Mexican president apologizes for 1911 massacre of Chinese

Mexico’s president apologized on Monday for a 1911 massacre in which over 300 Chinese people were slaughtered by revolutionary troops in the northern city of Torreon.

The apology is the latest in a series of ceremonies in which President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has sought to make amends for the mistreatment of Indigenous and minority people in Mexico in past centuries.

Lopez Obrador said the point of the apology was to ensure “that this never, ever happens again,” noting that during the period, Chinese were mutilated or hung from telegraph poles.

“The discrimination was based on the most vile and offensive” stereotypes, Lopez Obrador said, adding “these stupid ideas were transferred to Mexico, where extermination was added to exclusion and mistreatment.”

Many Chinese laborers had emigrated to Mexico in the 1800s, in some cases to work on the expansion of the nation’s rail network. But many set up businesses, farms and in Torreon, and even a bank.

The 1911 killings of 303 Chinese men, women and children occurred during the chaotic period of the Mexican Revolution, when revolutionary troops overran Torreon, sealing the fate of long-time ruler Porfirio Diaz, who later went into exile.

Like most racial killings, it was fed by suspicion, hatred, fear, envy and lies. Torreon was a booming railway town, and control of it was key to rail lines north to the United States. Some Mexicans grumbled that Chinese were taking jobs or depressing wage rates; others were envious of the Chinese community’s economic success.

Between May 13-15, 1911, the revolutionary troops took control of the city from Diaz’s army and once inside the city, slaughtered many of it Chinese inhabitants, though some others hid or were saved by local residents.

The victorious revolutionary government of President Francisco I Madero agreed to pay reparations for the massacre, but Madero himself was overthrown in 1913 and the payment was never made.

Historian Monica Cinco Basurto said the massacre was far from the only anti-Chinese act in Mexico. Looting of Chinese-owned businesses and the expulsion or forced departure of Chinese — often without recognizing their Mexican citizenship or that of their children or wives — extended throughout northern Mexico into the 1930s.

Lopez Obrador was accompanied during the apology ceremony by Chinese Ambassador Zhu Qingqiao.

Mexico has relied on Chinese brands for about 10.5 million of the 29.1 million coronavirus vaccine doses received so far, or about 36 percent of all shots.