全美最大的华人聚居地：纽约法拉盛招工、雇保姆的华人生存之道 The largest Chinese community in the United States: The survival strat

我们在法拉盛的时间仅有两、三个小时，只能算是管中窥豹，但也足够留下深刻印象了。

Flushing is a town located in Queens, New York. In recent years, due to the influx of immigrants including Chinese, Korean, Indian, Pakistani, and Greek communities, Flushing has become one of the most ethnically diverse communities in New York City and the most racially diverse in Queens. The Chinese population in Flushing now surpasses that of Manhattan's Chinatown, making it the largest Chinese community in New York and even the entire United States.

We only had two or three hours in Flushing, which was just a brief glimpse, but it was enough to leave a lasting impression.

法拉盛街头 Flushing streets

走在法拉盛的大街上，完全没有异国的感觉。人们行色匆匆，很多是黑头发、黑眼睛、黄皮肤。与他们擦肩而过时，耳边传来的普通话，让人莫名亲切很多。路边招牌也多半是中文的，银行很多，按摩美甲、风水算命、麻将馆应有尽有。很多国内网红的餐饮店，这里都能找到踪影，例如小肥羊，烤鱼店什么的。随处可见的国际快运、收件分发的经营业态，当然也与国内电商的发达密切相关，法拉盛就是中国本土发展的投射地。

法拉盛街头法拉盛街头路边有人拖着板车，卖些拖鞋、T恤、书籍报刊，也有发小广告的，内容多为英语培训、招工、雇保姆，不一而足。华人超市里，王致和、老干妈之类齐全，只有你想不到的，没有买不到的，重点可以买到游水海鲜，中国特有的水果，一点也不逊于国内。

在法拉盛经营职业介绍所的业者耿行说，华埠缺乏新移民劳动力是最主要的问题。如今的新移民都住在法拉盛、布鲁克林，两地的职业介绍所机构近年来也越开越多，住在法拉盛、布鲁克林两地的移民不必为了找个工作还要跑一趟华埠。华埠没有找工人，职业介绍所的自然生意不好做。

耿行表示，法拉盛一带的职业介绍所，介绍的工作主要是纽约地区附近，很少有外州的工作。不过现如今，由于外州加强移民执法、加上路途遥远、生活语言环境不便等因素，许多华裔移民找工都不愿意去外州。

抵达华人区找个家庭旅馆，15美金床位，25美金单间，去职业介绍所找工作50美金介绍费。

坐大巴车去外州小镇的中国餐馆做服务员，一个月新手3500熟手4500-6000刀，老板接机免费住宿包三餐。

工作几个月，到华人区律师楼找华人律师，申请办理工卡，递交申请，收到回执信，去移民局打指纹，然后等待150天工卡排期，五个月后拿到工卡，工卡办理费用在五千到一万美金左右，可以分期。

Walking down the streets of Flushing, there's absolutely no feeling of being in a foreign country. People are hurrying along, many with black hair, black eyes, and yellow skin. Hearing Mandarin spoken as you pass them by gives a strange sense of familiarity. Most of the signs along the road are in Chinese, and there are many banks, massage and nail salons, fortune tellers, and mahjong parlors. Many popular Chinese restaurants, like Little Sheep Hot Pot and grilled fish restaurants, can be found here. The ubiquitous international express delivery and parcel distribution businesses are, of course, closely related to the developed e-commerce in China; Flushing is a reflection of China's domestic development.

On the streets of Flushing, some people are pulling carts selling slippers, T-shirts, books, and newspapers, while others are handing out flyers advertising English training, job openings, and nanny services, among other things. In the Chinese supermarkets, you can find everything from Wang Zhihe and Laoganma sauces – anything you can think of, you can buy.  Importantly, you can buy live seafood and unique Chinese fruits, just as good as what you'd find in China.

Geng Xing, who runs an employment agency in Flushing, says that the lack of new immigrant labor in Chinatown is the main problem. Nowadays, new immigrants live in Flushing and Brooklyn, and the number of employment agencies in these two areas has increased significantly in recent years. Immigrants living in Flushing and Brooklyn don't need to travel to Chinatown to find a job. Without workers to find jobs for, the employment agencies in Chinatown naturally don't do well.

