Module 2: The Immigrant Women
Did the collective action of New York City Chinatown’s Chinese American garment workers positively change their working conditions and their lives?
In China, women were told that they “held up half the sky” (女人能頂半邊天), but the conditions of women were still far from equal to men. Ancient China had a long and authoritarian history of patriarchy that sharply defined male and female roles. After resettling in the US, many Chinese immigrants still followed a custom called “the three obediences” ordering women to obey their fathers, husbands, and sons throughout their lives. As part of these social systems, men were given more power and privileges over women. Boys had more educational opportunities and freedom, while girls were trained in household duties and responsibilities.
Early Chinese immigrant women in New York told stories of being ordered by their husbands to stay home all day, take care of household tasks, and stare out the window at the world outside. When the garment factories began to flourish in Chinatown, families encouraged women to work. However, this was in addition to their already heavy household duties, such as cooking, cleaning, caregiving, and childcare, which awaited the women after returning home from work.
Image 47.02.01 — Many elderly Chinese women workers were assigned to the finishing section of a garment factory. They trimmed loose threads off the finished garments and prepared the clothes for shipping.
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In coming to the US, Chinese women found opportunities for equal status and independence. In the garment factories, thousands of immigrant Chinese workers found a new community. Women enjoyed new friendships at work and the freedom of earning their own money. There were garment workers in almost every family in New York’s Chinatown in the 1970s through the 1990s. This was in part due to increased immigration of Chinese women after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 opened immigration to the US. In 1979, more than 55 percent of all immigrant Chinese women worked in the garment industry.
While there were immigrants from urban and professional backgrounds who found the factories unbearable, all the workers appreciated the social contact, the opportunity to make friends, and the information learned at work in the factories.
In this module, we will learn about the Chinese immigrant women who worked in the factories, became leaders at work, and contributed to the labor movement and to their community.
What were the backgrounds, hopes, and dreams of the Chinese immigrant garment workers in New York’s Chinatown?
How does solidarity emerge from workers’ own lived experience and cultural contexts and background?
How did Chinese women workers defy implicit and explicit cultural expectations?
