Asian Andeans

Interesting Tidbits—from “Assimilation and Non-Assimilation of Asian-Americans and Asian Peruvians”

In Lima Peru, the Chinese are more assimilated than their New York (North American) counterparts because of immigration and miscegenation laws created in America that kept the Chinese from assimilating (572).

“The Chinese in Peru apparently assimilated while the Japanese did not, whereas in the United States the reverse situation seems to prevail” (573).  This most likely has to do with job competition.

“The other reason why the Chinese did better in Peru over the Japanese is that the Chinese opted for assimilation” (583).  These means that the Chinese let go of some of their culture in exchange for the “melting pot” society of the Andes.  The Japanese held strictly to their own cultures

“Japanese people in Peru represented an intermediate class between the upper Caucasoid aristocracy and the lower class majority of native people and mixed blood” (582).

“On May 13, 1940, Peruvian resentment of the Japanese erupted into violence; an anti-Japanese riot in Lima and Callao led to the damage of Japanese businesses and property” (578).

During the Second World War, many Japanese were shipped to America and put in relocation camps with other Asians at the time.  “In 1942, in cooperation with America’s FBI, some 1,771 Peruvian Japanese, most of them male family heads and some of them Peruvian citizens, were rounded up, deported to the United States, and placed in relocation camps” (578).

Recently (1970s on), attitudes toward the Japanese are more favorable.  In 1973 the Lima Japanese community was involved in a fund-raising drive to construct a Japanese garden in downtown Lima as a gift to the people of Peru” (579).