Chinatown, Mexico City

Barrio Chino is a neighborhood located in the downtown area of Mexico City, near the Palacio de Bellas Artes. The neighborhood is located on two blocks of Dolores Street and consists of a number of restaurants and businesses that import goods. The neighborhood consists of approximately 3,000 families with Chinese heritage in Mexico City.

The history of Barrio Chino is tied with the history of Chinese immigration to Mexico and Mexico City spans the decades between the 1880s and the 1940s-1950s. Between the years 1880 and 1910, during the term of President Porfirio Diaz, the Mexican government was trying to modernize the country, especially in building railroads and developing the sparsely populated northern states. When the government could not attract enough Western European immigrants, it was decided to allow Chinese migrant workers into the country. At first, small Chinese communities appeared mostly in the north of the country, but by the early 20th century, Chinese communities could be found in many parts of the country, including Mexico City.

A census done at the very end of the 19th century shows only 40 people registered as Chinese in Mexico City, but by 1910, that number had grown to 1,482. With the beginning of the Mexican Revolution, many Chinese in the northern states headed south to the city, both to escape the fighting and to escape nativist sentiment which had been particularly aimed at the Chinese. This culminated in 1913, with 303 Chinese massacred in Torreón. The Chinese in Mexico City congregated on Dolores Street one block south of the Alameda Central and the Palacio de Bellas Artes, in the historic center of Mexico City. They were basically businesspeople, opening restaurants, laundries, bakeries and lard shops. While initially, this population was confined to this particular neighborhood between 1910 and 1930, Chinese-owned businesses appeared in a number of other parts of the city, especially in the historic downtown. The number of Chinese-Mexicans in the city reached its peak during the 1920s and 1930s. when the Mexican government attempted to expel all ethnic Chinese (Mexican-born or not) from the country, managing to deport more than 70% between 1930 and 1940.

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