Research Question 4: How do China-born immigrants in the GTA describe the challenges and successes in starting their own businesses as entrepreneurs? Three themes emerged for this research question: (a) Troubled marriages; (b) Raising funds; and (c) Opportunities to help other newcomers. Following is a discussion of each of these themes.
Theme 1: Troubled marriages. Of 21 participants, six (P1, P2, P8, P11, P12, and P18) experienced trouble in their marriages after they landed in Canada. Three of these participants were male. These divorces occurred between 1 and 3 years after the participants landed in GTA. In the case of Participants P8 and P18, their husbands both returned to China because they did not find work in their professions after arriving in GTA.
Participant P8 was an entrepreneur who had a high school education, with some college courses. She immigrated to Canada with her husband, who held a B.Sc. degree in computer science; and their baby daughter, who was one and half years old. The couple had owned and operated a successful computer retail and repair store in Shenzhen. According to her description, they were a happy upper-middle-class family before arriving in Toronto in 2000. The main reason that P8’s family, and other China-born middle class immigrants migrated to Canada was because they want to pursue their Canadian dream with improved and better (a) education system to their children, (b) medical care, (c) social or welfare and retirement
The Suburban Select segment comprises of Canadian parents between 35 to 49 years of age with university level education or postgraduate degrees; the life cycle is considered to be middle-aged achievers. This segment consists of Canada’s up-and-coming business class families; an affluent suburban family with dual-income couples (Household income $75M+) typically living with at least one child aged 12 to 17 years (Household size 3+). Given the segments’ high percentage of professionals, senior managers, and business owners there
After the first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States in the early 1840s during the California Gold Rush, many Chinese people continued to travel across the Pacific, escaping poor conditions in China with hopes and ambitions for a better life in America. Many more Chinese immigrants began arriving into the 1860s on the Pacific coast for work in other areas such as the railroad industry. The immigrants noticed an increasing demand for their labor because of their readiness to work for low wages. Many of those who arrived did not plan to stay long, and therefore there was no push for their naturalization. The immigrants left a country with thousands of years of a “decaying feudal system,” corruption, a growing
This case study looks at the problems facing immigrant entrepreneurs in Canada and key recommendations to follow in order to succeed in starting a profitable company. Shu Guo, like 40,000 other immigrants, came to Canada seeking entrepreneurial opportunities, but many would fall short. Immigrant entrepreneurs in Canada find themselves falling to the same problems. These include a lack of start-up money, correct marketing to find customers, dealing with government regulations that they have a lack of knowledge about, language/culture barriers, and big chains with better resources.
Chinese parents and American parents differ greatly in their parenting styles and a noticeable difference can be seen in the success of their children. The children of Chinese parents often excel in various areas, including in their educational, musical, and professional lives. The children of American parents, however, usually have a harder time excelling in those areas. Chinese parents and American parents hold opposing philosophies about how they view their children, opposing methods about how they raise their children, and opposing effects on the personalities of their children.
Russel Wangersky’s “An Accident Of Birth” (The Telegram, Jan. 10, 2009), provides a insight on how lucky people are to live in Canada. He uses an example of a stereotypical Toronto taxi driver, a foreigner who moved to Canada for a means to find a better life. However, this taxi driver is revealed to have a master’s degree in business administration, who has more education than the majority of the people he drives. Although he doesn’t work in marketing, he is perfectly okay with working as a taxi driver this because he wants to live in a peaceful place, that is full of opportunities and to give his daughter the best life possible. Ultimately, Wangersky’s article is successful because it illustrates how pure luck can overcome any hard work,
In China, since the reform and opening-up, there have been two waves of immigration in the last century late 70s and early 90s. With the advent of a new century, China’s economy has come into the phase of rapid development and its informatization construction has been developed at a high speed. Surprisingly, at that time, there is growing the third emigration which is a larger scale one. Among these immigrants, the professional elite and the proportion of affluent people increases year by year.
Throughout the last three decades, increasing numbers of Asians have migrated to Canada from all over the Asian continent. Currently, 44% of the Vancouver area population is of Asian descent (Statistics Canada, 2001). Immigrants commonly occupy skilled job positions that the host nation is unable to fill with its own citizens, and thus they offer many advantages to their receiving country. In a nation with a declining birthrate, such as Canada, their contribution can play a major role on multiple levels. The immigrants themselves often enjoy a greater earning potential than they did in their native country, which can be advantageous for those who wish to send money back home to support their families.
