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The Secret Cost of Chinese Buffets: Part 1
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Posted on Nov 2, 2016
By Amelia Pang
One of the thousands of Chinese restaurants in California. (Jae C. Hong /
AP
(http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Census-Changing-Chinatowns/267718607
ce440c1a2690accfb42540f/1/0) )
Wang's Employment Agency is nestled on the third floor of a barbershop in
Flushing, N.Y. No sign outside suggests its existence. Inside, there is an
undecorated, white-walled office where a dozen middle-aged Chinese
immigrants sit and wait in nervous silence. Wang, the owner of the agency,
is a heavyset woman in her early 50s. She snacks on walnuts from a Styrofoam
cup as she considers people's job requests.
"I have a job as a cook at a Vietnamese restaurant," she tells a man in his
50s.
"A Vietnamese restaurant?" he asks. "But I've never had Vietnamese food."
"It's just noodles," Wang says. "They use a different sauce than we do.
That's all. Give them a call and try it out for a day."
He pays Wang $60 for the job offer. I catch the tail end of this
conversation. It is not clear where the restaurant is located.
"Were you smuggled in?" Wang asks me.
"No," I say.
I was born and raised in Maryland. My Mandarin has a noticeable American
accent. I later realize it was a mistake to admit my legal status. Wang asks
me a few questions about what type of restaurant jobs I want. She says
she'll call me if anything comes up.
She doesn't call. Wang isn't alone. Other employment agencies in Flushing I
contact also do not return my calls after hearing my Mandarin.
Chinese restaurants hire undocumented Chinese and Latino workers, pay them
well below minimum wage, make them work 12-hour shifts six days a week but
offer free housing and food. These workers are packed at night into
roach-infested apartments and houses. Sometimes they are forced to sleep on
cardboard in the basements of restaurants. They make $800 to $2,000 a
month-regardless of how many hours they work.
Much of their pay goes to fees charged by traffickers and smugglers-known in
Chinese as "snakeheads"-and to private employment agencies such as the one
run by Wang that charges clients for finding them a job. The smugglers, like
the agencies, do not advertise. Snakeheads charge $60,000 to $80,000 to
smuggle someone into the United States. They have networks of enforcers,
which means that, if you do not pay, you or your family members in China
will be subject, until the money is paid, to beatings or even death.
Restaurant jobs in big cities fill up fast. There are more immigrants
looking for work in cities, where wealthier customers tip generously. Most
employment agencies in Flushing specialize in sending immigrants to jobs in
remote towns where Chinese restaurants are often short of staff. Once
offered a job, an immigrant often has to be on a bus within hours and can
find him- or herself halfway across the country.
My legal status and my American-accented Mandarin are impediments. Labor
trafficking, which can take place before the immigrant is smuggled into the
country, is dependent on the powerlessness of the worker. Snakeheads
routinely lie about jobs, wages and employment conditions, knowing that once
workers are in the United States they are unable to appeal to law
enforcement. It is also common for snakeheads and employers to confiscate
passports and identity documents in order to hold workers hostage.
These snakeheads do not only traffic in Chinese workers. They routinely
"buy" undocumented Latino workers who have crossed into the United States
from Mexico and drive them to Chinese restaurants around the country where
they, too, are held in bondage. Those who traffic human beings also often
traffic drugs, carrying narcotics along with their human cargo across state
lines.
"Employment agencies buy Mexicans at the border from smugglers and sell them
to Chinese employers," said a former snakehead I'll call Edward, whom I
interviewed in Atlanta. For one year, the First Street Employment Agency
paid Edward $2 per mile to pick up undocumented Latino immigrants from Fort
Myers, Fla., and drive them to the agency in Chamblee, Ga. The employment
agency owner would pack the Latino migrants into crowded rooms in a nearby
apartment complex called the Don Juan Duplexes while he waited for Chinese
restaurant owners to purchase the immigrants like indentured servants.
"Chinese restaurant owners don't pay Mexicans for the first two months of
work. They pay the smugglers instead," Edward told me. "They pay $1,000 per
person, maybe $1,200 per person, to the smuggler."
After two months, restaurant owners typically begin to pay new Latino
workers $800 a month. They tend to work in the kitchen, so they don't
receive tips. In busy restaurants, experienced kitchen workers might
eventually make up to $2,000 a month.
The employment agencies, Chinese restaurants and human smugglers have
informal ties to one another, which makes it efficient to supply cheap labor
but difficult to prosecute. Most of these labor agencies are never charged
with trafficking.
