There's a new book out, and despite the fact that it was written by someone from ucla (:P), i think that it's pretty important that we pick it up and give it a read. it arrives just as LA is named, once again, the most sweated city in the nation.the $10 book is a compilation of interviews, stats, stories, company profiles, project, report and publication reviews, edited by ucla prof/advisors kent wong and julie monroe. it's called "sweatshop slaves: asian americans in the garment industry," and it's available for purchase thru ucla. the piece is the outgrowth of a course called, "work, labor, and social justice," and is testament to what such a class can do. i'm under the impression that we're trying to get a research/indep study course together here at 'sc, maybe we can get in touch w/ prof wong, or put him in contact w/ sellers and mr. josh and see about how to build a really dynamic, productive program. the book is proof that it DOESN'T just have to be a class and that's the end of it; you get your credits, your grade, and go home. something that lasts can be put together and put on the market, sales can even go to benefit a group, family, or ngo in the field.
below is the full text of an article put out by ucnewswire. it describes in greater detail both the book and the story behind it.
- m.
New book by UCLA undergrads goes inside LA sweatshops
Meg Sullivan, UCLA
Growing up among the children of garment industry workers in El Monte, Calif., Pauline Phan routinely was handed piecework when she visited the homes of friends and neighbors.
"We'd cut threads off garments or fit newly sewn Halloween costumes into boxes," recalls the UCLA biology major. "We didn't think anything of the work. To us it was just a normal thing to do."
In fact, the daughter of hardworking Vietnamese refugees insists she had no idea that some parents work eight-hour days - or that child labor is illegal - until she enrolled at UCLA.
"I have a lot of friends whose parents work from the moment they get up to the moment they go to bed, and their children would help them in any way they could." she said. "I knew that they had to do what they had to do, and it sucked. But I didn't realize that anything could be done about the problem."
"Work, Labor and Social Justice," a yearlong general education class, opened Phan's eyes. The experience was so inspiring for her and seven other UCLA freshmen that they decided to write a book on the subject.
Four years later, "Sweatshop Slaves: Asian Americans in the Garment Industry" has rolled off the presses just as the students are gearing up to participate in the university's June 16 commencement exercises.
"Having this book finished before graduation makes this time extra special," said Jacqueline Ng, a biology major and contributor. "I feel like I've surpassed my own expectations for myself."
Written in a lively and engaging manner, "Sweatshop Slaves" is first book to focus on Asian American garment workers of Los Angeles.
Compiled from press accounts, in-depth interviews, unpublished labor research and labor newsletters, the 104-page book is designed to be a primer both for students of labor studies and for garment workers eager to learn more about their rights. It also serves as a kind of referendum on progress for the local Asian American garment workers, whose plight became the subject of international attention with the alarming discovery in 1995 of 72 Thai immigrants held captive and forced to work 18-hour days in an El Monte sweatshop.
"The students by and large knew nothing about these conditions before the class," said Kent Wong, director of UCLA's Center for Labor Research and Education and instructor of "Work, Labor and Social Justice." "The book is a fulfillment of their interest to get the word out that sweatshops aren't something that only happened 100 years ago, but they're here and now."
With government enforcement plummeting as the industry mushrooms, "Sweatshop Slaves" paints a pessimistic picture of the effectiveness of legislation passed in the wake of the El Monte raid.
"The greatest challenge facing the California Legislature is no longer enacting laws to improve working conditions, grievance procedure, or manufacturing practices in the garment industry; we have plenty of laws," writes student author Justin Miyamoto, a biochemistry major. "But without financial support for government organizations to implement them, these laws are useless."
A more encouraging picture emerges from grassroots protests. "Sweatshop Slaves" presents the most comprehensive account to date of four successful labor campaigns, including boycotts and other interventions from labor organizers, against clothing retailers and manufacturers.
The book also assembles for the first time in one place profiles of six key labor groups, including a nonprofit organization started by a UCLA graduate.
UCLA alumna Chanchanit "Chancee" Martorell credits her undergraduate work in political science and her graduate work in Asian American Studies with preparing her for the 1994 launch of the Thai Community Development Center. Dedicated to advancing the social and economic well-being of low- and moderate-income Thai immigrants, the CDC responded immediately to the needs of the El Monte sweatshop laborers, who after being discovered were taken into custody by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
"Students should be made aware of the 'model minority' myth, because we have many Asians making up the working poor," Martorell writes in the book.
In addition to portraits of labor groups, the book includes profiles of individual "sweatshop warriors," or activists who have been particularly effective in the battle against abusive labor practices in the garment industry.
The most amazing example is a former pediatrician from China, who followed family to the San Gabriel Valley. Daunted by the prospects of learning English well enough to find
employment in the medical field, Helen Chien eventually found work in garment factories plagued by unfair labor conditions, including abysmal pay, filthy restrooms, abusive employers and harsh chemicals without protection.
"I had no idea how cruel some employers could be," Chien writes in the book.
Now a leading labor organizer, Chien tells her story for the first time in print to Phan, who grew up speaking Chien's native Mandarin because Phan's parents, while from Vietnam, are ethnically Chinese.
Meanwhile, a student of Thai heritage interviewed one of the El Monte workers who were surrounded by barbed wire and subjected to 24-hour surveillance by armed guards.
"I felt sure that if I tried to leave, I would be killed," Rojana Cheunchujit Sussman said.
"It was so wonderful to have these bilingual students because we were able to get access to people who hadn't been interviewed before," added Wong, who has been teaching at UCLA for 20 years.
While the book traces the history of sweatshops in the United States, it focuses on the Greater Los Angeles area, which has surpassed the New York area as the center of the North American garment industry. Home to more than 1,000 manufacturers who employ an estimated 90,000 workers, most of them immigrant, the garment and related industries account for as much as 10 percent of Los Angeles' economy, according to "Sweatshop Slaves." Nearly one in five local employees today work in the garment industry, making it Los Angeles' leading manufacturing sector.
Order forms for "Sweatshop Slaves: Asian Americans in the Garment Industry" are available at http://www.labor.ucla.edu/. The book can be purchased for $10 by mailing a check to the UCLA Labor Center, PO Box 951478, Los Angeles CA 90095-1478. No credit card orders are accepted at this time.
For more information, contact Erica Grove at (310) 206-0812
