Throughout Kwong’s “The New Chinatown”, I realized that he did not discuss one important aspect of immigrant life in NYC – legal status. In chapter 10, he explained that most early Chinese immigrants arrived in NYC through legal means. The number of illegal immigrants who were most likely smuggled in began to increase drastically in recents years. Kwong’s description of the difficult situation they face with finding low wage jobs and living in debt to snakeheads reminded me of the first chapter of Nancy Foner’s “From Ellis Island to JFK”. When Foner described similar situations for illegal immigrants of all nationalities, I wondered whether the trip and new lifestyle was worth the hardships (especially for those who were well-off in their home countries). Foner explained that most left due to economic reasons and Kwong mentioned that the Chinese left because of corrupt politics in China which leads to economic difficulties. Their desperation and willingness to work for record low wages leads to hardships for legal and unionized workers.

This circle of adversity ultimately affects everyone stuck in Chinatown, leaving them with no opportunities to escape. This is Kwong’s position throughout his whole book. Those who have money and power continue to use it to the disadvantage of the new immigrants. This exploitation of the lower class workers prohibits them from seeking opportunities outside as they can not assimilate into American society. According to Kwong, these situations leads people to believe that the Chinese do not want out but would rather live the harsh circumstances of Chinatown. Due to the powerful organizations already in existence, the Chinese in Chinatown are unable to unify for a common cause. Thus they are considered quite and unwilling to report problems to the government, when in reality they are very cooperative.The Chinese are extremely misinterpreted and their struggles are covered with the appearance of a unified people.

What struck me about the final chapter in Peter Kwong’s book was the pedestal that Chinese immigrant hopefuls have placed the United States on.  Kwong writes that potential immigrants are so enamored of the life that they will supposedly be living once they arrive in New York that they attribute tales of hardship in American to socialist propaganda or betrayal by cheap family.  These immigrants (the Fuzhounese in particular) would do anything to get to America, some even taking 45-day boat journeys stowed away in tiny vessels that Kwong calls barely seaworthy.  The one thing that each of these immigrant stories has in common is the belief that everyone can make it big in America.  But I don’t think this is something that applies to all of America, or even the larger cities of the United States.  This ideal of open opportunity seems to apply specifically to New York City.  You don’t see immigrants being smuggled en masse to Richmond, or Atlanta.  People want to come to New York, and not just people from outside of the United States.  New York is famous world over for its “equal opportunity” and “self-made men.”

The part that was most disturbing to me about the immigrant smuggling “business” (aside from the horrid treatment of the passengers by the snakeheads) was the negligence of any and all branches of the US authorities that Kwong points out.  It seems to be so grossly negligent that it must be borderline intentional for their to be such a lapse in jurisdiction over a problem this widespread and troubling.  As not to be cynical, I hesitate to posit that it is intentional because of America’s “addiction to immigrant labor” and the calculated stress it would place on New York and indeed the United States’ economy.  Yet I can’t help but wonder, as the people who are responsible for assigning responsibility of these issues must surely be aware of the economic consequences of their policies.

Throughout the last two chapters of the book I was disillusioned, and disgusted. So many thoughts came to mind when I read these last two chapters. But the ideas that dominate it are the ignorance elites and their mendacious character.

The people in power at the Jin Fong Restaurant, Jane Lii, the reporter from the New York Times, and Min Zhou, the Sociologist, had the nerve to describe the Chinese as a group that doesn’t see themselves as being exploited while working in sweatshops. They in turn tried to justify the conditions in which the Chinatown workers work in. The owners of the Jin Fong Restaurant stole from their workers by taking 40% of the waiters’ tips and they didn’t even hide it. They were violating labor laws with no care in the world. When this came out during a protest against the restaurant in 1995 they didn’t deny it. They claimed that the Chinese are a people willing to work harder and expect less. They said all this while their workers protested… Their ability to lie even when all facts point elsewhere amazes me.

