Mexico City's “Chinos” and “Barrio Chino”: Strangerness and Community in Cristina Rivera Garza's Verde Shanghai (2011)

Abstract:This article explores the barrio chino (Chinatown) as a space from which to analyze the perception of China in Mexico through Cristina Rivera Garza's novel Verde Shanghai (2011). Building on Jean-Luc Nancy's “being singular plural” and Sara Ahmed's notion of “strange encounters,” and using Graham Huggan's notions on how the “exotic” can be put into play, this article argues that the Chinatown depicted in the novel lays bare the refusal of boundaries and challenges fixed identities. Embracing ambiguity, the novel opens up the meaning of a mestizo Mexico, and the Chinatown becomes a constitutive part of the cityscape of Mexico City. The novel thus challenges discourses of national homogeneity, informing our understanding of alterity and community.