“I Wish I Looked More Chinese”: Contemporary (Re)encounters with “Race” and Racialization for Chileans of Chinese Descent

Abstract Despite more than a century of continuous migration from China to Chile, there is little public acknowledgement of the existence of several generations of Chileans of Chinese descent. A Chinese presence in Chile dates back to the late 19th century, with the arrival of Cantonese men who worked in guano mining and agriculture in South America. Based on an ethnographic study of diverse Chileans of Chinese descent based in northern and central Chile, this article illuminates the factors conditioning the contemporary desire of some Chileans to claim a Chinese ancestry that their parents or grandparents sought to deny or downplay. We show how they employ history and temporal distance to articulate a specific sense of Chineseness that legitimates their territorial and national belonging to Chile while at the same time excluding contemporary Chinese migrants. A historical and ethnographic analysis of Chinese racialization in Chile contributes to our understanding of how racial categories are reproduced, transformed and refracted over time.