| Holding Up More Than Half the Sky: Chinese Women Garment Workers in New York City, 1948-92 Contributor(s): Bao, Xiaolan (Author) |
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ISBN: 0252073509 ISBN-13: 9780252073502 Publisher: University of Illinois Press OUR PRICE: $27.72 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: February 2006 Annotation: In 1982, twenty thousand Chinese-American garment workers -- mostly women -- went on strike in New York's Chinatown and forced every Chinese garment industry employer in the city to sign a union contract. In this pioneering study, Xiaolan Bao penetrates to the heart of Chinese-American society to explain how this militancy and organized protest, seemingly so at odds with traditional Chinese female-behavior, came about. Bao conducted more than a hundred interviews, primarily with Chinese immigrant women in the Chinatown garment shops and garment-related institutions in the city. Blending these poignant, often dramatic personal stories with a detailed history of the garment industry, Chinese immigrant labor, and the Chinese community in New York, Bao shows how the high rate of married women participating in wage-earning labor outside the home profoundly transformed family culture and with it the image and empowerment of Chinese-American women. Bao offers a complex and subtle discussion of the interplay of ethnic and class factors within the garment industry in New York City. She also documents the uneasy relationship between the ILGWU and rank-and-file women garment workers. Through the words of the women workers themselves, Bao shows how their changing positions within their families and within the workplace galvanized them to unite and stand up for themselves. Passionately told and prodigiously documented, Holding Up More Than Half the Sky is an important contribution to Asian-American history, labor history, and the history of women. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Political Science | Labor & Industrial Relations - Business & Economics | Women In Business - History | Asia - China |
| Dewey: 331.488 |
| Series: Asian American Experience |
| Physical Information: 0.98" H x 6.04" W x 8.96" (1.11 lbs) 360 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1950-1999 - Cultural Region - Chinese - Sex & Gender - Feminine - Chronological Period - 20th Century - Geographic Orientation - New York - Cultural Region - Mid-Atlantic - Cultural Region - Northeast U.S. |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In 1982, 20,000 Chinese-American garment workers--most of them women--went on strike in New York City. Every Chinese garment industry employer in the city soon signed a union contract. The successful action reflected the ways women's changing positions within their families and within the workplace galvanized them to stand up for themselves. Xiaolan Bao's now-classic study penetrates to the heart of Chinese American society to explain how this militancy and organized protest, seemingly so at odds with traditional Chinese female behavior, came about. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews, Bao blends the poignant personal stories of Chinese immigrant workers with the interwoven history of the garment industry and the city's Chinese community. Bao shows how the high rate of married women employed outside the home profoundly transformed family culture and with it the image and empowerment of Chinese American women. At the same time, she offers a complex and subtle discussion of the interplay of ethnic and class factors within New York's garment industry. Passionately told and prodigiously documented, Holding Up More Than Half the Sky examines the journey of a community's women through an era of change in the home, on the shop floor, and walking the picket line. |