Insufficient funds the culture of money in low wage transnational families

I NSU FFICI EN T FU NDS



I NSU FFICI EN T FU NDS
The Culture of Money
in Low-Wage Transnational Families

Hung Cam Thai

Stanford University Press
Stanford, California


Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 2014 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of
Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thai, Hung Cam, author.
Insufficient funds : the culture of money in low-wage transnational families /
Hung Cam Thai.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8047-7731-5 (cloth : alk. paper) -isbn 978-0-8047-7732-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Vietnamese--United States--Economic conditions. 2. Vietnamese--United
States--Social conditions. 3. Immigrants--Family relationships--United States.
4. Immigrants--Family relationships--Vietnam. 5. Money--Social aspects--United
States. 6. Money--Social aspects--Vietnam. 7. Families--Economic aspects--United
States. 8. Families--Economic aspects--Vietnam. 9. Transnationalism--Social
aspects--United States. 10. Transnationalism--Social aspects--Vietnam. I. Title.
e184.v53.t45 2014
305.8959'22073--dc23
2013042134
isbn 978-0-8047-9056-7 (electronic)
Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in 10.5 /15 Adobe Garamond


To my students and teachers



TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S



Acknowledgments

ix



xv

Note on Translations

1 Six Tales of Migrant Money

1

2 The Making of a Transnational Expenditure Cascade

21

3 Money as a Currency of Care

32

4 The Migrant Provider Role

53

5 The American Dream in Vietnam

72

6 Compensatory Consumption

92

7 Emulative Consumption

111

8 The Cyclical Entrenchment of Monetary Habits

132

9 The High Price of Esteem Consumption

152

10 Tall Promises

172

Conclusion:
Special Money in Low-Wage Transnational Families

191


viii c o n t e n t s



Appendix: Methodology and Interviewees

205

Notes

215

Bibliography

249

Index

275


A C K N OW L E D G M E N T S

My first gratitude is reserved for the more than 120 men and women who spent
time sharing with me stories about their lives. Some of them may disagree with
my analysis, but I hope they recognize the importance of their stories in helping
the world understand dilemmas associated with the culture of money among
transnational families.
My second thanks go to the institutions that provided financial support: the
Pacific Rim Fellowship, the Hewlett Foundation, the Freeman Foundation, the
John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, the Senior Research Fellowship in the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore,
and the Faculty Residential Fellowship at the Institute of East Asian Studies
at Berkeley. Many thanks to former dean Cecilia Conrad at Pomona College
for providing generous research funds for fieldwork and for time off to write,
and to Associate Dean Jonathan Wright for approving the earmarking of such
funding, even when the earmarking seemed unconventional.
A team of research assistants from the United States and Vietnam was involved in different phases of the project: from the United States, my students
Dani Carillo, Christopher Fiorello, Kyla Johnson, and Nicole Runge came to
Vietnam to help me collect data; and from Vietnam, Loc Mai Do, Nhat Minh,


