Japanese immigrants to the United States prior to World War 2 showed an unusual propensity to enter small business or run independent family farms. Even their children, the Nisei, have tended to be over-represented in self-employed occupations. The pattern of concentration in small business is found among other minorities around the world, including the Jews in Europe, Chinese in Southeast Asia, and Indians in East Africa. Ethnic groups with this kind of economic concentration have been termed middleman minorities. This book explores the relationship between class and ethnic solidarity. Using middleman minority theory, the authors analyze the history of the Japanese American community until the war time evacuation. The study then turns to the 2nd generation and with data collected by the Japanese American research Project at UCLA, analyzes a segment of the theory in detail.

The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity: Small Business in the Japanese American Community

Politics & Social Sciences

Bonacich, Edna

Social Sciences

Univ. Of California Pr.

Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Koreans in Los Angeles, 1965-1982

A decade in preparation, Immigrant Entrepreneurs offers the most comprehensive case study ever completed of the causes and consequences of immigrant business ownership. Koreans are the most entrepreneurial of America's new immigrants. By the mid-1970s Americans had already become aware that Korean immigrants were opening, buying, and operating numerous business enterprises in major cities. When Koreans flourished in small business, Americans wanted to know how immigrants could find lucrative business opportunities where native-born Americans could not. Somewhat later, when Korean-black conflicts surfaced in a number of cities, Americans also began to fear the implications for intergroup relations of immigrant entrepreneurs who start in the middle rather than at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy.Nowhere was immigrant enterprise more obvious or impressive than in Los Angeles, the world's largest Korean settlement outside of Korea and America's premier city of small business. Analyzing both the short-run and the long-run causes of Korean entrepreneurship, the authors explain why the Koreans could find, acquire, and operate small business firms more easily than could native-born residents. They also provide a context for distinguishing clashes of culture and clashes of interest which cause black-Korean tensions in cities, and for framing effective policies to minimize the tensions.

Business & Money

Light, Ivan

Management & Leadership

A decade in preparation, Immigrant Entrepreneurs offers the most comprehensive case study ever completed of the causes and consequences of immigrant business ownership. Koreans are the most entrepreneurial of America's new immigrants. By the mid-1970s Americans had already become aware that Korean immigrants were opening, buying, and operating numerous business enterprises in major cities. When Koreans flourished in small business, Americans wanted to know how immigrants could find lucrative business opportunities where native-born Americans could not. Somewhat later, when Korean-black conflicts surfaced in a number of cities, Americans also began to fear the implications for intergroup relations of immigrant entrepreneurs who start in the middle rather than at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy. Nowhere was immigrant enterprise more obvious or impressive than in Los Angeles, the world's largest Korean settlement outside of Korea and America's premier city of small business. Analyzing both the short-run and the long-run causes of Korean entrepreneurship, the authors explain why the Koreans could find, acquire, and operate small business firms more easily than could native-born residents. They also provide a context for distinguishing clashes of culture and clashes of interest which cause black-Korean tensions in cities, and for framing effective policies to minimize the tensions.

Economics

University of California Press

In a study crucial to our understanding of American social inequality, Edna Bonacich and Richard Appelbaum investigate the return of sweatshops to the apparel industry, especially in Los Angeles. The "new" sweatshops, they say, need to be understood in terms of the decline in the American welfare state and its strong unions and the rise in global and flexible production. Apparel manufacturers now have the incentive to move production to wherever low-wage labor can be found, while maintaining arm's-length contractual relations that protect them from responsibility. The flight of the industry has led to a huge rise in apparel imports to the United States and to a decline in employment.Los Angeles, however, remains a puzzling exception in that its industry employment has continued to grow, to the point where L.A. is the largest center of apparel production in the nation. Not only the availability of low-wage immigrant (often undocumented) workers but also the focus on moderately priced, fashion-sensitive women's wear makes this possible. Behind the Label examines the players in the L.A. apparel industry, including manufacturers, retailers, contractors, and workers, evaluating the maldistribution of wealth and power. The authors explore government and union efforts to eradicate sweatshops while limiting the flight to Mexico and elsewhere, and they conclude with a description of the growing antisweatshop movement.Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction Book of 2000

Behind the Label : Inequality in the Los Angeles Apparel Industry

Appelbaum, Richard

In a study crucial to our understanding of American social inequality, Edna Bonacich and Richard Appelbaum investigate the return of sweatshops to the apparel industry, especially in Los Angeles. The "new" sweatshops, they say, need to be understood in terms of the decline in the American welfare state and its strong unions and the rise in global and flexible production. Apparel manufacturers now have the incentive to move production to wherever low-wage labor can be found, while maintaining arm's-length contractual relations that protect them from responsibility. The flight of the industry has led to a huge rise in apparel imports to the United States and to a decline in employment. Los Angeles, however, remains a puzzling exception in that its industry employment has continued to grow, to the point where L.A. is the largest center of apparel production in the nation. Not only the availability of low-wage immigrant (often undocumented) workers but also the focus on moderately priced, fashion-sensitive women's wear makes this possible. Behind the Label examines the players in the L.A. apparel industry, including manufacturers, retailers, contractors, and workers, evaluating the maldistribution of wealth and power. The authors explore government and union efforts to eradicate sweatshops while limiting the flight to Mexico and elsewhere, and they conclude with a description of the growing antisweatshop movement. Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction Book of 2000

Behind the Label: Inequality in the Los Angeles Apparel Industry

Labor Immigration under Capitalism: Asian Workers in the United States Before World War II

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.

Cheng, