Immigrants in the Restaurant Industry.

By Yunying Zhang

The immigration makes up a large part of U.S’ population. Bureau of Labor (BLS) statistics show that an estimated 1.4 million of U.S restaurant industry workers are foreign-born, working as chefs, dishwashers, busboys, etc. According to the data, it is interesting to find out what can a large population of immigrant labor force brings to the restaurant industry.

In terms of the overall U.S restaurant industry, an obvious advantage of having immigrants in the US is that the restaurant industry is forced to become wider, richer in order to satisfy customer`s demands and expectations. It is because a group of immigrants wants to bring their original foods to the new society, and also start a business based on a different marketing environment. What is more, in terms of the restaurant owner’s perspective, Kirati pointed out two other aspects of economic benefits of having immigrants work in restaurants. Kirati is a Thai food restaurant owner and manager who has been working with immigrants for many years. She said that “ Some immigrants do not have legal documents which won’t allow businesses to pay them the standard wages. That makes a big difference for our business because that means that we pay them less.” Another benefit that she mentioned would be a large group of immigrants work as the labor force in restaurants. She pointed out that “Since an increasing number of immigrants come to the United States, there are a lot more people trying to get jobs with us, and we never run out of the workers that need positions in the restaurant.”

Thomas Bailey in his article “A case study of immigrants in the restaurant industry” (205-220) states that the labor-market roles of immigrants change the labor-market roles of the locals, and the immigration itself has a huge impact on the product market.

“Our restaurant has been opened for more than ten years. When we started, especially in this area that we opened the restaurant, there weren’t many different types of food that was available during that period of time. Maybe like simple Chinese food, and then we have Thai food, but now we have Korean fusion food and many other types of food choices,” says Kirati. From her past experiences, we can find that how immigration has a huge impact on the product market.

The research that I found states that “immigration is associated with an increased ethnic diversity of restaurants” (Mazzolari, and Neumark 1107). Then, I asked her the benefits of immigration bring ethnic restaurants to the city, she said that “with the increase in the diversity of food in the San Francisco, we find that a lot more people are willing to try different food from a different culture. They do want to learn and experience a different culture food rather than just regular American food that they used to eat. “ Indeed, from the researchers and Kirati, it is easy to notice that new restaurants opened by immigrants widen the variety of choices for the Americans. Also, the variety of products in the supermarket shelves increases. In other words, the influence of immigrants in the restaurant industry become beneficial for the local citizens because they get a wider variety of cuisine to taste.

From another aspect, getting a job in the U.S is definitely help immigrant’s economic needs in daily life. However, immigrants are often treated as minorities, which may not get fair pay.

Kirati gave a reason why they usually get less paid. “The average wages for immigrants are much more enough for their basic needs, but it won’t as much as they would make if they have a legal document to be able to get the standard minimum wages. But in our restaurant, we always give opportunities for immigrants worker especially who work in the kitchen extra side works that can increase their income.”

From the interview with Kirati and the researchers, I found that there several reasons why the immigrants get underpaid or may occupy low-rating positions in the restaurant industry in the United States. This is because some high-end restaurants require the American nationality. Some other restaurants demand American education or specific validation of the immigrants` education, which may be a serious problem for the immigrant.

However, there are also many issues that are happening to immigrants in the industry. For example, the article “Stuck behind kitchen doors” revealed the issue that some jobs offer bad quality employment which means that immigrants are working in low wages, bad work conditions. Therefore, I was trying to find out what are the challenges that they faced and their treatments in the workplace. What is more, it is interesting to know what are the career advancements and limitations for them in restaurants.

Kirati talked about these in the interview: “There is definitely a lot of opportunities for immigrants in the food industry. There's just a lot of growing that can be made if you work in the food industry being an immigrant. Maybe you might not be able to start out at a high position but there's definitely growth for you.” This kind of opportunity happened in her restaurant when a dishwasher turned into a secondhand helper in cook line and then become the main head chef of the restaurant. “It's pretty amazing. We have a guy who works with us for 16 years and did not know any Thai, learned Thai, learned how to speak Thai, learned how to cook Thai food. And now he’s just like any other worker that works here. It's a beautiful thing to see that grow as a manager. “

What is more, Kirati revealed the issue that the status that immigrants here in the U.S make it hard for them to be visible in the restaurant because there are so many regulations regarding immigrants and whether they are authorized or not. Moreover, language barrier is one of the main limitations that immigrants workers face in the industry. But “Everybody here makes the job go as smoothly as possible even with their limitations,” she mentioned.

In conclusion, it is necessary for immigrants in the U.S bring more benefits to the restaurant industry. They create additional demands on the restaurant industry`s products for the public. Also, they bring fresh ideas to the market. When they are opening new restaurants, which changing the market situations in the country. “When we first opened this restaurant, we were not concern about the public would accepting Thai food or not because there were already a lot of Thai food restaurants that opened before us,” says Kirati.

Finally, immigrants are participating as workforce, which brings cultural diversity to the restaurant industry. Although they face some complications like lower wages and undocumented issues, they make the whole society change their attitude to immigrants’ labor force.

Works Cited

Bailey, Thomas. "A case study of immigrants in the restaurant industry." Industrial

Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society24.2 (1985): 205-221.

Mazzolari, Francesca, and David Neumark. "Immigration and product diversity." Journal

of Population Economics 25.3 (2012): 1107-1137.

Wilson, Eli R. "Stuck behind kitchen doors? Assessing the work prospects of latter-

generation Latino workers in a Los Angeles restaurant." Ethnic and Racial Studies

41.2 (2018): 210-228.