The 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City have had far reaching effects on all of the city’s business sectors. New York’s garment industry is no different. Prior to 2001, New York City’s garment shops were struggling to keep up with international competition. Garment factors overseas gave New York garment shops stiff competition because overseas factories payed workers far less. Once the terrorist attacks occurred September, the already struggling garment sector was crippled even further. Like most business in the affected city area, garment shops were more or less quarantined off from the rest  of the world. Little to no transportation in and out of the city during the time after September 11th gave the local garment shops little access to business orders and contracts. This period of stagnation forced some shops to lay off workers or otherwise downsize their operations. Furthermore, while the city remained devastated, foreign garment shops got an even larger lead on the Manhattan shops. Outside aid was given to many groups indirectly affected by 9/11, but aid was sometimes difficult to obtain or simply not adequate enough. The garment industry, like many of city’s businesses, has been able to rebound from September 11th, but the industry still has dust that has yet to be shaken off.

Before 9/11, the garment industry was already beginning to decline. It is cheaper to buy garments made in China or other countries where workers are not paid the fair wages and work in unsafe conditions. After 9/11, the garment industry was completely destroyed. There was no way into the city because the bus and subway lines were all shut down. The area was closed off and workers could not get to the factories to complete orders.

The garment factory plays a great economic role in Chinatown for immigrants. Many immigrants, especially the Chinese, live in Chinatown and obtain jobs from the factories. Since they could not work, immigrants had no income, which lessened spending in the surrounding businesses. This caused a complete economic disaster for many business owners and residents in the area. This shows that the garment factory was a connecting piece in Chinatown’s economy.

What I found interesting about this article is how the garment industry is so large and prominent in New York City before 9/11. I did not know that local garment shops made clothing for brand name stores like Ann Taylor and Talbots. I mean, I dont think that any of my clothes in my wardrobe are made in the USA; they are all from countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, and China.

I also did not realize how important the garment industry was to businesses in Manhattan, and its role in the ethnic enclave. Like in a pond ecosystem, the garment industry is like the flies. One fly may not really seem important to the ecosystem, but take away all the flies and the frogs will die, which may in turn lead the birds, who feed off the frogs, to die. In other words, businesses established in the garment communities will also feel the aftershock caused by the decline of the garment industry. I am also surprised how legal immigrants are being taken advantage of in the industry by being paid and treated the same as illegal immigrants, just because they do not know English. In a sense, they should be grateful that they are being employed when they do not know English, but every benefit comes with a tradeoff and this tradeoff is the mobility trap. It is just sad how these working immigrants will never be able to move up the social ladder because they will always be exploited by their coethnic employers, not giving them the chance to learn English. This in turn will hurt the immigrants even more in the end because in the face of the 9/11 aftermath, thousands of workers will lose their jobs and not be able to find new ones because they do not know English.

It can be said that the onset of the 9/11 terrorist attack exacerbated and sped up the already declining garment sector of New York City. The garment industry had already been struggling to keep up with the competition overseas, mostly because wages in the United States are more expensive than those of foreign countries. Thus, US garment manufacturers must split their production to include both US and foreign made goods. The attack on September 11, 2001 caused devastation not only to the city, the people, and the American spirit, but it also worsened the fate of the garment industry. The attack caused a cessation of all business in the Chinatown garment sector because all of the roads leading to and coming out of the area were blocked off. The blockade of roads and bridges meant that there were no new orders coming in and so workers fought to complete those that were left over. Eventually, there were no more orders left for businesses and people lost their jobs. Of course, over time, the garment industry was able to recover, but it never saw the same success that it had in the past. Many workers had to adjust to unemployment and the search for a new job. Fortunately, there were many benefits available for displaced workers, but many complicated rules, procedures, and guidelines sometimes made it difficult for people to attain these benefits. Families struggled to make ends meet and many adults had to make the choice to either remain unemployed or retrain. Retraining entailed both an economic and time investment to get a new degree in another field. 9/11 changed the lives of people in numerous ways, both seen and unseen, and the lives of garment workers are among those that were uncommon to the public eye.

It was interesting to me that the garment industry was still a thriving industry even at the time of September 11^th.  My assumption was that the garment industry in New York would be completely nonexistent because of the outsourcing of labor that we tended to do. Rather than make clothes in the United States and paying workers the minimum wage here, it was much cheaper to make the same clothes in China because those workers were paid less. After the World Trade Center was attacked, many of these garment-creating shops were closed down, without any way of getting back open because of the increased security, as well as the blocked railways and roads.

