THE CENTURY just passed has witnessed a great movement of the sons of China from their huge country to other portions of the globe. Hundreds of thousands have fanned out southwestward, southward, and southeastward into various parts of the Pacific world. Many thousands have moved eastward to Hawaii and beyond to the mainland of North and South America. Other thousands have been borne to Panama and to Cuba. The movement was in part forced, or at least semi-forced.
This movement was the consequence of, and it likewise entailed, many problems of a social and economic nature, with added political aspects and implications. It was a movement of human beings which, while it has had superficial notice in various works, has not yet been adequately investigated. It is important enough to merit a full historical record, particularly as we are now in an era when international understanding is of such extreme moment. The peoples of the world will better understand one another if the antecedents of present conditions are thoroughly and widely known.
The present study has particular reference to the transference of Chinese to Peru and to their experiences in that country. As such it can make no claim to being exhaustive of the general subject. However, the author hopes that this work may become a definitive chapter of the greater story. If others co-operate, eventually some scholar will be able to make a synthesis of the whole. It will be an absorbing story when finished, one with many overtones of personal tragedy and with its unadmirable elements of personal greed and inhumanity.
