chino<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\nRoberto now lives in Bonn, Germany where he has been since 2016. He studied for his masters degree there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought this would be a good place to start the conversation because having different experiences often leads to a better understanding of oneself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roberto described him being “just some random person” in Germany, whereas in the city centre of Hermosillo, he would get stared at. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Roberto was about 14, he started noticing people calling him “chino.” It became even more prevalent when he attended university in Hermosillo. Roberto does not interpret these instances as racism. He gave the example of how university was a more impersonal place where a student wouldn’t know a lot of people intimately and so people would call him with his most obvious trait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I don’t normally take offence,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roberto believes that going to private school helped him avoid racism. He believes that going to school with people from a wealthier stratum of Mexican society “tend to be more open to other people, not just Chinese but even people from within Mexico.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Curiously, Roberto mentioned that he benefited from being Chinese. He pointed to stereotypes of Chinese people where Mexican society thought of us as intelligent and very dedicated to school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I got several job offers because of that, I think, and I actually started working before I finished my engineering [degree],” he said. “I didn’t feel that I had barriers in terms of ‘I couldn’t get something because of my race.’ “<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A life in the New World<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Proximity still plays a great part in our relationships. I know that when I move from one place to somewhere really far away, my connection to that group of friends change drastically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It turns out that this rings true for Roberto too. He has cousins in the U.S. as well as two more in China, and the quality of connection between the former group and the latter group is best represented by the distance that separates them. Akin to the size of the Pacific versus the Rio Grande.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roberto says he is much closer to his cousins in the United States but has minimal contact with his cousins in China. It helps that his cousins in the U.S. lived in Mexico for a few years, then moved north, giving Roberto an opportunity to build a connection with that group of cousins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He mentioned a cousin who came to Mexico from China when she was about 18, but after about five years, didn’t like living in Mexico and went back to China. He mentioned that she faced an issue of integration into Mexican society and only interacted with her family members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roberto has tried learning Mandarin a few years ago but “I was not very dedicated,” he said, nor did he go to Chinese school when he was growing up. I would also posit that it’s quite difficult to learn Chinese in a place where Chinese people are “rare” as Roberto puts it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the last things I asked Roberto to do is to write his Chinese name. He typed it in Simplified Chinese and the corollary to that is that he would know how to type Chinese, probably in pinyin<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut if my understanding of migration is telling, the place one grew up informs one’s identity much more than race. By this logic, I think Roberto (and myself) will consistently be using the Latin alphabet much more than Chinese characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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