Chinese women garment workers in New York City, 1948-92
- Categories
- Book/Boek
- Creator
- Bao, Xiaolan
- Publish Year
- 2001
- Shelfmark
- B2713 - B
- Thesaurus
- vakbonden, stakingen, migratie, etniciteit, betaalde arbeid, industrie, 20e eeuw, Verenigde Staten
- Description
- In 1982, twenty thousand Chinese-American garment workers–mostly women--went on strike in New York's Chinatown and forced every Chinese garment industry employer in the city to sign a union contract. In this study, Bao penetrates to the heart of Chinese-American society to explain how this militancy and organized protest, seemingly so at odds with traditional Chinese female behavior, came about. Bao offers a discussion of the interplay of ethnic and class factors within the garment industry in New York City. She examines the exploitative paternalism, rooted in ethnic social and economic structures, by which operators sustained low wages and marginal working conditions. Through the words of the women workers themselves, Bao shows how their changing positions within their families and within the workplace galvanized them to unite and stand up for themselves.