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The international traffic in human beings
Smuggled Chinese
Clandestine Immigration to the United States
Ko-lin Chin, foreword by Douglas S. Massey
"Chin creates a poignant picture of the great hardships immigrants have endured in order to pay off debts and send money home to their families....Recommended for public and academic libraries."
—Library Journal
No one knows how many Chinese are being smuggled into the United States, but credible estimates put the number at 50,000 arrivals each year. Astonishing as this figure is, it represents only a portion of the Chinese illegally residing in the United States. Smuggled Chinese presents a detailed account of how this traffic is conducted and what happens to the people who risk their lives to reach Gold Mountain.
When the Golden Venture ran aground off New York's coast in 1993 and ten of the 260 Chinese on board drowned, the public outcry about human smuggling became front-page news. Probing into the causes and consequences of this clandestine traffic, Ko-Lin Chin has interviewed more than 300 people—smugglers, immigrants, government officials, and business owners—in the United States, China and Taiwan. Their poignant and chilling testimony describes a flourishing industry in which smugglers—big and little snakeheads—command fees as high as $30,000 to move desperate but hopeful men and women around the world. For many who survive the hunger, filthy and crowded conditions, physical and sexual abuse, and other perils of the arduous journey, life in the United States, specifically in New York's Chinatown, is a disappointment if not a curse. Few will return to China, though, because their families depend on the money and status gained by having a relative in the States.
In Smuggled Chinese, Ko-Lin Chin puts a human face on this intractable international problem, showing how flaws in national policies and lax law enforcement perpetuate the cycle of desperation and suffering. He strongly believes, however, that the problem of human smuggling will continue for as long as China's citizens are deprived of fundamental human rights and economic security.
Smuggled Chinese will engage readers interested in human rights, Asian and Asian-American studies, urban studies, and sociology.
Excerpt
Read the Preface and Chapter 1 (pdf).
Reviews
"Smuggled Chinese explores an important subject that until now has not been investigated fully by scholars. I am confident that it will emerge as a major contribution to the literature."
—Michael Welch, Associate Professor, Rutgers University
"...pathbreaking. Chin's analysis is grounded in interviews with 300 Chinese, most of whom had been smuggled into the United States between 1988 and 1993.... [H]is multifaceted research strategy endows his analysis and conclusions with a high degree of credibility."
—American Journal of Sociology
"...highly recommend[ed] for anyone interested in the traffic of illegal immigrants."
—Journal of American Ethnic History
"Chin describes the international network of this flourishing business, lays bare its evil, and also puts a human face on this intractable international problem, showing how flaws in national policies and lax law enforcement perpetuate the cycle of desperation and suffering."
—MultiCultural Review
Contents
Foreword – Douglas S. Massey
Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I: Leaving for the Beautiful Country
1. In Search of the American Dream
2. In Search of the Beautiful Country
3. The Social Organization of Human Smuggling
Part II: Following the Snakeheads
4. The Air Route
5. The Sea Route
6. The Land Route
Part III: Climbing the Mountain of Gold
7. Safe Houses
8. Life in the Mountain of Gold
9. Stemming the Tide
Glossary
Appendix A: Research Methods
Appendix B: Tables
Notes
References
Index
About the Author(s)
Ko-lin Chin is Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, Newark. He is author of many articles on illegal Chinese immigration and Chinese gangs, and writes in both English and Chinese. He is author of Chinatown Gangs: Extortion, Enterprise and Ethnicity.
Subject Categories
Asian American Studies
Law and Criminology
Urban Studies
In the series
Asian American History and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan, David Palumbo-Liu, Michael Omi, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Vő.
The "standard" written histories of Asian immigrants to the United States have been imbued with Western cultural biases. As a critique and corrective to earlier work, Asian American History and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan, David Palumbo-Liu, Michael Omi, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Vő, aims to develop a history of Asian Americans that is compatible with their own experience, that treats Asian Americans as agents of historical change and as creators of a new culture. In addition, this series intends to focus on the groups that are flourishing in the contemporary U.S.—Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese—about whom little has been written as well as to add to the substantial work done on the Chinese and Japanese in this country.