Immigrant Dreams
Mort, Jo-Ann
Some conservatives complain that if immigrants want to live in this country, they should learn the language. Tell that to Aracely C., who has worked in the sweatshops of Los Angeles's garment...
...I ask her what she wants for the future...
...Leticia's daughter wants to be a pediatrician and her son wants to be an engineer...
...I don't know how much longer I can do this," she says...
...If you don't want to work, just tell me...
...on Good Friday to go to church, the owner said, "Does God give you money...
...The owner called the police to throw him out of the shop...
...Sometimes his girlfriend came along and they fought in front of the workers...
...They produce goods in what has become a more than $13.3 billion industry in Southern California...
...It's piecework rate...
...With no health insurance, she is dependent on the profoundly over-crowded LA County General...
...It is like a sponge that soaks up all available labor and especially thrives on illegal immigrants who—in this anti-immigrant environment— are more dependent on their bosses...
...They want to kill us for a little money," she says...
...There are no such things a holidays in Aracely's world...
...It will also take outraged consumers to hold the garment industry responsible for the economic servitude upon which many retailers and manufacturers make their profits...
...They tell us: 'You come to this country to work...
...This last time, the boss called the hospital to make sure she wasn't lying about her illness...
...So how can she find the time to learn English...
...They arrested us...
...A group of sweatshop workers with the assistance of UNITE and KIWA have recently begun visiting the stores searching for their garments...
...Last year, there was an immigration raid at the place where I work...
...The Justice Center helped and now I do have my papers...
...We come here and they treat us like dogs," she tells me as she takes the tissue I give her to wipe away her tears from her bloodshot eyes...
...It will take unionization and government intervention...
...A driver picked up workers from South Central at 6 A.M...
...He can claim he is paying minimum wage...
...She has managed to save enough money to buy a car...
...That's all I want...
...As I say goodbye to these workers, Aracely tells me that they—the workers—had to unite to stop these abuses...
...Tell that to Aracely C., who has worked in the sweatshops of Los Angeles's garment industry for the thirteen years she has been here...
...Every day I'm working harder and harder and making less and I'm running out of strength...
...My kids can make it because they are very smart and we are trying our best—working in the factory and doing homework to have food on the table and pay the bills...
...Aracely's children speak English, but she's not home enough during their waking hours to learn the language from them...
...Sometimes, I get very, very desperate but I know I have to keep up the struggle because I have children...
...Little by little, I have set goals and met them," she explains...
...About two-thirds of the sewing shops in L.A...
...The doctor told her she needed a six-month hiatus from work...
...The supervisor screams at me and I start remembering the others who were worse...
...The owner, a woman, tries to cut the wages...
...She works seven days a week, more than twelve hours a day...
...Every day I get up at four o'clock in the morning...
...She spent precious time and money to get the 86 • DISSENT Sweatshop Workers Speak needed information, but when the time came, the immigration officer threw aside her papers...
...I feel like I'm killing myself...
...There is no first aid in her sewing shop...
...If you want to live like the rich, go back to your country,' " she says...
...These are tiny shops, with a maximum of about fifty workers, that produce goods for name manufacturers or retailers...
...for the drive to El Monte where they worked until 9 P.M...
...there is barely a bathroom—" You want to get out of there as quick as possible," she says through the translator as she describes the stench and the filth...
...It will take a changed public atmosphere, in which immigrant workers who make a contribution to our economy are no longer demonized...
...Her children— her son wants to be a policeman when he grows up and her daughter wants to be a lawyer—only speak to their mother in their native Spanish...
...The tags went to a supervisor— who made sure to take a cut for herself before giving the workers their money...
...She isn't even free on Sunday to take them to church or to the park...
...Once, she tried to get documents...
...She goes to school to learn English every day after work from 6 P.M...
...Aracely has another daughter in Mexico, in high school, who looks forward to going to college to become a doctor...
...He's a garment worker, like in Mexico—all his family worked in the garment industry...
...How does she get up day after day to this...
...She is a presser, working on her feet all day, using an industrial iron...
...But the pressure is the worst...
...The problem is that Aracely can't afford it, because even though the university is free, all the extras—including books—are beyond her means...
...But in the present climate, I fear it will take more bravery than even these two brave women can muster...
