Thursday, Oct. 9, 2:00pm-5:30pm
Transport: Meet at Rendezvous Court, Biltmore Hotel. We will travel by van to and from the Garment Worker Center in South Los Angeles.
Tour Maximum: 26 people
Cost: $25
Tour description:
The last three months in Los Angeles have provided the world with a close-up view of the attack on immigrant communities in the US, as well as the dynamic movement that has grown to defend and support these communities. Over 35 percent of L.A. County’s population are immigrants, more than half Latinx. More than a million are undocumented. LA’s garment industry has been a source of both glamor and employment for immigrants for over 100 years. It is the nation’s garment production capital and the city’s largest manufacturing sector. Over 30,000 workers, primarily Latino/a and Asian immigrants, cut, sew and finish garments in an industry notorious for fierce competition and worker exploitation.
This tour will explore the intersection of low-wage worker organizing, immigrant rights, mutual aid, and rapid response. We will meet with a few of the organizations who have been deeply involved in this work over many years, and we will have a short ‘training’ in mutual aid and rapid response. The Garment Worker Center’s new home in South Los Angeles will be our base. Our van tour will wind through LA on its way to the Garment Worker Center, viewing key sites in the stories we will talk about: the Detention Center, Skid Row, the Flower District, and the Fashion and Garment Districts.
Tour leaders:
Judy Branfman, Research Affiliate, UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, filmmaker, co-editor of Public Los Angeles: A Private City’s Activist Futures.
Marissa Nuncio, Executive Director, Garment Worker Center, a labor rights organizing space for LA’s garment workers.
With members of several other immigrant-rights, rapid response, and low-wage worker organizations.