I expect crap to flow out of the mouths of Jin Fong’s owners but I didn’t see it coming from a New York Times reporter and a Sociologist. What’s worse is that both of them seem to be from Asian backgrounds, which only adds to their authority on the matter.  They inform the public and the public listens. Some of the most eye-opening quotes found within this book came from and are about these two. Peter Kwong writes that Min Zhou argued in her book Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave “that Chinese ethnic social relations regulate economic behavior to the mutual benefit of all” and that “the Chinese do not see themselves as exploited, because “the work ethic of immigrant Chinese is built on a value standard from Chinese culture and not on the one from the dominant culture.” My only guess as to how she arrived to these conclusions is that she got her information from the perceived leaders and representatives of the community like the CCBA. The Chinese aren’t happy working in horrible conditions, with low pay and no benefits. Their work ethic may be strong but they didn’t come to America in order to live a life they lived in China. They don’t want to be exploited and work for nothing (many Chinatown bosses withhold wages). They came to America for a better life for themselves and their children. They didn’t expect to work in an economy that led to downward mobility. The Chinese adults work under these conditions because they need to eat. Unlike what reporter Jane Lii argued, they probably aren’t overjoyed that their boss allows their children to work and that they need their children to work alongside them.

Peter Kwong ends his book on a more positive note. He looked to the future with a hope that the new grass roots movements coming out from Chinatown would create a more open and democratic neighborhood. I truly hope so.

In chapter 9 of this text, Peter Kwong proposes that in order for the Chinese community to demand the respect of their local government authorities and ensure that their interests are being served by those who represent them, the first step is the breaking down of a longstanding tradition of monopoly associations. The standing monopoly on power has made it historically difficult for grass-root organizations to have a significant influence. To adequately examine the way in which a tradition group allegiance to an organization with a lot of power prevents the people of Chinatown to become a united front for change is illustrated by the focus on one particular organization in this chapter, the I Wor Kuen group. The group started their work in Chinatown and went against the longstanding practice of refusing to sell and display materials from the People’s Republic of China (for fear of retaliation from anti-Communist Chinatown establishments). I Wor Kuen began to reestablish ethnic pride in the community by featuring movies from the PRC on a weekly basis, distributing news that celebrated the PRC’s achievements, and organizing public celebrations for China’s national day. These efforts broke the “community taboo on public expression,” and in doing so allowed a sense of pride to return to those who wished to celebrate their Chinese origins. Organizers also used their resources to provide free medical care and legal assistance to the people of Chinatown, and educate the masses to teach them how to make their government representatives work for them. Unforeseen loyalties to another group that already had somewhat of a monopoly on activism in the community, however, sharply curtailed the I Wor Kuen group’s efforts by creating an image of the people of Chinatown as “militant in fighting for its rights,” but without the consistency necessary to make a real difference.

The associations already forged undermined the aims of activist groups, a concept made clear by the activist groups who protested the use of tourist buses who ran tours designed to allow out-of-towners to “gawk at the Chinese as if they were freaks in a circus”, being threatened by a Chinatown tong who had an agreement with the bus company regarding the souvenir shop the tourists were brought to at the conclusion of each tour. The system in place of monopolizing power in Chinatown was contrary to the aims of reform for the people that allowed them to escape prejudice and racism. Though a political shift in leadership toward the left part of the spectrum and the emerging number of Chinese Americans becoming elected government officials have certainly helped the activist groups’ cause, some standing community ties still stand in the way of creating more rights for the people of Chinatown. A community so deeply seated in tradition needs to transform the way that business is done if the want to stop being exploited and abused by their employers and outsiders of the community.

The final chapter of “The New Chinatown” goes on to explore the detrimental effect that new immigrant communities have had on the already saturated labor market and economy of Chinatown. Illegal immigrants arriving from Malaysia and coastal regions of mainland China, for example, flock to Chinatown in desperate search of the numerous low-wage jobs and a cover for the human-smuggling networks that are allowing these illegals to enter the country. These immigrants, known as the Fuzhounese, are said to be “obsessed with earning money” and often are identified as “snake people… who wiggle their way through”. These people are blamed for many of the wrongdoings in Chinatown and constantly targeted by their smugglers, who use the price of their journey to amass a debt owed to them by these people, who are not protected by the rights of legal American workers. This allows for a form of indentured servitude to emerge in which peoples’ debts render them basically slaves to their lenders. The obviously inhumane treatment and exploitation of these people, who come to New York and subject themselves to this treatment to escape rough economic times in homeland China and Malaysia, create an economic situation that is horrific for both legal and illegal workers, benefitting seemingly only those who are operatives in the human-smuggling rings. The betterment of conditions for these people again ties back to the reform groups who have had difficulty making a real difference when the obstacles of traditional associations halting change get in the way. People must surrender their social structure and traditional associations and make way for activist groups in order to secure that their rights are being protected and that their economic interests can also be secured. Something like immigration reform, so that people no longer have to enter the country smuggled in illegally, much to their dismay and to the detriment of the workers who have trouble finding jobs when people willing to work off the books below minimum wage are being chosen before them for work, is not out of the realm of something that community activism could not have a strong influence on. When people mobilize for change, sometimes customs of insular community workings are torn down in the process, but tradition at the expense of economic and social equality seems a small price to pay.

