Final Reading/Screening Response on LA Garment Industry

Better late than never for some reflections on our last week's material and screening.

Steve Nutter reports on the ever-expanding Los Angeles garment industry and the thousands of mostly Latina and Asian workers that are subjected to the exploitative conditions of mass-produced, lifestyle fashion. The group of retailers that comprise the apex of this power triangle have become increasingly concentrated into a few major fashion firms and continue to put pressure on independent manufacturers by circumventing the labor system through manufacturing their own lines. The temporality imposed by “retailer low-inventory strategies” like ‘just-in-time’(JIT) and ‘quick response’ (QT) forces the mode and duration of production to accelerate to an exploitative and unhealthy level. (202) This forces us, perhaps, to confront our attachment to practices of consumption and our expectations of quick turnaround, especially with our exceedingly close proximity to LA. Nutter is right to criticize harshly the ineffectual regulatory agents that are supposed to be monitoring labor infractions and enforcing at least some of the necessary standards. How might we temper our desire with responsibility, given that if the location of the sweatshops is not in our own backyard, they are invariably in someone else’s. This doesn’t mean that I advocate the abandonment of consumptive practices or the condemnation of pleasure, but it might be productive to think about the relationship between the female immigrants ‘employed’ as sewing machine operators in the industry and their own systems and modes of consumption within their ethnic communities and the larger urban environment. One can think somewhat of our last screening in this respect, however, one might be too tempted to ascribe a top-down affective valence to Ana’s appreciation for the garments that they produce. Perhaps Estela’s independent crafting of a dress for Ana could signify an interruption of the exploitative temporality of the contractor system, however, it is my suspicion that the depiction of this 'gifting' of labor only diffuses the harshness of their situation.