Thai Migration to Los Angeles

Abstract

My aim in this paper is to account for the selectivity of the Thai migration stream to the United States and to analyze the factors underlying decisions and destination choices of migrants so that their fast-growing influx and their regional concentration in the Lost Angeles area may be better understood. The arrival in the United States of a significant number of Thai aliens is a recent phenomenon that has yet to be thoroughly documented. Little information other than that of an extremely sketchy and purely intuitive nature is available on the individual characteristics of newcomers on the process underlying their search for a better life and on their mobility patterns between and within urban areas. Because the number of Thais legally residing in the United States was not large enough in 1970 to warrant a separate category in the Census of Population this study relied on the statistical records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at the national and regional level and on survey research at the local level. In June 1977 three hundred questionnaires were distributed in Los Angeles through a number of Thai restaurants grocery stores and newspaper offices. To facilitate response the questionnaires were printed in Thai and the answers subsequently translated. Twenty-five percent of them were returned by post. (excerpt)