SOSC 300K

1
SOSC 300K

• Note 8 Immigrant Economy

2
Major Issues

• 1. The Theory Embeddedness and immigrant
  economy
• A. Definition of Social capital
• B. the positive and negative effects of social
  capital in immigrant economy
• 2. An Example Chinese Immigrant Economy in
  colonial Asia

3
Embeddedness and immigrant economy

• Immigrant economy immigrants tend to organize
  themselves to respond to the economic
  opportunities in host society
• Immigrants not only physically move to a new
  society but they also carry the social capital
  from their original society

4
Four Types of Social capital

• 1. Value introjection the source that prompts
  individuals to behave in ways other than naked
  greed. In other words, individuals are expected
  to behave according to a higher group morality
• 2. Reciprocity exchange individuals are expected
  to pursue selfish ends through social interaction
  (the social relationship is translated into
  material interests)
• 3. Bounded solidarity situational circumstances
  that can lead to the emergence of principled
  group-oriented behavior quite apart from any
  early value introjection, such as the making of
  working-class consciousness
• 4. Enforceable trust individual members
  subordinate their present desires to collective
  expectations in anticipation of
  utilitieslong-term market advantages by virtue
  of group membership

5
Bounded Solidarity and Immigrant Economy (1)

• How did the bounded solidarity develop?
• 1. Confrontation between immigrants and the
  receiving society is capable not only of
  activating dormant feelings of nationality among
  immigrants but of creating such feelings where
  none exists before
• 2. Levels of confrontation account for the
  different strength of reactive solidarity.

6
Bounded Solidarity and Immigrant Economy (2)

• Levels of confrontation are determined by the
  following factors
• 1. The cultural and linguistic distance between
  home country and receiving society and the
  distinctness of immigrants relative to the
  native-born population govern, to a large extent,
  the magnitude of the clash
• 2. The possibility of exit from the host
  society to return home
• Bounded solidarity shared with the first source
  of social capital (value introjection) an element
  of moral obligation. Individuals behave in
  certain way because they must (either because
  they have been socialized in the values or they
  enact emergent sentiments of loyalty to people
  like them)

7
Bounded Solidarity and Immigrant Economy (3)

• For the immigrant communities that ethnic
  identity has already been formed in their host
  society (such as Chinese, Jewish and Latinas),
  the emergent solidarity is reinforced out of
  confrontation with a foreign society with a sense
  of cultural continuity and autonomous presence
• But for some other immigrant communities (such as
  peasants from Poland and southern Italy in the U.
  S.), their ethnic identity was made in the host
  society (made in America in this context)
• In the second case, where does the social capital
  generate from?
• Social capital arising out of situational
  confrontation is strongest when the resulting
  bounded solidarity is not limited to the actual
  events but brings about the construction of an
  alternative definition of the situation based on
  reenactment of past practices and a common
  cultural memory

8
Enforceable Trust (1)

• Social capital of a community is based on the
  internal sanctioning capacity of the community
  itself but not on outward confrontation
• This source of social capital shares with
  reciprocity exchange a strong instrumental
  orientation individuals behave according to
  expectations not only because they must, but out
  of fear of punishment or in anticipation of
  rewards

9
Enforceable Trust (2)

• Enforceable trust varies greatly with the
  characteristics of the community
• A. If the community is the sole or principal
  source of certain rewards, enforceable trust is
  strong.
• B. When immigrants can draw on a variety of
  valued resources (from social approval to
  business opportunities) from their association
  with outsiders, the enforceable trust in the
  community would be low.
• C. What happens on the outside must be balanced
  with the resources available in the ethnic
  community itself.

10
Enforceable Trust (3)

• A second- or third-generation Chinese American or
  Jewish-American may still choose to preserve
  their ethnic ties though outside discrimination
  disappears. They sustain their ethnic networks
  because they offer opportunities
• In contrast, a resource-poor immigrant community
  will have trouble enforcing normative patterns
  even if its members continue to face severe
  outside discrimination (the case of Haitian
  community in Miami)

11
Negative Effects (1)

• Costs of Community Solidarity the existence of a
  measure of solidarity and trust in a community
  represents a precondition for the emergence of a
  network of successful enterprises. However, the
  exacerbation of these sentiments and obligations
  can conspire against exactly such a network
• --successful entrepreneurs pressure from the
  demands of co-ethnic people

12
Negative Effects (2)

• Constraints on Freedom an expression of the
  age-old dilemma between tightly knit immigrant
  communities and individual freedom in the modern
  metropolis
• E. g. San Franciscos Chinatown top family clans
  and Chinese Six Companies regulated the business
  and social life of the community, guaranteeing
  its normative order and privileged access to
  resources for its entrepreneurs. Such assets came
  at the cost of restrictions on most members
  scope of action and access to the outside world.
  In Victor Nee and Brett de Barry Nees interview,
  in Californian Chinatown any young person who
  wants to make some changes, they people of the
  supreme associations call him a communist right
  away.

