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Every year migrants across the globe send more than $500 billion to
relatives in their home countries, and this circulation of money
has important personal, cultural, and emotional implications for
the immigrants and their family members alike. "Insufficient Funds"
tells the story of how low-wage Vietnamese immigrants in the United
States and their poor, non-migrant family members give, receive,
and spend money.
Drawing on interviews and fieldwork with more than one hundred
members of transnational families, Hung Cam Thai examines how and
why immigrants, who largely earn low wages as hairdressers,
cleaners, and other "invisible" workers, send home a substantial
portion of their earnings, as well as spend lavishly on relatives
during return trips. Extending beyond mere altruism, this spending
is motivated by complex social obligations and the desire to gain
self-worth despite their limited economic opportunities in the
United States. At the same time, such remittances raise
expectations for standards of living, producing a cascade effect
that monetizes family relationships. "Insufficient Funds"
powerfully illuminates these and other contradictions associated
with money and its new meanings in an increasingly transnational
world.
Every year migrants across the globe send more than $500 billion to
relatives in their home countries, and this circulation of money
has important personal, cultural, and emotional implications for
the immigrants and their family members alike. "Insufficient Funds"
tells the story of how low-wage Vietnamese immigrants in the United
States and their poor, non-migrant family members give, receive,
and spend money.
Drawing on interviews and fieldwork with more than one hundred
members of transnational families, Hung Cam Thai examines how and
why immigrants, who largely earn low wages as hairdressers,
cleaners, and other "invisible" workers, send home a substantial
portion of their earnings, as well as spend lavishly on relatives
during return trips. Extending beyond mere altruism, this spending
is motivated by complex social obligations and the desire to gain
self-worth despite their limited economic opportunities in the
United States. At the same time, such remittances raise
expectations for standards of living, producing a cascade effect
that monetizes family relationships. "Insufficient Funds"
powerfully illuminates these and other contradictions associated
with money and its new meanings in an increasingly transnational
world.
This issue addresses how laborers within intimate industries-those
who do interpersonal work that tends to the sexual, bodily, health,
hygiene, or care needs of individuals-are shaping Asia's growing
role in the global economy. The contributors investigate how
intimate industries support relational connections for consumers
while disrupting laborers' relationships, as in the case of
migrants who perform intimate labor away from their families and
communities of origin. The articles collected here include
examinations of such trade-offs and their complex meanings and
implications for the workers. The authors explore these social
processes through the lens of industries that organize, enable, or
delimit the trade in domestic labor, marriage migration,
companionship and romance, sex work, pornographic performance,
surrogate mothering and ova donation, and cosmetics sales. This
issue puts people, as embodied subjects, back into narratives of
economic change and offers a perspective on globalization from
below. Contributors: Daniele Belanger, Hae Yeon Choo, Nicole
Constable, Daisy Deomampo, Akhil Gupta, Chaitanya Lakkimsetti,
Pei-Chia Lan, Purnima Mankekar, Eileen Otis, Juno Salazar Parrenas,
Rhacel Parrenas, Sharmila Rudrappa, Celine Parrenas Shimizu, Rachel
Silvey, Hung Cam Thai, Leslie Wang
"A tremendously important contribution to the study of gender and
migration with its focus on the oft-ignored topic of masculinity."
-Rhacel Salazar Parrenas, author of Children of Global Migration:
Transnational Families and Gendered Woes "This book should be
required reading for anyone with an interest in transnationalism,
migration, cross-border marriages, or postwar Vietnamese
diaspora."-Nicole Constable, author of Romance on a Global Stage:
Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and "Mail Order" Marriages "A
beautifully conceptualized and fascinating book."-Barrie Thorne,
University of California at Berkeley Marriage is currently the
number-one reason people migrate to the United States, and women
constitute the majority of newcomers joining husbands who already
reside here. But little is known about these marriage and migration
streams beyond the highly publicized and often sensationalized
phenomena of mail-order and military brides. Less commonly known is
that most international couples are immigrants of the same
ethnicity. In For Better or For Worse, Hung Cam Thai takes a closer
look at marriage and migration, with a specific focus on the unions
between Vietnamese men living in the United States and the women
who marry them. Weaving together a series of personal stories, he
underscores the ironies and challenges that these unions face. He
includes the voices of working-class immigrant men speaking about
wanting "traditional" wives and young Vietnamese college-educated
women, who express a preference for men of the same ethnicity but
with a more liberal outlook on gender-men they imagine they will
find in the United States. Thai captures the incompatible
viewpoints of the couples who appear to be separated not only
geographically but ideologically. Hung Cam Thai is an assistant
professor of sociology and Asian American Studies at Pomona
College.
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