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Unwelcome Newcomers


1) What were the push factors for these Fuzhounese immigrants?
  •  What was going on with the government, the creation of jobs, movement/growth of labor from region to region?

Factories were spouting up all over Fuzhou, but the employers wanted to hire rural Chinese who would not demand better wages or shorter hours. Unable to work to be able to afford to stay, native Fuzhounese were thus displaced from their native homes and sought to immigrate to the US. 

2) Why would they have to resort to illegal immigration, as well as consciously subject themselves to it?
  • Why is their experience different from the Chinese in other regions? (Think about support systems and if the were able to immigrate under the three main 1965 immigration act categories).

There were three support system categories available to the 1965 immigration act: family reunification, refugee sponsorship, and employment based sponsorship. The Fuzhounese who were displaced were not connected to wealth, or oversea families. Because they are “mere laborers,” they don’t fit the white collar employment roles that would effect corporate sponsorship. Finally, loss of home through rampant economic hardship in an area… doesn’t make one a refugee. They didn’t fit in any of the categories of officially recognized support. 


3) How/why does it continue?
  • What motivates them?  
  • What benefits outweigh the costs, or do they?

Despite the dangers of the snakeheads and mafia action, the prospects of return of 4-5 times one’s salary per year in China are significant - once one has paid one’s debt to the smugglers. They aren’t able to find employment in China, and America will always have the shiny prospect of capital. When they have paid back their debts, they would be able to support their family in China. Also, there is an entire law un-regulated ecosystem in NYC’s Chinatown where there are illegal labor operations that allow for undocumented Fuzhouese to work at cutthroat rates. Finally, the Chinese government seems to favor the economic return of money back to China to turn the other way at the smuggling and other crimes to humanity in the process.

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