(5 of 6)
Chen called home on the night of Jan. 18. It was already the next morning in Fujian when his mother answered the phone and burst into tears. For more than four months, the family had had no idea whether he was alive or dead. The only thing they knew was that he had not been among those reported arrested.
That day Chen's father began the onerous search to collect the money, borrowing from friends and relatives, and moneylenders--who demanded an interest rate of 2% a month. As he brought each portion home, he hid it underneath his wooden bed. "We were very nervous. We had never had so much money before. I told Eldest Son to stay at home all the time to watch the money," says the father. After two weeks he had acquired the full amount. On the night of Feb. 1, two local snakeheads went to the house to pick it up. The next day the L.A. snakeheads put Chen on a plane for New York City.
"New York was great, like playtime," says Chen. His cousin in Flushing gave him a bed, and for a week he wandered around Manhattan, gaping at the skyscrapers and the aircraft carrier Intrepid, which made him realize how small his own ship had been. "That was the most amazing thing. I had never seen a ship that big."
But Chen's cousin, who had U.S. residency, did not want him to stay indefinitely, and after a week she kicked him out. Chen now learned the meaning of being alone. He didn't know a single other person in the country. The only place he felt comfortable was Manhattan's Chinatown, once he knew how to get there by subway. Wandering the streets, he came across a window sign in Chinese advertising a job agency. For a $40 introduction fee and a $12 bus fare--almost the last of the small amount of savings Chen had brought with him from home--Chen was soon on his way down the New Jersey Turnpike, bound for the Dragon King Chinese Buffet Restaurant--an "all-you-can-eat crab legs, sweet-and-sour pork and 'plenty more' for $12.95 plus fortune cookies with your check" kind of place. The food bore little resemblance to anything he had eaten at home, but he knew how to chop vegetables, wash dishes and mop the floor. Today, for a 13-hour workday six days a week, Chen makes $1,400 a month, and as an illegal he pays no taxes. He sends most of the money back to his family to repay the snakehead debt.
Chen has been working at the Dragon King for more than two months. He is happy to be in the U.S. and seems to identify naturally with the American can-do mentality. "The best thing about America? You can work without ID," says Chen, smiling broadly. He likes Americans: "When you bump into someone on the street, they will smile and apologize, not like China, where people snap at you all the time." But it bugs him that he can't buy cigarettes or beer, because "they need ID, and I don't have any."