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1 J. Gender Race & Just. 405 (1997-1998)
Making the Invisible Visible: The Garment Industry's Dirty Laundry

handle is hein.journals/jgrj1 and id is 437 raw text is: Making the Invisible Visible: The Garment Industry's Dirty Laundry Julie A. Su* Let me commend the students who have created this journal and organized this symposium. Thank you for letting me share in the fruits of your struggles. I come to you today from California, the state that gave birth to and then passed Proposition 187-saying that anyone suspected of having entered the country without proper documents should be told to go home'-and a state that is now engaged in a contentious debate over whether we will preserve affirmative action, one of the few tools we have to ensure equal opportunity and inclusion and encourage diversity, or whether we will abolish it by constitutional amendment.2 What many of you may not know is that California-specifically, Los Angeles-is also the garment industry capital of the United States.' This is the story of some garment workers very dear to my heart who were enslaved in El Monte, California. From their homes in impoverished rural Thailand, these garment workers dared to dream the immigrant dream, a life of hard work with just pay, decency, self-sustenance for themselves and their families, and hope. What they found instead in America was an industry-the garment industry-that mercilessly reaps profits from workers and then closes its eyes, believing that if it refuses to see, it cannot be held responsible. What these workers also found were government bureaucracies so inhumane and so impersonal that such agencies confuse their purpose to serve the people with a mandate merely to perpetuate themselves. * A.B., Stanford University, 1991; J.D., Harvard Law School, 1994; Skadden Fellow 1994-96 and now civil rights staff attorney at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California. 1. California's ballot Proposition 187 was passed by voters in November, 1994. A constitutional challenge to the initiative has helped stall its implementation. See Gregorio T. v. Wilson, 54 F.3d 599 (9th Cir. 1995). 2. California's ballot Proposition 209 is now embodied in the California Constitution. CAL. CONsT. art. I, § 31. Proposition 209 passed by a margin of 54% to 46%, with whites voting 63% in favor, and Blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans voting overwhelming against (74%, 76%, and 61% respectively). Implementation has been delayed as a result of a federal court constitutional challenge. See Coalition for Economic Equity v. Wilson, 946 F. Supp. 1480 (N.D. Cal. 1996). 3. The number of sweatshops has increased in the United States since 1989. The growth has been greatest in Los Angeles. Precise data, however, is unavailable due to the underground nature of these workplaces. Working conditions continue to be deplorable. Violations include exposed electrical wiring, blocked aisles, unguarded machinery and unsanitary bathrooms, in addition to rampant nonpayment of minimum wages and overtime. See U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, B-257458 GARMENT INDUSTRY: EFFORTS TO ADDRESS THE PREVALENCE AND CONDITIONS OF SWEATSHOPS 1-7 (1994). See also Stuart Silverstein, Survey of Garment Industry Finds Rampant Labor Abuse, L.A. TIMES, Apr. 15, 1994, at Dl (noting that random inspection of 69 garment manufacturers and contractors found all but two breaking federal or state laws or both, and more than one third had serious safety problems).

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