Private residences: 2614 N. Santa Anita Ave., El Monte 91733 (between Owens Wy. and Elliott Ave.)
In August 1995, federal investigators raided this apartment complex on suspicion that it housed garment workers who were being held as slaves.
They found 72 undocumented Thai workers, mostly women, who had been held captive for up to four years. Recruited from Bangkok by Chinese Thai nationals who promised them well-paying jobs in the United States and weekends and evenings off, they were instead locked in this seven-unit complex with boarded-up windows, surrounded by razor wire. They were forced to work 18 hours a day assembling garments for such clothing lines as B.U.M., High Sierra, Cheetah, and Anchor Blue. They earned less than one dollar per day. Armed guards watched them, and they were forced to buy food and necessities from a “store” run by their captors. All of their phone calls were monitored, and their letters censored.
Eventually, a worker named Win Chuai Ngan found a Thai-language newspaper in the trash. He cut out and hid an advertisement for a Thai temple and the mailing address label for the apartment. One night, carrying the clipping and the mailing label, he jumped the razor wire fence, ran to a taxi stand, and asked to be taken to the temple. He told his story to the people at the temple, and the raid soon followed. Eight persons who operated the complex were arrested. Because the workers were unauthorized, they were subject to deportation by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. A groundswell of protest erupted, with demands that the workers be released and granted amnesty. Sweatshop Watch eventually raised bail for all of the workers. After their release, Sweatshop Watch secured legal jobs for them and arranged for housing and medical care.
While much of the media and U.S. public were appalled that slavery could happen in the contemporary United States, this story is far too common both in Los Angeles and globally. In fact, the El Monte complex was just one of several local operations, many of which “employed” not only Asian immigrants but also Latinas/os. Sweatshops are a regular feature of the contemporary manufacturing economy. To maximize profits, clothing retailers routinely subcontract sewing and assembly jobs to smaller companies that agree to meet impossible cost and time demands. Subcontractors pass this pressure on to their workers in the form of illegally low wages and long hours, as well as appalling and inhumane conditions. Between 1995 and 2009, Los Angeles’ garment industry workforce shrunk from 112,000 to 79,400 workers. Although garment production is still Los Angeles County’s largest manufacturing industry, subcontractors are moving production to less industrialized countries.
Historically, the retailers who initiate this chain of exploitation have not been held liable, but the El Monte case changed this practice. Thai and Latina/o workers, represented by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, sued retailers, including Mervyn’s, charging that retailers are actually joint employers of garment workers and, as such, are bound by federal and state laws. The workers sought $7 million in back wages, but they also wanted to expose the garment industry’s horrific practices and conditions. Ultimately, they won $4 million in a landmark settlement that made the larger point of holding corporate giants responsible for the labor exploitation they create through subcontracting. Most of the Thai immigrants stayed in the United States, and in 2008 several became United States citizens. In 2010, a play about their struggle, Fabric, premiered locally, and the case has been featured in an exhibit on sweatshops at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
Image: Apartment complex at 2614 N. Santa Anita Ave., El Monte, 2009. Photo by Wendy Cheng.