...Virtually none of the legislation to tighten or discourage illegal immigration will do anything for the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who already work in the Los Angeles area garment shops...
...At the end of each week, they were paid in cash based on tags they handed in for each finished garment...
...Without documents, she has no other job possibilities...
...Working with other activists, their strategy is to pressure the retailers not to sell goods made under illegal conditions...
...For six years, she worked for the Thai owners of the now notorious El Monte factories, which were exposed and shut down in 1995...
...Leticia is documented...
...I suffer a lot," she says as her eyes well up with tears...
...We don't have a guarantee even for a minimum wage...
...I'm always scared...
...Aracely earns an average of $80 a week...
...I pay someone to pick them up in the afternoon, but I suffer a lot...
...At six thirty, I'm dropping off my kids at school...
...After school, she sews her industrial homework until ten or eleven at night...
...Her children have Medicaid because they were born here, though congressional action could take it away from them in the future...
...Though she works nine to five, she also brings work home...
...Because she didn't take proper rest, she had another operation to stop internal bleeding...
...She works on the Fourth of July, Christmas, and Good Friday...
...Her husband also works in a sweatshop...
...no one will know that the legal hourly wage has been stretched with all this free work...
...My dream is to learn how to speak English and work as a secretary...
...Rats come out...
...Many of them operate in full view of anyone who cares to look, especially in the downtown garment district in the shadow of the Convention Center...
...They won't even let you go to the bathroom—`I need this work and I need it now' they say...
...Now her husband is fighting to get his wages through the Justice Center, a workers' rights organization sponsored by UNITE and KIWA, the Korean Immigrant Workers Association...
...She tells me that eight days after she had a cesarean, she was back at work because otherwise she would be fired...
...They know that if the stores insist on selling goods made in legal shops, their misery will end—and only then...
...She tells me that when the workers asked if they could get off after 4 P.M...
...I keep on struggling so my kids will have a better life and won't end up like me as a presser...
...The owner wants the workers to clock in two hours after they start working so he can steal two hours of their time...
...He was already here for three years so I had to follow him...
...Leticia A. is a bit luckier...
...Why did she come to the United States if she had a job as a secretary in Mexico City...
...I hope my kids do well and have their dreams realized...
...FALL • 1996 • 87...
...She can't afford the time or money to try again...
...We make reports every day of all the work we did and she'll look at our report and say, 'I already paid for this work,' or 'This isn't finished' or 'It's not done well.' Sometimes we'll work thirty-five to forty hours and get paid for twenty hours...
...to 8 P.M...
...My worst nightmare is when a teacher wants to talk to me or I have to be at school at three o'clock and the employer wants his work done...
...I will find others...
...When the woman raises her voice, I immediately start shaking because I am very scared...
...I want better treatment from employers to ensure at least the minimum wage...
...When it rains, you have to cover yourself because the roof has a lot of holes...
...We had to pay the consequences of his bad mood," Aracely says...
...I have no time to learn English," she tells me as I sit with her and Leticia A. in the MacArthur Park headquarters of UNITE, the textile workers' union, just a few blocks from the nation's largest garment center...
...Because my husband came here," she tells me...
...If the driver was in a bad mood, he would drive like crazy or be abusive to the workers...
...A thirty-three yearold sewer, she has been in Los Angeles for nine years...
...When the union organizer who is translating for us leaves the room, she communicates with me by rotating her hands, showing me the purple scars on her fingers from burns that weren't treated properly and the calluses on her palms...
...The Los Angeles garment industry is largely nonunion...
...Having been in Los Angeles for thirteen years, working every day, she is like thousands of others who are trapped in a never-never land of economic servitude...
...Aracely tells me that she always takes home labels so that she knows where her clothes are bound...
...Her husband refused to do this...
...Once FALL • 1996 • 85 Sweatshop Workers Speak Photo by Ed CarreOn again, she returned to work eight days later— and now she bleeds often...
...In Mexico, she was a secretary, but has only worked in garment shops since coming to Los Angeles because she doesn't speak English...
...She stares into some vague distance...
...We hope we can provide for them because they have the intelligence...
...are sweatshops...
...I asked for a hearing to stop deportation...
...We suffer a lot in this country, too much We will continue to struggle, see if we can get ahead...
Vol. 43 • September 1996 • No. 4
