Abstract:

"Snakeheads: The Chinese Mafia and the New Slave Trade explores the complicated issues of illegal immigration and sweatshop labor framed against a background of competing global economic forces. Every year millions of impoverished Chinese men and women risk their small fortunes and their lives to place themselves at the mercy of the Chinese Mafia in order to find work in the United States. The squalid conditions under which they live once they arrive, poses thoughtful questions on the economic forces and social policies working to create such conditions. Despite the risks, there is an endless pool of Chinese who dream of making the voyage to the land they call The Golden Mountain. Snakeheads sheds an uncompromising light on this modern day slave trade and asks, "What solutions does the U.S., China or the international community have to offer?"