Chinese Immigrant Workers Research Articles

Endurance, identity, and temporality: the ethnic labor market and labor process of Chinese migrant workers in France

Workers in France enjoy strong legal protections of their rights, and they have developed organizational support through unions. However, Chinese immigrant workers suffer from adverse working conditions and extreme labor precariousness. Paradoxically, they rarely turn to legal institutions for help. Nor do they organize themselves in unions. Instead, they choose to endure their exploitation. Based on an ethnographic study of Chinese immigrant workers in a Paris suburb, this paper investigates different factors that may influence their preference for resistance strategies. This paper begins with an analysis of the typology of exploitation and later proposes two possible explanations for Chinese immigrant workers’ preferences. Finally, it explores the formation of migrant worker subjectivity.

Exploiting Chinese Labour Emigration in Treaty Ports: The Role of Spanish Consulates in the “Coolie Trade”

AbstractAuthors writing about the history of the “coolie trade” in Cuba have generally focused on the multinational effort to halt the trafficking of Chinese workers. Little has been written about either the role of consuls as middlemen or of Spanish participation in the traffic in treaty ports. Yet, several sources indicate that many officials at Spanish consulates in coastal China were intensely involved in the shipment of Chinese emigrants to Cuba and other coolie trade destinations, and were also at the centre of international scandals. These consular officers frequently used their authority to obtain a monopoly over the trade. In this article, I argue that the coolie trade was the main objective of Spain's consular deployment in China, and that the involvement of these consular officials was crucial in developing an abusive migratory system and sustaining the mistreatment of Chinese immigrant workers throughout the second half of the nineteenth century.

The liminal gaze: Chinese restaurant workers gazing upon Chinese tourists dining in London’s Chinatown

By examining the host gaze in a third space, this article proposes “liminal gaze” as a concept to study service encounter in light of liminality and cultural hybridity. The dynamics of gaze is examined through the lens of cultural distance with London’s Chinatown as the study area. Gaze in tourism has mainly been studied in relation to two distant cultures gazing upon each other. The study tries to understand what happens to the gaze when two cultures, which are neither distant or proximate nor identical but in-between here and there, gaze upon each other. The focus is on Chinese immigrant workers (the guesthosters) gazing upon Chinese tourists dining in Chinatown. Chinatown represents a third space where natives, tourists, and guesthosters meet, gaze, and perform. The gaze of the Chinese guesthosters upon their Chinese guests is negative despite their cultural similarity/proximity and norms of behavior rooted in Confucian belief. This finding challenges the postulate of cultural distance. The five themes which strongly emerged from the interviews as gaze moderators, including the perceived “boorish” dining behavior of the guests, power distance, acculturation and hybridization, and the perception of the authenticity of the food served, are explained.

Community Interagency Connections for Immigrant Worker Health Interventions, King County, Washington State, 2012–2013

IntroductionCross-sector community partnerships are a potentially powerful strategy to address population health problems, including health disparities. US immigrants — commonly employed in low-wage jobs that pose high risks to their health — experience such disparities because of hazardous exposures in the workplace. Hazardous exposures contribute to chronic health problems and complicate disease management. Moreover, prevention strategies such as worksite wellness programs are not effective for low-wage immigrant groups. The purpose of this article was to describe an innovative application of social network analysis to characterize interagency connections and knowledge needed to design and deliver a comprehensive community-based chronic disease prevention program for immigrant workers.MethodsUsing iterative sample expansion, we identified 42 agencies representing diverse community sectors (service agencies, faith-based organizations, unions, nonprofits, government agencies) pertinent to the health of Chinese immigrant workers. To capture data on shared information, resources, and services as well as organizational characteristics, we jointly interviewed 2 representatives from each agency. We used social network analysis to describe interagency network structure and the positions of agencies within the networks.ResultsAgency interconnections were established primarily for information sharing. In the overall interagency network, a few service-oriented agencies held central or gatekeeper positions. Strong interconnectedness occurred predominately across service, public, and nonprofit sectors. The Chinese and Pan-Asian service sectors showed the strongest interconnectedness.ConclusionNetwork analysis yields critical understanding of community structural links and assets needed to inform decisions about actual and potential community collaborations. Alternative intervention strategies may be needed to address health disparities among immigrant workers.

Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1870–1930 by Jeffrey Marcos Garcílazo, foreword by Vicki L. Ruiz (review)

Reviewed by: Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1870–1930 by Jeffrey Marcos Garcílazo, foreword by Vicki L. Ruiz Marc Simon Rodriguez Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1870–1930. By Jeffrey Marcos Garcílazo, foreword by Vicki L. Ruiz. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2012. Pp. 244. Illustrations, map, figures, notes, bibliography, index.) Note regarding changes to the book reviews section: The publishing world is undergoing a revolution in product delivery that no longer restricts the choice in book form to cloth or paperback. Electronic and print editions in various formats each require a separate ISBN, prices vary on a frequent basis, and there are increasing opportunities for self-publication that defy traditional bibliographical organization. Consequently, with this issue the editorial board of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly has decided to streamline the headers that introduce book reviews by removing ISBN, format, and pricing information. The rest of the publication data will be provided based on the print copies from which reviews are done, and in those cases where a book appears in electronic format, the publisher’s listing will be employed. We hope the change does not produce too much inconvenience. In Traqueros, Garcilazo explores the transformation of track work in the American Southwest with attention to the preeminent role of Mexican railroad workers in the industry after the completion of the transcontinental railroad. In this [End Page 337] examination, track work is transformed from a diverse multiethnic part of the labor market that employed large numbers of Irish, Greek, Italian, and Chinese immigrant workers as well as African Americans into one that in the southwestern United States came to be dominated by Mexican workers. These workers traveled first as solo laborers then as families in a shift the railroads encouraged due to the belief by railroad companies that Mexican workers would live in homes that many others would not. The railroads understood that bringing a family along would more firmly tie the male workers to the boxcar homes and to the job. Solo workers could leave the railroads with little worry, but a husband would think twice before doing so if his wife and children were dependent on the company for housing and he did not have land of his own. These railroad camps became mobile as workers traveled across the rail lines, yet they were communities nonetheless. In several well organized chapters, Garcilazo nicely shows how the railroad industries in Mexico and the United States developed in tandem and how the transit infrastructure they developed helped move people from the interior of Mexico to the labor camps of the Southwest. In this process the railroads developed well-articulated systems of labor recruitment and constantly sought to reduce attrition. Many workers entered the United States for railroad work, yet soon abandoned railroad work for industrial work. Seen by many experienced Mexican workers as an industry for “greenhorns,” track work was often the place where Mexican immigrant workers began their foray into paid labor in the United States. Unlike many Mexican Americans, who often went from field labor to industrial labor, the Mexican-born migrants were often directly linked to the boxcar communities from El Paso to Los Angeles and Chicago. The boxcar communities, which often formed the genesis for Mexican community development in many cities across the United States, are examined in detail. Garcilazo argues that the moving camps dovetailed with the tradition of semi-mobile rancherías which emerged in northern Mexico and became the foundation for migratory labor circuits among Mexican workers. This culture of semi-permanent movement meant that Mexican workers were accustomed to labor and migration as communities of extended families or tribal groups. The railroads fought against permanent settlement for Mexican-descent peoples, as is amply detailed by the destruction of Hispano land rights in Colorado, even where other employers saw a benefit to protecting those property rights. Railroads, on the other hand, sought workers unencumbered by notions of land ownership and so did not favor Mexican Americans protected by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Despite the coercion involved in selecting workers and keeping them on the job, Mexican workers maintained and built new communities as workers...

