Coping with Discrimination and Exclusion: Experiences of Free Chinese Migrants in the Americas in a Transregional and Diachronic Perspective

This study takes an Inter-American and transpacific look at historical processes of discrimination and exclusion of migrants in the Americas and in the Spanish colonial Philippines that were based on racist and xenophobic prejudices. It will focus on pertinent migration policies and conjunctures of negotiation in various societies of the Americas while highlighting discriminatory dynamics in their diachronic dimension. Because Chinese immigrants were the first to experience these exclusionary practices and policies, the focus will be on this group in particular, keeping in mind that these dynamics affected other groups as well. By highlighting the correlation between mobility, liberalism, and ethnicity or ethnic adscription, the aim is to get a better understanding of the conjunctures of discrimination that immigrants who are considered ‘non-white’ suffered and continue to suffer from today in what we might term the Asian century.