Many illegal Chinese aliens find that in their pursuit of wealth in the United States, their marriages are being torn apart by loneliness and suspicion, says Ko-lin Chin, author of "Smuggled Chinese." In an interview with Washington File senior writer Jane Morse, Chin explains how the social pressures to send at least one family member to the United States often tear apart the traditional Chinese family.

It's a sad irony that many Chinese, in their quest to improve the economic lives of their families by illegally immigrating to the United States, risk tearing their families apart, says Chinese-American scholar Ko-lin Chin.

Chin interviewed 300 illegal Chinese migrants living in New York City for his book Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States, which was published in 1999.

"We are economic beings and money is always very important," Chin acknowledges, "but I think what they (the Chinese illegal migrants) don't understand is that you really pay a huge price to achieve this goal, and it doesn't mean that it's worth it -- especially for Chinese people who are so accustomed to living so close to such a large number of relatives."

Chin first became interested in illegal Chinese immigrants back in the 1980s, while he was doing research on Chinese gangs in New York City. But it wasn't until 1993, when he made his first trip to mainland China with his wife, whose parents were originally from Fujian province and where they still have relatives, that he really became intrigued with the phenomena of Chinese illegal immigration.

While in Fuzhou, Chin and his wife were constantly approached by Chinese seeking help in getting smuggled to the United States. In one instance, they were offered $80,000 in cash to divorce each other upon their return to the United States. Then, the two of them would get involved in fake marriages with other Fujianese to bring them to the United States.

During that visit, news spread worldwide of the June drowning of eight Chinese illegal migrants when their ship, the Golden Venture, ran aground offshore near Queens, New York. Later that summer, Chin, with the support of the National Science Foundation, began his research in Chinese illegal smuggling.

"I think each and every smuggled Chinese has a lot of things to say," Chin says. "And they have a lot of painful stories to share with us."

Illegal migrants working long, hard days to pay off their smuggling debts and still send money to their families back home call themselves "a machine with flesh and blood," Chin says.

"Their existence here (in the United States) has no meaning whatsoever," Chin explains. "There is no family, no relatives, no entertainment. They basically do not live in the United States. They don't know what's going on in this society; they never have a chance to get out of the restaurant (where most find work at menial jobs). They have very little contact with American culture and the American way of life."

Most Chinese illegal aliens work six days a week, Chin says. "And the one day they've got off, they sleep. Because they have to work long hours, they are basically -- psychologically and physically -- really tired."

After three, four years of such a grueling regimen, many grow very disappointed and regret their decisions to illegally immigrate. "But, you know, that's too late," Chin says. "They can't go back to China and say, 'Well, I will find a way to save $60,000 to repay my friends and relatives.' They can't."

According to Chin, smuggling fees have doubled in the seven years since he first began his research -- from some $30,000 to $60,000. Fake marriages, when they can be arranged, are even more expensive. Those involving an illegal would-be immigrant woman with children can run as high as $100,000, he says.

For those who go to the United States alone -- and they are usually young men -- the first concern is how to repay their smuggling fees. This can take anywhere from four to seven years, according to Chin.

The next problem illegal migrants face is what to do about the wives and children they may have left behind in China. They must support them or save enough to pay to have them smuggled into the United States, Chin says.

"So it's a vicious circle," Chin says. "It's something that they probably can never get out of." It's a problem that most of the young illegal male immigrants -- if the men don't find other women in the United States -- must solve, he says.

In the meantime, the wives back home in China are obsessed with the amount of money their husbands send them and whether their husbands are having affairs with other women in the United States, according to Chin.

"Whenever I talk to these wives in Fuzhou," Chin says, "the only thing they want to talk about is how little their husbands are sending back home. They want more money; that's the number one message they will want me to convey to their husbands back in the United States. 'Tell my husband he's only sending me a $1000 every three months and it's not enough. I want more.' Or, the other thing will be: 'Well, can you go back and find out whether my husband is having an affair with another women, since we are separated for so long?'"

Chin acknowledges that a lot of these marriages are in big trouble. "We are talking about mostly young wives living back in China with one or two young children," says Chin. "A lot of the women that I met in Fuzhou are having affairs with their neighbors and friends. And it's hard. They've been separated (from their husbands) for six or seven years. Its' not difficult to imagine how natural or how normal it is for them to have affairs with men that live in the surrounding area."

The same is true with the husbands living without their wives in the United States. "It will be very unlikely that they will be having affairs with women in night clubs or bars because they can't afford it," Chin says. "But there's also a large number of women living here with their husbands back in mainland China. There's also a lot of rumors -- talk about who is living with whom.

"And so, it's very difficult to maintain a marriage like this with these people separated so far away and for so long. That is something nobody has really looked into -- the kind of impact it has on these families," Chin says.

Nevertheless, the social pressures in some parts of China to send a member of the family to the United States by any means available are enormous.

"If you don't have a member living in the United States," Chin explains, "it's a disgrace to your family; your family has no future; your family has nothing to say in the village; your family has no status. It's simply (as if) this family does not exist."

But once a family member is living in the United States, the future for the family remaining in China seems more promising -- at least it's easy for them to borrow money, Chin says.

For the typical Chinese villager making perhaps $50 dollars a month, the lure of making $1500 per month in the United States is too much to resist, Chin says. Although $1500 per month is not regarded to be "big money" in the United States and the jobs available to illegal immigrants with no work or language skills are very menial, the migrants still come.

Money is driving the whole smuggling business, says Chin, not political persecution or desperation to leave China.

"This is purely economic," Chin says. "Once they figure that they can make 30 times more than they make in China, whatever you tell them -- that it's going to be horrible; it's going to be brutal; it's going to be meaningless -- all these words have no meaning for them. The only thing that they can think of is 'I will be making 30 times more than I'm making in China.'"

Would-be illegal immigrants refuse to believe that life in the United States can be tougher than what they experience in China, Chin explains.

This is true despite the fact that many illegal immigrants do tell the folks back home of the hardships they endure," Chin says. "But people back home will not believe it," he says. "They probably think that, 'Oh, no, you are just a crybaby. You are just lazy. You are just a loser, that's why you are complaining. How come Mr. Lee's son is not complaining? How come Mr. Wang's son is not complaining?'

"So, even if some of the Chinese migrants now living in the United States tell their friends and relatives back home the mistake they made, the terrible existence they have here in the United States, people back home will not believe it. They think that, well, most people are doing pretty well here in the United States."

Chin's advice to would-be illegal immigrants: "They should definitely think thoroughly and find out more about what they are getting into before they make the decision to come."

Separation from family and friends is much harder than many might anticipate, he points out, adding that "people should not be affected so much by social pressure.

"If the Wangs and the Lees have some family members living in the United States, so what? If you are doing fine in China, then you shouldn't be so concerned about not having a family member in the United States, because it's just a kind of status symbol."

-- July 2000