Asian Colombians

### Religions

Majority: Roman Catholicism and Christianity Minority: Buddhism · Hinduism · Islam and other Asian religions

**Asian Colombians** are Colombian citizens of East Asian, South Asian, or Southeast Asian ancestry. People of West Asian ancestry including Arabs, Armenians, Turks and Jews sometimes do not consider themselves as Asian.

## History

In 1854, many Chinese arrived in the Colombian territory for the construction of the railway that would later cross the Isthmus of Panama, because labor from other countries were not enough. About 705 Chinese immigrants came from the Guandong Province, who showed their skills and worked in the construction of the Pacific Railroad on the west coast of the United States. The bringing of the Chinese was desolate measure by administrators of the railway company, which did not find enough workers among the native population and failed of importing the Irish, German and other European countries.

In the early 20th century, Indian immigrants of Muslim religion settled in the intermediate populations of the Cauca River Valley, some definitely and while others were temporarily, to engage in the commercial activity demanded by the new wage earning population of the nascent sugar industry. These immigrants brought diverse products to rural areas, granting credit and accepting barter.

Toraji Irie, a renowned Japanese writer states that in one of his works on the Japanese migration of inhabitants in Japan to other latitudes that the first Japanese immigrants who arrived in the country in 1903, when Colombia lost power of the Isthmus of Panama and the Colombian government requested help from Japan to hire Japanese workers monitor the land near Panama without US incursions.

Between 1970 and 1980, there were more than 6,000 Chinese immigrants in Colombia, which means that they kept coming to the country. It is assumed that the anti-immigration policies in many countries was the biggest cause of continued Chinese immigration to Colombia. The emigration did not come from China, because during the first three decades of the People's Republic of China, migration was restricted. Due to xenophobia that occurred in the United States, a significant number of Chinese emigrated to Colombia.

## Asian groups

### Chinese

In the 1980s, The "Overseas Chinese Association" was founded by the Chinese people who left China and the Chinese Cultural Centre in Bogotá was established in 1988 by a Taiwanese government institution (Zhang 1991).

### Japanese

The Colombian Nikkei formed a cooperative of farmers in El Jagual, which afterwards was called SAJA (Sociedad de Agricultores Japoneses), which changed to Asociación Colombo Japonesa in 1979. In addition to that, the original community had a school for Japanese children called Hikarien. The school has joined the Asociación Colombo Japonesa as a center for cultural promotion of the Japanese culture not only to the Japanese-born. In addition to that, followers of the church Tenrikyo arrived in Colombia to expand their faith.

### Other Asian groups

Koreans make up the smallest communities in Latin America, while others are Indians and Filipinos form a minority ethnic groups in the country.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chinese organizations in Colombia
2. ↑ Patiño, Germán. "Chinos y japoneses" (in Spanish). *Semana.com*. https://www.semana.com/especiales/articulo/chinos-japoneses/81654-3. Retrieved 28 October 2006.
3. ↑ Navarrete Pelaz, María Cristina (2017). *Immigrants from East India in the Cauca River Valley*. University of the Valley. ISBN 978-958-765-324-3
4. ↑ "¿Por qué llegaron los japoneses a Colombia?". http://elpueblo.com.co/por-que-llegaron-los-japoneses-a-colombia/. Retrieved 24 June 2014.
5. ↑ Friederike Fleischer. "The Chinese diaspora: an approach to Chinese migration in Colombia". http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci\_arttext&pid=S0123-885X2012000100007. Retrieved 11 January 2011.