Anyone in management is aware that racial and gender stereotypes are not true predictors of job performance, and knows that it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race or gender, yet the practice is still alive and well. As one US garment manager stated in this publication, “I have a very simple formula for hiring … just three things to look for in hiring entry‐level manufacturing operatives: small, foreign and female. These little foreign gals are grateful to be hired – very, very grateful – no matter what”.
Foo begins by stating the fact that the United Nations adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights 50 years ago, stating that: all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, including the right to life, liberty, and security of person; the right to be free from hunger; and the right to have clothing, housing, and medical services. It seems like an oxymoron that in the most supposedly progressive nation in the world, that there are Asian American women today who are denied these rights on a daily basis. Yet, this is the reality, and the Ford Foundation decided to commission Foo to identify the current issues facing Asian American women.
Building on research done previously by the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF), the result became this easy‐to‐read, but information‐packed, status report. In doing this report, Foo did not include issues specifically facing Pacific Islander women, as she felt such a report needed to be written by a Pacific Islander woman, and she felt she could not do the topics justice as she was not familiar with the Pacific Islander communities. As a result, she focused on a wide range of topics from economic justice (welfare, trafficking, garment workers, and other low page workers), to healthcare, and to sexual orientation that encompass both the Asian American as well Pacific Islander female agendas.
Per the 2000 Census, about 11.9 million Asian/Asian Americans live in the USA, comprising 4 percent of the total US population. It has been predicted that by the year 2050 that over 10 percent of the total US population, or 41 million people, will be of Asian descent. Foo provides a chart that lists the states with the largest number of residents identifying only as Asian/Pacific Islander Americans, as well as those identifying as being part Asian/Pacific Islander Americans. The ten states with the highest numbers of A/PI, their total numbers within each state, as well as their national percentages are: California (8,074,181) or 36 percent of A/PI nationally, New York (2,208,382) or 10 percent of A/PI nationally, Hawai'i (1,460,695) or 6 percent of A/PI nationally, Texas (1,209,289) or 5.4 percent of A/PI nationally, New Jersey (1,482,345) or 4.6 percent of A/PI nationally, Illinois (896,862) or 4 percent of A/PI nationally, Washington (769,508) or 3.3 percent of A/PI nationally, Florida (609,543) or 2.6 percent of A/PI nationally, Virginia (571,302) or 2.5 percent of A/PI nationally, and Massachusetts (745,011) or 2.2 percent of A/PI nationally.
Due to NAFTA, and the movement toward taking garment production overseas to Asian countries, half of all apparel sold in the States today is made overseas. This has resulted in some devastating domestic consequences. Laborers are still subject to abusive situations, many still working under dangerous and unsanitary conditions. In addition, they suffer from repetitive stress injuries, lack access to appropriate health care and make far below the minimum wage. Undocumented workers, while illegal, are preferred by many contractors as the undocumented workers are easier to subjugate.
Foo notes that the garment labor conditions will only worsen when the MultiFibre Arrangement of 1974 phases out the worldwide quotas for cotton and wool apparel to the USA in 2005. At that point, more US companies will move their productions to lower wage countries, increasing the poor working conditions to another population. Meanwhile in the States, conditions will remain the same at best, or worsen depending on the shop manager. To combat the competition, Foo suggests US manufacturers go high‐tech and provide higher wages to workers, in order to improve quality and production. In addition, Foo suggests union support and organization, as well as other forms of support from public, state and federal groups.
In passing the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (welfare reform), Foo believes the USA violated a most fundamental human right. Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), was replaced with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which restricts a woman to only five years of support during her entire lifetime. While in principle the concept makes sense, it does not factor in the cultural complications that an Asian American woman might be facing. There may be a great deal of pressure on her from her spouse, or family, to have a son. Therefore, she may get pregnant a couple times more, in the hope that the next child will be a son. The husband may be unwilling to take birth control responsibility, thus the woman must figure her way through this problem alone, with little to no funds. Worse yet, for many low‐income families many reproductive services may not be available at all, such as reimbursement for contraceptives, or sterilization. On a practical level, an immigrant woman with low English skills has little opportunity to work on improving job skills while raising small children. Yet, once the five years are up, the woman will be forced into the labor market. And if she has not developed any marketable skills to get her a higher paying job, she will invariably find her way to a garment sweat shop, and to inhuman working conditions.
These issues and more, affecting today's Asian American women, are covered in Foo's excellent resource. Each chapter provides a concise statement of the problem, easy to read information on the grassroots and coalition efforts made by Asian American women activists, and thoughtful recommendations for action. In addition to the traditional listing of references, Foo also identifies the names of each chapter's list of interviewees, a useful guide for anyone interested in doing follow‐up.
Before distribution to the public, the Ford Foundation presented a draft of this document to a group of longtime Asian American women activists from around the country in June of 2001, to incorporate their comments and critiques into this final version. All managers should read this publication, and have a copy ready for quick reference in their offices, as the recommendations listed in the back of each chapter alone are worth knowing.
