Summary work cite

Student Name

Date

Annotated Bibliography

Wage Theft of Undocumented Workers in the Restaurant Industry

Carter, Crystal. “San Francisco Chinatown Restaurant Workers Fight for Fair Employment.”

Race, Poverty & the Environment, vol. 18, no. 1, 1 Jan. 2011, pp. 15-16. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/41555303.

In her article “San Francisco Chinatown Restaurant Workers Fight for Fair Employment” (2011), Crystal Carter reveals the harsh reality that many Chinese immigrants in the U.S. face working in the largely unregulated restaurant industry of San Francisco's Chinatown. Carter details the story of Li Shuang Li to show how the threat of deportation or loss of job leads to fear of speaking up which leads to unfair treatment by employers. The unfair treatment in this particular story is wage theft. The author explains how Li was met with threats of termination when confronting her employer about denial of wages owed. The author then moves away to the larger picture of the restaurant industry in Chinatown and how common these instances like the one faced by Li are. Crystal Carter believes these instances continue to happen for several reason. Perhaps the biggest reason is the fact that many Chinese immigrant workers are monolingual and not familiar with various U.S. labor laws. This source is credible because it is an article published in a journal called Race, Poverty and the environment. This source is unique in that it looks at a very specific occurrence and relates it to the bigger issue. A lot of my sources are looking at wage theft on a macro level. This article will be a good use of direct evidence to support my major claim. It is specific in the sense that it is focusing only on Chinese immigrants but is still very useful for me because it is looking at the restaurant industry specifically.

Fussell, Elizabeth. "The Deportation Threat Dynamic and Victimization of Latino Migrants:

Wage Theft and Robbery.” The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 4, 1 Sept. 2011, pp.

593-615. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23027567.

In her article “The Deportation Threat Dynamic and Victimization of Latino Migrants: Wage Theft and Robbery” (2011), Elizabeth Fussell dissects and models the process of unfair treatment of immigrant workers in New Orleans starting from the first time an employee is seeking work to unfortunate outcomes of unfair treatment such as wage theft or exploitation. The author does much research to come up with this model. Fussell posits this model as an endless cycle of sorts due to a high demand for migrant labor and an increasing aversion to communication with any authority from migrant laborers. Fussell believes that his aversion to communicate with authorities to report unfair labor practices is coming from a present fear of deportation. This then allows employers to knowingly exploit immigrant labor with very little fear of repercussions, thus the cycle continues. Elizabeth Fussell speaks much of this fear from employees as “the deportation threat dynamic”, a dynamic that favors the employer indeed. This source is credible because it is a scholarly article published in a journal called The Sociological Quarterly. This source is unique because it is not focusing specifically on the restaurant industry. It looks a lot at specifically Latino immigrant manual laborers in New Orleans. It is highly relatable to my topic though as it thoroughly defines a model for unfair treatment that can be seen taking place in every single other source I’m using. This article does spend time focusing on New Orleans specifically but is also equally concerned with the bigger picture of the issue. I will be using this article mostly for the research done and as a model for my argument.

Jamieson, Dave. “Undocumented Worker Alleges Wage Theft, Ends Up in Deportation

Proceedings.” Huffington Post, www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/09/undocumented

worker-wage-theft_n_3567024.html. Accessed 22 Oct. 2017. In his article “Undocumented Worker Alleges Wage Theft, Ends Up in Deportation Proceedings” (2013), Dave Jamieson explains the story of Antonio Vanegas, a food worker and Guatemalan immigrant, who went on a one day strike to protest low and missing wages and was promptly met with officers with the Federal Protective Services upon returning to work. Jamieson sticks mostly to the story of Vanegas without looking much farther beyond that. The author points out how Vanegas was never troubled by his undocumented status. He was a model employee and well liked by patrons and coworkers. He worked for wages that were well below the cities minimum wage for nearly two years. Vanegas was eventually able to meet with a labor organizer and found the courage to make a stand for what he felt to be unfair. The fact that Vanegas worked for nearly two years with no question or mention of his undocumented status until he took a stand is what is so concerning about this case and certainly points to a larger issue. This source is credible because it is an article posted on the website www.huffingtonpost.com. Though I don’t believe everything on this website to be exactly credible, I believe that the factual reporting and lack of any bias or motive from the author made it credible. This article is unique in that it is not looking at the bigger effect but rather looking at one and only one specific case. It is very useful for my major claim in that it is exactly what is described by Fussell’s deportation threat dynamic. I believe that this is an alarming case that unfortunately would confirm many immigrant laborers fear of speaking up. I will be using this article in heavy synthesis with Fussell.

Kim, Kathleen. “Beyond Coercion.” UCLA Law Review, vol. 62, Jan.-Feb. 2015, pp. 1560-84,

www.uclalawreview.org/beyond-coercion/. Accessed 23 Oct. 2017. In her law review article “Beyond Coercion” (2015), Kathleen Kim suggests that there are incentives for unfair treatment of undocumented laborers by employers that are built into the structure of U.S. labor law and immigration law. The author looks at policy and laws surrounding these matters. Kathleen Kim begins by introducing the idea of free labor in the U.S. and its historical context. Much time is spent on the Thirteenth Amendment and how it defined our idea of free labor. Kim continues by looking at specific cases of undocumented workers facing bad workplace conditions and how U.S. labor laws interacted with immigration laws in these cases. The author ties everything together by suggesting that immigration law trumps labor laws in the workplace and continues to give employers leverage of undocumented employees.

This source is credible because it is a scholarly article published in the UCLA Law Review. It differs greatly from my other sources in that it takes a very rigid political approach to the issue that is present in all my other sources. This source will play a big role in tying a lot of my arguments together because the idea of one being “undocumented” comes from U.S. policy in the first place. Looking at this issue through the lens of law will give the context of what it is exactly that undocumented workers feel that they deserve and what they fear may happen to them. This source will be used to model my argument but also pose new questions and perhaps even respond to the argument. Along with the deportation threat dynamic, this article is quite dense but sets up the how and why these issues are able to take place. The interplay of immigration law and labor law will be a major theme throughout my paper.