x a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

Bich Nguyen, Hanh Nguyen, Nga Nguyen, Tuan Nguyen, and Tuyet Phan

helped with fieldwork and data analysis. Bich and Nhat worked tirelessly for
more than three years managing the research team, recruiting respondents,
helping to oversee the transcription of data, and summarizing interviews. On
campus at Pomona, Ciera Divens, Laura Enriquez, and Delilah Garcia helped
collect and verify hard facts. Howard Chang and Jordan Pedraza organized relevant readings, created the bibliography, and provided various other forms of
research support. Notably, Jordan spent an entire year digitizing all the materials
in my office on one USB disk so I could be globally portable. The input of these
sixteen research assistants was vital to the core work that went into the book.
The chapters of this book contain ideas developed over a decade, during
which time I benefited greatly from conversations with many more people
than I can name. In various contexts, I am grateful to Sherry Apostol, Ingrid
Banks, Daniele Belanger, Huong Bui, Richard Bui, Jorgen Carling, Nicole
Constable, Bui The Cuong, Mary Danico, Ajay Deshmukh, Pawan Dhingra,
Joanna Dreby, Mach Duong, Lai Ah Eng, Yen Le Espiritu, Sarah Fenstermaker,
Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Patrick Harms, Kimberly Kay Hoang, Lan Anh Hoang,
Arlie Hochschild, Adi Hovav, Evelyn Hu-Dehart, Sallie Hughes, Sergey Ioffe,
Gavin Jones, Miliann Kang, Nazli Kibria, Nadia Kim, Jaime Kurtz, Vivian
Louie, Edward Necaise, Sinh Nguyen, Eileen Otis, Rhacel Parrenas, Allison
Pugh, Karen Pyke, Kitsana Salyphone, Leah Schmalzbauer, Celine Shimizu,
Rachel Silvey, Joe Singh, Lok Siu, Jinnhua Su, Barrie Thorne, Mika Toyota,
Kim Xuyen Tran, Allison Truitt, Kim Chuyen Truong, Takeyuki Tsuda, Linda
Trinh Vo, Biao Xiang, Brenda Yeoh, Jean Yeung, and Peter Zinoman.
During the final stage of this book, I unexpectedly received a writing fellowship that allowed me to spend nine months at the Institute of East Asian
Studies at UC Berkeley. I am thankful to members of the faculty group there
who met regularly to discuss our work, including You-tien Hsing, John Lie,
Xin Liu, and Qing Zhou. Special thanks to the director, Wen-hsin Yeh, who
provided skillful moderation for our group meetings, and to Rochelle Halperin
and Charlotte Cowden for cheerfully administering all our events.
I am indebted to Bryan DeWitt, Jason Gonzalez, Gilda Ochoa, Patrick
Snyder, Whitney Snyder, Khoi Tran, My Huynh Tran, and Linus Yamane

for reading the entire book and giving valuable feedback. David Hinson and
­Patricia McDonald, two friends from my undergraduate years, also read the


acknowledgments

xi

entire book and gave editorial advice about reframing materials for readability
and analytical rigor. The final person who read the manuscript and to whom
I am most indebted is Jude Berman, whom I met while on the fellowship in
Berkeley. Jude read countless drafts, and the book would be sloppier and much
less readable without her critical feedback.
I am also grateful for the feedback I received from audience members at
universities, conferences, bookstores, and community organizations where I delivered lectures, including in Tel Aviv, Beirut, Paris, Bucharest, Rome, Prague,
Singapore, Beppu, Kyoto, Tokyo, Lund, Saigon, Hanoi, Da Nang, Beijing,
Penang, Hong Kong, Kunming, Kuala Lumpur, Montréal, Seoul, Miami,
Blacksburg, East Lansing, Sacramento, Berkeley, Denver, Atlanta, Portland,
San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Boston, Tucson, New Orleans, Santa
Barbara, Pomona, and Claremont.
In Claremont and Los Angeles, friends and colleagues provided support
that made the balance of teaching, writing, and fun achievable. They include
Eileen Cheng, David Elliott, Peter Flueckiger, Dru Gladney, Elizabeth Glater,
Bryan Gobin, Sharon Goto, Eric Hurley, Eysha Hurley, Shelva Hurley, Pardis
Mahdavi, Lynn Miyake, Hoang Nguyen, Gilda Ochoa, Rhacel Parrenas, Ben
Rosenberg, Heather Williams, and Sam Yamashita. Most importantly, I am
indebted to Lynn Rapaport for her support as a colleague and friend, and to
Sheila Pinkel for her wisdom and humor. Gail Orozco and Kayo Yoshikawa
provided administrative support on a daily basis and made it possible for me to
serve concurrently as chair of the Department of Sociology and director of the

