Thread: Chinese workers could replace Mexican immigrants

Chinese workers could replace Mexican immigrants
By DUDLEY L. POSTON JR. and PETER A. MORRISON
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Aug. 12, 2011, 8:56PM

Until now, Mexico has supplied the United States, especially Texas and California, with immigrant workers to fill low-wage jobs. That's about to change, in the wake of an unprecedented decline in Mexican immigration and a new influx of Chinese immigrant workers who will be fleeing hopeless conditions in China; many of them will enter the U.S. undocumented.

These developments will cast in sharp relief the inherent contradictions in the practices comprising our current immigration policy. These immigrants from China will likely galvanize support from millions of Chinese-Americans to rationalize the policy once and for all.

Mexican immigration — legal and undocumented - now stands at an all-time low and may have even stopped. "For the first time in 60 years, the net traffic has gone to zero and is probably a little bit negative," according to Princeton's Douglas Massey, who co-directs the Mexican Migration Project. Also, a report by Mexico's National Statistics Institute noted recently that "in the first quarter of 2011, … the net migration balance was almost nothing." Mexico is now in the process of reversing its century-old status of being a net exporter of migrants.

In China, meanwhile, an economy demanding urban manpower has precipitated what surely ranks as the largest peacetime migration in recorded human history. Since the early 1990s, millions of rural agricultural workers - men and women - have moved to jobs in the burgeoning cities on China's east coast, filling mostly low-level construction, manufacturing and household service jobs. They number nearly 220 million - almost half of China's entire urban population.

Most rural Chinese move within China without official permission, as temporary urban workers, known as "floaters." They are supposed to "float" back home eventually, but most don't. Instead, they join China's unofficial and fiercely competitive low-wage urban labor markets, often filling jobs that permanent urban residents shun.

Urban unemployment in China, now at an all-time high, has turned the floaters' world upside down. Around 20 million floaters are unemployed (being typically first fired) and no longer can send money home. Unwilling to return home penniless and lose face, they also find themselves with little or no prospect of any livelihood in Chinese cities. Their only realistic option, reminiscent of their predecessors who sought their fortunes in California starting in the 1840s, is to seek their fortunes abroad.

The Chinese in the U.S. today form a potent interest group of Chinese-Americans of more than 3.3 million nationwide. We estimate that around 50 million floaters eventually will emigrate from China, many illegally, and that ties will draw several million of them to Chinese-American enclaves in Texas, California and elsewhere in the U.S. We have, in Massey's words, "the seeds of an enormous … flow of immigrants [to the United States] that would dwarf levels of migration now observed from Mexico." Those seeds today lie dormant, pending a stronger U.S. job market.

What does this shift of human resources portend? Opponents of immigration - including, understandably, jobless American workers - may not welcome more foreign newcomers. Nevertheless, established immigration networks anchored by longstanding family ties to particular destinations in Texas, California, New York and other states will facilitate their arrival, surreptitiously or otherwise.

Most Chinese immigrants will be of prime working age, and their paychecks could well fortify the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. They will be another welcome measure of human ambition from Asia.

But the question is: Can we, a nation of immigrants, welcome them as "family"?

Poston is a professor of sociology and director of the Asian Studies Program at Texas A&M University. Morrison is an applied demographer and the president of Morrison and Associates in Nantucket, Mass.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/edi ... z1Uve0mVw6

No joke. I think I'm already seeing them everywhere. I went to a local Chinese restaurant. There is one guy who speaks English taking the order and then three other Chinese waiting around who cannot communicate. The first order I called in and they got it wrong. The second one, I think, made me sick. And I wonder just how they are able to afford all of that chicken in some of their plates. Where do they get it so cheap.?

I've definitely crossed that place off. There is another one nearby with waitresses. Hardly any of them speak English except for the one with a bad temper.

I think I am "fed up" with chinese restaurants.

I'm surrounded by em.

well why don't we ship all of the chinese & the mexico back home we are full with both they don't speak English at all .& they are illegal immigrants
yes the chinese also we have them in the BX Both & we are sick of it
we was in the restaurant the other night & they did not speak any english at all I told the boss & he said he was sorry well . that was the last time I will eat at that restaurant . this is at 149 sttreet off 3 ave
No amnesty

Originally Posted by Captainron

And I wonder just how they are able to afford all of that chicken in some of their plates. Where do they get it so cheap?

You've heard how they eat cats right?

Well...I suppose if it looks like chicken and tastes like chicken then it's probably chicken of some sorts. Let's just hope anyway.

On a personal note, on the rare occassion I fancy Chinese food, I will only eat it at one place (close to my home) which has been in business over 25 years. Not sure if that means anything, but at least I find some comfort in that fact.

Gee I wonder if laraza, maldef, lulac and ilk will continue to fight for illegal aliens, when they aren't "raza"?

I live in L.A. and we have a considerable Chinese population here, about 15 minutes east of downtown. I also used to teach ESL evening courses in this area, and am familiar with the community, to a degree. Here are some of the main differences separating run-of-the-mill Chinese illegals from those hailing from Mexico and Central America.

BTW, I do not represent this as being sensitive or politically correct, just accurate.

- They take education very seriously. Their kids go to school and commonly excel. It's a socio-cultural thing. You will not find some first generation Chinese kid belonging to a tagging crew, marking up freeway onramps at midnight.

- They don't irresponsibly breed. They only have kids they can afford and if a teen gets pregnant, she'll either hide while expecting or have an abortion.

- Many Latinas seek work as domestics and nannies for affluent white families. Almost all Chinese female illegals stay inside the Chinese community, working for cash (restaurants, day care, massage parlors, etc.).

- You will never see a Chinese illegal screaming about racism or marching down a U.S. street waving a nat'l flag, demanding residency rights. The Chinese, like most Asian illegals, are going out of their way to hide. They fear detection and being labeled as criminals by larger society. I can only think of one exception; a Cal-Berkeley student who recently got arrested at a DREAM Act protest, last month.

- Unlike most Latino illegals, the Chinese are usually trying to put up a facade of legal residency. They commonly come here and enroll in some BS language program or at an herbal medicine college, and then work under the table somewhere in the Chinese community.

Originally Posted by Kiara

Originally Posted by Captainron

And I wonder just how they are able to afford all of that chicken in some of their plates. Where do they get it so cheap?

You've heard how they eat cats right?

I dont know if it is true or not, but that rumer has been around a long time. Thats why when I order Chinese I never order anything with chicken or beef. I just order the shrimp dishes, Nothing they can sneak cat meat into.

I actually love chinese food and have had their chicken often.