Chinese immigrants in the globalized Buenos Aires

Perspectives from outside and from inside the migratory experience, in a chinese take-away (2011) by Sebastián Borensztein, my Lastfailure (2017) from Cecilia Kang and La Salada (2015) by Juan Martín Hsu

Abstract

In the last decades and due to globalization, in spite of its restrictive establishment, the mobility of people places societies like the Argentinian, which defines itself as composed of immigrants, in interesting discursive crossroads: What elements affect the vulnerability of current immigrants in the self-perception of migratory autobiographies of the Argentinians? Article 25 of the Argentinian Constitution explicitly encourages "European immigration", but what about the "new migration", for example that of people from China, who settled in the 1980’s and already have a “second generation”, or those who have recently arrived from the Asian continent and have only been in the country for a few years? What images of the host register the one who is welcomed and comes from a different cultural core? Starting from a conceptualization of intersectionality that is not restricted to the traditional axes of "gender, 'race' / ethnicity and class", this text analyses how theses filmic manifestations articulate the voices of the immigrant and their counterpoints. Besides that, there is also the question of what space does the cinema offer them and what media do the filmic language use to project these new social actors on the big screen? Three Argentinian films that thematize Asian migration, A Chinese take-away (2011) by Sebastián Borensztein, La Salada (2015) by Juan Martín Hsu and My Last Failure (2017) by Cecilia Kang, put the spotlight on the relationship between Argentinians and immigrants from Asia – in La Salada, also those from Bolivia – and suggests a debate on the imaginary of migration and the presuppositions about hospitality, comparing them to the obstacles and, in particular, to the deep-seated etchings of the "Other" and the discriminatory practices that are articulated at the intersection of notions such as origin, nation and culture.