Inspiration for this project...

The Borderless (American) Dreams story project documents my parent’s story of migration from Fujian, China to the United States. Their first settlements were on the East Coast, and they spent the majority of their ten years there in New York. Due to the language barrier, like many other Fuzhounese, my parents primarily worked in the restaurant industry and had lower demand for the English language. My parents’ jobs varied widely from waitress in Pennsylvania to food delivery in Manhattan to Hibachi performance in Connecticut. Due to transformations in the American economy and a rise in career opportunities, my parents eventually moved to Minnesota to start and became entrepreneurs: opening their own Japanese Sushi and Hibachi restaurant. On this canvas, I illustrated the path of migration by connecting China and the final settlement in MN.

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My parents were asylum seekers who left China and were part of the unofficial Fuzhounese migration movement. The first Fuzhounese migration movement started in the 1940s and peaked in the 1980s in New York. The majority of the present-day Fuzhounese population in the United States is composed of immigrants that came during the 1980s or later.

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The attraction of economic opportunities, coupled with the favorable currency exchange rate of 8:1 between dollars and RMB during the 1980s, drew a significant number of Fuzhounese immigrants. Many came in pursuit of an improved quality of life and the ultimate American Dream. These were jobs that often demanded more than 12 hours of work each day and paid as little as $2 per hour. Nevertheless, these earnings were still comparatively higher than what could be obtained in China (due to the huge unemployment rate). 

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Some arrived legally; nonetheless, the majority of Fuzhounese entered the country as undocumented immigrants, facilitated by individuals known as 'snakeheads' and their extensive human smuggling networks. Every year over 100,000 Chinese go into large debt, paying up to $50,000 to go overseas.

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“Go back to your country,” my parents have heard this phrase many times in various tones and faced many forms of discrimination. On top of suffering from large debt, this was a common struggle that existed not only for Fuzhou immigrants but many first-generation immigrants who lacked the language skillset. Most often, immigrants from Fuzhou during the 1980s came in smuggled, which meant they would also be facing exploitation because they had no legal protection under the Constitutional law.

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Because there’s an already established Asian community in Minnesota and the various family connections today, more Chinese are now directly migrating to Minnesota.