The search for economic opportunity and social pressure are the top two reasons why some Chinese chose to leave their homeland, according to immigration scholars.

International immigration theory describes "push" and "pull" factors: Greater economic opportunity "pulls" immigrants to the United States, while lower wages and unemployment "push" emigrants from China.

Immigrants believe they can become wealthy in the United States, known as "the Golden Mountain", because wages in the United States are high relative to wages in China. The majority of illegal aliens originate in small villages around China's coastal cities, especially Fuzhou, in Fujian Province (see map). Workers in China earn twice as much in the average city as in rural areas, and seven or eight times more in large coastal cities, such as Shanghai and Guangzhou, than in rural areas¹. In the United States, however, the average income is 20 times the average income in Shanghai². "When the income differential between China and the United States is 1:2 rather than 1:15 or 1:20, that is when Fuzhounese will stop going and even come back," one Chinese entrepreneur told a writer for the Agence France Presse³ . To many workers leaving rural areas in China, the promise of high wages in the United States justifies the risk inherent to entering the country illegally as well as the expense of any smuggling fees.

The disadvantage of working in the United States is that higher wages are accompanied by a higher cost of living. And the relatively low (by U.S. standards) wages earned by illegal aliens are generally insufficient to provide minimum comforts to immigrants trying to pay off enormous smuggling debts. An illegal alien can expect to earn $3 to $4 an hour as a worker in a restaurant or garment factory and will often be expected to work 80 or 90 hours a week to pay off debts, researcher Peter Kwong observed. Illegal immigrants are "constantly trapped in that low end, sweat shop market," because they lack job and language skills, Kwong said⁴.

China's growing number of unemployed is a "push factor." The Chinese government estimated 200 million rural farmers would be unemployed in 2000⁵. Unemployment increases the competition for jobs, while decreasing wages.

It is important to note that workers who leave China tend to come from developed areas that have the infrastructures to provide communication with and transportation to the West. Chinese who choose to enter the United States illegally must have access to significant funds. Smuggling fees run as high as $60,000⁶ and are usually paid with loans from family members and friends. In contrast, most of the 300 million people living in poverty in China⁷ have less exposure to the lures of the West and cannot afford to travel -- legally or otherwise.

Around the Fuzhou area, emigration abroad is commonly seen as the only possible way for an individual to succeed. In some villages, no industries have developed because the majority of workers between the ages of 18 and 45 have left China⁸. Families will loan money to pay smuggling fees, but will not invest in a relative trying to start a business in China, both because of the difficulties of running a business in China and because of the attitude that more opportunity exists in the United States⁹.

The faith that some communities have in the "American success story" causes them to generate a great deal of social pressure on their members to emigrate abroad. Fuzhounese have a long tradition of sending at least one family member "to make a living abroad." More recently, having a family member in the United States has become a status symbol. "When people get together they always talk about how their sons or daughters or relatives or husbands or brothers are doing in the United States," according to Ko-lin Chin, an expert on Fuzhounese immigrants¹⁰.

"People look down on you if you haven't the heart to go abroad, and no girl will like you if you don't give it a try," a journalist for the South China Morning Post said to describe the attitude in Fujian¹¹.

Not only do some Chinese feel that they must go to the United States to be successful, they also feel the need to appear successful after they do. Although they often find themselves crushed by long work hours and financial demands, Chinese illegal immigrants may be embarrassed to admit their condition to family and friends at home. If immigrants do try to talk about their hardships, their families may choose to believe that the immigrants are lazy or "whiners."¹².

If a husband is unwilling to venture abroad, his wife may threaten to leave him and make the trip herself¹³. Because of the lonliness such separations cause, many illegal immigrants¹⁴will attempt help other family members to come to the United States. In addition, the money illegal immigrants send home inspires others to risk being smuggled into the United States.

In addition to pressures from family and friends, Chinese are also encouraged to move abroad by smugglers or "snakeheads". Sometimes, smugglers advertise work overseas, but most find their customers through connections and by word-of-mouth. Smugglers operating within Chinese communities add to the phenomenon of small areas generating large numbers of illegal emigrants. Snakeheads -- much more than the emigrants themselves -- profit from illegally sending their clients abroad. Some scholars estimate that human smuggling generates an estimated $8 billion a year world-wide for criminal enterprises. ¹⁵.

-- Researched and compiled by Karen Mah, Washington File staff writer

Notes:

1 Jack A. Goldstone, "A Tsunami on the Horizon? The Potential for International Migration," Human Smuggling: Chinese Migrant Trafficking and the Challenge to America's Migration Tradition, Paul J. Smith, ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1997) p. 52. (back)

2 Ibid. (back)

3 (quoted in) Marlowe Hood, "Sourcing the Problem: Why Fuzhou?" Human Smuggling: Chinese Migrant Trafficking and the Challenge to America's Migration Tradition, Paul J. Smith, ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1997) p. 82. (back)

4 Peter Kwong, author of Forbidden Workers: Illegal Chinese Immigrants and American Labor, in an interview with Jane Morse, Washington File senior writer, May 12, 2000. (back)

5 Jack A. Goldstone, "A Tsunami on the Horizon? The Potential for International Migration," Human Smuggling: Chinese Migrant Trafficking and the Challenge to America's Migration Tradition, Paul J. Smith, ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1997) p. 59. (back)

6 Ko-lin Chin, author of Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States in an interview with Jane Morse, Washington File senior writer, July 20, 2000. (back)

7 Paul J. Smith, Human Smuggling: Chinese Migrant Trafficking and the Challenge to America's Migration Tradition, Paul J. Smith, ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1997) p. 12. (back)

8 Marlowe Hood, "Sourcing the Problem: Why Fuzhou?" Human Smuggling: Chinese Migrant Trafficking and the Challenge to America's Migration Tradition, Paul J. Smith, ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1997) p. 80.(back)

9 Ko-lin Chin, author of Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States, in an interview with Jane Morse, Washington File senior writer, July 20, 2000. (back)

10 Ibid. (back)

11 (quoted in)  Ling Li, "Mass Migration within China and the Implications for Chinese Immigration", Human Smuggling: Chinese Migrant Trafficking and the Challenge to America's Migration Tradition, Paul J. Smith, ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1997) p. 79. (back)

12 Ko-lin Chin, author of Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States, in an interview with Jane Morse, Washington File senior writer, July 20, 2000.(back)

13 Ibid. (back)

14 Ibid. (back)

15 Immigration and Naturalization Services, Backgrounder on Interior Enforcement Strategy, March 29, 1999, http://www.ins.usdoj.gov/graphics/lawenfor/interiorenf/strategy.htm.   (back)