Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
In a recent paper in this journal, Bernard Wong (1978) compares the assimilative experiences of Chinese in New York City and Lima, Peru. He concludes that the Lima Chinese are substantially more assimilated than their New York counterparts and attributes this distinction in part to differences in the attitudes of the larger societies in which the two Chinese communities are embedded. Discriminatory immigration and miscegenation laws and endemic racism in the United States inhibited the assimilation of the New York Chinese, while a substantially lower level of racial prejudice and official discrimination in Peru facilitated the assimilative process there.