When reading Chin’s “When Coethnic Assets Become Liabilities: Mexican, Ecuadorian, and Chinese Garment Workers in New York City”, I was struck back at how accurately her observations applied to my own family. Before my parents came to America, my grandmother and grandfather had already established themselves in Queens. My grandparents both worked at a nearby garment factory in Woodside, so by the time my father and mother came, they were already make a steady amount of money. The coethnic relationship began here when my grandmother helped my parents find a job in this way. Recently, my family also moved to a new house, but my mother was only able to find the house because of her friend. My family does this because they want to make their family and friendship bond stronger. By keeping your culturally-similar friends nearby, there is almost a since of security. When I visit my mom at work, I can see that this is very much true because her coworkers are our family friends and my uncle is my mom’s boss.
This is also the reason why we have specific ethnic neighborhoods. People feel better knowing that they have a friend or family member nearby. Without this sense of community, America would be a very difficult place to live in especially when a good amount of immigrants come to American knowing little to no English. However, I also understand that finding work can be competitive, like in the case of the Mexican workers. Like Eden mentioned, the Jews and the Koreans had access to more resources, which is what helped many start their own small businesses. For others, this might not have been the case, and so competition to find and keep a job was more prevalent. Ultimately, what most families need was stability and had different ways of finding it. My family, for example, found comfort through friendship and family circles. It is sort of the “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” kind of relationship.
As for the question posed by Eden about women’s status, I believe that the status didn’t really change only because in the end, the women always took the lower wage jobs. If you go back in history and think about the WWII era, people will say that women have come a long way when they began to join the workforce. However, this opportunity was only allowed because men left their working post to fight in the war. When women immigrants took the lower wage jobs, I believe its only because the men have moved up the ladder, so somebody needed to take their spots. However this is not the case today, because by simply allowing women to work in the first place, they were able to showcase their potential in the working environment thereby evening the playing field now.
