Dances, guest lectures and even a skit performed by several University students were used as ways to examine globalization and the effect it has on workers at Thursday’s Labor in a Global Economy conference.
Dozens of students, professors and community members attended the event, which was held in the EMU Fir Room and sponsored by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics.
The presentations served to foster discussion about the difficulties both American and immigrant workers have faced throughout several decades, said Dana Frank, 2001 Morse Chair professor.
“We’re dealing with the challenges global capitalism is bringing to our communities,” she said. “There’s no easy answer, but we can look for effective ways to move forward and understand how this system works.”
Between guest lectures, a handful of University students performed a skit to showcase their research into immigrant labor conditions.
Their skit, titled “The Life of the Strawberry Project,” attempted to illustrate the conditions immigrant farm workers face while working in Oregon fruit and vegetable fields. Their skit included descriptions of the physical struggles workers endure daily.
Kristina Tiedje, an anthropology graduate student, was involved in the research and performed in the skit.
“These workers don’t even make minimum wage in some places,” she said. “Growers are not so interested in making it easier for the farmworkers.”
Tiedje said she and the other five students spent fall and winter terms interviewing Oregon food distributors, immigrant workers and cannery workers in collaboration with the farmworker union PCUN.
“We want to educate consumers to recognize when they buy fruits and vegetables that there’s so much effort involved,” she said. “People suffer a lot.”
To further remind people about working immigrants’ struggles, Lynn Fujiwara, an assistant women’s studies professor, spoke of the financial hardships Asian women in California face because of several negative welfare changes in the mid-1990s.
Fujiwara said the current welfare option is too harsh because immigrants can only receive government assistance for up to five years, and that is often not enough time for a family to become financially independent in a brand-new country.
“The bottom line is much more work needs to be done,” she said.