Western Exploitation of Asian Sweatshop Labor: My Experience
On tumblr, I noticed that discussions of oppression which Asian people face (usually as told by non-Asian people) boil down to fetishization, the harmful effects of the model minority stereotype, and general lack of visibility in the media. As important as those topics are, I feel that there is another mode of oppression that affects Asian people disproportionately, especially those of us in developing countries.
Above is a photo I secretly took when I worked in an American sweatshop last year. I wish to share my story below, along with relevant statistics relating to the Western exploitation of POC (particularly Asian) labor.
I am a Vietnamese-American. Like many US families, mine had been going through financial difficulties following the Great Recession. My father had been out of work for years, leaving my mother to shoulder the burden of supporting a family of four on her salary. I am mentally ill and my sister is developmentally disabled. You can imagine how difficult it is for us to secure work; so when we were offered jobs, we were elated at the prospect of helping our mother with the finances.
For the three months following April 2nd, 2014, my sister and I worked at an off-the-grid spice factory. We would often spend twelve hours on our feet, scooping spice blends into bags by hand and preparing them for shipping to grocers such as Whole Foods. For those twelve hours, we were constantly standing and sparsely took breaks for any reason. Of course, we were “allowed” to take breaks, but we were paid so little that doing so meant a significant loss to our wages. (To specify, we were paid 25 cents for every unit we completed. For every unit sold, the owner of the factory was making 5 dollars. Some days, our work was valued so little that we were paid only 30 dollars each for a full twelve hours of work.)
We toiled in a small, cramped room with no A/C during days when the temperature often exceeded 100ºF (38ºC). The only walking room allotted to us was a cubic foot of space surrounding the edges of the table where we worked and a narrow path to the door. The rest of the space was occupied by various boxes, shipping supplies, and garbage. The spices were often kept out in the open heat for hours, and there was nothing preventing insects and other contaminants from getting into the containers. Those who checked into the room often complained of being unable to breathe. This was the environment where my sister and I spent twelve hours a day, six days a week, for three months.
The owner of the sweatshop was a wealthy, white woman who had once been a millionaire. She appeared to think less of us, and I could best describe her behavior as patronizing. Oftentimes, she would reiterate that her role in the business was much more difficult than ours, even though she was often found napping or watching television while we were in the factory. In fact, she had little to no involvement in the actual making of the product and did not know how to assemble it herself.
She never seemed to have enough money to pay us our full salary. She had an excuse for every payday, explaining to us that she was waiting for the customer to pay for the shipment before she could pay us. Once, she had even spent some of my sister’s salary on groceries. We had personally witnessed her hiring a cleaning service for her house over the phone and taking her pets to a professional groomer. She had even discussed purchasing a new house. Every mealtime, she would cook real steak and chicken for her three dogs and two cats while we went entire days without eating.
The job consisted of non-stop, grinding manual labor. I still remember crying silently as I worked because I was in so much pain. It was to the point where I had to take pain meds to sleep at night. At one point, I fell ill from a combination of fatigue, dehydration, and stress – I was even beginning to hallucinate during work. Still, the owner continued to crush us with outlandish quotas to fill, ones that would have been obviously impossible to complete had she been looking at the numbers.
My sister did some research on the owner’s name and found out that her interior design business, the one which had made her a millionaire, failed due to questionable circumstances. One of the only reviews we could salvage spoke about how she never seemed to be on-site for the job and how the client had witnessed her angrily berating and humiliating Latin@ workers she had hired. Taking advantage of marginalized workers was not new to her. To us, however, she had portrayed herself as a self-made businesswoman who had pulled herself up by the bootstraps and lost her business only due to unfortunate circumstances beyond her control.
Despite the abysmal conditions, we had tried to remain patient – we were relieved to have some money to bring home. We were willing to work hard and endure demeaning treatment if it meant making our mother’s life easier. We even spent our first paychecks on groceries and gave our mother some money so that she could afford to take our grandmother to the doctor’s.
We had finally decided to leave after having a whole day’s work undone due to an error on the owner’s part. Once again, she conjured up an excuse as to why our paychecks were delayed. She then ended up doubling our already impossible quota. With a smile and some dismissive words of encouragement, she left the factory floor and headed into her office. The hottest days of the summer months were approaching, placing us in even more danger. We hadn’t seen payment in a month. It was clear to us by then that she had never intended to pay us our full wage, and we left the factory that day. We never came back.
I had taken many pictures as proof of the sweatshop’s existence, but I have never spoken publicly about my experiences until now. Who could I have gone to? There were few resources available to handle such injustices. We did not have the money or the energy to take her on ourselves. I also had my family to think about and did not want to risk possible retaliation against my mother. It is the same reason why I have submitted this post anonymously.
In hindsight, as horrible as our situation was, we had the option of leaving the sweatshop when we could no longer tolerate the conditions. As a Vietnamese-American, I still enjoyed various privileges and safeguards that would have not been allotted to me had I performed the same work in Vietnam. There are many other marginalized workers who are less fortunate.
Back to the beginning: Western exploitation of sweatshop labor is an issue all POC groups share, but it affects Asian people disproportionately.
- According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity at MIT, 43.99% of US imports are sourced directly from Asian countries, followed by about 25.6% in Canada and 22.79% in the UK. The number of Asian imports in Australia is at a whopping 54.65%. These numbers seem insignificant until you realize that the percentage of imports from Asian countries are more than that of imports from non-Asian POC countries combined.
- From the Global Slavery Index: In 2014, almost two-thirds (65.8%) of the estimated 35.8 million people in modern slavery globally are in the Asia Pacific region. When combined with those in the diaspora living in West Asia (7.3%), the number rises to an estimated 73%.
This is a system of oppression that all Westerners contribute to in some shape or form. It is often one that no one wants to acknowledge because it requires people to realize their role in the systemic oppression of underprivileged POC, particularly poor Asians. Ignorance towards your oppressive behaviors doesn’t erase the fact that you are still oppressing people.
I remember one post derailing discourse on the topic with an argument along the lines of, “We know sweatshop labor is bad! But we Westerners are poor, too, and products of sweatshop labor are all we can afford! Until someone else suggests a solution which makes our lives easier, we should be allowed to step on underprivileged POC without guilt! Because we’re also poor!” Of course, this was followed by heaps of apologism in the comments and tags by other like-minded individuals. How can Westerners, white people and POC, claim classism and then ignore those who are most affected by it?
There is no clear or easy solution to sweatshop labor, but it is selfish to suggest that the onus is on the workers to curb Western greed. I and other people who have experienced sweatshop labor firsthand should not have to cater to your needs to make you feel less guilty about oppressing others. Your ability (or inability) to buy cheap things doesn’t negate the suffering many have experienced to bring those products to the shelves.
I hope that all of us can at least own up to that truth.
Mod note:
Thank you so much for sharing your experience.
I really hope readers who want to reblog and comment of this stay respectful of OP’s experience. She obviously took a great deal of time to share her experience with us so please don’t derail. -Kat
