Shortly after abolishing slavery in Peru in 1849, there was an immediate shortage of labor in agriculture. In return, a law titled Ley China (or “Chinese Law”) was put into effect in 1849, allowing a massive entry of laborers from China. From the years 1849 through 1880, over 100,000 Chinese workers resided in Peru, though the Peruvian census only registered 49,956 at the time.
Chinese workers mainly labored in the sugar, railroad construction, guano, and cotton industries; Peru benefitted from both products at the time. Workers ranged from the ages of 9-40, and nearly half of those who migrated from China for labor “died from exhaustion, suicide, or ill-treatment” (Hwang).
Though it was evident that there were mistreatment and abuse towards laborers, “the Peruvian government was unconcerned about the everyday abuses…and even created legislation to help the planters” (Hwang). Some of this legislation regarded forcing all laborers to have a letter of evidence that they were working and also having to purchase a “boleto de su ocupacion .”
When laborers were able to flee, they tended to reside in Lima for more work opportunities; however, “racist views about the unworthiness of the Chinese race prevailed” (Hwang).
By the 1870s, mixed-race children began emerging, though they lacked racial classification by the government. As the nineteenth century ended, Chinese-Peruvians found themselves places in Peruvian society, creating communities, owning land, and converting to Catholicism.
I believe this primary document, being Chinese laborers in Peru in the mid-nineteenth century, is essential to include and acknowledge as it is not widely discussed or known. It is also a clear example of Peru and Latin America’s racial diversity. It shows the disturbing and inhumane non-white/Europeans were/are treated and how colorism and colonialism continued after declaring independence.
Works Cited
Hwang, Justina. “Chinese in Peru in the 19th Century.” Modern Latin America. Brown
University. Accessed February 9, 2021.
“Inmigracion China En El Peru.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, January 20, 2021.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inmigraci%C3%B3n_china_en_el_Per%C3%BA.
La Torre Silva, Ricardo. “La Inmigracion China En El Peru.” Boletin de la Sociedad Peruana de Medicina Interna. Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1992.
Primary Source
Picking cotton with Chinese labor on irrigated land at the foot of the Andes, Vitarte, Peru. , ca. 1907. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002699648/.
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