Holding Up More Than Half the Sky: Chinese Women Garment Workers in New York City, 1948-92 (Asian American Experience) - Softcover

Bao, Xiaolan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0252073509 ISBN 13: 9780252073502

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2006

Synopsis

Looking at the dramatic 1982 strike of 20,000 Chinese-American garment workers, this book explores the profound transformation of family culture that enabled this uncharacteristic militancy and organised protest.

About this title

Book Description

Chinese American women’s rise to empowerment

In 1982, twenty thousand Chinese American garment workers--mostly women--went on strike in New York’s Chinatown and forced Chinese garment industry employers in the city to sign a union contract. In this pioneering study, Xiaolan Bao penetrates to the heart of Chinese American society to explain how this militancy and organized protest, seemingly so at odds with traditional Chinese female behavior, came about.

Blending poignant and dramatic personal stories culled from over a hundred interviews with a detailed history of the garment industry, Chinese immigrant labor, and the Chinese community in New York, Bao shows how the participation of married women in wage-earning labor outside the home profoundly transformed their image and relationships.

About the Author

Xiaolan Bao is an associate professor of history at California State University at Long Beach.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0252073509
• ISBN 13: 9780252073502
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 330