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Where Do The Migrants Originate?

Chinese migration to overseas destinations dates back at least 500 years, and the primary objective has been to expand the economic base of the family.

Events within China and in the colonial empires of the countries that once divided China acted as catalysts to disperse ethnic Chinese thoughout the world. From the 15th to the 17th centuries, many of the migrating Chinese were entreprenuers; in the 18th and 19th centuries, most were coolies who served the labor needs of the European colonial powers.

The 19th century saw a great wave of migration that took Chinese to North America, Australasia, Southeast Asia, South America and southern Africa as well to destinations in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Discoveries of gold in the Western United States from 1848, Southern Australia from 1851, and Western Canada from 1858 set in motion a flow of people from China that, over the next 80 years, would include millions of individuals.

Nineteenth century Chinese migrations came from areas in China where contact with outsiders had been most intense -- the coastal provinces of Guangdong (Canton), Fujian and Zhejiang. (See Maps)These areas still provide the most significant numbers of illegal immigrants today. In each sending area there is both ready access to ports of departure and enough prosperiy to make travel to overseas destinations economically viable.

Today this wide network of overseas ethic Chinese is of critical importance to mainland Chinese wishing to immigrate: it serves to ease the logistics of traveling to and settling in a foreign country, and it lowers the psychological barriers to leaving the homeland.

Guangdong Province

Before World War II, 90 percent of the Chinese immigrants who reached the United States came from an area the size of Rhode Island (1,231 square miles or about 3,150 square kilometers) in China's Guangdong Province. Toishan County sent so many immigrants to New York City's Chinatown that until the 1960's fluency in the Toishanese dialect was required of the Chinese consulate in New York. People from Toishan and the other areas around Guangdong's capital Guangzhou (Canton) were separated from China's central authority by thousands of miles and differences in the spoken language, but they were close to large seaports, including Hong Kong. Geographic and cultural isolation coupled with access to departure routes provided early migrants some impetus to leave. Political unrest and lack of economic opportunity were also motivating factors. As established Chinese boasting of American wealth or suffering from loneliness encouraged their family members and neighbors to follow them across the ocean by any possible means, the United States saw a large influx of immigrants from a small area of China.

Fujian Province

Today, the majority of emigrants departing for destinations around the globe originate in an area the size of Delaware (2,396 square miles or about 6,133 square kilometers) in China's Fujian (Fukien) Province. The current situation in Fujian parallels the nineteenth century migration from its neighboring province Guangdong. The mountainous region of Fujian lies north of Guangdong and across the Taiwan Strait from Taiwan. The Communists were careful to place state industries out of the reach of Taiwan, and as a result Fujian became a leader in economic liberalization. The placement of export industries into coastal areas also contributed to a successful Fujianese economy. Fujian supplements light industry with natural resources such as coal, iron, limestone, hydroelectricity, forestry and fishing and traditional crops such as rice, sugar, tea and fruit. Only Guangdong is considered richer.

Two distinct sub-cultures exist in Fujian. Different dialects are used in the area around the major ports of Fuzhou and Xiamen (Amoy). In Fuzhou, Fujian's capital a dialect of Chinese is spoken which is unintelligible not only to speakers of Mandarin and Cantonese, but also to speakers of Minanhua (Southern Min dialect), which is prevalent in Xiamen and Taiwan.

Fuzhou City

Fuzhou, the capital city of Fujian Province, has 1.5 million registered inhabitants and an estimated "floating population" of 250,000. Substantial urbanization has been caused by the conversion of farmland around Fuzhou into industrial or special economic zones. Displaced workers from inland China also come into Fuzhou hoping for economic opportunity.

The people from the Fuzhou area have a long history of restless seafaring. The first Triad San Lian Hui originated near Fuzhou. Criminal networks use contacts developed through historical smuggling of illegal goods to smuggle people out of China. Most of the illegal emigrants come from the counties around Fuzhou rather than from the city itself, apparently because the city's residents average higher levels of education and income than do the people from the surrounding area, in places such as Changle, Lianjiang, and Fuqin.

Changle City

Changle City is located just southeast of Fuzhou. The registered population in Changle is 600,000 people, but in some towns within Changle's jurisdiction, 50 to 85 percent of residents are reported to be in the United States. The economies of many villages have been crippled by emigration. Among those who left Changle were the 58 illegal immigrants who suffocated to death in the back of a truck trying to get into Britain from the Netherlands in June 2000. The tragedy was publicized world-wide.

Lianjiang County

North of Fuzhou is Lianjiang County, which has a registered population of around 600,000. Of the 19 towns in Lianjiang, Guantou and neighboring Tingjiang are the largest immigrant sources. An estimated 1.6 million Chinese people in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan were originally from Tingjiang.

Fuqin City

Fuqin City is composed of 21 towns and lies on the coast near Pingtan County, which has a reputation for sending illegal immigrants to nearby Taiwan. Fuqin has abundant factory work; nevertheless many residents leave to seek economic opportunity elsewhere. Residents of Fuqin traditionally immigrated illegally to Japan, but following the Asian financial crisis, increasing numbers of people from Fuqin have tried to enter the United States illegally.

Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province

Residents of Wenzhou have immigrated to form large communities in Europe, especially in France, Italy and the Netherlands. The area has now become the second-largest Chinese source of illegal immigration to the United States. In 1993, when 10 Chinese illegal immigrants drowned after the Golden Venture ran aground just outside New York Harbor, 40 of the 286 passengers who tried to swim ashore came from around Wenzhou.

Wenzhou City is one of the largest cities in Zhejiang province. Though the province of Zhejiang is largely mountainous and isolated, it has a diverse economy. Zhejiang produces more tea than any other province and has a wide variety of manufactures, including paper, silk textiles, generators and large appliances. As in Guangdong and Fujian, the economic success of Zhejiang seems to fuel rather than dampen emigration.

Conclusion

From Guangdong, Fujian and Wenzhou decades of illegal immigration to the United States have originated from the East Coast of China. Cantonese immigrants have been supplanted by the Fujianese as the dominant group in U.S. Chinatowns. In the future, large Wenzhounese communities may replace the Fujianese communities.

-- Updated December 2002 by Jane Morse, Washington File senior staff writer

Resources:

Ko-lin Chin, Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999).

Ko-lin Chin, interview with Jane Morse, Washington File senior writer, July 20, 2000.

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).

Peter Kwong, Forbidden Workers: Illegal Chinese Immigrants and American Labor (New York: New Press, 1997).

Colin Mackerras and Amanda Yorke, The Cambridge Handbook of Contemporary China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

Willard H. Myers III, "Of Qinqing, Qinshu, Guanxi, and Shetou: The Dynamic Elements of Chinese Irregular Population Movement, Human Smuggling: Chinese Migrant Trafficking and the Challenge to America's Immigration Tradition (The Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., 1997).

Willard H. Myers III, "Orb Weavers -- The Global Webs: The Structure and Activities of Transnational Ethnic Chinese Criminal Groups," Transnational Organized Crime, Vol. I, No. 4, Winter 1995.

Ronald Skeldon, "Myths and Realities of Chinese Irregualr Migration," IOM Migration Research Series, January 2000.

Ronald Skeldon,"Migration from China," Journal of International Affairs, Winter 1996.

Sheng Wang, "Ocean-Going Smuggling of Illegal Chinese Immigrants: Operation, Causation and Policy Implications," Transnational Organized Crime, Spring 1996.