ABSTRACT
“We left our homeland and our relatives behind trying just to make a meager living in this country. We work very hard for less than $3.00 an hour, yet our bosses refuse to pay us.” Lee, a mild-mannered, bespectacled, middle-aged woman in her Sunday best spoke emotionally in Cantonese dialect to a crowd of onlookers at the corner of Canal and Baxter, the busiest intersection in New York City's Chinatown. At this noonday rally in 1991, Lee stood on top of a makeshift platform with eight fellow workers—six Chinese seamstresses, one Latina seamstress, and one male steam presser—appealing for community support. They chanted, “We want justice! We are no slaves! Pay our wages now!” The owners of Wai Chang Fashions, Inc., owed Lee $3,000, another woman $6,000 (one year's back pay), $10,000 total to a couple who worked there together, and $1,900 to a 70-year-old man.
