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A Public Choice theory of Chinese food
Seth Roberts, citing Jennifer 8 Lee, writes:
Why did Chinese immigrants to America start so many restaurants? Because Chinese cuisine is glorious, right? Well, no. Chinese immigrants started a lot of laundries, too, and there is nothing wonderful about Chinese ways of washing clothes. As Jennifer Lee explains in this excellent talk, the first Chinese immigrants were laborers. They were taking jobs away from American men, and this caused problems. Restaurants and laundries were much safer immigrant jobs because cooking and cleaning were women’s work.
By the way, here is some work on immigrant complementarity with native labor. George Borjas rebuts.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 7, 2008 at 06:17 AM in Food and Drink, History | Permalink
Comments
Except restaurants are usually run by men. Look at the list of executive chefs and it's as male dominated as a list of Fortune 500 CEOs. Probably the better explanation is that Chinese immigrants brought their families over and restaurants, groceries and laundries are businesses that can easily employ every member of the family. Go into a Chinese laundry, grocery store or restaurant and you'll usually see an older man, woman and teenage kid all working at various times. It's about maximizing household income.
Posted by: Mo at May 7, 2008 10:16:52 AM
Absolutely. A great book on a chinese immigrant enclave in India tells a similar story: Blood, Sweat, and Mahjong: Family and Enterprise in an Overseas Chinese Community, by Ellen Oxfeld. A good number of the immigrants there took up jobs at tanneries or performed other work that indians either relegated to the untouchables or would refuse to do outright.
Posted by: Adam Hyland at May 7, 2008 10:22:19 AM
As Jennifer Lee explains in this excellent talk, the first Chinese immigrants were laborers. They were taking jobs away from American men, and this caused problems.
Yes, "problems" . . . as in repeated violent anti-Asian riots in San Francisco and other parts of California, not to mention a few attempts by San Franciscans to impose Jim Crow against Japanese and Chinese populations. That kind of thing is a pretty big disincentive against stepping on the natives' turf. I'm not sure there's anything comparable that would drive immigrant/native complementarity today. Is there?
Posted by: Taeyoung at May 7, 2008 11:07:48 AM
I wouldn't underestimate the cultural networks that exist within immigrtant communties.
I remember an article in the LA Times years back that addressed the question 'Why are all the donut stores in LA run by Cambodians?"
It turns out there is no natural link between Cambodians and donuts, but there is a close knit Cambodian community that teaches each other the ins and outs of how to succeed in the donut business.
Posted by: diz at May 7, 2008 11:15:39 AM
Mo,
I think you missed the point about the male/female employment. It says "They were taking jobs away from American men, and this caused problems. Restaurants and laundries were much safer immigrant jobs because cooking and cleaning were women’s work."
It is not about who is running the restaurants and laundries, but who they were competing for jobs with - American men don't lose out, as American men didn't run those things at that time. At that time, those jobs were done (at home) by women.
Although your point is also good - any job that could employ the whole family (i.e. most small businesses) are often better for immigrants than ones which only employ one member (like manual labor jobs). Manual labor jobs for immigrants are probably useful when only one member comes to the country.
Posted by: liberty at May 7, 2008 11:21:14 AM
I sincerely hope that Lee mentions the fact (at least in passing) that language skills were an important, if not primary, cause. It is still true today, and why so many dry cleaners are operated by Koreans, nail shops operated by Vietnamese, and why so many Taiwanese bought small motels in the 1980's. The vocabulary needed to successfully operate is small, predictable, and thus relatively easy to learn. As an economist, you might be interested in the choices made during the immigration wave of the early '80's as well. There are definitely economic reasons that Taiwanese purchased motels (average price at the time $100k+), Korean immigrants went in for dry cleaners and fish & chip stores (average price $50,000), Laotians looked to donut shops (sub-$20,000) and Vietnamese nail salons.
Posted by: RW Rogers at May 7, 2008 11:40:59 AM
If you don't have any skills, cooking and cleaning are pretty natural. Look at all the Mexican restaurants now. We have Arab and Indian convenience stores. These things don't require much in the way of skills and are easily taught. Aren't chefs usually male? Where did this feminist stuff come from?
Posted by: jorod at May 7, 2008 12:10:26 PM
It had nothing to do with sex. The reason they weren't competing is because they opened Chinese restaurants.
Posted by: 8 at May 7, 2008 12:54:19 PM
I'm with you 8. What a no-brainer.
Posted by: at May 7, 2008 1:59:44 PM
The reason they weren't competing is because they opened Chinese restaurants.
I realize that there's the joke about eating and being hungry again an hour later, but surely someone who eats at a Chinese restaurant isn't going to eat somewhere else at the same time? Certainly Chinese restaurants compete with other restaurants.
Posted by: John Thacker at May 7, 2008 4:40:56 PM
Restaurants were very old Chinese institutions -- they were one of the reasons the Mongols didn't burn China down and convert it to horse pasture after they conquered it. The younger Mongols liked restaurants, among much else about Chinese culture, and persuaded their elders just to keep it the way it was. So, the Chinese had an ancient advantage in restaurant skills.
As for laundries, prospectors in 1849 were mailing their dirty longjohns to Honolulu to be washed (presumably by Chinese), so there was a clear unmet demand for laundries in San Francisco, which the Chinese, with their traditionally higher standards of cleanliness, could easily fulfill.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at May 7, 2008 5:26:56 PM
Restaurants were very old Chinese institutions -- they were one of the reasons the Mongols didn't burn China down and convert it to horse pasture after they conquered it. The younger Mongols liked restaurants, among much else about Chinese culture, and persuaded their elders just to keep it the way it was. So, the Chinese had an ancient advantage in restaurant skills.
As for laundries, prospectors in 1849 were mailing their dirty longjohns to Honolulu to be washed (presumably by Chinese), so there was a clear unmet demand for laundries in San Francisco, which the Chinese, with their traditionally higher standards of cleanliness, could easily fulfill.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at May 7, 2008 5:29:07 PM
It is not about who is running the restaurants and laundries, but who they were competing for jobs with - American men don't lose out, as American men didn't run those things at that time. At that time, those jobs were done (at home) by women.
Yes, but men don't get mad when handymen exist or someone opens up a new repair shop, even though repairing things at home is traditionally male. However, handymen and other repair shops and their proprietors get upset when new competition enters their market. Those proprietors are the ones that get upset and those proprietors, like the proprietors of most groceries and restaurants are male.
Posted by: Mo at May 7, 2008 7:08:35 PM
seriously, prospectors were sending their laundry to hawaii? that can't possibly be true, can it?
Posted by: Mike at May 7, 2008 7:20:17 PM
seriously, prospectors were sending their laundry to hawaii? that can't possibly be true, can it?
I've read it in other places, but it wasn't due to the Chinese having higher standards of cleanliness. (Have you ever been to Beijing or Shanghai? They're not exactly clean cities.) It's due to the high costs of services in the area. This was more true in the early gold rush years and less true as more people moved over and more services opened.
Posted by: Mo at May 7, 2008 10:12:09 PM
"The first Chinese immigrants were laborers. They were taking jobs away from American men, and this caused problems." - quote your guys here.
The first Europeans were taking lifes away from American Indians, and does this cause a problem to them and their offsprings?
Posted by: Amy at May 8, 2008 2:32:19 PM
