ABSTRACT
This chapter is based on the story of one Asian-Pacific American woman’s non-traditional work. She had earned a university degree in 1975 in Special Education. Yet teaching jobs were scarce in the Detroit area at that time, and Norma – who was self-supporting – became an Emergency Medical Technician. Her high scores on a City Service Exam qualified her to work as an Emergency Room Medical Attendant at a city hospital, but the closure of that facility resulted in a year of unemployment until she obtained a job as a Water Utility Worker in Maintenance and Repair for the city. That work, which had been the province of men, included digging up and repairing broken water and sewer lines. She learned to use tools like jackhammers and power routers from men on the crews, some of whom resented women’s presence on the job sites. Yet Norma developed a relationship of mutual respect with one of the African-American men with greater seniority, thereby enabling the informal learning needed to perform the work. Although she took on this work for economic reasons, it occurred against a backdrop of legal and political activities to promote women’s entry into the skilled trades.
