| Summary: | 碩士 === 靜宜大學 === 西班牙語文學系 === 101 === After the Opium War (1840-1842) in the nineteenth century, the western countries and their capitalism opened the gateway to China and forced Chinese to sign unequal treaties in lurking of china's manpower. Through violence, fraud, and manipulation, the westerners were able to transport Chinese back to their countries to become Chinese workers. And due to the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century, many Latin American colonial manors, that used to depend on the man power of black slave labor, were eager to seek for new source of labors.
At the time, the Ching dynasty of China is withering through a corrupting government and declining economic system, and most of all, the civil war against the revolutionary Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851-1864) weaken the entire country. The poor peasants had to leave their homes and fled overseas to make a living. However, due to the sailing distance, the messy environments of the ship cabin and the unreasonable standard of humane treatment, many workers died of malaria and even jumped into the sea to end their lives. The rest of the workers arrived at their destinations, but immediately faced the problems of language barriers, excessive workload, homesickness and discomfort of climatic difference. Over-loomed by the enormous pressure, a large part of the group committed tragic suicides.
The overseas Chinese initially worked as railway workers, miners or farm workers in their new found homes and provided great aids to the economic development and social progress in the Latin American countries. The great constructions of the Panama Railway (1850-1855) and the excavation of the Panama Canal (1880-1914) are embodied in the efforts of the overseas Chinese workers.
Consequently, the local people felt the threatening of the low waged and hardworking Chinese workers and started to form various waves of anti-Chinese movements. Coupled with the poor economic situation throughout the Americas, many Latin American countries began to restrict overseas Chinese immigrants. After the independence of Panama in 1903, the government of Panama enforced a heavily restrictions on overseas Chinese immigrants.
The first batch of Chinese labors and their successors, participated in the local agricultural, industrial and commercial activities for the following 150 years, played a positive role in the local political, social and economic development.
This thesis discusses the cause of the early tides of Chinese immigration in the Panamas, and further analyzes the immigrants' participation in the improvements of the Panama's social environment, political and economic evolution. The entire thesis is divided into three chapters, which examine the brief history of Chinese immigrants' social, political and economic impacts in the Panama society during the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, and based its conclusion on both historical facts and literary researches.
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