After reading the first few chapters of “Sewing Woman”, I gathered a few important key points about the factory workers in New York City. First of all, there seemed to have been a drastic difference between Korean factories and Chinese factories. The Chinese factory owners employed mostly Chinese workers, while Korean factories also employed Mexican workers. The Chinese owned factories also seemed quite laid back, as opposed to the Korean factories, the workers had to follow a much stricter time schedule and rarely had time to interact with one another. However, it is also interesting to see that although the Chinese had a much more friendly and family-like setting, they got paid less than Mexican and Ecuadorian factory workers in the Korean factories. Granted, the Chinese also didn’t have enough time to work because they were taking care of their children, whereas the Mexicans came without children.

Along with racial differences that existed in Korean factories and Chinese factories, genders also added to the vast differences. For example, in Chinese factories, the majority of the work force consisted of women. This job was more strategic for women since it was less strenuous than other jobs available to immigrants during those times.

Question: Why did Mexican/Ecuadorian women/men leave their children behind in order to find work as opposed to the Chinese that took their children with them?