1. The stories of women in the book invoked a lot of sympathy in me. The life of immigrant women, especially Hispanic, that had to leave their children so they could come to NYC and work sound really difficult. Kind of strange thinking about how it seems normal today that the economic conditions in a lot of places are so bad that people feel they have no other choice but to move countries and leave everything behind in order to make money. I know a woman who hasn’t seen her daughter in eight years because that mother works here in NY. All the stories like that, with just the separation aspect of immigrant life, make immigration seem impossibly frightening and difficult.

2. I was surprised to hear how women in garment shops described their work as generally less strenuous than other types of jobs, such as waitress, that for some reason seem less strenuous an average person (I would think). Garment factories actually invoke an image of much more difficult work and longer hours than working in a restaurant does. Though I was glad to hear a Latino man  saying how it is easy for undocumented workers to find jobs. I sometimes wonder how does one go about doing that since it may be frightening that you will get reported to the authorities by the people you are asking for a job from, etc. It must be difficult to trust people and yet I’m glad that at least it is possible to change jobs if the pay is not good or the work is too much.

One question I had was how come women were not allowed to take their work home.