Dr. Keyao “Kyle” Pan
Florida International University

Abstract:
Historians of the Asian diaspora in Latin America have long struggled against the gravity of methodological nationalism. When we speak of the “Chinese” or “Japanese” in Peru, we invoke monolithic national categories that obscure the specific, hyperlocal realities of migration. This keynote addresses the conference theme, “Shifting the Narrative,” by arguing that the Asian diaspora in Peru as a concept is less productive if solely thought of as a transfer of populations from nation to nation; rather, one can recognize it as an expansion of specific, often marginalized, regional networks into the transnational sphere.

Drawing on the framework of the “Cantonese Pacific,” I examine how the majority of “Chinese-Peruvians” hailed from specific counties in the Pearl River Delta or were of minority ethnic or linguistic origin  such as Hakka, utilizing Hong Kong not just as a port, but as a distinct diasporic hub. Mirroring this analysis, I apply a similar lens to the “Japanese” diaspora, emphasizing its overwhelming Okinawan origin—a group marginalized within the Japanese empire but central to the Nikkei experience in Peru. By focusing on these hyperlocal origins—spatial, ethnic, and linguistic—we reveal how these specific historical actors navigated both through and against global settler colonialism, moving from the margins of their home countries to create new loci of new transnational communities.

Dr. Keyao Pan is the Assistant Professor of Digital History at Florida International University. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of History at the University of Chicago in 2021. He specializes in the relationship between human rights discourse and activism concerning so-called “history problems” in Japan and Asia more generally, and particularly those involving “comfort women” and other wartime/colonial atrocities.

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