Helping out_ children's labor in ethnic businesses

299 Pages·1999·0.913 MB·English

by  Miri Song

title: Helping Out : Children's Labor in Ethnic Businesses
author: Song, Miri.
publisher: Temple University Press
isbn10 | asin: 156639709X
print isbn13: 9781566397094
ebook isbn13: 9780585364186
language: English
Children of minorities--Employment--Great Britain,
Ethnic restaurants--Great Britain--Employees, Fast
subject
food restaurants--Great Britain--Employees,
Chinese--Employment--Great Britain.
publication date: 1999
lcc: HD6247.H82G77 1999eb
ddc: 331.3/1/08900941
Children of minorities--Employment--Great Britain,
Ethnic restaurants--Great Britain--Employees, Fast
subject:
food restaurants--Great Britain--Employees,
Chinese--Employment--Great Britain.
Page iii
Helping Out
Children's Labor in Ethnic Businesses
Miri Song
Page iv
Temple University Press, Philadelphia 19122
Copyright © 1999 by Temple University
All rights reserved
Published 1999
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of American National
Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1984
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Song, Miri, 1964
Helping out: children's labor in ethnic businesses / Miri Song.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-56639-708-1 (cloth : alk paper). ISBN 1-56639-709-X
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Children of minoritiesEmploymentGreat Britain. 2. Ethnic
restaurantsGreat BritainEmployees. 3. Fast food restaurantsGreat
BritainEmployees. 4. ChineseEmploymentGreat Britain. I. Title.
HD6247.H82G77 1999
331.3'1'08900941dc21 98-51927
CIP
Page v
For my parents
Page vii
Contents
Preface ix
1
1
The Role of Family Ties in Ethnic Businesses
2
Chinese Migration and the Establishment of Take-Aways 23
in Britain
3
47
"The Shop Runs Our Lives"
4
73
Helping Out
5
100
Upholding and Negotiating the Family Work Contract
6
137
Siblings' Labor Commitments and Family Reputations
7
174
Looking to the Future
Appendix A: Locations of Take-Away Businesses 207
Appendix B: Background Information on Young People 209
Notes 211
Bibliography 221
Index 241
Page ix
Preface
Children and young people have been the subject of a burgeoning literature on the "new
second generation" and immigrant adaptation but their productive roles in immigrant
families, as both workers and social mediators, have received very little attention thus far.
This book is about the central role that children play in Chinese families running take-
away businesses in Britain and in ethnic businesses more generally. When I first arrived
in Britain and started frequenting Chinese take-away businesses I was struck by the
number of Chinese young people working in them. However, the vast literature on ethnic
businesses and immigrant adaptation has not investigated the work roles of children in
small, family-run businesses. What kinds of labor do children contribute to family-based
ethnic businesses and how should we conceptualize this labor? Furthermore, how do
children experience and make sense of their labor participation in immigrant families? I
argue that in addition to concerns about economic rationality, an examination of the
intersection of family relationships and obligations, the survival pressures faced by
immigrant families, and issues of cultural identity is necessary for a full understanding of
the nature and terms of children's work in ethnic businesses. By prioritizing the need to
capture young peoples' views and experiences of their work and family lives, this study is
necessarily limited in terms of exploring the myriad of issues that arise in relation to this
topic. For instance, I focus much more cen-
Page x
trally upon family dynamics and relationships than upon the business aspects of these
enterprises. Nor do I focus upon community and wider kin ties in the formation of the
Chinese catering sector in Britainalthough these issues are discussed as background to the
study. Throughout the book, I rely heavily upon excerpts from in-depth interviews. I
have preserved the colloquial speech and slang (including awkward usage and mistakes
in grammar) of the Chinese respondents because issues of language and cultural identity
are important themes in the study. Although this book focuses upon the experiences of
Chinese young people (predominantly in their twenties), I use the term "children" to refer
to a family relationship, vis-à-vis parents, rather than to individuals of a particular age.
Because this is a British study, a number of terms are explained throughout the text for
North American readers. One important clarification concerns the use of ethnic
categories: "Asian" in the British context refers to people of Indian, Pakistani, or
Bangladeshi heritage, and does not usually include the Chinese (as opposed to "Asian
American," a term that typically refers to people of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean,
heritage).
Many people made this book possible, but I am especially grateful to all the individuals
who participated in this study. Not only did they provide scarce time and energy, but they
also shared insights and stories I will never forget. I especially thank Wong, who
provided invaluable information and inspiration. In the earliest stages of this research,
when I was trying to get my bearings, I knocked on a number of peoples' doors: James
Curran, Jane Wheelock, and Floya Anthias all shared their ideas and expertise with me.
This research, which began life as a Ph.D. dissertation, was conducted while I was at the
London School of Economics. I owe a great deal to Jane Lewis, who went beyond the
