Forbidden Workers

the long version

Forbidden Workers tells the full story of recent Chinese immigration to this country. Author Peter Kwong has interviewed countless 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 in conditions approaching modern slavery.