Memory

While reading this Politicizing Motherhood Chinese Garment Workers’ Campaign for Daycare Centers in New York City, 1977-1982” written by Xiaolan Bao, it recalls me a lot of memory I heard from my grandmother.Although my grandmother is not immigrant, in the result of city-countryside dual system in China, she faced the same burden when she was moving to the big city as the crochet worker with super low pay.

My grandpa is the farmer who is selling the tea. His income were not able to support the family which have 7 kids.As children were responsible for the lives of their aging parent in Chinese cultural, they work to provide their children with a better education. However, when my parents recalled their childhood, they were still asked for work more than 6 hours everyday to support the family.

I always listened to my grandparents’ story when I was a child. They told me they only earn 10rmb=$1 every year and the food is limited at the same time. The crochet factory was bad for the air condition and the work was always overload. Some of their kids is too young to work so that they can only make them to live (away from home) at the countryside to avoid the high price level in the city.

With further reading , Chinese garment worker have double or even triple burdens compare to other working mother around the world.

“The societal refusal to acknowledge women’s domestic contribution, coupled with the peculiar setting of their family business, reinforced the concept of traditional gender roles in Chinese working-class family.”(296)

Although women become the desire labor of the city’s garment industry ,most of them work in them work in the low-paying labor sector and offer no employment benefits, women’s employment in the garment become crucial for the well-being of their families.(289)The working condition brings the change to their family, they would love to have fewer children and shorter interval one.They bring their children to work.After immigration, the gender roles might change and add additional burdens on women workers.(296)The article make me better understanding the gender role(working mother) and dilemma for immigrant.