Chinatown

In Chinatown, Min Zhou examines how an ethnic enclave works to direct its members into American society, while at the same time shielding them from it. Focusing specifically on New York's Chinatown, a community established more than a century ago, Zhou offers a thorough and modern treatment of the immigrant enclave as a socioeconomic system, distinct from, but intrinsically linked with, the larger society. It is difficult for Americans to understand the Chinese experience in Chinatown: while it is located in New York City and many other American cities, this exotic and even forbidding world is really many worlds away. Some view the immigrant enclave as a place where newcomers--naive, ignorant of labor rights, and with language barriers--are mercilessly exploited by fellow Chinese. Zhou's central theme is that Chinatown does not keep immigrant Chinese from assimilating into mainstream society, but instead provides an alternative means of incorporation into society that does not conflict with cultural distinctiveness. In his Foreword, Alejandro Portes observes that this "may exploit some but ... gives others their only chance of someday launching their own enterprises." Concentrating