Joe Lin’s father toiled in a Chinese restaurant and his mother in a garment factory. They never wanted that life for him.

So the Lins scraped together enough money to open a dollar store in Flushing, Queens. Nearly two years ago, they opened a second store in nearby Jackson Heights. Now Joe Lin, 32, and his wife and younger brother help run the stores. “If the family stays together at least you’re happy,” he said.

As dollar stores have proliferated across New York City, they have provided not only bargains for shoppers, but also jobs and livelihoods for a new generation of immigrants like the Lins. These immigrants say the dollar stores are a step up from the restaurants and factories that have long sustained the city’s newcomers, but offered grueling schedules that left workers little time to spend with their families. Their dollar stores are often stocked with reminders of their own homelands as well as of their friends and neighbors, from guava juice and curry pastes to hot peppers and Goya canned beans.

At the Mega 99c store in the Bronx, where framed pictures of Arabic writing and tea sets sit among soap and cleaning supplies, Abu Baker, the manager, said about 200 customers a day came through the doors. In Brooklyn, on a stretch of Manhattan Avenue known for its line of discount stores, Dollar Up’s stock of Polish specialties draws regulars like Natalia Niklova, who likes “these brands.”