Reflections of a Former Child Garment Worker — Inside the Sweatshop: Part 2

Working in a sweatshop as a child shaped my view of work and wealth as an American immigrant. I was six years old when I started. Part 2 of 4.

Continued from Part 1

Keeping it Secret — Sweatshop Raids in the 90s

During the 90s, crackdowns on sweatshops in Los Angeles suburbs made our work seem secretive. The Clinton administration even formed a “sweatshop task force” around the time my parents started their work.

This task force aimed to protect garment workers enslaved in factories.

While we were contracted garment workers and had better conditions compared to those unsponsored foreigners who were trafficked into the country, it was still a challenging environment.

Fortunately, we were sponsored by my uncle to come to America, which spared us from the plight of many exploited workers.

The World provides comprehensive coverage of the entire story behind the task force in an article titled “How a sweatshop raid in an LA suburb changed the American garment industry.”

As for the industry’s current state since we left, I am not entirely sure. A quick online search reveals some textile companies are now paying hourly wages, but it doesn’t necessarily mean all companies have fair labor practices. The garment industry has a notorious reputation for violating numerous labor laws.

In a March 2023 article in the Business of Fashion, it was reported a new US Labor Department investigation found labor violations in 80 percent of the cases involving more than 50 garment-sewing contractors and manufacturers.

Half the time, workers were paid off the books, with records either deliberately forged or not provided, the department said.

Additionally, due to their limited English proficiency, my parents often fell victim to deceptive practices in everyday situations, such as fake job advertisements, misunderstanding banking terms and conditions, or how interest rates worked.

Despite their pride in being honest and hardworking, the opposite often surrounded them.

Making Less Than Minimum Wage

The pay was based on each completed article of clothing, such as a fully sewn pair of pants or a jacket. Depending on the item's complexity, the pay per product ranged from a few dollars to less than $10.

Considering my parents worked from sunrise to sunset, never less than 10 hours a day, they made much less than minimum wage when we did the math.

The federal minimum wage was $5.65 per hour in 1999. Getting $1,000 a month for almost 500 hours of work between both my parents meant they received $2 an hour on average.

This meant we lived below the poverty line. As a young child, I could tell each day was a struggle.

I could tell this was not the life my parents aspired for us when they left their world behind in Vietnam.

Other Conditions

• Since payment was solely based on completed products, every article of clothing had to be fully assembled, down to the zipper on a jacket or the belt loops on the side, before it could be accepted.
• Typically, we didn’t add hardware such as buttons at home; those finishing touches were left to the machines at the factory.
• However, any mistake or imperfection in the finished products would result in penalties, leading to deductions from our pay.
• These penalties varied from a few cents to the entire article being rejected, which meant we received no pay for the discarded units since they could not be sold by the retailer later.

Unfortunately, defects occurred more than a few times, and my parents had to bear the cost. There were instances when some mistakes, such as sewing crooked seams or attaching tags backward, were my fault.

During my childhood, sewing for a living seemed quite familiar as several families in the area, including mine, were involved in this profession.

Although I didn’t perceive it as the worst possible job, I could tell being a garment worker took a toll on my parents due to the long hours and low pay they endured. As a child, I had to still go to school and get enough sleep — no compromises.

Despite their financial struggles, my parents did their best to ensure we had healthy meals and minimally processed foods, contributing to my physical well-being. But their sacrifice came at a cost I didn’t understand then.

One memory about this still haunts me.

Things that permanently altered my perspective of wealth

As a result of our socioeconomic status, everyday things like ice cream or a car newer than five years old seemed like a luxury.

Small gestures cost more for poor people

A core memory of mine. One day, after seeing American moms on TV packing their children’s lunches with simple sandwiches, I asked my mom if she could fill my lunch, too.

I was eight years old at the time. My mom didn’t say anything at first, but shortly after, my father came up to me in an angry fit.

He screamed at me for being selfish to ever expect my hardworking mom to make my lunch.

My dad had two levels of anger — he was either mad like a drill sergeant, or if he were distraught, he’d fly into an incoherent rage, screaming at the top of his lungs until you felt worthless.

He raged at me in front of all my sisters to make it clear my mom would never pack our lunches.

I felt terrible and confused because it seemed like many fourth graders had lunches packed by their moms. I cried a lot and was forced by my dad to apologize to my mom. It was a stark reminder of poverty's limitations on our lives and how it affected my understanding of the world.

Essentials such as shelter, food, and security were always at risk of being taken away at a moment’s notice.

I received free lunches at school due to my parents’ low income. Surprisingly, I was not embarrassed by the subsidy since the cafeteria food was mediocre and not worth the $2.50.

Grocery shopping occurred only once a month, and until then, we struggled with barely having enough food.

I did not understand how stress and exhaustion could change an adult’s behavior.

It was during these moments I learned how unfair life could be. For instance, how some kids only have to worry about their gel pen collection while others have to worry about getting to school early enough to enjoy the free breakfast.

It took me a long time to stop thinking with such scarcity and extreme frugality. This experience affected how I manage money to this day.

I track every dollar I spend, go to multiple grocery stores in a day to save a few bucks, and find ways to subsidize my spending, but in turn, I developed a terrible hoarding habit.

