The Price of Passage

In the hundreds of garment shops that dot New York City's Chinatown, today's immigrant women are paid by the piece for their sewing: 6¢ for a T-shirt, 7¢ for a shirt with hood and zipper, 9¢ for a shirt with five buttons, 7¢ for a long dress, and 8¢ for pants with a zipper and two pockets. It is not unusual for women in these sweatshops to work 6 days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day, for about $600 a month. Children often accompany their mothers to work after school, and "generous" bosses allow these child laborers to trim loose threads from the garments.

Most of today's immigrants leave behind intense poverty in the rural areas surrounding the city of Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian Province, across the straits from Taiwan. Most have been told that, if they work hard enough, they will be able to make a better living for themselves and support their families back home. The journey is not easy. Human smugglers now charge over $60,000 per person for the voyage. Undocumented immigrants arrive deeply indebted and often serve for five or six years virtually as indentured laborers.

When we eat inexpensive Chinese food or wear inexpensive clothes from many major US apparel companies, our savings often come out of the pockets of struggling immigrants. With the help of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, the Chinese United Methodist Church in New York City has opened an immigration clinic at Five Points Mission to help exploited Chinese workers.