Journal of Chinese Overseas 13 (2017) 206-243 brill.com/jco A Historical and Comparative Survey of the Chinese Presence in the Latin American and Caribbean Region, with a Focus on the Anglophone Caribbean 拉丁美洲和加勒比地区的华人历史和比较研究 — 以英语加勒比地区为例 Cecilia A. Green 塞西莉娅·安妮·格林 Associate Professor, Department of Sociology The Maxwell School, Syracuse University
[email protected] Abstract In this paper, I first broadly map the historical patterns of Chinese presence in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region, as a way of distinguishing the primary locations and forms of incorporation and settlement. This historical context provides a baseline from which to examine patterns of the new post-1980s instantiations of Chinese pres- ence in the wider LAC region and Central America and Caribbean (CAC) sub-region, with particular reference to the English-speaking Caribbean, and, even more specifi- cally, the Eastern Caribbean group of islands with no historical antecedent of an older Chinese diaspora. To highlight this specificity, I include findings from preliminary research conducted in several of these islands, and examine some of the key emerg- ing configurations and complications of the new dual presence in the Anglophone Caribbean of the Chinese state and private entrepreneurial immigrant. * Cecilia A. Green is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at The Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She writes on race/class/gender/sexuality in Anglophone Caribbean history, as well as on the political economy of globalization and postcolonialism, particularly in the Caribbean. She has been doing research on aspects of the “new Chinese presence in the Eastern Caribbean” since 2012, in collaboration with graduate student, Yan Liu, who is currently writing a doctoral dissertation on a related topic under her supervision.