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Immigrant Women, Work, and Americanization “ YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT HAR D WOR K I S” In the 1920s sociologist Pauline Young interviewed Los Angeles resident Cora Jackson. Jackson was a Molokan, part of a reclusive religious sect that had fled Russia. Jackson had arrived in the city at the turn of the century. She told Young about her work history: We came to America on a Saturday, and I went to work in an American home on Monday. I was servant girl and nurse for small babies. I was only ten years old. I was never sent to school. I never could play. I work and give all my money to father. They tell me: “We poor and you must help.” I stayed in that place a year, then I went to work in a laundry. Ever worked in a laundry? No? Then you don’t know what hard work is. I too sick to work there ten hours a day. I find another home with Jewish people, eight dollars a month. Nice people, and no children. I wash dishes, clean house, and stay there three years. I give all my wages to father, and he give me a dime on Sunday. I ask what could I do with a dime? No nice clothes, no time for friends, nobody be nice to you and visit with you. I can’t live like stone. In her story, Jackson touched upon many of the same difficulties expressed by female workers anywhere in the United States. The pressure to help support her family, the low pay and long hours, and the conflict between her personal desires and what was expected of her are common concerns whether one is listening to a nineteenth-century woman or a twenty-firstcentury one. But Jackson’s story is particularly significant for the light it sheds on immigrant women’s work in turn-of-the-century Los Angeles. True, Los Angeles was far removed from the waves of immigrants arriving from Europe through Ellis Island. But employers in Southern California were every bit as depen- Immigrant Women, Work, and Americanization 117 dent on immigrant women’s labor as industry was in the East. In Los Angeles, Mexican women, Russian women, Italian women, and others supplied the region’s new businesses with labor. The bakeries, canneries, candy factories, and sweatshops established in or near immigrant neighborhoods needed these women’s labor to keep costs down and business competitive. However, their overall numbers were smaller, and therefore these women often worked alongside native-born Anglo-American women. This created conflicts, but also interesting opportunities for alliances. This chapter explores the interplay between immigrant geography and industrialization in Los Angeles, the challenges these women faced in the workforce, their struggles to balance work and home life, and finally their conflicts and cooperation with union organizers, Progressive reformers, and white American-born women. Women in the Garment Industry As difficult as finding work could be for an Anglo-American woman, it remained even harder for non-Anglos. Most eastern and midwestern cities of the day were divided between native-born white Americans and European immigrants; southern cities were divided between whites and African Americans. But Los Angeles became divided between a “white” Americanborn majority and a large “colored” minority that often lumped together Mexicans, African Americans, Asians, and European immigrants. Even when compared to San Francisco, the City of Angels contained more people from more nations than anywhere else on the Pacific Coast. This “colored” minority became the base of the city’s economic structure, working in the unskilled and service jobs that helped drive Los Angeles’s economic expansion. Such a structure underwrote most late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century industrial capitalism in the United States. Minority and immigrant women in Los Angeles occupied the very bottom of the city’s occupational ladder behind white men, white women, and (in some but not all cases) minority and immigrant men. This resulted in part from fierce competition for jobs. Los Angeles’s location on the Pacific Coast, as well as its use as a railroad terminus , made it a popular destination for Mexicans emigrating from south of the border, for Asians crossing the Pacific, and, eventually, for Europeans traveling through the Panama Canal. But it was also the result of occupational segregation in the female workforce. As in the case of retail work discussed previously, many employers consciously chose Anglo-American women over those in other ethnic groups, and some white...

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