Diaspora and Class Consciousness: Chinese Immigrant Workers in Multiracial Chicago

Diaspora and Class Consciousness: Chinese Immigrant Workers in Multiracial Chicago

The Invisible Unattended: Low‐wage Chinese Immigrant Workers, Health Care, and Social Capital in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley*

This study investigates the factors affecting the availability of health insurance, the accessibility of health care, and the dissemination of the relevant information among low‐wage Chinese immigrants in Southern California by relying on the concepts of social and cultural capital. Using community‐based research and in‐depth interviews, our study suggests that a severe shortage in health care coverage among low‐wage Chinese immigrants is influenced by the lack of employment with employer‐provided health insurance within the Chinese “ethnoburb” community. Although the valuable social capital generated by Chinese immigrant networks seems to be sufficient enough to provide them with certain practical resources, the lack of cultural capital renders the social network rather ineffective in providing critical health care information from mainstream American society.

Wedge-issue dynamics and party position shifts

Even when the stakes of party-building are high, political parties often find their members divided over a key policy position. In post-Reconstruction America, the hot-button issue of excluding Chinese immigrant workers strengthened Democratic cohesion while splitting the ‘party of Lincoln’. Previous research has not completely investigated the role of party competition and cohesiveness in paving the way for passage of the Chinese exclusion laws. In this investigation of the legislative politics of banning the Chinese from 1879 to 1882, it is found that cross-pressured members sometimes facilitate party transformation. The evidence demonstrates that partisan responses to potential wedge issues are a previously unnoticed source of explanation of eventual party position changes.

How Does Geography Matter in the Ethnic Labor Market Segmentation Process? A Case Study of Chinese Immigrants in the San Francisco CMSA

With the continuing influx of large numbers of immigrants to the United States, urban labor market segmentation along the lines of race, ethnicity, gender, and class has drawn considerable attention. Using a confidential data set extracted from the United States Decennial Long Form Data 2000 and a multilevel regression modeling strategy, this article presents a case study of Chinese immigrants in the San Francisco metropolitan area. Correspondent with the highly segregated nature of the labor market between Chinese immigrant men and women, different socioeconomic characteristics at the census tract level are significantly related to their occupational segregation. The results of this study suggest that the social process of labor market segmentation is contingent on the immigrant geography of residence and workplace. Whereas the direction and magnitude of the spatial contingency are different between men and women, residency in Chinese immigrant-concentrated areas is perpetuating gender occupational segregation by skill level. Abundant ethnic resources might exist in ethnic neighborhoods and enclaves for certain types of employment opportunities; however, these resources do not necessarily help Chinese immigrant workers, especially women, to move upward in the labor market hierarchy.

HONORARY MENTION OF 2006 SUNTA GRADUATE STUDENT PRIZE: Race, Class and the Politics of Multicultural Learning: Chinese Immigrant Workers and the Brokered American Dream in Chicago

This paper examines interactions between a largely middle class‐operated social service agency in Chicago's Chinatown, the Chinese American Cultural Center (CACC), and its new Chinese immigrant clientele. Using ethnographic data obtained from the agency's Chef Training Program, the research explores middle class Chinese‐Americans' role as cultural brokers in initiating new immigrants into the dominant U.S. race and class system. I argue that CACC's management of recent Chinese immigrants' racial learning is grounded in a middle class racial ideology of strategic colorblindness, which ends up perpetuating new immigrants' racialized position at the bottom of the American labor hierarchy.

Politics of Oppression and Restoration of Subjectivity in Genny Lim’s Bitter Cane

Genny Lim's play Bitter Cane deals with the life of early Chinese immigrant cane cutters working at a Kahuku sugarcane plantation in Hawaii in 1882. Full of racial and sexual oppression, this play shows that Chinese immigrant workers are entrapped in Kahuku plantation by the ensnaring fatal traps of prostitution and opium. Due to racism against them, there was a severe imbalance between Chinese men and women in Hawaii. Men pay enormous amounts of money to satisfy their oppressed sexuality, and this causes them to be trapped in the plantation, and finally to lose their self identities. With all these pessimistic images of captivity and oppression, however, this play still gives the audience the strong impressions of optimistic reconciliation, rebirth, and returning home, which means the restoration of the self identity. Lau Hing and Wing, the two main characters, recover their lost father-son relationship, and Lau Hing's bones return back home through his son, Wing. Li-Tai also reunites with Lau Hing through symbolic marriage with him at the time of her physical death. Therefore, with all the oppressive shackles of reality, Bitter Cane can be seen as a play of restoring subjectivity and overcoming the oppressions that the Chinese immigrant workers have to face in Kahuku plantation.

