Tag: Migrant Labor (Non-Agriculture)

The Chinese Immigrants Making Their Way to New York City

Media Library

When busloads of migrants from Venezuela and Latin America started turning up on New York City streets in 2022, it spurred a crisis that has overwhelmed city shelters and incited protests over immigration policies. And while Mayor Eric Adams and city leaders have sought to slow the pace of new arrivals, there has been another, smaller but also growing group of migrants coming into the city — largely unnoticed. Thousands of Chinese migrants have also made their way to New York, with many following on the heels of migrants from…

Migrant Workers Propelled China’s Rise. Now Many See Few Options.

Media Library

“My ideal country is one where the people live in peace and prosperity, where there is food safety, freedom of speech, justice, a media that can expose injustices, a five-day, eight-hour workweek for workers,” said Mr. Zhang, the unemployed welder. “If these can be achieved, I will support whoever is in power, regardless of their party or how long they govern.” The other reality facing migrant workers is that returning to their villages to earn money farming is not an option, as Mr. Xi said it was. There is not…

Migrant Workers Fuel Protests Over China’s ‘Zero Covid’ Restrictions

Chin@Strategy

The Haizhu District of Guangzhou, where the clashes took place, is a center of garment production, and tens of thousands of migrant workers from rural China make a living in small factories, shops and diners that cram its streets. But there and across much of China, Covid restrictions on work and travel have added to a wider economic slowdown and pushed many small businesses into closure or bankruptcy, leaving migrant workers struggling to make a living. “People don’t have anywhere to vent their frustration,” said a local resident surnamed Hu,…

Deep Underground, a Chinese Miner Discovered Poetry in the Toil

Chin@Strategy

In 2011, he found a broader audience via the blogging craze then spreading across China. Online, he met other poets, amateur and professional. One day in 2014, a well-known critic, Qin Xiaoyu, happened across Mr. Chen’s blog and asked to meet. Over the next year, Mr. Qin and a filmmaker, Wu Feiyue, followed Mr. Chen and five other migrant worker poets, for a documentary called “The Verse of Us” (later released internationally as “Iron Moon”). The film, released in 2015, received considerable attention — in part because of tragedy. Another…