Unfortunately, this attack just sped up the process of the collapse of the garment industry. Eventually outsourcing would have collapsed the industry in general, and this attack just sped up this collapse. Because the workers had no way of getting back into their factories, there were no clothes being made. Because there were no clothes being made, it was impossible to get any money whatsoever out of it because the owners were not able to contact the people who buy the clothes since phone lines were down. Eventually when the workers were able to go back, the people who buy the clothes already had found other means of getting their products made, which caused a collapse in this garment industry. Factory after factory ran out of business, until eventually there were no more jobs to obtain in this industry.

I was initially surprised to learn that the Chinatown garment industry existed so prevalently during the time of the terrorist attacks. It was not a shock to learn that the garment industry had been in decline prior to the attacks. The way our world has been heading in the past few decades calls for technology capable of doing everything previously done by people, such as making a large amount of clothing in a short period of time. The impact that September 11 had on the garment industry was shocking, most likely because the media did not mention the Chinatown garment industry. With all of the emphasis on politics and matters abroad, it would have never have crossed my mind to consider the fate of the garment industry.

What was once a convenient location in Manhattan came to be a curse when the twin towers fell. Located within a mile of the World Trade Center in Chinatown, the factories suffered consequences after the attacks. Transportation and communication was reduced around Canal Street such as roads closing, increased traffic, and lack of train service. Workers were understandably unable to get to work and areas of Chinatown were only restored after a few months.  Outsourcing occurred at high rates and businesses faced the choice of shutting down or moving out of Manhattan.

            The garment industry collapsed and left workers jobless and facing economic instability. The structure of the Chinese garment industries made it clear why finding work was so difficult. Working in the garment industry meant that workers did not need to learn English because they had found a job through connections where everyone spoke the same language as they did. The traditional ethnic enclave model and Kwong’s model have different explanations for what happened. I believe that garment workers were stuck in a cycle that was convenient and reliable for that point in time, but forced them to consider only one path. There were no motivations to develop any new skills.

Future generations will study September 11, 2001 as a turning point in American history. Just as today we study the attack on Pearl Harbor in the context of American involvement in World War Two,  9/11 will one day be taught as the impetus  for global policy shifts, the war on terror, the re-bolstering of the CIA and the Pentagon, and a general political shift towards the militarized-right. With time, 9/11 will become another part of our history; tragic, but in the context of national history, safe to handle.

Today, however, the memories of 2001 are still raw, perhaps because we are still aware of how our city has changed since. In Moving On: Chinese Garment Workers After 9/11, we catch a glimpse of one of the many groups profoundly affected by the attacks. As a minority immigrant group, the narrative of Chinese garment workers is easily overlooked. This article offers an important insight into the economic and social effects that 9/11 had on Chinatown and the many immigrants who worked there.

There is no question that the garment industry in Chinatown was declining. Demand for small batches of clothing was dwindling as retailers digitalized their inventories, making it easier to outsource their orders overseas, where labor was cheaper. In the days and weeks immediately following the attacks, those factories in Chinatown were physically cut off from their clients, both by roadblock and the lack of telephone lines. In the aftermath of 9/11 many of these newly-laid off workers had difficulty getting federal aid, especially because most agencies “delineated the disaster area as south of Canal Street. This designation effectively eliminated 80% of garment shops and their owners and employees from aid.”

Perhaps the most striking realization of this article is not that 9/11 greatly affected the garment shops of Chinatown, but that the loss of these jobs has had a ripple effect: fewer workers in chinatown means less business for restaurants and supermarkets, which seems to foreshadow general economic blight. As is pointed out, tourism alone cannot keep Chinatown’s economy afloat.

We’ve spent a lot of time focusing on ethnic enclaves and immigrant networks. It is clear, however, that these networks have their limits. As job opportunities in Chinatown dwindle, residents leave the neighborhood and many immigrants, most of whom do not speak english and have little more than a grade school education, are thrown into the deep-end of a daunting job market. And that has implications for all New York. It is easy to focus on the national and international implications of September 11th. Sometimes though, it’s worth taking a step back (or rather, a step forward) and looking more closely at the lasting impacts on a local, human level.

Even though I was only six years old at the time of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, I remember bits and pieces of the chaos that consumed our city. Even know that more than a decade has passed since the attacks and I have learned a great deal about the events leading up to it and what exactly happened, I never learned or even thought about how the attacks affected the neighborhood businesses, especially not how it affected Chinatown and its garment industry. This is what is discussed in the Moving On article. Once I began reading the article I realized how close Chinatown was in actuality to ground zero so it made sense as to why they would be greatly affected by this disaster. An interesting point made in this article is how in Chinatown, many of the businesses are family owned and therefore once businesses began to dramatically and increasingly fall after the attacks on 9/11, many were not able to help each other out. This made rebuilding the businesses and the economy of Chinatown extremely difficult. This article also challenges the common stereotyped perception of Chinese businesses hiring majority illegal immigrants and running illegal businesses. The article points out that this perception often thrives because of the tightly ethnically packed community. Outsiders don’t really get to typically know the workers and residents of Chinatown, especially since many don’t even speak English.  This very idea of the ethnically close-knit neighborhood must have benefited the terrible situation since families could work together to help save businesses and the community.  I found this article especially fascinating because it showed me how one specific community that the media does not publicize too often was greatly affected by the tragedy on 9/11.

