Insufficient Funds
eBook - ePub

Insufficient Funds

The Culture of Money in Low-Wage Transnational Families

  1. 304 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Insufficient Funds

The Culture of Money in Low-Wage Transnational Families

About this book

Every year migrants across the globe send more than $500 billion to relatives in their home countries, and this circulation of money has important personal, cultural, and emotional implications for the immigrants and their family members alike. Insufficient Funds tells the story of how low-wage Vietnamese immigrants in the United States and their poor, non-migrant family members give, receive, and spend money.

Drawing on interviews and fieldwork with more than one hundred members of transnational families, Hung Cam Thai examines how and why immigrants, who largely earn low wages as hairdressers, cleaners, and other "invisible" workers, send home a substantial portion of their earnings, as well as spend lavishly on relatives during return trips. Extending beyond mere altruism, this spending is motivated by complex social obligations and the desire to gain self-worth despite their limited economic opportunities in the United States. At the same time, such remittances raise expectations for standards of living, producing a cascade effect that monetizes family relationships. Insufficient Funds powerfully illuminates these and other contradictions associated with money and its new meanings in an increasingly transnational world.

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Yes, you can access Insufficient Funds by Hung Cam Thai in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Development Economics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Copyright
  3. Title Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Table of Contents
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. Note on Translations
  8. 1. Six Tales of Migrant Money
  9. 2. The Making of a Transnational Expenditure Cascade
  10. 3. Money as a Currency of Care
  11. 4. The Migrant Provider Role
  12. 5. The American Dream in Vietnam
  13. 6. Compensatory Consumption
  14. 7. Emulative Consumption
  15. 8. The Cyclical Entrenchment of Monetary Habits
  16. 9. The High Price of Esteem Consumption
  17. 10. Tall Promises
  18. Conclusion: Special Money in Low-Wage Transnational Families
  19. Appendix: Methodology and Interviewees
  20. Notes
  21. Bibliography
  22. Index