The sense of being undeserving and the legal consciousness of Chinese immigrants in Canada

Abstract This article discusses how the state’s failure to respond to the needs of a marginalized community leads to a sense of being undeserving among its members, a sense that significantly shapes their legal consciousness. Focusing on Chinese immigrants’ reluctance to discuss contracts openly and invoke the law to seek redress in Canada, this article challenges the approach of blaming culture for some immigrants’ different perceptions of and relationships with the law in the host country. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation, this study argues that the host country’s devaluation and non-recognition of foreign credentials, its lack of intervention in predatory practices targeting vulnerable immigrants, and its failure to provide adequate legal resources accessible to immigrants with diverse language and cultural backgrounds, all work in tandem to push Chinese immigrants away from contracts and keep them from turning to law for help in Canada. Drawing on vulnerability theory and legal consciousness scholarship, it develops a multi-level legal consciousness framework to connect micro-level experiences with macro-level forces to understand how individuals who share the same marginalized identities participate in reproducing structural inequalities within their own communities due to state inaction.