Pacific Basin Institute while working on the book. Sheri Sardinas recently joined
the Department of Sociology and has been a terrific staff member. ­Madeline
Gosiaco has provided administrative support in the Intercollegiate Department
of Asian American Studies, for which I am thankful. Michele Levers and Cindy
Snyder from the Honnold Library were incredibly helpful in gathering materials whenever I needed a source, sending them to me at lightning speed when I
requested them. Anna Ratana and Theresa Alvarez made sure everything in my
personal life was in order so I could flourish in my professional life.
I am extremely grateful to Kate Wahl, editor-in-chief at Stanford University Press, who acquired my book and then served as my editor. Kate’s feedback helped sharpen the arguments and clarify many points. Kate was always
encouraging, yet straightforward, honest, and professional; she truly lives up


xii a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

to her national reputation as a dream editor. I am also indebted to the two
anonymous reviewers who read the entire manuscript and provided constructive and helpful comments, as well as to Jan McInroy for the incredible work
on meticulously copyediting the book. At the press, Frances Malcolm provided
critical and speedy administrative support, while Emily Smith, the production
editor, shepherded the book through the final phase of getting it into print.
My personal thanks come last for the people whose friendships enriched
my life while I worked on this book. In Vietnam, My Chau, Jonathan ­Gordon,
Thanh Kim Hue, Dam Vinh Hung, Huong Lan, Ut Bach Lan, Tin Le, D
­ aniel
Logan, Nga Nguyen, Thuc Nguyen, Kieu Oanh, My Tam, Le Thuy, Kim
Chuyen Truong, Linh Truong, and Bach Tuyet provided companionship whenever I needed, and especially when I needed help in recruiting respondents.
My friendships with Richard Bui, Huong Bui, and Chanh Phan in Vietnam
provided a sturdy anchor for a wonderful life there and enabled me to thrive
in my work. Richard and Huong opened their homes to me generously whenever I needed to be in Vietnam, and I am grateful for their friendship, generosity, and interest in my work. In France, my dear friend Mary Boyington
provided constant support from afar via Skype, as well as a haven during my
visits to her home in Aix-en-Provence when I needed a break from life outside
the Vietnam–U.S. corridor.

In Berkeley during the final stage of writing this book, a number of friends
were integral to the daily, nonstop task of writing; without them, I am confident
I would not have been motivated to complete the task. Anjelica Randall urged
me to learn the art of taking walks, which I am convinced was the ultimate trick
in getting the writing done. Neetha Iyer stepped in at the perfect moment to
cheer me on to the finish line. Sherry Apostol provided intimate labor in many
forms, most important of which was the daily and often unplanned companionship so essential for my well-being. At Berkeley, the proximity to a few of my
lifelong friends meant I was able to call on them whenever I needed to get away
from the treacherous mental work of writing. Ajay Deshmukh and Jinnhua Su
made themselves available whenever I asked to do anything that got me away
from writing. Matthew Nemethy knew just the right moment to disrupt my
writing. All these friends came to my house when I needed the disruption, but
also respected the times I had to be alone to get the work done. Finally, Sergey
Ioffe never fails to be a reliable ear to listen to any dilemma I face, as well as to


acknowledgments

xiii

celebrate with me anything that needs celebration, no matter how far apart we
may be at the time. I am most fortunate to have found a best friend in adulthood with whom social equivalence, anomaly, idiosyncrasy, loyalty, reliability,
trust, brilliance, and humor are entangled in such a complex and fun way. It is
through Sergey that I learned that friendships do not naturally develop, but are
made through focused effort and intent. And yet, paradoxically, true friendship
is achieved effortlessly over time.
Victoria and Clive Elppa made sure I was on task each and every day, calling me every hour in the last six months of writing, and cheerleading with a
daily report on my progress when I sometimes felt I could not write another
word. Claudia Rucaa made sure I never got lost wherever I went, and happily
joins me on every single journey I make.

