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Overview
Forbidden Workers tells the full story of recent Chinese immigration to this country. Author Peter Kwong has interviewed countless workers, activists, Chinatown powerbrokers, and "snakeheads" (smugglers who bring immigrants to the United States) and has traveled to China to talk with families of immigrants. The result is an unprecedented look at an invisible community within American society - and at a billion-dollar industry whose commodity is workers who labor in conditions approaching modern slavery.Synopsis
Stories that Wal-Mart and Kathie Lee Gifford rely on underpaid illegal workers to make their clothing are presented in the media as sad but rare and random examples of sweatshop labor in America. The whole truth is far sadder. Fed by wealthy "snakeheads" who get rich by smuggling human cargo into the U.S., sweatshop labor is a large and deeply ingrained part of the American economy -- the billion-dollar sweatshop industry. Ignored by ineffective immigration and labor laws, greedy manufacturers import and virtually own tens of thousands of Chinese workers. Forbidden Workers traces the path of these workers from their home in Fuzhou province to the factories of California and the garment district of New York City. Peter Kwong, chair of the Asian American Studies Program at Hunter College in New York, brings an academic's rigor and a reporter's skill to the research and telling of one of America's ugliest secrets, ignored by politicians and labor unions, and supported by an economy that demands cheap products and high profits.
Booknews
Kwang, well known on television for his work on Chinese immigrants, traces the experience of immigrants from their homes in China to the basements and sweatshops of Chinatowns across the US, exploring why they choose to indebt themselves to a smuggler and whether they can really expect a better life. He also looks at their impact on the US economy, and argues that illegal immigration is not a matter of territorial integrity, but a labor issue that government must address by enforcing labor laws and organized labor by reaching out to the growing workforce. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.