13
Negative Effects (3)

• Leveling Pressures the fear that a solidarity
  born out of common adversity would be undermined
  by the departure of the more successful members
• Minorities in the U. S. inner city
• The longer the economic mobility of a group has
  been blocked by coercive nonmarket means, then
  the more likely the emergence of a bounded
  solidarity that negates the possibility of
  advancement through fair market competition and
  that opposes individual efforts in this direction

14
Chinese Immigrant Networks in Colonial Asia
Primary origins of Chinese overseas (before W. W.
II.)
15
Chinese Immigrant Economy

• Transnational Business Networks operated along
  sub-ethnic lines (native-place and dialect
  groups)
• The case of inter-war Singapore

16
The Big Three Singapore Chinese Rubber
Manufactures
Teo Eng Hocks (1871-1958) Peoples Rubber Goods
Manufactory
Tan Kah Kees (1874-1964) Tan Kah Kee Co.
The Nanyang Rubber Manufacture
17
Interlocking Relationship among the Singapore
Chinese Business Elites (with the Tan Kah Kee
family as the center)
Goh Shiok Neo (1874-1974)
Tan Kah Kee (1874-1964)
Teo Po-ke (1876-1916)


Lim Nee Soon (1879-1936)
Chew Hean Swee (1884-1964)
Yap Geok Twee
Lim Chong Kuo
Tan Ai Eng
Chew Pek Leong
Tan Guan Aik
Elizabeth Yap Guat Eng
Long Kong Chian
Tan Ai Lay
Tan had four wives and at least 18 children. The
chart here only refers to those married to
important capitalists of the rubber-pineapple
complex or banking in Singapore.

Marriage ties (number in the parenthis is the
year of the marriage taken place)
Parental relationship
Sources 1) C. F. Yong 1987 2) Interview of Tan
Keong Choon (1918- ) (son of Tan Kah Kees
brother Tan Keng Hian), OHC Synopsis Report, No.
52, Reel 13 (date of first recording
30/08/1981), National Archives, Singapore
18
Importation of Rubber Shoes by Countries
Source 1. 1927 NKZ, V. 17, N. 5 48 2.
1928-1930 NKZ, V. 18, N. 3, 11-12 3. 1931,
NKZ, V. 19, N. 313 4. 1932-1933 NKZ, V. 20, N.
4 38-39 5. 1934 NKZ, V. 22, N. 4 24-5.
19
Estimated Retail Prices of Rubber-soled Canvas
Shoes, 1931
Big Three Singapore Chinese Rubber Manufactures Big Three Singapore Chinese Rubber Manufactures Big Three Singapore Chinese Rubber Manufactures Japan
Tan Kah Kee Co. People's Rubber Goods Manufactory Nanyang Manufacturing Co. Japan
95 cents 65 cents 80 cents 63 cents
Based on the following most popular trademarks
Washington, Moon Star, 3 Heroes and B.
B. B.
20
The Tan Kah Kee Co.
Tan Kah Kee Co. hired, 4,088 employees in the
beginning of 1929, and all of them were ethnic
Chinese (Supplement to SSGG, Friday, July 11,
1930, Annual Report of the Labor Department for
the year 1929, Appendix F).
21
Trade Volumes of Wholesale Agents of Japanese
Commodities, by Ethnic Origins
22
The concentration center of Japanese goods High
Street, Singapore
Photo of High Street, Singapore (circa 1940)
Source National Archives, Singapore
23
Trans-national Cantonese Business Networks in the
Trade of Japan Goods in Southeast Asia
Based on NKZ, V. 26, N. 12 126-8.
24
Hong Kong Firms in the Exhibition of Chinese
National Product, Singapore, October 10, 1936
25
Questions and Discussion

• Bounded Solidarity in the Singapore Chinese
  business community
• Enforceable Trust in the community

• Which of the following negative effects can be
  applied to the case?
• 1. costs of community solidarity
• 2. constraints of freedom
• 3. leveling pressures