How Does Geography Matter in Ethnic Labor Market Segmentation Process? A Case Study of Chinese Immigrants in the San Francisco CMSA

In the context of continuing influxes of large numbers of immigrants to the United States,urban labor market segmentation along the lines of race/ethnicity, gender, and class has drawn considerable growing attention. Using a confidential dataset extracted from the United States Decennial Long Form Data 2000 and a multilevel regression modeling strategy, this paper presents a case study of Chinese immigrants in the San Francisco metropolitan area. Correspondent with the highly segregated nature of the labor market as between Chinese immigrant men and women, different socioeconomic characteristics at the census tract level are significantly related to their occupational segregation. This suggests the social process of labor market segmentation is contingent on the immigrant geography of residence and workplace. With different direction and magnitude of the spatial contingency between men and women in the labor market, residency in Chinese immigrant concentrated areas is perpetuating the gender occupational segregation by skill level. Where as abundant ethnic resources may exist in ethnic neighborhoods and enclaves for certain types of employment opportunities, these resources do not necessarily help Chinese immigrant workers, especially women, to move upward along the labor market hierarchy.

Crafting a Delta Chinese Community: Education and Acculturation in Twentieth-Century Southern Baptist Mission Schools

During Reconstruction between one-fourth and one-third of the southern African-American work force emigrated to northern and southern urban areas. This phenomenon confirmed the fears of Delta cotton planters about the transition from slave to wage labor. Following a labor convention in Memphis, Tennessee, during the summer of 1869, one proposed alternative to the emerging employment crisis was to introduce Chinese immigrant labor, following the example of countries in the Caribbean and Latin America during the mid nineteenth century. Cotton plantation owners initially hoped that Chinese “coolie” workers would help replace the loss of African-American slave labor and that competition between the two groups would compel former slaves to resume their submissive status on plantations. This experiment proved an unmitigated failure. African Americans sought independence from white supervision and authority. And, Chinese immigrant workers proved to be more expensive and less dependable than African-American slave labor. More importantly, due to low wages and severe exploitation by planters, Chinese immigrants quickly lost interest in agricultural work.

Manufacturing Ethnicity

■ Immigrants often depend on ethnic mutual assistance to make a start in this country. But the concept of ethnic solidarity can also be manipulated by employers to gain better control over their co-ethnic employees. In studying the predicament of Chinese immigrant workers in New York's Chinatown, and especially the Chinese illegals, this article shows that Chinese employers often invoke ethnic symbols to project an image that only co-ethnics can be trusted, thus blocking the new immigrants' attempts to seek better opportunities outside of their ethnic environment. Ultimately, this article questions the validity of the ethnic enclave thesis.

Manufacturing Ethnicity

■ Immigrants often depend on ethnic mutual assistance to make a start in this country. But the concept of ethnic solidarity can also be manipulated by employers to gain better control over their co-ethnic employees. In studying the predicament of Chinese immigrant workers in New York's Chinatown, and especially the Chinese illegals, this article shows that Chinese employers often invoke ethnic symbols to project an image that only co-ethnics can be trusted, thus blocking the new immigrants' attempts to seek better opportunities outside of their ethnic environment. Ultimately, this article questions the validity of the ethnic enclave thesis.

Chinese Immigrant Workers and Community-based Labor Organizing in Boston: Paving the Way

Chinese Immigrant Workers and Community-based Labor Organizing in Boston: Paving the Way

The settlement of Chinese in Guyana in the nineteenth century

This article examines the process by which Chinese immigrant workers settled and adjusted to life in Guyana after slavery. It assesses their contribution to the plantation system and their efforts to establish independent economic enterprises after their indentureships. It also analyses the social and cultural adjustments imposed by the conditions of migration and plantation life. The Chinese, aided by patterns of residential segregation, were able to retain important aspects of their traditional culture to mould a distinct ethnic identity and group cohesiveness. The attendant problems of integration into the host society are also treated.