Geng Xing said that the jobs offered by employment agencies in the Flushing area are mainly in the New York region, with very few jobs in other states. However, nowadays, due to stricter immigration enforcement in other states, the long distances, and inconvenient living and language environments, many Chinese immigrants are unwilling to look for jobs outside of New York.

Upon arriving in the Chinese district, you can find a guesthouse with beds for $15 and single rooms for $25.  The fee for finding a job through an employment agency is $50.

Taking a bus to a small town in another state to work as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant, a beginner can earn $3500 a month, while experienced workers can earn $4500-$6000. The employer provides free pick-up, accommodation, and three meals a day. After working for a few months, I went to a law firm in the Chinese community and hired a Chinese lawyer to apply for a work permit.  I submitted the application, received a confirmation letter, went to the immigration office to have my fingerprints taken, and then waited 150 days for the work permit to be processed. Five months later, I received my work permit. The cost of obtaining the work permit was approximately $5,000 to $10,000, payable in installments.

无论你是旅游留学商务还是非法入境。都有资格申请工卡

拿到工卡可以报税交医保可以贷款买房，只要不离开美国，和绿卡公民没有任何区别，通过打庭上诉移民法庭，可以一直持有工卡，最长可以保持10年以上，一旦移民法官判决通过就可以从c8工卡换a5工卡，一年后换绿卡。五年后入籍，成为美国公民后可以给父母申请团聚绿卡。

有了工卡注册uber eats送外卖，一天九个小时一二百美金，12小时二三百刀，开车送到门口一扔就完事。

工作稳定去卡车驾校考卡车驾照，考试费用在5千美金左右，一般3个月卡车驾照考下来，找个华人卡车公司应聘，新手6000美金，东海岸到西海岸一趟来回四五天，过了三个月后熟手月薪8000刀。

工作一年后攒七八万美金买二手车头，自己拉活跑，一个月1.5万-2万美金，一年130-150万人民币。

美国一辆本田crv也就四万美金

工作两三年首付20万就可以买一套，三层楼的七八十万的大别墅，房前带草坪，房后带泳游池，现在洛杉矶普遍价格在120万美金，美国中西部普通小镇。同等大别墅也就三四十万美金。

持有c8工卡可以交医疗保险，然后看病走保险，低收入人群可以申请医疗白卡，基本上等于免费看病，交医保也就一年几千刀，看病先看病后付款，医院账单交给保险公司付。

美国看病是先看病后付账单给你或者保险公司，惩罚机制是扣除你得信用分数，影响你得贷款买房找工作甚至租房子，华人房东不管这个，所以很多流浪汉都租不到房子，就是信用烂了。

墨西哥非法移民和白人流浪汉，由于信用系统查不到墨西哥人，白人信用拉黑，所以他们看病账单是寄给美国政府报销的，也就是免费看病，你要是正常在美国生活报税反而要交每年几千的商业保险，所以很多华人拿着工卡报税报的很低低于贫困线，用来避免每年几千美金的医疗保险，来申请医疗白卡免费看病。

工作十年后，这时候你有可能已经拿到绿卡入籍成为美国公民，或者没拿到绿卡被移民法庭拿递解令判决递解出境。

无论有没有美国绿卡都没关系

呆满十年，带攒的1000万人民币，有美国护照免签入境买张机票去葡萄牙，十年没拿到绿卡的也可以花几万刀买本加勒比国家法案护照，免签欧洲的护照，免签入境葡萄牙。

Whether you are a tourist, student, business traveler, or even an undocumented immigrant, you are eligible to apply for a work permit.

With a work permit, you can file taxes, pay for health insurance, and apply for loans to buy a house. As long as you don't leave the United States, there is no difference between you and a green card holder or citizen. Through court appeals to the immigration court, you can hold a work permit indefinitely, for up to 10 years or more. Once the immigration judge rules in your favor, you can switch from a C8 work permit to an A5 work permit, then get a green card after one year, and become a US citizen after five years. As a US citizen, you can apply for a family reunification green card for your parents.

With a work permit, you can register with Uber Eats to deliver food. You can earn $100-200 a day working nine hours, or $200-300 working 12 hours.  Just drive to the customer's door, drop off the food, and you're done.

For more stable work, you can go to a truck driving school to get a truck driver's license. The exam fee is around $5,000, and it usually takes about three months to get the license. Then you can apply to a Chinese-owned trucking company.  Beginners earn $6,000 a month, driving from the East Coast to the West Coast and back in four or five days. After three months, experienced drivers earn $8,000 a month.