Once I realized how abundant money could be and how living minimally would automatically fit my budget, my wealth grew exponentially.

Monotonous work pays nothing.

Continuing the discussion regarding garment work, sewing clothes for the masses hardly requires creativity.

It is repetitive and boring.

You start from interior parts like pockets and then progress to the outer sections such as side seams.

For example, when making pants with pockets, the process involved sewing the pockets onto the rear frame layer of the pants first.

This would be repeated one size at a time to avoid mixing up tags and sizes. The repetition would continue for hundreds of pieces for each size until the next part needed sewn, such as the zipper or waistband.

Children make sacrifices when the family is poor.

When you’re part of a poor family with children in the household, the children may make sacrifices, too.

In the olden days, children had to help on the farm. In some ways, those children and I aren’t much different. I had to be productive, too.

Sometimes, sewing was fun. I got to create something with my hands.

But most times, the days felt brutally long.

My bones were still developing, so my lower back would hurt from the long hours of sitting and hunching over a machine.

My wrists would ache from the hours of repetitive motion. Ugh.

Anyways, enough wallowing. I hated making mistakes. Re-threading was the worst, especially when the bobbin ran out of thread without me noticing.

In those moments, it felt like a stab to the heart. I would have to re-sew them.

For those unfamiliar with sewing, the bobbin is the spool holding the thread. A typical sewing machine uses two threaded bobbins:

• One for the backstitch inside the clothing
• The other is for the outside, which is what you see if your clothes aren’t inside-out

If there’s anything a story about a child sewing clothes should tell you, it’s almost anyone can learn how to sew mass-produced clothing. All the cloth is pre-cut, and all you need to do is sew them together following the instructions.

The most valuable thing poor people can offer is their time

My parents typically took one or two assignments at a time, and it would take them about a month or even less to complete, depending on the deadline imposed by the garment factory.

At the end of each project, we would have sewn at least two hundred articles of clothing, give or take.

This would provide us with around $1,000 monthly to live off, qualifying us for welfare.

I eagerly looked forward to the completion of these clothes because it was when my parents got the day off and we could finally buy groceries, and I would get to pick my one snack for the entire month.

It was also the only time of the month they seemed somewhat happy. As I grew older, I realized my parents had to wait to get paid for their assignments before we could afford necessities.

I became densely aware of money because I spent my time indoors sewing instead of playing outside like other children.

Naturally curious about the value of the time I was sewing hundreds of tags on clothing, I would ask my mom many questions.

• How much will they pay us for this assignment?
• Do they ever give us extra pieces we could keep?

In response, my mom felt sorry for me and gave me an allowance far surpassing the rate of work I was putting in. I recall getting $50 one month; it’s one of the few acts of genuine kindness from my parents I remember.

I guess they wanted to instill in me the value of hard work, though it did not have the intended effect, as I developed chronic stress from burnout later in my adult career. I also hid a lot about myself at school, and it took me a long time to come to terms with the shame I felt.

Intelligence doesn’t ensure a path to success

My sister subscribed to a few fashion-ish magazines, such as Teen Vogue, and I often saw articles interviewing fashion designers where they talked about how they created their new clothing line with certain fabrics or styles.

These clothes were in the range of hundreds to thousands of dollars. How many dollars did each of those garment workers get? I would wonder.

My father is brilliant. In Vietnam, he finished calculus in grade school and graduated at the top of his class in high school.

He was denied college due to being ethnically Chinese. It didn’t matter whether he was Asian. To them, he wasn't “the right Asian.”

My mother worked for the Vietnamese government but was fired when they found out she married an “outcast”.

Vietnam is no longer like this, but this discrimination was one of the reasons they moved to America. Their reason is why I love this country.

Because of these high-end magazines and given how intelligent my parents were, I convinced myself they HAD to be part of the elite fashion world and that their work was why people could buy clothes at malls.

In reality, we were nothing in the fashion world.

I learned a valuable lesson that intelligence alone means nothing. Half of success is pure luck and timing.

Even so, as a child, I had difficulty accepting that intelligent people could have so little control over their situation.

How could life be so hard?

Seamstresses at major fashion houses like Chanel and Dior are recruited from top fashion schools like Parsons in NYC; it is a selective process, and they get paid much more.

We were not fashion royalty at all. We were invisible. My mom often worked much longer than any of her children, putting in 12 to 16 hours each day.

As a result, until 7th grade, the only way I could fall asleep was by listening to the rhythmic sounds of a sewing machine in the background. The smell of machine oil from freshly sewn clothes is forever etched into my memory.

These four observations were core to my view of wealth. I developed these beliefs that when you’re poor: simple gestures are expensive, children may need to make sacrifices, the most valuable thing poor people can offer is their time, and that intelligence doesn’t ensure a path to success.

In Part 3 (linked below) I talk about the consequences of fast fashion, using a memory of when I saw our one of our finished products being sold at a retailer.

In the final Part 4, I reveal why I decided to talk about my story, almost 30 years later, and how this experience affected my mental health.

Part 3 is linked below.

Hey everyone, thanks for reading. I’m a former corporate management consultant writing about work, culture, and personal finance. I’m not a financial advisor. I’m just an average person.

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Consult a financial professional before making any significant financial decisions.