Post-1978 Chinese Migration to Brazil: The Qiaoxiang Migration Models and the Rite of Passage

The post-1978 migration of Chinese rural peasants to Brazil can be analyzed using the qiaoxiang (migrant-sending regions) models proposed by Woon Yuen-fong (1996), Minghuan Li and Diana Wong (2017) and by Min Zhou and Xiangyi Li (2014, 2018). From a sending-country perspective, we study two major models of Chinese migration in Brazil: one is the Guangdong qiaoxiang model, and the other, the Zhejiang qiaoxiang model. The first is based mainly on the catering services, especially pastelarias (snack bars), while the second is based mainly on the wholesale and retail business of light industrial imports from China. It is well known that transnational migrations contribute to qiaoxiang development while reinforcing the existing social structures of inequality and uneven development that stimulate further migrations. As a result, migration becomes deeply ingrained on the qiaoxiang culture, a “rite of passage” that young adults must experience in their life. Through the “rite of passage,” qiaoxiang migrations are perpetuated and renovated.