When I initially began Peter Kwong’s The New Chinatown, my understanding of Chinatown was largely positive – based on personal experiences and his very first chapters, I was under the impression that Chinatown is a unique and admirable ethnic enclave that prospered economically through hard work and mutual-aid networks – the reality of Chinatown, however, is quite the opposite. As Kwong elucidates throughout the latter parts of his book, this commonly-held view of Chinatown as a success story linked to cultural self-segregation, is faulty. Although it remains true that the Chinese were able to create and maintain jobs for themselves, as Kwong asserts, employment opportunities share no correlation to neither ethic solidarity, nor upward economic mobility. In fact, by maintaining this perception of the Chinese as able to take care of themselves and not in need of government intervention, those wielding power in Chinatown i.e. the business owners, are able to circumvent American laws and labor regulations and exploit their own people to unfathomable measures.

Though most of the jobs within Chinatown have always been low-wage, throughout Chapter 10, Kwong highlights the effect growing immigration has had on the community. As larger groups of immigrants continue to arrive, wages are lowered even more, creating tension within various Chinese groups. Although I knew illegal Chinese immigration has always occurred – I personally have elder relatives who relied on the “paper son” method to arrive in America – I was shocked to learn that, today, hundreds of Fuzhounese Chinese immigrants are being smuggled into the country monthly and subsequently exploited by employers and/or physically brutalized by “snakeheads” and “enforcers” in response to debts incurred on their journey to America. While reading Kwong’s descriptions of the hardships and torture endured by laboring Chinese immigrants, I constantly wondered why many Chinese individuals accept this way of life. But as Kwong explains, once in America, most immigrants realize that after such suffering, it is pointless to complain – in essence, they endure hard lives, still holding onto the belief that their lives are better (in various subjective ways) than they would have been, had they remained in China, and that they will soon achieve upward mobility.

Unfortunately, as I realized Kwong’s true argument, I fear that such is not possible for many Chinese immigrants living in the twisted underground world of Chinatown. Although Kwong cites a labor movement within Chinatown as an indicator that the community is moving towards becoming an open and democratic neighborhood, I find that it would be extremely difficult for immigrants to remove themselves from this vicious cycle of exploitation because it has become the norm – not out of ignorance, but out of the need for survival. Moreover, I believe much rests on outside perceptions of Chinatown. It absolutely baffles and sickens me to know that some officials are cognizant of the injustices occurring within the community, but cite Chinese insularity and lack of initiative as rationale for not interfering. Ultimately, as with all generalizations, I feel it is vital for individuals outside of the immediate community to look beyond the common belief that Chinatown is a self-thriving enclave, and for individuals within the community to further rebel against the cycle and raise awareness of their plight, so that officials will finally be forced to take action and the incredible hardships endured by laborers – that certainly should not be occurring in our world, at this time – will no longer remain an accepted way of life.

