These chapters were interesting in that they revealed all the different faces of the garment factory. The industry was not a stagnant business dominated by only one group of people. Instead, the industry was dynamic in that a progression of groups became its employees as conditions pushed and pulled new immigrants into the business. First the majority of garment workers were Jewish, then it was the Italians, followed by African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and ultimately the Chinese. This put the garment factory into context with larger migration patterns of the country. This also gave insight as to how succeeding immigrant groups had similar aspirations in the new world when compared to those of the groups before them.

The dynamic nature of the garment industry was also interesting because it fit in with the dynamic nature of New York City. Noted in the chapters were well-known designers who chose to give jobs to garment factories in the city rather than overseas because it was more convenient and much quicker. Therefore it is not too far of a stretch to say that the garment industry contributed to New York’s status as one of the fashion capitals in the world.

Regarding the differences in the Chinese and Korean garment workplace, one thing that I found confusing was how the Koreans were so much more adept in learning Spanish. This most likely contributed to how different the Chinese workplace, which was more relaxed, was when compared to the Korean garment workplace, which was more strict and rigid.

I also found the patterns of migration discussed in the chapters to be very interesting. My family followed more closely with the staged pattern of migration. My parents first immigrated to New York. Then they brought my grandparents from both sides of the family over. My aunt and uncle immigrated here only five years ago when their paperwork was finally processed. A majority of my extended family still lives in China.

-Wendy Li

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?

The aspect of this reading that affected me the most was the idea of sacrifice, and the differences in sacrifice that different ethnic groups had to experience in order to try and create better lives for themselves and their children. While there is a certain amount of sacrifice that goes into any large move, the differences are highlighted in the Korean ran versus Chinese ran factory comparison.

Chinese garment factory owners hired mostly Chinese women as employees. The common backgrounds helped foster a relaxed and accepting environment for the workers. These workers, who were not just Chinese women, but Chinese women who were young and/or mothers, could not afford childcare. Therefore, they would bring their children to work and into the accepting environment. So if their families were intact, where is the sacrifice? The sacrifice was in the wages. Minimum wage was justified because the garment factory acted as a childcare facility. Although this short-term sacrifice does not seem like much of an issue, the real problems evolved as a result over time. These children basically grew up learning the ins and outs of a garment factory, and developing connections within them. Although I do not believe it was intentional, many families became confined to the garment factories. It was a comfortable environment, and so instead of moving forward, children of the workers remained stagnant.

Korean garment factory owners hired Hispanics instead of people of their own kind. The sacrifice is not too obvious. The issue was not that the Hispanics could not bring their children to work, but that they left their children behind in their home countries of Mexico and Ecuador in order to earn money to send back home. I worked as a waitress in my local suburban diner before starting school here at Hunter College, and the stories that I heard from my Hispanic coworkers were not identical, but very similar. Many of my coworkers did not have children that they left behind (most were in their low and mid 20s), but rather parents. They were working at the restaurant to save up money to send back to their homelands for their parents use. It was a sacrifice they were willing to make in order to help their mothers and fathers. Luckily, our work environment was accepting because it’s the 21^st century, but the Hispanics that left their children to work in garment factories had to deal with a strict and less comfortable environment.

Alexandra Marks

It was rather interesting to see how culturally different the Korean and Chinese factories were. In the Chinese factories, the atmosphere is more relaxed. The workers talked about their children, discussed various things. They could do their work leisurely or really quickly. They could come in whenever they want; there was no exact starting time when they began work, since they didn’t ned to punch in. Even the manager wasn’t there when they began working in the morning. When compared to the Korean factories, there is a striking difference. There is no common background that links the Koreans to their employees, who were Mexican and Ecuadorian. The only common thing that linked them together was their work ethic. Things were much more stricter and on schedule, rather than the lackadaisical events of the Chinese factories. I think it’s really interesting how the Korean employers even had knowledge of the Spanish language so that there is some sort of communication between the two different ethnic groups. Culturally, it makes sense why the Hispanics, who didn’t bring their children with them when they emigrated, would work with the Koreans whereas the Chinese, who did bring their children with them when they emigrated, would work with the Chinese. The Hispanics didn’t need that flexible schedule like the Chinese did, since there was no responsibility waiting for them at home.

