The Sonora Chinese and the Mexican Revolution

Abstract

B EGINNING IN A trickle in September, 1931, and increasing into a flood in the latter days of the following month, the residents of Sonora abandoned the state; some returned to China but the majority moved to other places in Mexico. The exodus, the result of a series of legal devices designed to force the from the state, allowed Governor Rodolfo Elias Calles to announce proudly in January that the Chinese has completely terminated in Sonora. 1 It was the culmination of a bitter twenty-year campaign. A curious sidelight of the Mexican Revolution, the manifestations of deep animosity toward on the part of the northwestern revolutionaries could almost be used as tools for tracing the paths of successful armies from 1911 to 1916. Both the tactics and reasons for the campaign against the Orientals are of considerable interest, for they are intimately related to the revolutionary process. The Chinese problem (Rodolfo Elias Calles' term) began in 1893 when Mexico and China signed a Treaty of Amity and Commerce; under the treaty had the same rights in Mexico as did the nationals of the favored nation. Taking advantage of this stipulation, various Mexicans began bringing male laborers to Mexico, particularly to Baja California and to Sonora; in most instances the immigrants arrived first at San Francisco, then continued the journey to Mexican ports of entry either by rail or ship. The gradually spread from the northwestern section into all the Mexican states but tended to concentrate in Baja California, Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Tamaulipas, Chiapas, Veracruz, and Yucatan. A relatively small number settled in Coahuila (mostly near Torreon), and a larger number lived in the Federal District.

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