of Trappey's Red Devil Cayenne Pepper Sauce sit at every table, the change in the ethnicity of its employees mirrors a subtle but telling demographic shift among Chinese-Latinos in New York. Once dominated by Chinese-Cubans, who fled Cuba decades ago when Fidel Castro assumed power in 1959, the city's Chinese-Latinos now come from a range of Latin American countries. As ever more Latin American immigrants settle in the United States, so too do Latin American Chinese. What results is a tri-continental convergence of food, language and sense of identity.

"It's diversity within diversity," said Fabiana Chiu-Rinaldi, a fourth-generation Chinese-Peruvian who works for the New York State Council on the Arts. "There are no clear categories. We are a culture influenced by many cultures."

Some Chinese-Latinos see the tri-ethnic mix of Asian, Latino and American as a plus, a de facto bridge among cultures. Others, like Mr. Lan, the waiter, see it as a danger. "It means I'm diluted," he said. "I'm confusing my English with everything else."
When it comes to language and identity, Chinese-Latinos surprise even one another.

"The first time I went to Chinatown, I was buying cigarettes from a young Chinese woman, and she began speaking to me in Spanish,'' said Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, a Brooklyn resident who was born in Mexico but is one-quarter Chinese. "I'm like, what?''

(Ms. Hernández Chong Cuy, the curator and programs manager at Art in General on Walker Street at the edge of Chinatown, does happen to speak Spanish but not Chinese.)

However they feel about their identity, most Chinese-Latinos in New York agree that working and living in the city is the closest they can come to realizing the aspects of all three continents to which their lives are linked. "There is a sense of belonging, especially in New York," said Ms. Chiu-Rinaldi of the State Council on the Arts. "In New York, as a Chinese-Latino, I can express myself in all ways. Sometimes I feel like I never left home."

Read the full story at: The New York Times

Comments

[Joe Ray]

Interesting about the tri-Cultural blend. I've lived in Arizona since I was 3 (from Mexico) and when we would go across the border as a kid, I always remember my mother taking me to have Chinese food at any one of many Chinese restaurants that were perfectly situated with taco and raspado vendors on the street in front of them. I always remember the food as being wonderful. 4 months ago I found myself once more having great Chinese food in San Luis, Sonora (Mexico), we had been taken there by my cousin's wife- she is a 2nd generation Japanese/Mexican from the coast of Sinaloa. The previous day she had helped a couple of my other cousins make ceviche and sushi. The trilingual dialects are fascinating if you take note, especially south of the border because their English (for the ones who speak it) is broken with a Spanish accent that has a gutteral sound of Chinese to it. Ahhh, the world we live and eat in.