Many new arrivals still struggle to survive and often Chinese Americans still encounter suspicion and hostility. Chinese Americans have achieved great success and now, like so many others, they are stitching together a new American identity. As Michelle Ling, a young Chinese American, tells Bill Moyers in Program 3, “I get to compose my life one piece at a time, however I feel like it. Not to say that it’s not difficult and that there isn’t challenge all the time, but more than material wealth, you get to choose what you are, who you are.” (www.pbs.org)
The tale “American Born Chinese” by Gene Luch Wang depicts the story of three characters, Monkey, Jin, and Danny. They all have the problem of fitting into their new environments. Jin Wang has to deal with Asian stereotypes. Danny has to deal with embarrassment of his cousin. Lastly, Monkey has to deal with the fact that there is no position for him in the heavenly ranks. However, over time, these characters have to come together to fit in. Yet the question remains: what exactly about fitting in is the problem? Although Jin Wang takes the form of Danny to reject his Chinese roots, the embarrassment of Chin-Knee shows he cannot hide behind a false American identity, thereby delineating that race is the source of his problem.
Gene Luen Yang presents a graphic novel, it talk about three different stories that are separate and yet related to each other. The way he presents the characters helps him to show his audience stereotypes in American born Chinese. The author uses the three stories and revolves around people working towards their cultural identity. He successfully creates a story about racial identity, and he does not merely concentrate on stereotypes that define the American-born Chinese.
The focus of our group project is on Chinese Americans. We studied various aspects of their lives and the preservation of their culture in America. The Chinese American population is continually growing. In fact, in 1990, they were the largest group of Asians in the United States (Min 58). But living in America and adjusting to a new way of life is not easy. Many Chinese Americans have faced and continue to face much conflict between their Chinese and American identities. But many times, as they adapt to this new life, they are also able to preserve their Chinese culture and identity through various ways. We studied these things through the viewing of a movie called Joy Luck Club,
This article provides detailed information that give statistics based on distinguishing immigrant classes: “Tables 2 (for males) and 3 (for females) present descriptive statistics by broad immigrant class across the three cycles of the survey. … For both genders, it is clear that skilled worker principal applicants have higher educational attainment, and it is also apparent that males have higher averages than females”. This article is distinct from the other two articles by the fact that many more statistics are offered. These extra statistics offer more insight into the descriptions of the economical immigrant policies. Moreover, the article offers an insight into a range of policy proposals in determining how immigrants can immigrate into Canada. The articles introduction mentions important policies that the Canadian government put into place: Recent examples include the Ontario Expert Roundtable on Immigration (2012) and the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada. The paper presents a basic description of differences in labour market outcomes, including both earnings and employments. This is an important statement as it informs the reader about the various types of concepts, along with their sources, that have
Immigrants today now have the privilege of entering and residing in Canada but along with this privilege, there are also barriers that impede their integration and deprive them of equal opportunity in the society. The undervaluing of foreign education and credentials has emerged over the years as a huge obstacle faced by recent immigrants who seek employment in the areas that they have been trained, and worked in for decades in their respective home countries. For years, newcomers in Canada have been denied inclusion into the Canadian labour market simply because of policies that were
Watching my parents work from dawn till sundown draws my attention on earning money. In the material life, money maintains our daily life. Likewise, economy plays an essential role in every aspect of our society. I see it as the bridge to communicate among nations. As time passes by I realize economics and accounting is the significant factor that can influence future decisions.
Q5: What kinds of successful enterprises can be observed among China-born immigrants in the GTA, and how can these enterprises be described? The types of effective businesses in the study that could be observed among China-born immigrants in the GTA were skilled, specialized or useful and functional personal or home related services and businesses. For instances, the practical and skillful of HAC home services, real estate brokerage, fast printing of Chinese business cards and fast food advertisings, accounting consulting, dating services, immigration consulting, Chinese supermarket, and hair salon. These businesses or services in the study were realistic, workable and valuable to most homes and households or personal applications in GTA. Implication of this finding was that most of these first generation China-born entrepreneur immigrants’ enterprises were small family business or personal skilled trades. They focused on practical and useful home or household and personal businesses which were tied to the challenges of raising funds for startup. These China-born immigrants were new and first generation immigrants in Canada, and they had no families, relatives or networks in GTA (Guo, 2013; P. Li & Li, 2013). As the first generation immigrant entrepreneurs with limited networks and resource, China-born immigrant entrepreneur raised their capital for startup merely from their personal savings or family loans (Azmat, 2013; Guo, 2013). The study findings were consistent