Fish, CarolynChen, Kaijing Janice2023-03-242023-03-24https://hdl.handle.net/1794/28111Massage parlors in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District have experienced heightened police surveillance, mobilized by legislation that increasingly regulates massage labor performed by Asian migrant women. This wave of criminalization coincides with contested and renewed investment in the neighborhood, indicating the use of policing to displace workers and create the conditions for a new spatial fix, or the production of space through capital accumulation. Through an analysis of legislative records, police reports, and media accounts, I argue that the policing of Asian massage parlors draws on a sensationalist imaginary of human trafficking that simultaneously evokes longstanding racialized tropes and furthers the racialization of Asian migrant workers. Finally, I investigate how anti-trafficking rhetoric rationalizes greater police surveillance that displaces Asian massage workers and opens new spaces for capital accumulation.en-USAll Rights Reserved.Asian Americanmassage laborpolitical economyracial capitalismElectronic Thesis or Dissertation