I can remember my quest to find the perfect eighth grade graduation dress; it was six years ago, and I had taken Bart to San Francisco's Powell Street, where I found myself in the heart of the city's shopping district. I visited all the high-end designer stores, like Jessica McClintock, and marveled at San Francisco's incredible glamour. I had no idea that not too far away, women were sewing dresses like mine, working long hours in stuffy rooms, earning perhaps two dollars for the dress that I had purchased for over one hundred. Nor did I realize that students from Berkeley High School, which I would soon attend, had organized a successful boycott against Jessica McClintock. The designer had refused to take responsibility when the local sweatshop that produced her gowns abruptly closed, denying the workers, the mothers of my Berkeley High classmates, several months pay.

I learned recently that there are apparel factories in the Bay Area that amount to sweatshops. I discovered that garment workers are barely able to survive in the Bay Area, much less purchase for their daughters the very gown that they made. This not the Bay Area in which I want to live the rest of my life. I do not want to live in a place so divided between "have's" and "have-not's," in which a few people become multimillionaires at the expense of the rest.

I find the words of Lin Cai Fen incredibly inspirational, and yet extremely disheartening. It is encouraging to see garment workers, minorities, women, immigrants, and the poor standing up for their rights. But at the same time, it is extremely unjust and upsetting that in the 21st century, in the progressive Bay Area moreover, these groups of people must constantly fight for human dignity.

The Bay Area that I want to live in is the one that many San Franciscans have been fighting for since the 1960's: a place where all residents live comfortably and in equality. Unfortunately, despite the progress that has been made and the tremendous efforts of many citizens, we still have a long way to go. The garment industry exemplifies the racial, ethnic, gender, and class discrimination that still exists within the Bay Area and the United States.

We do not choose where we were born. We do not choose what language we grow up with. We do not choose what class we are born in to, the color of our skin, or our gender. To discriminate on any of these bases is appalling. The fact that the majority of the exploited garment workforce is female highlights the persistence of gender discrimination. Employers, mostly men, take advantage of women, who they assume to be weak and helpless. Equally disturbing, employers take advantage of the fact that most garment workers do not speak English, treating workers like they are stupid and failing to explain their rights. Along these same lines, some threaten workers with deportation, keeping them trapped out of fear in terrible situations. One's immigration status should never be used to devalue a person— it is absolutely intolerable to deny someone basic human rights simply because they lack some paperwork. And business leaders who dismiss workers' opinions, complaints, and rights on the basis of their immigration status or ethnicity prove themselves extremely ethnocentric, a characteristic I believe to be incongruent with the values of most San Franciscans.

While it is easy to point at the subcontractors as the "evil" wrongdoers in the garment industry, I think we must also take a closer look at the United States government and its relationship with big businesses. First, it is evident that the government is not doing enough to protect low-wage citizens; personally, I believe that the minimum wage should be a "living wage." In a nation as wealthy as America, everyone who works full time should be guaranteed a wage that can support their basic needs, so that they may pursue a life beyond struggling to survive. Something is horribly wrong when there is such a large gap between the rich and the poor. Those who argue that the rich get rich through their own capabilities and hard work and that the poor are dysfunctional should listen to the stories of the garment workers. These women are anything but lazy: they probably work longer, more tedious hours than most businessmen, and rather than being provided support or a convenient entrance into the business world, they face continuous obstacles. In addition to starting with very little money, often times having come to America to escape political troubles and poverty in their home countries, they are met with continuous discrimination, oppression, and lack of governmental support. Bay Area residents need to attack the sweatshop problem on all fronts; while we should continue to advocate for the abolition of sweatshops overseas, we also must oversee the abolition of sweatshops within our local context, and fight discrimination and injustice of every kind!