It was also interesting to see how the different gender roles played into the factories as a result of cultural differences. Any type of factory job was an improvement for the Mexicans and Ecuadorians, no matter if they were male or female whereas majority of the Chinese workers in the factories were Chinese women, who made up nearly 97% of the working force. It made sense though, that to Chinese women, the factory job was ideal. It had a flexible schedule, and it wasn’t as physically strenuous as a restaurant job that required strength in carrying around plates, food and whatnot. The women who were telling their stories spoke of how they brought in their kids to work, or could just leave work to pick up their kids, later dropping them off at a relative’s place and then going back to work. At any other job, this kind of flexibility doesn’t work. This reminded me of when my mom used to work in a garment factory in Brooklyn when I was in first or second grade. I remember being with a cat in the factory, entertaining myself whenever my mom had to sew clothes. I don’t remember much, but it was a lively atmosphere. They were always chatting while working. Even to this day, years after my mom quit, my mom’s friends would come up to ask me if I remembered them, explaining to me that they had taken care of me while my mom went to work in the factories.

Apart from producing clothing, the garment workers that toiled in Korean and Chinese factories throughout the 20th century had little in common.  Distinct ideologies highlighted a cultural divide in the immigrant experience of the Chinese, Korean, and Hispanic laborers that immigrated to America in hope of securing a job in the garment industry.

1.  In Chinese factories, finding a job as a garment worker was viewed as a “rite of passage” for most young immigrants.  Chinese women, who made up a large percentage of the workforce, often brought their families with them to America.  Their husbands often worked in the restaurant industry.  In addition to producing garments, these women also had to care for their children and run family errands.  Since the Chinese garment factories almost exclusively employed Chinese workers, the owners crafted a production model that reflected the cultural and practical needs of the Chinese women.  The workers were payed for each piece they produced, and were allowed to work at home in order to make extra money.  Their working hours were relatively lenient, allowing them to attend to the various other roles they served in their family unit including wife, mother, and financial provider.  Since they worked in all-Chinese factories, these women had little reason to assimilate to American culture and   many did not have a need to learn English.  Decades later, when the garment industry in Chinatown experienced a rapid economic downturn following 9/11, this approach proved problematic for the garment workers.  They had a limited skill set as they had always worked in one industry, few contacts in other fields, and most could not even speak English.

2.  Th Korean-run factories model of employment could not have been more different. In Korean factories, workers were viewed as part of the assembly line rather than part of the family unit.  Workers were not allowed to take work home, and they were payed hourly wages rather than by the amount of garments they produced.  The Koreans hired workers from a plethora of backgrounds including Mexicans and Ecaudorians.  These immigrants were often illegal male laborers.  Unlike the Chinese workers, they were not members of unions and were payed in cash rather than by check. Finding work was difficult for these immigrants as they lacked the “family connection” that allowed so many Chinese workers to find a job in the garment industry.  They were hired for their skill, not their connections, and were viewed in the workplace as more of a machine than a human being.  Production, not the protection of cultural identity, was the ultimate goal in these factories.

-Victor Rerick

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.

The introduction to general changes in demographics, historically in the area helped me better understand the scope and significance of the Chinese garment worker to the Chinese immigrant society/neighborhood. As I understand it, both the Korean-owned garment factories and the Chinese-owned garment factories managed to make products and sustain growth within the industry despite the decline in large-scale factory work. The cultural differences inherent in the layout of the factory-floor were particularly interesting to me. The more laid-back and comfortable environment in the Chinese-owned garment factories, as well as the “by piece” payment method appears to have been as profitable historically as the Korean-owned garment factories with their assembly-line method of working on clothes. However the close-knit community and the social interaction found on the Chinese factory floor was not necessarily present on its Korean counterpart. The former appears to be more worker-friendly as well, so what specifically causes these disparities between the two types of garment factories? Also, was unionization really that important to the Chinese women who saw the union as merely a source of insurance benefits? Did a lack of understanding of the purpose of the union prevent the organization from becoming more prominent?

1. I thought the drastic differences between the Chinese and Korean garment factories very interesting. In class, it was said that the Chinese and Koreans work together while also competing against each other. I never really thought about the competition in the garment factory. I assumed that most of the garment factories were run by the Chinese, but it seems that in fact the Korean factories are run more effectively and organized than the Chinese.

2. I also never thought about the danger of interviewing these immigrants and the difficulties and technicalities that must be met in order for the immigrants rights and privacy to be held. THrough all of these obstacles, to actually connect with these workers and gain the immigrants trust and be invited into their inner circles seems very rewarding.

Emma Park-Hazel