Labor Market Migrations: Immigrant Intersections in the Informal Economy

Abstract

This study argues that many workers in Asian enclave economies move between both formal and informal employment. Scholars and other commentators have often framed “immigrant work,” as static, exploitative, and characterized by illegal arrangements, while formal employment has provided mobility, better pay, and important fringe benefits, including health care and paid vacations. The relationship between formal and informal labor markets, however, may be more intertwined in an ethnic enclave economy. Drawn from the experiences of Korean and Latino immigrant workers from Los Angeles’ Koreatown, the qualitative data presented here show that many workers move back and forth in a “blended” or “mixed” labor market, in a pattern that complicates conventional understandings of the working lives of immigrant laborers.