I found this article particularly interesting. Although I was very young when 9/11 happened it is something that had a clear impact on the world, that at the time was something still formulating around me. In this article, Chin discusses what happened to the Chinatown area of NYC after 9/11. Before reading this article I would have never thought of the connection between the two, but there is a clear tie seeing as Chinatown is very close to ground zero.

The article talks about how after 9/11 Chinatown suffered dramatically and it was a suffering hard to repair. What I found particularly interesting about the whole situation in Chinatown is that it was very had for the area to rebuild because so many people in Chinatown were related through family and job and therefore it was very hard for anyone to help each other out. Family businesses all suffered together and since all the businesses suffered there was no one really to help out.

I think this issue highlights a characteristic unique to Chinatown as compared to the rest of New York City. The Chinatown community is very tight knit which is not something many parts of the city can boast. However, in this case, the closeness proved to be a disadvantage since no one was able to help fix the situation.

When 9/11 occurred, the last thing I thought about was the impact on residences businesses in the area. The impact, however, only built upon a preexisting decline in the garment industry. Outsourcing, immigrant labor, expensive rent, and a bad reputation have been harming the garment industry for years. 9/11 made these detriments even more significant, by placing the shops in an undesirable area. Originally Chinatown would attract many business workers on their lunch breaks with the plethora of dining option. The exact opposite happened after 9/11. Not only was there a shortage of businessmen, but surrounding train lines were closed or shortened. Business sharply declined, and many workers were laid off. This reduction of income also led to less money being spent in the area to bring businesses back on their feet.

I find this extremely similar to Klinenberg’s reading on the Chicago Heat Wave of 1995. With each disaster comes many subtle and not so subtle influences. Just like the social causes for deaths that the Chicago heat wave amplified, there were social impacts from 9/11. Hopefully we will be able to see yet another correlation in our research about the effects of hurricane Sandy.

This article discussed the effects of an enclave model, and how the attacks on the World trade Center had a harsh impact on Chinese garment workers in particular as a result of this model. To me, the facts presented in this article were astonishing because I had not considered how the attacks could have trickled on long after the short term trauma. It was sad to read how much the industry had to scaled back for reasons unrelated to outsourcing and real estate values. The clearest example for me is the fact that “Tourists alone cannot fuel the economy of Chinatown.” Not only did the residents and employees depend on  the ethnocentric neighborhood, the small businesses and economy of Chinatown did as well. A question I had after the article is did these businesses relocate to other Chinatowns? If not, where did the former customers go for the specialized items and services of these shops?

I also felt the article helps deconstruct the public sentiment that garment shops are exploiting ilegal workers. It makes it clear that although some of the workers are illegal, most shop higher nearly all legal immigrants and run just businesses. Perhaps this image arose as a result of the enclave model. Since the community is very ethnocentric, outsiders do not often get to know the immigrants, especially those who never learn English. The enclave model perpetuates jobs spread by word of mouth, with some employees being paid in cash, and these factors may have led outsiders to jump to conclusions that the industry works off the books and operates too casually to be legal. Or, perhaps the media caught wind of an illegal worker and for publicity reasons turned it into a public scandal, fooling uncritical readers into believing the issue is much larger than reality.

In the article, “Moving On: Chinese Garment Workers After 9/11”, Professor Chin discusses how the previously beneficial network between co-ethnics in Chinatown was no longer so after 9/11. Before, Chinese immigrants would attain jobs through friends and families and many in the garment industry. They didn’t need training, education, or the ability to speak English. After 9/11, Canal Street and many of the garment shops were badly affected and businesses in Chinatown overall was in decline. The workers needed to find jobs outside this ethnic enclave, something they never considered they would have to do. The skills they lacked now were a hindrance in their life.

How does ethnic enclaves create an environment that will help immigrants deal with situations like these? I think that the article make a very good point about how the older children help their parents, who are struggling to get by. The idea that successive generations (children of the immigrants, born and raised here) can help out the older or newer generation of immigrants seems to be a good solution. The children learn English in school and receive a better education (even higher education) and in return can help these communities remain connected with themselves but also not isolated from the greater society. There could be non-profit organizations to help families become better candidates for jobs. The children could be the bridge between Chinese communities or any ethnic communities to the rest of the society, in order to prevent immigrants from being trapped and having no place else to go.