The Resentful Foreigner: Racializing Chinese Workers in Asian Fusion Restaurants

In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, anti-im/migrants rhetoric has again been elevated to the national stage. This heightened tension reflects deep anxieties of white residents over the increasing presence of "newcomers" in small-town America. In the last two decades, more and more Latino/a migrant workers have steered clear of traditional gateway cities such as Los Angeles and New York City, and have instead opted to settle in what some scholars call "new destinations."¹ Much of the immigration literature has focused on how the incorporation of "newcomers" disrupts the traditional Black white racial hierarchy in the United States. What remains understudied is the increasing presence of Chinese migrant workers in these new destinations.

The influx of Chinese migrants in towns and suburbs across the United States is partially facilitated by the proliferation of Chinese restaurants. During the past three decades, the number of Chinese restaurants has skyrocketed to almost fifty thousand in the United States, outnumbering locations of McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Domino's, and Pizza Hut combined.² This trend has been followed by the recent surge of Asian fusion restaurants run by Chinese im/migrants in more middle-class neighborhoods.³ This geographical shift in the industry and the associated labor migration have generated what Leitner calls "spaces of encounters" between new migrants of color and the predominantly white residents in these neighborhoods.⁴ Central to Leitner's study is the process of racialization and how racial identities and attitudes of white residents shape these encounters.⁵ By focusing on racial attitudes in these encounters, there is an implicit understanding that these attitudes could translate into broader anti-im/migrants discourses and practices. However, scholarship on how im/migrants experience these spaces of encounters remains insufficient. This gap is particularly salient for those who understand racism and racial structures not just are reproduced through institutional forms (laws, policies, and etc.), but crystalize through bodily practices and everyday social interactions.

As such, this essay contributes to the literature on the racialization of Chinese im/migrants in small-town America—a new frontier of racial interactions—by examining how social dynamics in the workplace produce racial meanings for the migrant workers. Importantly, their workplace must be the site of analysis not only because the Chinese workers spend much of their time at work, but also because the nature of the work generates new racial dynamics between coworkers that are now racially diverse, as well as between the workers and the predominantly white patrons. Such racial dynamics inevitably draw heightened attention to existing stereotypes and perceptions of Asians/Americans in the United States. Thus, this analysis of racial dynamics in Asian fusion restaurants help to reconceptualize the racialization of Asians/Americans in the United States and better understand the political subjectivities that may emerge.

Theoretical Considerations: Racialized Labor and Racializing Labor

Discussions on racialization and labor have centered on two epistemological approaches: racialized labor and racializing labor. The first approach takes on a structural scale analysis and is concerned with the segmentation of labor by race. Some argue that the global capitalist system is structured by groups of workers positioned within a hierarchal labor system that exploits them differently based on racialized (and gendered) positions.⁶ As such, dominant racialized groups are afforded more privileges and are less susceptible to exploitation than subordinate racialized labor groups.⁷ For instance, Glenn's study of the years between Reconstruction and 1930 shows in various U.S. regions how citizenship rights and labor market access were divided along racial and gender lines.⁸ More recently, Maldonado's study illuminates how agricultural employers' racial perceptions and attitudes shape the evaluation of workers and in turn produce a racialized division of labor.⁹

This conception is useful in understanding the proliferation of Chinese and Asian fusion restaurants and the concentration of Chinese labor in the restaurant industry. Kwong traces the isolation of Chinese workers to a long history of exclusion from the mainstream labor market in the United States. Early Chinese im/migrants labor in California's gold mines...