NOT E ON T R A NSL AT IONS

Vietnamese is a tonal language with varying regional dialects that requires the
use of diacritic marks. I have chosen not to employ diacritic marks in order to
facilitate smooth reading. In addition, as with any research involving translations, some words do not have exact translations, and some words lose their
complexity once translated. When translations seriously lose intended meanings, I have provided the original Vietnamese words in parentheses without
diacritic marks. In complicated cases, I have provided additional explanations
in the endnotes.



I NSU FFICI EN T FU NDS



chapter 1

S I X TA L E S O F
MIGRANT MONEY

T

h i s b o o k tells the story of money and migration among
transnational families in the Vietnamese diaspora, with a
specific focus on families of low-wage immigrants living in the United States
and their left-behind non-migrant relatives in Vietnam.1 It is about the culture
of money, as experienced by those who give, those who receive, and those who

spend, as well as about those who left and those who stayed put. This nearly
forty-year narrative begins with the mass exodus of Vietnamese emigrants after
the Vietnam War ended in 1975, picks up again with the post-1986 reentry of
Vietnam into the world economy after a decade hiatus of economic progress,
and picks up yet again in 1995, when the United States and Vietnam resumed
diplomatic relations after a twenty-year suspension.2
The people you are about to meet include members of transnational families whom I met and interviewed in Vietnam. Their stories give us a sense of
how migrants sacrifice for their left-behind relatives back home, as well as why
they are compelled to give and spend money. At the same time, these stories tell
us about a global culture of relative consumption that has prevailed in many
economies of the developing world, owing to increasing numbers of trans­
national migrants making return visits and spending money there.3 The ways


2

chapter 1

in which different members of these low-wage transnational families interpret
giving, receiving, and spending money—all of which are embedded in classical sociological concerns about obligation, reciprocity, status, and economic
behavior in family life—carry significant implications for understanding the
contemporary intersection of social class and migration under global capitalism. I first introduce three immigrant individuals now living in the United
States; in the following section, we meet their respective non-migrant relatives
living in Vietnam.

THE MIGRANTS

Cam Bui lives in southwestern Philadelphia in a small rented apartment, less
than a ten-minute drive from the city’s Vietnamese enclave, where she goes to
work and socialize.4 Now thirty-eight years old, she came to the United States

with one of her older brothers in the early 1990s at the age of nineteen. Her
parents and four other siblings live in and around Thu Duc, a suburb seventeen
miles outside Saigon’s city center.5 Last year, Cam married another Vietnamese
immigrant, whom she met at the Catholic church she attends in the Philadelphia community. She returns to Vietnam to visit her family more often than
her brother does because she is able to take off more easily from her job as a
cashier at a supermarket owned by a co-ethnic friend. Both she and her brother,
however, regularly send money to support the entire family in Thu Duc.
The two began sending money after Cam returned to Vietnam in 1999, her
first visit in about a decade. Their father had had a heart attack, but it would
have been too expensive for both siblings to make the trip. When she arrived,
Cam was relieved to find her father had recovered; however, her month-long
stay showed her the extent to which she had forgotten the reality of Vietnam.
She explains: “I knew, of course, people don’t have a lot, but I did not know
the severity of poverty, on the street, in my parents’ neighborhood. Everywhere
you go, it was a different world from America. When you get older, you see
things differently.” That initial visit led Cam to reexamine her life in America:
Up to that point, I think I always felt that I did not do so well in America. I always
compared myself to all my friends who went on to college and got professional jobs.
But that first visit really forced me to think about how lucky I am to live in America,
how I have so much more than my family. I always know that at a minimum, I can


six tales of migr ant money 

3

find a job, no matter how low-paying. My siblings cannot say the same in Thu Duc
because there are absolutely no jobs there.6