After working for a year, you can save $70,000-80,000 to buy a used truck. Then you can work independently, earning $15,000-20,000 a month, or $1.3-1.5 million RMB a year.

A Honda CRV in the US only costs about $40,000.

After working for two or three years, you can put down a $200,000 down payment to buy a large three-story villa costing $700,000-800,000, with a lawn in front and a swimming pool in the back.  Currently, the average price in Los Angeles is $1.2 million, but in a small town in the American Midwest, a similar large villa would only cost $300,000-400,000.

With a C8 work permit, you can pay for health insurance, and then use insurance to cover medical expenses. Low-income individuals can apply for a medical assistance card, which essentially provides free medical care. Health insurance costs only a few thousand dollars a year.  Medical bills are paid after treatment, with the hospital sending the bill to the insurance company.

In the US, you receive treatment first, and then the bill is sent to you or your insurance company. The penalty for non-payment is a reduction in your credit score, which affects your ability to get loans, buy a house, find a job, or even rent an apartment. Chinese landlords don't usually care about this, which is why many homeless people can't rent apartments – their credit is ruined. Mexican illegal immigrants and white homeless people, because the credit system cannot track Mexicans and white people have bad credit, their medical bills are sent to the US government for reimbursement, meaning they receive free healthcare.  If you live and pay taxes normally in the US, you have to pay thousands of dollars annually for private health insurance.  Therefore, many Chinese people with work permits file very low tax returns, below the poverty line, to avoid paying thousands of dollars in annual health insurance premiums and instead apply for Medicaid for free healthcare.

After ten years of working, you might have obtained a green card and become a US citizen, or you might not have received a green card and been ordered deported by an immigration court.

Whether you have a US green card or not doesn't matter.

After ten years, with 10 million RMB saved, and a US passport allowing visa-free entry, you can buy a plane ticket to Portugal.  Even if you didn't get a green card after ten years, you can spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy a passport from a Caribbean country (through their citizenship-by-investment program), which allows visa-free entry to Europe, including Portugal.

法拉盛还是美食集中地。各国料理集中。遇有一小市场，几家华人档口集中一起，从饺子到包子，从云吞到油条，竟还有煎饼果子，广式烧腊，应有尽有。让人恍惚身在广州或香港的某一市井。体现着海外华人无奈的纠结，一方面，远离故土，义无反顾投身于未知世界，一方面又坚守自己的内心，永远带着故土情结，前生今世，就这样纠缠着。

Flushing is also a hub for diverse cuisine, with a concentration of dishes from various countries. There's a small market where several Chinese stalls are clustered together, offering everything from dumplings and steamed buns to wontons and fried dough sticks, and even Jianbing (Chinese crepes) and Cantonese-style roasted meats – truly a culinary paradise. It gives you the feeling of being in a bustling market in Guangzhou or Hong Kong. This reflects the complex and often conflicted feelings of overseas Chinese: on the one hand, they leave their homeland and bravely venture into the unknown; on the other hand, they hold onto their roots, forever carrying a deep connection to their homeland, a sentiment that intertwines their past and present lives.

唐人街一景 A scene from Chinatown

法拉盛与其它唐人街不同，其它唐人街应是老一代移民立足的地方，而法拉盛是新移民的乐园。

我们看到的法拉盛只是小小的一角，实际上法拉盛地区的日均人流量，与曼哈顿的时代广场、梅西百货广场，并称纽约州人流量最多的三个地方，可见其影响力。有着国家公园，有着全美最美的球场，学校林立，是纽约经济发展最迅速的行政区域。

法拉盛的房价近些年上升迅速。80平米的公寓，可以卖到80万美金，租金可达到2000多美金。

Flushing is different from other Chinatowns. While other Chinatowns are places where older generations of immigrants established themselves, Flushing is a haven for new immigrants.

What we see of Flushing is only a small part of it. In reality, the daily foot traffic in the Flushing area is comparable to that of Times Square and Macy's Plaza in Manhattan, making it one of the three busiest places in New York State, demonstrating its significant influence. It boasts a national park, one of the most beautiful stadiums in the country, and numerous schools, making it the fastest-growing administrative area in New York in terms of economic development.

Housing prices in Flushing have risen rapidly in recent years. An 80-square-meter apartment can sell for $800,000, and the rent can reach over $2,000.