Progressive Nation

Issue date: 4/23/07 Section: Opinion

Last summer I worked for a non-governmental labor rights organization based in Puebla, Mexico. I acquired my internship through Princeton's International Internship program, which placed me with the Solidarity Center in Mexico, which then placed me with the Centro de Apoyo al Trabajador (CAT), or the "worker support center." I spent about 10 weeks working with this small NGO on their various projects that included research, house visits to workers, and an educational theater program. In terms of learning about the intricacies of labor issues in Mexico, this experience was wonderful; but what I got out of the whole experience was profoundly personal.

I was living with the coordinator of the CAT, who co-founded the organization about 6 years ago after having been the first female Secretary-General of an independent union in Mexico. Her story alone was inspiring: she came from a family of ten children, both of her parents are functionally illiterate, and she still managed to go to college and eventually found an independent union - a complicated task in a country where protectionist unions (unions that protect the interests of their employer rather than the workers) come standard with every company.

I was staying in a relatively suburban house with running water, so by no means was I living in the kind of poverty I encountered on a daily basis. Every day I found myself questioning the social hierarchies around me and trying to put my finger on the differences between my life there versus my life here. I was never fully able to adjust to seeing three-year-old babies selling gum for a peso on the street or to hearing the stories of how factory management found new ways to cut the pay and benefits of workers who had been with them for many years.

I only realized one of the most profound results of my summer experiences when I returned to campus this fall. After talking with numerous people who work in different kinds of factories (e.g. college apparel, car parts) I found that I could no longer think of factories or factory workers as foreign. Every time I see a Volkswagen I remember the faces of the VW union leaders I met with, and every time I see a Princeton sweatshirt I think of the woman who works in a Nike college apparel factory who let me "crash" on her couch after a night out. Sweatshops and unions are no longer imaginary concepts that I have a vague understanding of; they are faces and images that will stay with me forever. Realizing this when I returned to campus demonstrated how much of a personal change I had undergone in the way I empathize with other people and their conditions.

Continued...

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