Forbidden Workers: Illegal Chinese Immigrants and American Labor

Hailed by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “a must-read,” Forbidden Workers tells for the first time the full story of recent Chinese immigration to this country. Widely praised from the Wall Street Journal to Asian Week, the book uses the Chinese experience to shed light on broader issues of immigration from countries around the world. Author Peter Kwong has interviewed countless immigrant workers, activists, Chinatown powerbrokers, and “snakeheads” (smugglers who bring immigrants to the United States) and has traveled to China to talk with families of immigrants. The result is an unprecedented look at an invisible community within American society—and at a billion-dollar industry whose commodity is workers who labor under conditions approaching modern slavery.