This article was interesting in that it detailed the decline of the garment industry to even before the events of September 11. The fall of the World Trade Centers only accelerated the process. The outsourcing of labor, spreading of new firms and the image of illegal sweatshops and immigrants contributed to the industry’s early decline. This raises the question: if September 11 did not happen, how long would the garment industry have continued to decline and to what extent?

In addition to this, it was nice to see the effects of the attack from a different perspective. The media portrayed the effect of September 11 on a national scale, while neighborhoods like Chinatown and the garment industry were affected in ways I did not expect. For example, I did not know the disaster zone was divided to only include the south of Canal Street This article was also intriguing because my mother mirrored the trends of some Chinese workers in the industry, and it was interesting to understand the story behind those trends. Like others, she worked in a garment shop when she first immigrated to the United States and took classes to learn English. Later she made the transition to home health care after moving to Staten Island.

-Wendy Li