Where's the Promised Land?

By Jill Smolowe

The hiss of the snakehead is soft and seductive and perfectly pitched to the ear of young Chinese who dream of a better life. One need never go wanting for anything in America, the snakehead says. Color televisions. Shiny cars. Dollars by the millions. All is there, just waiting to be claimed.

When the snakeheads -- gangsters infamous for their trafficking in human contraband -- slithered into a village in Fujian Province last year, they found a perfect target in the Chens. The couple was young, ambitious and ready to believe everything they were told. To raise the $2,000 deposit demanded by the smugglers, they sold their general store. To make the journey, they boarded the boat without so much as a change of underwear. All will be provided, they had been told. Trust us. Dutifully, the Chens did.

It took only moments on the filthy, aged craft for the Chens to realize that they had been duped. Conditions were squalid; supplies were nowhere in evidence. For the next two months, they were forced to subsist on a single bottle of water weekly and a single meal daily. Their spirits fell, then rose, as they cruised past Guatemala and Mexico, then sailed up the coast to San Francisco. When they were instructed to get off the boat, the couple thought their nightmare had ended at last.

Within minutes they were taken to the basement apartment of one of the snakeheads and locked in. Hiss. Each time the wife phoned her mother in China, the two women would weep as the elder vowed to raise the money to set her daughter free. Then a snakehead would log the demanded price of the call in a ledger: $100. Hiss. Eventually the Chens raised money from their relatives in China to pay off their debts and fled to New York City. The husband now works in a restaurant, the wife in a garment factory. Between them, they live on $150 a month. They are so desperate that the wife takes in extra piecework for just $1 an hour. In winter their threadbare garments leave them shivering with despair. Occasionally the woman's mother is able to send warmer clothing from China. Hiss. Every night the Chens hold each other and cry. They have no hope. No future. Nothing. Hiss.

If the countless numbers of young Chinese who this moment are plotting their escape to America knew that the Land of Milk and Honey has proved sour for thousands of their compatriots, they would not be so eager to make the journey. Since the first boatload of illegal Chinese aliens was intercepted by U.S. officials in 1991, some 50 Chinese crime groups have smuggled tens of thousands of Chinese into the U.S. The routes vary, some plying the seas, others the air or the overland paths through Mexico. But the sticker price of $20,000 to $35,000 per head holds steady. In the southern coastal province of Fujian, home to some 80% of these immigrants, families band together to raise the funds, thinking they are making a down payment not only on a loved one's future but on their own as well. For their effort, they often bankrupt their savings -- only to sell the loved one into slavery.

Although the illegal human traffic has been accelerating since the brutal post-Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989, Americans paid little heed until last week, when the Golden Venture ran aground off Rockaway peninsula in Queens, / New York. In a panic, many of the 285 immigrants stowed in the cargo hold jumped from the 150-foot freighter into the 54 degrees waters and thrashed their way toward shore. The six-foot surf claimed the lives of six.

For the hundreds of police, fire fighters and members of the Coast Guard who raced to the scene to assist in rescue efforts, the conditions aboard the rusty freighter came as a shock. Flies swarmed among the clothing, blankets and personal possessions that were strewn everywhere, and the smell of urine and fecal matter filled the air. Says Petty Officer Chris O'Neil of the Coast Guard: "You don't like to say something smelled like death, but . . ." No food was in evidence, save some rice. An assortment of bags illustrated the efforts of the ship's 285 immigrants to collect rainwater for drinking. Despite the damp conditions in the cargo hold, exposed wires jutted every which way.

For many who braved the journey, the horrendous living conditions are nothing new. Of those who hail from Fujian, most emigrated from the county of Changle, which like most of the province is prospering. But unlike the bustling town of Xiamen and city of Fuzhou, Changle has very few young men on the streets. "About one-third of the men above 20 and below 35 have emigrated," says Wu Minyi, a pudgy man who owns an appliance shop on the main street. "More are scheming to go." It is, in a way, a result of China's new age of self-starting entrepreneurship. Says another Fujianese: "Changle natives are traditionally ambitious, always plotting to move ahead. They always want something better than what they have."

Changle natives have heard the horror stories of immigrants. But many remain naively confident that they can beat the odds. Most of them are prepared to work long, nonstop hours for three to four years in order to save cash and repay their debts. After five years, they hope to go back to Changle as U.S. passport holders with substantial savings.

Yin Qinhai, in his mid-20s, owns a hair salon on the main street in Changle. His three elder brothers are now illegal immigrants in the U.S. One went over a year ago, the two others just recently. Yin, too, longs to go to America to get a better job, but he is still saving enough cash to pay for the trip. Can he raise the money? "It's not that much," he says. "It's $27,000, but it's very tough to go now because the Americans are tightening up. They sent some ((illegals)) back recently." In the meantime, he is saving a little bit every day.

Those who wish to try their luck abroad are encouraged by the snakeheads -- who then link them with underground networks. Most of the arrangements are done by international crime syndicates, which cut deals with desperate families, then draw up the escape plan, procure the forged documents and furnish the transportation. One kingpin of the racket is Big Boss Ma (not his real name), a Thai gangster of Chinese descent who funnels mainland Chinese through Bangkok. Seated in the lotus position on a teak sofa at home in Mae Sai, a northern Thai town, Big Boss exudes confidence and affluence. His gold front tooth glimmers as he speaks of his $20,000 prepaid package trips, which he claims have a success rate of 80% to 90%.

"What if the Chinese illegal is detained?" a visitor asks.

"We will get him out," Big Boss says cockily.

"What if the full fee cannot be paid?"

"That," Big Boss says calmly, "is very dangerous business."

That, perhaps, explains the desperation of the Chinese illegals who sweat it out in restaurants, garment factories and dry-cleaning establishments for as little as $2 an hour. "The pay is incredibly low and the hours are incredibly long," says JoAnn Lum, program director for the Chinese Staff & Workers' Association in New York City. She tells of one garment-district employee who worked 36 hours straight, then was docked for taking a one-hour nap. Nonpayment of wages is also rampant. According to Lum, one group of 35 workers is owed $120,000 in back pay by their employers. "They are slaves, pure and simple," says a U.S. immigration official. "Many end up in bondage, forced to become gang enforcers or drug couriers."

A short, thin man carrying a cardboard box of uncooked buns races away from East Broadway in Manhattan's Chinatown. His unkempt black hair flies wildly as he darts onto Henry Street, then turns, looking anxiously behind him. When he sees a policeman continue up the street, he drops the box and takes a deep breath. The cop, he explains, was after the uncooked buns. The man sells nine for $2, making on average $15 a day. He doesn't have a license to sell on the street. He does not know what a license is.

Six months ago he left his wife and child in Fujian Province, where fellow villagers paid $20,000 to nameless smugglers to transport him to America. The plan was for him to make a fortune for all of his investors. Instead, once he arrived in New York, the snakeheads disappeared and he was left to fend for himself. He has no documents to certify his stay here. He lives in a one-room basement apartment with five other men, sleeping on three-tiered bunk beds. Anyone who can't pay the $100 rent each month is kicked out. He says he has only one goal for the future: to survive.

He speaks no English and has never learned to read Chinese. He does not know where San Francisco is. He is not even certain that he is in New York. He knows only this: he is in America. Hiss.

With reporting by Sandra Burton/Hong Kong, Massimo Calabresi/New York and Jaime A. FlorCruz/Beijing