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"A must-read for anyone interested in how immigrants are changing America. The important story the book tells is not just of immigrant pluck, though there is plenty of that, but also of immigrant inventiveness—how Chinese newcomers have created institutions, such as bus lines, that support immigrant mobility and also influence the mainstream. There's a major lesson here for twenty-first-century America."—Richard Alba, author of The Great Demographic Illusion: Majority, Minority, and the Expanding American Mainstream
"From Chinatown to Every Town tells the story of immigrant Chinese restaurant entrepreneurs and their coethnic workers who are spreading out to rural places and small towns in America's heartland. Filled with intriguing detail, it keeps readers engaged in thinking critically about broader issues of immigrant spatial settlement, ethnic network formation, and socioeconomic integration."—Min Zhou, author of Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave
"From Chinatown to Every Town offers a trenchant and fascinating analysis of the social structures and economic processes that undergird the spread of Chinese restaurants out of Manhattan's Chinatown and into new destinations throughout the United States, thereby creating an integrated, multisite enclave economy that functions as a dynamic 'job machine' for immigrants and natives alike. Beyond being an important scholarly contribution, it's also a great read."—Douglas S. Massey, Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University
List of contents
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
2. Job Search: From Immigrant Networks to Market-Based Institutions
3. Making the Connection: The Story of the Chinatown Bus
4. Choices for New Immigrant Destinations
5. New Businesses in New Places: Adaptation and Race Relations
6. The Ties That Bind: Between Chinatown in Manhattan and New Immigrant Destinations
7. Conclusion
Appendix A: Methods
Appendix B: Analysis of Job Locations
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Zai Liang is Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Albany.
