Convenience, or Caste? First-Generation Chinese Immigrants and the Food Service Industry

By applying a qualitative research approach which combines both participant-observation in the Chinese restaurant setting and in-depth interviews, my current thesis examined the Chinese restaurant business, which is a strikingly ubiquitous and element of Chinese immigration to the West. To delve into this situation of homogeneity contrasting with the diversity of the population of immigrants themselves, I applied Pierre Bourdieu's theory of "practice", which he summarizes as "[(habitus)(capital)] + field = practice". Chinese restaurant workers' cultural and social capital, their social fields in both China and the U.S., such as economic and social institutions, and Chinese restaurant workers' habitus in both a static (which emphasizes its unconsciousness as a result of past socialization gained from upbringing, experiences, and schooling) and flexible sense (habitus as changeable and a situational strategy) have all been examined. Moreover, I also studied the interplay between capital, field and habitus that underlies this practice, especially emphasizing these factors influence on Chinese restaurant workers' reliance on bonding social capital (family and inner ethnic community ties). I concluded that, although there is flexibility and choice during and after immigration to a certain extent, social hierarchy and working class Chinese restaurant workers' limited flexibility and freedom as compared to middle/upper class immigrants and American citizens are still real. Ultimately, field interacts in a diverse manner with subjects who possess diverse quantities of capital and forms of habitus, and the equation as a whole forms divergent forms of practice, which nonetheless overlap and self-replicate through social bonding-based work behavior.