Illicit Blocks of Ethnic Enclaves: Asian Migrant Sex Work in the Ethnic Neighborhoods of New York City and Los Angeles

Author

Brittany Y. Suh, CUNY Graduate CenterFollow

Date of Degree

9-2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Sociology

Advisor

Nancy Foner

Committee Members

Van Tran

Amy Adamczyk

Nadia Kim

Subject Categories

Community-Based Research | Criminology | Gender and Sexuality | Migration Studies | Race and Ethnicity | Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance

Keywords

sex work, human trafficking, policing, Asian immigrant women, ethnic enclaves, urban neighborhoods

Abstract

Asian immigrant women have long been speculated to be involved in massage parlors and illicit sexual labor in U.S. ethnic enclaves, often portrayed through sensationalized media narratives and punitive legal frameworks. Yet, the realities of their daily lives—shaped by migration, labor precarity, and racialized surveillance—remain understudied and misunderstood. This dissertation investigates how ethnic enclaves, ties, communities, and networks shape the working and lived experiences of Asian immigrant workers in the illicit ethnic commercial sex industry in New York City and Los Angeles. Using a mixed methods approach, I incorporated spatial analysis of arrest data (2010-2019) with 30 interviews and ethnographic field work conducted between 2022 and 2025. I found that ethnic enclaves serve as both sources of support and sites of risk for Asian migrant massage and sex workers—providing cultural familiarity, informal networks, economic survival and protection, yet also heightening their exposure to policing and exploitation. Second, “rescue policing” under the guise of anti-trafficking enforcement often reinforced racialized stereotypes and produced harm rather than protection. Third, spatial context shaped workers’ vulnerability and strategies; geographic differences in economic conditions, mobility patterns, and community infrastructure influenced how policing, labor, and advocacy practices unfolded. Fourth, despite structural constraints, workers exercised agency by building informal safety nets, redefining their labor as care work, and resisting dominant narratives of victimhood or deviance. These findings underscore the need for a non-carceral, community-centered approach that recognize the spatial realities and voices of immigrant workers as critical to shaping safer futures. Overall, this study advances sociological understandings of ethnic enclaves, stigmatized labor, and carceral governance by offering an intersectional analysis of how undocumented, working-class Asian immigrant massage and sex workers navigate risk, survival, and community in the face of structural exclusion.

Recommended Citation

Suh, Brittany Y., "Illicit Blocks of Ethnic Enclaves: Asian Migrant Sex Work in the Ethnic Neighborhoods of New York City and Los Angeles" (2025). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6374