After Genghis Khan captured Beijing from the Jin dynasty in 1215, Uyghur noble families serving the Mongol court were sent to administer the city, then renamed Yanjing.
[2] Perhaps the most famous Uyghur official was Mengsusi (蒙速思), the Darughachi or governor of the Yanjing region, who served in the court of Kublai Khan.
[2] The Uyghur nobles who moved to Weigongcun in the Yuan dynasty practiced Buddhism, the religion of the Qocho Kingdom.
[2] After the Qing dynasty conquered Xinjiang in the 1750s, a number of nobles, artisans, entertainers, merchants, clerics, and prisoners, were relocated to Beijing.
[3] They became members of the Mongol Plain White Banner and quarters were built for them at Huiziying, just southwest of the Forbidden City on West Chang'an Avenue and East Anfu Hutong.
Nimrod Baranovitch, author of Inverted Exile: Uyghur Writers and Artists in Beijing and the Political Implications of Their Work, wrote that "the movement of Uyghurs from Xinjiang to Beijing had much in common with the great migration of millions of other people who transplanted themselves from China's periphery to the major cities to struggle for their share of the country's burgeoning prosperity.
"[5] Baranovitch argued that "for many Uyghurs it was ethnic politics that shaped every aspect of their movement to the Chinese capital and their life there—a factor that has made their overall experience unique.
[2] In 1985, after private markets were officially permitted in Beijing, more Uyghurs arrived, opening street stands that sold kebabs and dried fruit.
[2][8] In 2007 Baranovitch stated that he had been told that many Uyghur people live in Niujie, a Hui neighborhood, and that there was a new "Xinjiangcun" (C: 新疆村, P: Xīnjiāngcūn, "Xinjiang Village") ethnic enclave that was established in proximity to the Beijing West railway station.
Baranovitch stated that the actual number of Uyghur in Beijing is greater than that because official statistics do not "include the floating population".
[11] In a 1996 study of 11 Xinjiang restaurants in Weigongcun, Yang Shengmin found that the owners were from Urumqi, Kashgar and Yining.
[2] The restaurants attracted a diverse clientele including local residents, migrants from Xinjiang, students from the nearby Nationalities University, and foreign embassies, particularly Islamic countries.
[2] In 2007 Blaine Kaltman, author of Under the Heel of the Dragon: Islam, Racism, Crime, and the Uighur in China, wrote that most Uyghur worked in the food services sector.
"[1] In Yang Shengmin's 1996 study, most of the owners and staff of the Xinjiang restaurants lacked local residence permits and have to pay for basic services.
[14] Baranovitch argues "that the experience of many of the Uyghurs who live in Beijing is closer to that of exiles and refugees than to that described in the growing body of literature on internal migrants in China.
[15] In 2007 Baranovitch wrote that "The little research that has been done on these Uyghurs identify and study them as "internal migrants" and as part of the city's large "floating population" (liudong renkou)" [流动人口].