When Cam returned to Philadelphia, she acted on her new transnational

view by telling her brother she thought they should regularly send money back
home. Previously, they typically sent money only when an emergency arose. At
first, her brother resisted Cam’s proposal, claiming they should continue to send
money only when someone needed it. Cam says her brother “did not think we
could afford to send money regularly and he did not want people in Vietnam
to expect it from us on a regular basis.” Even though her brother was worried
about adding to their financial burden, Cam was willing to work longer hours
for extra pay, as long as her brother could contribute some money. Eventually
she convinced him to give $300 a month. Cam herself decided to put in about
$500 per month. This amount is about a third of her monthly pay, if she includes pay for the ten overtime hours she added weekly. As she says, “My heart
aches every time I think about one of my sisters, who is married with two children and they all live in a house that has a dirt floor.”
Cam and her brother now have a system for managing how much and how
often they send money to family members. “We have a separate bank account
for gui tien [sending money] to our family so we can keep track of the money.
We try hard, no matter what, to send money on a regular basis,” Cam explains.
“Our family cannot support themselves no matter what they do in Vietnam.
All our siblings work, but none of them makes more than $150 per month,
and they all have children. So we decided that because we were lucky to come
to America, we would help them out.”
Cam cares deeply for her left-behind family members in Vietnam, a few of
whom helped to fund the passage for her and her brother to come to the United
States as boat refugees among thousands of “unaccompanied minors.”7 She feels
indebted to her family for the passage, but perhaps even more important, Cam’s
perspective about economic privilege and her own financial status—however
limited it might be by her $12-per-hour job—is rooted in her dual frame of
reference for life in Philadelphia and in Thu Duc. She feels extremely lucky,
for example, that she does not live in a house with a dirt floor, and that she can
drink water directly from the tap. When I met her, Cam had made six visits
back to Vietnam, staying more than one month each time. Her goal in each
subsequent visit was to make life even better for her family there. “I wanted to

4

chapter 1

do everything I could to help my family,” she says. “I got extra work. I started
working on weekends. I started spending less money. In addition, every penny
I saved I would send back to my parents, brothers, and sisters. I began to see
them as my only responsibility in life.”
.

.

.

Dinh Le is a thirty-six-year-old man who rents a room from a Vietnamese immigrant family in San Jose, California. He and his parents came to the United
States when Dinh was eighteen, under the sponsorship of Dinh’s older brother
and his brother’s wife. Dinh lived with them in Orlando, Florida, before he
decided to move to California to attend a community college. Although he did
not know anyone there, he went by himself because he had always dreamed
of going to California, which has the largest Vietnamese immigrant population in the United States (i.e., in San Jose, Orange County, and San Diego).
He has been going to school part-time at the community college, but does not
think he will finish. He explains, “I’ve never liked school and I am not sure if
it is going to get me a good job. If I transfer to the university, I think the best I
could do is study accounting, but that is so boring.” He is now working in San
Jose as a carpenter, a job he says he enjoys because he is always on the move.
Dinh is one of the highest-paid immigrants I interviewed for this book, making nearly $20 per hour. He describes himself as very hardworking and hopes
to own a business one day.
Dinh returned to Vietnam for the first time shortly after he moved to California. Of that first return trip, he says, “It was the time of my life. It was like

California on steroids! I always wanted to live in California because of the large
Vietnamese population, but I should have thought about coming back to Vietnam and living here for some period. It is like I found a sense of myself that I
could never describe before.” Although he has entertained the thought of living
in Vietnam, he plans to stay in the United States because he says he could not
find a job in Saigon that would pay him anywhere near his wages in San Jose.
When I met Dinh for the first time in Saigon, I assumed from his spending
habits alone that he had a lot of money. One summer evening, for example,
Dinh invited me out with his cousins, two uncles, and some other relatives.
We went to Monaco,8 a large and fancy nightclub that had just opened. As a
gracious guest, I ordered only one bottle of beer for the night, but was quickly