In chapter 5, “Chinatown’s Informal Political Structure”, Kwong further expands on the notion that of exploitation in Chinatown. Throughout the reading, I sensed the gap between the upper and lower class Chinese immigrants increasing drastically due to the nature of the concealed internal politics. The population of Chinese immigrants in NYC is very unique compared to the other groups we’ve studied because of their tendency to isolate themselves completely from the rest of society. Other immigrant groups eventually separated from their groups through marriage or unemployment, but the Chinese failed to do so. At first, Kwong explained that the Chinese were accustomed to such conditions which persisted in China and brought them over to America.  Although we touched upon this in earlier chapters, Kwong emphasized the seclusion specifically in this chapter when discussing the politics. I realized that the Chinese were separated in so many aspects of their lives but the main reason remained constant: exploitation. Unlike other groups, however, the most immigrants were unable to leave due to suppression from powerful associations. This further lead, in my view, to their inability to adapt to American life later in life when Chinatown was not offering them a sufficient life (i.e. when they grew too old for certain jobs).

The existence of such corruption in Chinatown made me wonder about the role of the American government in the situation. When discussing ‘citizenship’, we stated that a citizen is one who is protected/provided for by the government. I was surprised to read about the reality of underground politics in Chinatown because it survived for so long without outside interference. As described in Chapter 6, Benny Eng and Eddie Chan were prime examples of people with unlimited power and no opposition. In addition, I was surprised by the capability of the CCBA and other organizations to maintain influence in an advancing city up until recently, as Kwong described it.

I’m not surprised to learn that Chinatown had its own underground political system. However, I am surprised at how at how far they took the general American capitalistic system. Asian immigrants had many reasons to come to America. However, I assume that a major reason was the need for financial stability and the American right to compete in the economy. It’s interesting that the subculture of Chinatown included an economic system that was always trying to eliminate competition.

According to Kwong, Asian immigrants competed for space, or “territory” as they would call it, in Chinatown. This fact in itself is not particularly interesting. In fact, this type of behavior in our American society is very common. However, once a business took hold of a building, only their associates were able to use that space. It almost seems ridiculous that business owners would go to such extreme measures to ensure no one else had the right to property.

I understand wanting to maximize profit and minimize competition, but you can’t try to eliminate it all together. Isn’t this a form of monopolizing a markets? I suppose that because these deals included different types of affiliated businesses, nothing could have been done to stop it.  

With the way that Kwong described such affiliations in “The Defensive and Offensive Nature of the Associations,” it almost felt like there was some sort of economic war that happened in Chinatown. The fact that corporations fought to buy the most amount of buildings, only to exclude certain business owners from renting out property almost seems undemocratic. How were these corporations allowed to discriminate business owners based on affiliation with a certain social institution?

It was almost as if the rich were perpetually limiting the poor economically, even when immigrating to a new country. The wealthy would buy buildings, and would decide which smaller business owners would thrive based on their membership status.

-Christina Torossian

While Chinatown can certainly be comparable to Italian Harlem and Crown Heights in terms of its insularity, the nature of its insularity is actually what most likely sets it apart from other minority communities. Whereas East Harlem and Crown Heights are separated religiously and culturally, Chinatown is primarily isolated from the larger society as a result of its political distinctions. Chinatown has its own governmental structure (the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association), which not only has the power to tax its members, but also has its own constitution and an “unofficial mayor,” all of which serve the interest of the elites. Although this informal political structure of Chinatown has evolved over the years and is no longer as strong as it once was, the mere fact that such a political system still exists in American society today is baffling, especially since this system is one with rather undemocratic origins. With that said, the government’s passivity towards Chinatown is quite disconcerting. How might one define a unified country if not by the core political ideologies and laws it encompasses, as well as the rights it protects? To ignore the workings of Chinatown when they do not affect the peace and security of American society at large is to forfeit the neighborhood as US territory.

Peter Kwong writes that the internal workings of isolated ethnic communities are rarely studied because “organizational structures within an immigrant community are seen as cultural baggage to be left behind, something not worth detailed analysis.” Clearly, Chinatown is worthy of detailed analysis, yet there is little attention paid to its organizational structure by the public. Perhaps the reason for this is because, as Kwong states, social scientists are more concerned with the integration of immigrants into American society than they are with the institutions that make up their community. However, I also believe that little attention is paid to Chinatown because while its residents are faced with clear and present dangers, like those of tongs, they are more or less accepting of their situation, perhaps even defensive. If outsiders were to speak about tongs, they would be accused of exaggerating the problem and tarnishing the image of Chinese communities (just as Year of Dragons was). Public exposure is blocked under the pretext of opposing stereotypes – and the self-perpetuating cycle continues.