I change my tactics when I enter Min Du Employment Agency on Eldridge Street
in Manhattan's Chinatown. The agency's office is not much larger than a
walk-in closet. A poster plastered on the wall advertises a $30 bus ride to
Indiana.
"Hello, little sister," an elderly woman greets me in Mandarin from behind
the counter. The small space behind her counter is stuffed with notebooks,
instant-noodle packs and an electric kettle.
I speak haltingly. I give vague answers about my ability to speak English.
She doesn't ask about my immigration status.
I tell her I'm looking for a busgirl job. I decide on busgirl because I have
limited Chinese writing skills and would struggle to write orders down in
Chinese.
"The closest job is four hours away," she says.
"That's fine," I say.
She begins calling restaurant employers across North America and mumbles a
few words to them before handing me the receiver. I get on the phone with a
Chinese restaurant owner in Indiana.
"We'll pay $2,000 a month. Food and housing is on us," he says. "Everyone
sleeps at my house. It's very nice. You can sleep upstairs with the girls.
Or, if you want, you can sleep downstairs with me and the boys."
I wince.
Sexual harassment is commonplace for female immigrants working in Chinese
restaurants. The hint was stated clearly. I knew from speaking with other
women that if I arrived and did not have sex with the employer, I would
probably be fired. These women say that in the group houses, the male
employees openly watch pornography, pressure the women to have sex and
masturbate in front of them.
Without legal status or documents, unable to speak English, dependent on
employers for every necessity of life, including the ride to and from work,
the ability to send money home to families, trips to the drugstore or the
bank, these women are virtually enslaved. They know that should they resist
the desires of the boss they will be instantly penniless, homeless and
subject to deportation. Being trapped in one of these houses where the men
demand sexual service is my greatest fear.
The lewd restaurant owner decides not to hire me because I don't have enough
experience.
The elderly woman puts me on the phone with Chinese restaurant owners in
Canada, Maryland and Alabama. I talk to the manager of a restaurant inside
the food court of a mall. They all say I don't have enough experience, or
that I'm not from their region in China. The woman gives up and starts to
interview other applicants clustered around her.
A Chinese man in his early 20s, wearing earphones, walks in. He asks if
there are takeout delivery jobs. She says the closest job is four hours
away. He walks out.
She offers agricultural jobs to an elderly couple. They say they are not
physically able to do farm work.
Depending on one's age, legal status and English proficiency, these
underground employment agencies offer jobs that range from farmer to dental
assistant. Restaurant jobs, especially kitchen jobs, require the least
amount of English and training. The most vulnerable immigrants are sent
there.
I wait three more hours. Wang periodically calls other restaurants. I read
the New York City Consumer Affairs Agency license and New York employment
law posters plastered on the wall.
The posters include information about minimum wage. They explain that there
is a maximum fee that employment agencies can charge for placing someone in
a job. The fee cannot exceed
(http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/about/employment_agency_statel
aws_rules.pdf) 30 percent of a worker's first full-month salary. The agency
is legally required to provide a refund if the job doesn't work out. These
posters are in English and Spanish-but not in Chinese. I suspect I am the
only person looking for work here who understands them.
Suddenly, the elderly woman, who is speaking on the phone, hands me the
receiver and tells me to "sound confident." I speak with a Chinese buffet
owner in Georgia. She tells me she's looking for a northerner because her
current busboy is from northern China.
I'm hired. She tells me to get on the 8 p.m. bus that night and to bring
black clothing. She abruptly hangs up.
I'm charged a $35 fee for this match. I'm supposed to pay the rest of the
fees after I begin working. It is unclear how much I owe the agency in
total.
The woman hands me a piece of paper with the phone numbers of the bus driver
and the restaurant owner.
I am only given a piece of paper with the phone numbers of the restaurant
owner and bus driver-nothing written about employment terms. The wages,
fees, deposit and balance are left blank.
There are no written statements about the terms of employment. She tells me
nothing about my employment rights.
I ask if I have free housing and food, since the owner in Georgia did not
address the issue.
"Of course these restaurants give you free housing and food," she said with
annoyance. "You'll have to work more than 10 hours a day. How can they not?"
"You don't even speak English very well," she tells me. "You have no
experience. This is a very good deal for you. You should be grateful, little
sister."
Amelia Pang is an award-winning journalist formerly with the Epoch Times.
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