10/25/2014
NPR had a segment the other day about a new film about immigrants and their search for the American dream. Immigrants love to go on about themselves.
In this case, itâs the Chinese tribe, which statistically has done better than most, given their Confucian values of hard work, delayed gratification and scholarship. Over half of Asians in the US have a bachelorâs degree or higher, compared Americans as a whole with 28 percent and 9.1 percent of Mexican immigrants.
But the reputation of Chinese as being a model minority leaves out the sub-prime characters, like the Chinatown gangsters who are still around. The public was reminded of todayâs Chinese crime syndicates during the scandalous arrest of California State Senator Leland Yee who was criminally involved with âShrimp Boyâ Chow, an ex-con and powerful Chinatown gang boss.
Anyway, filmmaker Martin Scorsese has co-directed a film about Chinese gangs smuggling illegal Chinese immigrants. Americans got an eyeful of what the gangsters were up to when the Golden Venture cargo ship appeared near the New York coast in 1993 and disgorged hundreds of illegal Chinese onto the shore. The film reflects some of the themes from that event.
More criminal diversity for America â letâs celebrate with some Hollywood violence!
By the way: they keep coming.
Below, Chinese illegals were part of the mix during last summerâs alien kiddie surge on the southern border.
The most informative part of the radio piece came at the end:
Many dejected immigrants spend the rest of their lives working menial jobs on the margins of Chinatowns. Loo says he and Lau met some of them when they auditioned for parts in the film.âOne of the things we always asked at the end of our little sit-down was, âHey, if given the chance, knowing now what you didnât know then, would you actually come to America again?â â
Most of them, Loo says, told him No.
What I wouldnât give to have a film of those immigration regrets.
A Tale Of Asian Gangs Unleashed In âGreen Dragonsâ Film, NPR, October 24, 2014Thousands of Chinese immigrants took to the seas in the 1980s and 1990s. Many stowed away on cargo ships, spending months on voyages to America organized by Chinese-American gangs in New York.
The new film Revenge of the Green Dragons tells the true story of one of those gangs. Produced by legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese, it stars Harry Shum, Jr., best known for his TV role on Glee. In the movie, Shum plays Paul Wong, the ruthless leader of the Green Dragons. Itâs a Queens-based Chinese-American gang that smuggles heroin and traffics Chinese immigrants desperate to chase their American dreams.
âA dishwasher here works like a slave. But he has hope. He can dream of something better,â Paul explains to one of his young recruits in the film. âA fisherman in China, heâll never be anything but a fisherman in China.â
âA Land For Opportunistsâ
The real-life Green Dragons exploited the hopes and fear of unauthorized immigrants as they terrorized the Asian-American community of Queens during the 1980s and â90s. Their crimes were chronicled in a 1992 article by Fredric Dannen in The New Yorker magazine, which served as the movieâs source material. The filmâs co-director and writer Andrew Loo say he was inspired by these gritty stories of surviving in America.
âIt wasnât just a street movie. It wasnât just a gang movie,â he says. âIt actually dealt with this whole fantasy of moving to the West for economic opportunity. I think what our film ultimately says is itâs become more a land for opportunists.â
Shocks Through The System
For years, Asian-American gang activity in New York stayed on the fringes of the police radar â until bloody street violence eventually spilled outside of immigrant enclaves.
âYou could not not notice the bodies that were starting to pop up,â says David Chong, a former undercover detective for the New York Police Department who penetrated the ranks of Asian organized crime. âThe narcotics came into it also, along with the human smuggling. Those things really sent a shock through everybodyâs system,â Chong says.
The human trafficking ring run by Asian-American gangs and their counterparts in Asia drew national attention in 1993, when the cargo ship Golden Venture, carrying nearly 300 Chinese immigrants, ran aground on a New York beach. Thousands of others had made similar voyages from China. Chong says many immigrants had to pay their smugglers tens of thousands of dollars.
âYouâre either going to go to a prostitution house, or you know, weâre going to release you to somebody thatâs going to pay your debt. Or youâre going to work your debt off,â says Chong, now the public safety commissioner for White Plains, N.Y.
Broken American Dreams
One of the filmâs last scenes focuses on a snakehead, or human smuggler. Played by Eugenia Yuan, she explains why she feels no remorse for bringing immigrants into a life of misery in the U.S. âWe all come here willing to be servants for our children,â she says. The character, Snakehead Mama, is based on a real-life smuggler known as âSister Ping.â She tells a young immigrant that she helped bring to the U.S., âI died many times, Sonny, in the name of America.â
Co-director Andrew Lau says he wanted the movie to explore what happens to Chinese immigrants whose lives in America donât live up to expectations.
âThe people always have a dream. But when your dream is broke, what can you do?â says Lau, who also directed the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, which Scorsese later remade as The Departed.
Many dejected immigrants spend the rest of their lives working menial jobs on the margins of Chinatowns. Loo says he and Lau met some of them when they auditioned for parts in the film.
âOne of the things we always asked at the end of our little sit-down was, âHey, if given the chance, knowing now what you didnât know then, would you actually come to America again?â â
Most of them, Loo says, told him no.