East Asian migration to Spain and Latin America on the Screen

This paper examines the evolving representations of the East Asian diaspora in Spain and Latin America through a comparative analysis of films released between the 1980s and the 2020s. The study considers films produced by ethnic Asians, such as Gaijin (Tizuka Yamazaki, 1980) and La luna representa mi corazón (Juan Martín Hsu, 2021), as well as those directed by non-ethnic Asians such as Un cuento chino (Sebastián Borenzstein, 2011) and Chinas (Arantxa Echevarría, 2023). Drawing from Edward Said’s notion of representation, attention is paid to the institutions, traditions, conventions, and codes that underpin these portrayals, including film producers, distributors, exhibitors, and festival organizers. The paper observes the “strategic location” (Said 2003) of Spanish-speaking and Lusophone filmmakers and producers who feature East-Asian characters and themes to gain a deeper understanding of the films’ politics. Additionally, the theory of “accented cinema” proposed by Hamid Nafici is applied to differentiate between films where the migratory experience serves as the theme used by non-migrant filmmakers to enhance the host society’s understanding of their own reality, and films produced by filmmakers and institutions with migration experiences where migration is more than just a theme. Finally, the paper explores the perspectives of East Asia on Latin American societies and films, prompting a reflection on whether identity constructions of Latin America by East Asian news agencies, filmmakers, and film festival organizers perpetuate orientalizing dynamics in the relationship between Asia and Latin America, extending beyond the original European and North American roots of Orientalism.