Sweatshop Warriors
By Miriam Ching Yoon Louie |
ORDER -- Item #3054, Price $18.00
Miriam Ching Louie's Sweatshop Warriors introduces us to women who refuse
to accept their assigned place at the bottom of the sweatshop pyramid. The Chinese,
Korean and Mexican immigrant women, whose testimonies are included in this work,
have courageously challenged restaurant owners, contractors, corporations, governments
and transnational anti-labor treaties. Here is inspiration and leadership for the labor
movement and for all of us who seek creative ways of mounting resistance to global
capitalism.
All the good-hearted liberals who see themselves as saviors of downtrodden sweatshop
workers must read this book. As Miriam Louie powerfully demonstrates, immigrant
women themselves have been organizing and fighting back on the front lines of the class
war against global capital, making political connections that many of today's traveling
demonstrators are just starting to think about. We need to listen to these women.
This is such a beautiful, moving book; the guiding light for the new labor movement.
There's no one blueprint for organizing women workers in today's garment industry,
but this book puts polyvocal voices and plans on the table. Organizers and academics
interested in the power of labor organizing across relations of race, class, nation,
and generation will find inspiration and keen insights in this book. Miriam Ching
Yoon Louie connects the threads and weaves brilliant pathways to social justice.
According to a popular political saying, "wherever there is oppression, there is
resistance." In today's corporate-driven global economy where sweatshops have become
the norm rather than the exception, it is easy to focus only on the oppresion. Long-time
activist Miriam Ching Louie's important book tells the stories of the frontline
warriors of resistance in the U.S. - the immigrant women sweatshop laborers who are
tenaciously and creatively battling for justice and dignity. Through the organizing
vehicles of community-based workers' centers, these Chinese, Korean and Latina
immigrants are challenging not only the lynchpins of the corporate economy but also
the traditional model of union organizing - as well as gender relations in their
families and class dynamics in their ethnic communities. This book is essential
reading for comunity organizers, for labor activists, and for others involved in
grassroots campaigns taking on corporate globalization.
A key weapon of the oppressor is to control the message - cover up the abuses, silence
the sorrows and struggles of the oppressed. Luckily we have Miriam Ching Yoon Louie
to listen and share the incredible stories of these sweatshop warriors - a women's
movement the mainstream media has too long ignored. In the process, Miriam magnifies
the women's voices and shines a bright light on the exploitation they challenge and the
lessons they have to teach us all.
"This is such a beautiful, moving book; the guiding light for the new labor movement."
"Miriam Ching Louie's Sweatshop Warriors introduces us to women who refuse
to accept their assigned place at the bottom of the sweatshop pyramid. The Chinese,
Korean and Mexican immigrant women whose testimonies are included in this work,...[provide]
inspiration and leadership for all of us who seek creative ways of mounting resistance
to global capitalism."
"Organizers and academics...will find inspiration and keen insights in this book."
"Long-time activist Miriam Ching Louie's important book tells the stories of front-line
warriors - the immigrant women sweatshop laborers who tenaciously battle for justice.
Through community-based workers' centers, these Chinese, Korean and Latina immigrants
are challenging not only the corporate economy but also the traditional model of
union organizing - as well as gender relations in their families and class dynamics
in their ethnic communities."
Miriam Ching Yoon Louie works with the Women of Color Resource Center and formerly
served as national campaign media director of Fuerza Unida and Asian Immigrant Women
Advocates. Her essays and articles on immigrant women and labor issues have been widely
anthologized, and she speaks at public events internationally. She is the co-author,
with Linda Burnham, of Women's Education in the Global Economy (Women of
Color Resource Center, 2000).
Comments from Inside Front Flap
-Angela Y. Davis, author of Women, Race and Class
-Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Yo' Mama's Disfunktional!: Fighting the Culture
Wars in Urban America
-Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, author of Domestica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning
and Caring In The Shadows Of Affluence
-Glenn Omatsu, Associate Editor, Amerasia Journal
-Ellen Bravo, Co-Director, 9to5, National Association of Working Women
Comments from Back Cover
-Robin D. G. Kelley
-Angela Y. Davis
-Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo
-Glenn Omatsu
Background on Miriam Ching Yoon Louie
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Copyright © 2002 by AACP, Inc.
Most recent revision October 7, 2002