call of duty as a supervisor. Over the years, a number of people provided comments and
encouragement in various ways, including Martin Bulmer, Ito Peng, Andre Sorensen,
Monika Zulauf, Mark Liddiard, Soraya Cortes, Penny Vera-Sanso, and Mark Kleinman,
all of whom provided good cheer and advice. Peter Loizos and Janet Finch lent valuable
criticism and insight as examiners of the-
Page xi
sis. Both at the beginning and end of this research, Jan Pahl offered a keen eye and
enthusiasm for this project. David Parker, whom I met when I felt very alone in my
interest in the Chinese, generously shared his ideas and experiences with me. In the last
few years, I derived much support and wisdom from the members of the Women's
Workshop on Qualitative Family/Household Research; in particular, I would like to thank
Ros Edwards, who offered great comments and company along the way. Since my move
to the University of Kent, I would like to thank my colleagues in the Department of
Sociology (and the Department of Anthropology) for allowing me the time to write this
book. On the other side of the Atlantic, I have received valuable comments and assistance
from Pyong Gap Min, Mehdi Bozorgmehr, Lane Kenworthy, Vilna Bashi, and James
Watson. Michael Ames has been the model of efficiency as my editor at Temple
University Press, and Bernadine Dawes and David Lee Prout provided real expertise in
the production and copyediting of the manuscript. I would also like to thank the
anonymous readers of this manuscript for their helpful suggestions. My parents, Moon-
Won Song and Yung-Hee Park, and my siblings Viv, Paul, and Joe, have provided
support and encouragement for far too long, so I hope they will finally read this. A big
thank you also to Sung Hee Suh, and to Jan and Herbie for always being there. Last, but
not least, I am indebted to Murray Smith for his encouragement, comments, and editorial
labors over the years.
Page 1
1
The Role of Family Ties in Ethnic Businesses
Chinese take-away food businesses (called take-out restaurants in the United States) have
long been a common sight throughout Britain's streets and, indeed, in many other
countries. It is not uncommon to see children and other family members taking orders or
packaging food in such businesses. They are, to the public eye, visible as workers in these
enterprises. However, very little is known about how children in immigrant families may
contribute to the running of ethnic businesses. This book examines the various work
roles that children play, how they negotiate their family labor, and the implications of
children growing up, in Chinese families running take-away businesses in Britain.
The Chinese in Britain provide an interesting case study of children's labor in ethnic
businesses because, perhaps more than any other ethnic group, the overseas Chinese have
been depicted as paragons of hard work and collective family cooperation in the literature
on ethnic businesses and immigrant adaptation. Furthermore, Chinese take-away
businesses are small labor-intensive enterprises conducive to the participation of children,
especially since these families' home and work lives are largely intertwined.
As an important means of immigrant adaptation, ethnic businesses include many kinds of
enterprises, such as Indian news-
Page 2
agents, Pakistani market traders, and Korean greengrocers. Despite numerous and passing
references to the importance of family labor as a key resource in many ethnic businesses,
family labor and families' relations of production have rarely been examined or
elaborated upon. In particular, children's labor in ethnic businesses has tended to be
"invisible" in such research. The availability of family labor has tended to be treated as an
unquestioned given.
For many immigrant families in North America or Western Europe, it is becoming clear
that children may play key roles in the successful social and economic adaptation of their
families. For instance, children in these families may not only provide labor in ethnic
businesses, but they may also act as language mediators on behalf of their parents, as was
recently reported in The New York Times (Alvarez, 1995; see also Park, 1997:83).
"Productive" roles played by children tend to contravene Western laws concerning child
labor, as well as dominant norms about the experience of childhood. 1 In recent years,
there has been growing interest in the rights of children and young people in Western
societies such as Britain and the United States (James and Prout, 1990; Pond and Searle,
1991 Roche, 1996; Jenks, 1996)as evidenced by the International Year of the Child in
1979 and the passage of the 1989 Children Act in Britain. Children's labor performed
within a family business has traditionally been regarded as more benign than industrial
employment (Maclennan et al., 1985).2
However, most depictions of family-run ethnic businesses in Britain have been largely
disapproving. One reason why children's work in ethnic businesses may be negatively
singled out in Britain, as in other Western societies, is that children's work in Chinese
take-aways is performed in a racialized work niche. The work performed in these
businesses is associated with derogatory images and stereotypes about "foreign"
immigrant livelihoods and being Chinese. Work in a take-away business, as colorfully
depicted in Timothy Mo's novel, Sour Sweet, does not evoke the wholesome images of
children on an early morning paper route or helping out on the family farm. It is
undeniable that working in a Chinese