Although they are "pariah capitalists" who face political insecurity in India, the Hakka Chinese have since their migration during the First World War come to control the city of Calcutta's tanning industry. Drawing on extensive fieldwork among the Calcutta Hakka as well as members of their community who have migrated to Toronto, Ellen Oxfeld sheds new light on the complex interrelations among their entrepreneurial ideology, family structures, and ethnicity.