Peru
The main Peruvian Chinatown is located in Lima and is called the Barrio Chino de Lima, located on Calle Capón (Block 7 of Ucayali Street); it is one of the two earliest Chinatowns in the Western Hemisphere, along with that of Havana, and contains various architecture in traditional Chinese fashion. Local Chinese restaurants, called in Peruvian Spanish chifas, serve Chinese food with significant Peruvian influence and are popular in Chinatown among native Peruvians as well.
In contrast to Cuba, the Chinese Peruvians, despite the problems of recent history in the country — including the dictatorial rule of Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968–1975), which forced many of his Chinese Peruvian opponents to flee (mainly to the United States) — have still chosen to remain in large numbers.
Historical Chinese immigration to the Amazonian region of Peru is intriguingly documented in a small village named Chino several miles outside of Iquitos. While its inhabitants, in the main, are clearly native Amazonians, many bear striking genetic traits — markedly smoother facial structure, stereotypically Asian eyes, and straighter hair — which may mark the existence of a community of Chinese immigrants in the 19th or 20th century who intermarried and vanished, as mysteriously as they came.
Read more about this topic: Chinatowns In Latin America
Famous quotes containing the word peru:
“The idea that nations should love one another, or that business concerns or marketing boards should love one another, or that a man in Portugal should love a man in Peru of whom he has never heard—it is absurd, unreal, dangerous.... The fact is we can only love what we know personally. And we cannot know much.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)