six tales of migr ant money 

5

astonished that Dinh had ordered for the table three bottles of Hennessy
­cognac, the very expensive, but most preferred, drink because of the status it
conveys at nightclubs in the city. When it was time to pay the check, it came
to nearly $400.9 I must have looked astonished, so Dinh quickly said, “Don’t
worry, my friend, I got it covered. It’s a night out with my family. We are having a good time.”
During our interview the next day, as I treat Dinh to some much cheaper coffee, I broach the topic of money and ask why he did not split the bill with me or
the other family members, including his two uncles who came with us. Without
hesitation, and as if he thinks this was my first visit to Vietnam, Dinh explains:
When you go to nightclubs in Saigon, you have to remember that the prices are not
local prices.10 Everything here is catered to overseas people, especially to us Viet Kieu.11
All the businesses here, they know that white foreigners living in the city won’t spend
$100 on a bottle of Hennessy. As Vietnamese men, we know how to play it right.
We know how to spend money. As for my uncles, I would never ask them to pay for
anything when we go out. It’s my treat when we go anywhere. We make much more

money than they can ever make in Saigon, so it’s only right that we pay for everything.

In contrast with Cam, Dinh rarely sends money back to his family in Vietnam. Rather, he freely spends it on them when he makes return visits. In addition to lavish nights out, he has bought them pricey gifts, such as fancy picture
frames and expensive clothes from the United States. He says he likes to spend
money on his family because he wants them to know he loves them and he is
willing to pay for them “to have the best time in the city.” Dinh explains that
he knows each bottle of cognac he buys costs more than the monthly income
of one of his uncles. That does not matter. The important thing, Dinh says, is
that “they know I am able to spend money like a foreigner. They have to know
that we are doing well in America and that we have the cash to play.” There is
no question that Dinh is a big spender when he returns to Saigon.
.

.

.

Quang Tran is a young-looking forty-two-year-old man who lives in a Vietnamese enclave of about six thousand people in northeast Atlanta, Gwinnett County,
Georgia. He is married and his three children attend the Gwinnett public schools.
He and his wife take a daily ninety-mile round-trip to the Atlanta International


6

chapter 1

Airport, where they work as airplane cabin cleaners. They moved to Gwinnett
to be near its small Vietnamese community, where housing is cheaper and nicer
than what is available near their workplace. Quang says his job is good because
it is stable, unionized, and provides full health benefits as well as paid vacation

time. Almost none of the immigrants featured in this book reported receiving
these benefits from their work.
Quang is from a well-to-do family in Vietnam, and in many ways, migrating to the United States more than two decades ago as a boat refugee was an
experience of downward mobility. Yet he says he and his wife “have a good life
in Atlanta. We have good friends. Not a lot of money, but we have more than
many of our friends and family in Vietnam. We could do something else, like
open up a business, but we would have to work a lot more hours and probably have to force our children to work in the business with us, like so many
other Vietnamese families.” Both Quang and his wife have a sturdy network
of family in Vietnam, where they try to go every two or three years. On three
occasions over the past decade, Quang went by himself because they could
not afford to bring the entire family. Quang says they make sure the children
grow up with a strong sense of their Vietnamese identity and attachment to
their family in Vietnam.
Unlike Cam’s family, Quang’s family in Vietnam is not poor by the local
standards. For example, he has one brother who works at the post office and
another who owns a jewelry store; although his one sister is unemployed, her
husband makes a steady income driving taxis in the city. By local measures,
his left-behind family is middle class in their cultural context, even if each of
them has a monthly income in Saigon of less than $300. The biggest financial
difference between them and Quang, however, is that his siblings in Vietnam
all own the modest houses in which they live, whereas Quang and his wife
have more than twenty-five years left on the $900-per-month mortgage for
their three-bedroom suburban house in Gwinnett. Like Dinh, it is important
to Quang that his family knows he is doing well in the United States and has
“a good life.” He explains:
I do have a good life in Atlanta. When I look at my brothers and sisters in Saigon,
even among the successful ones who own their businesses, I feel they have less security
in their lives. They don’t have insurance, and they do not have the future of social
security in retirement that we have in America. I think life is better in America, even if