During the 19th century, the house was inhabited by a migrant Chinese (sometimes Japanese) family. The father worked very hard and came back late at night every day. One day, he came back earlier and was surprised to hear strange noises coming from his and his wife’s bedroom. He went there and fount his wife in bed with a lover, irate, he grabbed a knife and hacked them both up into pieces. When his kids got home, he decided to kill them as well since he saw no feasible explanation of his deeds and he didn’t want them to hate him. After that, he committed suicide.
While property records show that a Chinese family did indeed live in the house during the early 19th century, there is no proof that the above events transpired. This story’s popularity however could be attributed to lingering xenophobia, staring from the mid 19th century to the early 20th century, there was a very large wave of Chinese migrants to Lima. These immigrants were brought to Lima under false pretenses of wealth and opportunity when in reality, they were brought to collect guano since there was a dearth of cheap labor in Lima (the remaining Africans who were brought over as slaves were too few and the indigenous population had fled to the Andes to avoid being enslaved). These Chinese immigrants suffered horrendously and died by the thousands; however, there was a good number who survived the Guano age and established themselves in the city. In spite of their work which had brought an immense level of prosperity for Lima, these migrants were viewed with distrust by the Peruvians of European descent and were actively discriminated against. This version of the story is a vestige of that sentiment.
Tag Archives: immigration
Game – United States of America
La Migra
La Migra begins by the choosing of two teams. One team becomes the immigrants and the other team becomes the immigration official (la migra). Two team captains, who are either self assigned or nominated by the other players, pick their team members and which role they will play. Then a barrier is usually chosen, this can be a fence or anything which separates to sides. A jail and a safety point are also chosen. The jail is on the immigrants territory and the safety point is on la migras territory. Once all of this is decided the officials count to ten giving the immigrants a chance to cross the border which was pre-assigned. The immigrants must run across the border and through la migra, which is allowed to hit the immigrants, without getting caught and sent to jail. In jail the player is out once tagged by another player who has already reached the safety point. These players risk being jailed, since the after all are still immigrants. The way to win the game if you are on la migras side is by jailing all the immigrants. The immigrants win by getting all their players to the safety point.
I asked Ricardo why he played the game and he told me that he has heard his parents many times talk about how people have to cross the U.S. border and go through this everyday. He feels it is a way of experiencing that which his parents and others have done. He believes it is a Mexican tradition. He also plays it because he thinks it is funny. I think this has to do with the hitting involved. Kids often find violence funny.
La Migra is a fairly recent game. An exact author is unknown, although a few kids claim that they invented it. This is fascinating because I use to play a game similar to this one except instead of immigrants and the immigration, one team was the cops and the others were robbers. This game seems to be a spin off of the game I use to play as a kid. This is a great example of how much a child is effected by what he hears his parents say.