China students in Los Angeles write books in English, telling about the bumpy road of Asian garment workers.

Several Asian students from UCLA, including China, created and published a book "Sweatshop: Asians in Garment Industry" based on their personal experience of helping immigrant parents work in Elmont Garment Factory since childhood. This is the first book focusing on Asian garment workers in Los Angeles.

Pauline Phan, one of the authors of this book and a Vietnamese student in the Department of Biology at the University of Los Angeles, said that since she was a child, she had seen her parents working day and night for the Ermondi garment factory. Like other Asian garment workers' children, she helped her parents knit clothes together or put new clothes into boxes.

Fan said that she was too young at that time and thought "this is a normal thing". I didn't know that garment factories didn't have rest days, and it was illegal to hire child labor. She doesn't know what to do to change all this.

Fan Linbao said that she didn't take a course called "Work, Labor and Social Justice" until she studied at the University of Los Angeles. Together with several other students with similar experiences, she decided to write this book based on their personal experiences.

Another author of the book, Wu Xuewen, a Chinese student in the Biology Department of the University of Los Angeles, said that several of them wrote this book from their freshman year, which lasted for three or four years and was finally completed before graduation, which was quite meaningful. "I feel that I have exceeded my expectations."

The book Sweatshop: Asians in Clothing Industry is not only based on the personal experiences of these Asian students, but also combines in-depth interviews, labor research reports and media reports. For example, the book interviewed the Thai garment worker Chasman. She said that her and her colleagues' residences are guarded by security guards 24 hours a day. "I feel that if I run away, I will be killed." .

To give another example, Helen Chien, an immigrant from Chinese mainland, started as a pediatrician in China. Because of her poor English, she couldn't find a professional job in America, so she had to work in a garment factory temporarily. "I never thought that some employers would be so cruel," she said.

This book has been well received by experts such as Huang Daoquan, director of the Labor Research and Education Center of the University of Los Angeles. He is also a professor of "Work, Labor and Social Justice" at the University of Los Angeles. Huang Daoquan said that many people think that sweatshops were only a hundred years ago, and this book vividly tells everyone that it happened here and now. He also said that these students are bilingual and can communicate with garment workers in their mother tongue, which is commendable.

Statistics show that greater los angeles area has surpassed new york to become the center of clothing industry in North America. Clothing industry accounts for about 10% of Los Angeles economy, and belongs to manufacturing industry. There are more than 65,438+0,000 garment factories in Los Angeles, employing more than 90,000 garment workers, most of whom are immigrants.