In Lisa Ko’s The Leavers, the mother, Polly, is an undocumented Chinese immigrant, working at a nail salon. To better understand employment of undocumented immigrants, I looked to the NY Times article “The Life of an Undocumented South Asian Immigrant”, “The Overlooked Undocumented Immigrants”, and a final article titled “Addressing Labor Exploitation”. From these articles, a general narrative is built. For undocumented Asian Americans at work, they are often underpaid or not paid at all for their work, or physically and sexually abused in the workplace. Wage theft is common and seldom reported. Many workers continue to work in these roles, as they must support their families and themselves, and they have no legal pathways to employment as undocumented immigrants.
In understanding why these people continue to work in such harsh conditions, the 2 New York Times articles highlight the motivations for working in these challenging roles. In the first article, a Nepalese man named Nirmal sends his wages back to his wife and his daughter he has never met. When asked why, he states that there are no opportunities in Nepal, and he has no choice but to send money to his wife. In the second article, an Indian engineer named Ankit, interviewed by the Times, explains that the workers found sleeping inside their restaurant are undocumented and argues that there are no legal pathways for the men to work or become documented.
These articles make clear why many illegal immigrants work in challenging or illegal roles, like Polly at the nail salon. To put it simply, many immigrants do not have a choice. While Nirmal, above, does so to support his family, the men Ankit notices do so because there are no legal options of work or documentation available to them. In our novel, Polly works as an undocumented immigrant because she has to, to support both herself and Deming. For most undocumented workers, their employment and undocumented status are not voluntary, but required as a means of survival.
Works Cited
Bhattacharya, Piyali. “The Life of an Undocumented South Asian Immigrant.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Nov. 2013, https://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/the-life-of-an-undocumented-south-asian-immigrant/.
Jordan, Miriam. “The Overlooked Undocumented Immigrants: From India, China, Brazil.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Dec. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/01/us/undocumented-visa-overstays.html.
Ko, Lisa. The Leavers: A Novel. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2018.
Nguyen-Ngo, Matt. “Addressing Labor Exploitation: An Examination of Undocumented Asian Americans in the Workplace.” Asian American Policy Review, 3 Sept. 2020, https://aapr.hkspublications.org/2020/06/02/addressing-labor-exploitation-an-examination-of-undocumented-asian-americans-in-the-workplace/.
I really enjoyed reading your blog post. The information you provided from the articles provides a great background on how Asian Americans are underpaid or sometimes not paid at all. Great Post!
I enjoyed reading your blog post. It is informational and brings light on the struggles of being an illegal immigrant. The challenges that they face daily are unimaginable. Not having opportunities from where your are from and not being able to see your family is unfair. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to make a decent living and not being separated from your family. I am hoping we can get there as a nation.
Thanks for a captivating read on the difficulties faced by these southern Asian American workers. I never knew the struggles many of these workers have to sympathize with because of the lack of opportunities in their own nation. It breaks my heart that some of these workers have to send part of their minimum wage incomes back to their families back home.
Thanks for your post. I was not aware of how prevalent wage theft and abuse is for undocumented workers. It just goes to show that you never know what is going on in someone else’s life and how difficult it can be for an immigrant to find fair work in America.
Great job with your post! I feel like you did a great job of providing information with this week, and I feel prepared to start reading the book!
Thank you so much for your blog, telling some situation of those people and why they chose to work while facing so much bad treatments. And this provide the context for the reading we need to finish. Also, I would like to know some more about this situation such as how we can solve this problem and how these people balance their work and their family.
Great context, I agree the immigration laws are always changing, I couldn’t imagine living in a country that is not my homeland with the fears of reproduction’s for if I may not have done something right, or being repressed because I chose to move to improve my life.
Thank you for some additional context for the novel. Wage theft is the most common form of theft, and so much more should be done to protect undocumented workers from being exploited.
I really liked your presentation, and the way you included two different articles to further your understanding. The information you gathered from your outside research helped give me a better understanding for the process and hardships faced as an undocumented immigrants. This makes it easier to understand “The Leavers”, and the events that take place.
Hi! I really enjoyed your context presentation. I think you gave great insights into why immigrants work in such challenging roles. It is very eye opening to know this and have background about it going into reading The Leavers this week. It is very saddening to hear that people have to work in these harsh and unethical places.
Thanks so much for sharing about the information wages. It’s understandable for Polly Guo to work illegally in America in my opinion because she is trying her best to support her family. Back in the day the wages in developing countries are so low, especially for low-skilled workers.
This is a really great post! I believe you give a comprehensive background about this week’s reading. In before, I only know those people who work illegally and undocumented are living in a harsh environment, but I have no idea about what it specific like. You show me a detailed fact, even it is so sad.
Great way to put this presentation, i love the details that you added in about the good in the work of immigrants. Immigrants are always painted in a bad light. They really have no choice but to work hard for their family. I love how you added the pork they do even if its directed for immigrants they still put in the work to try and even make ends meet for their families, they even put in more work that some of the people who were born here.
I find your post very informative and relevant. I do believe undocumented immigrants are working in harsh conditions and are victims of wage theft. like you mentioned they have no way out of that because they have to support their family or they can not make legal documents and continue to get exploited.
Hi, I really enjoy reading your context research about undocumented immigrant workers. Before reading the text, I did not know most of the immigrant workers have such a hard way to work legally in the States. I think in the future I will read more about this kind of social issue problems.
I really enjoyed this post. There are a lot of nuances with immigration that I feel fly over many heads. A lot of people don’t understand how difficult it can be for you to legally immigrate into a country. A lot of times people are simply looking for a fresh start, or to take care of their families.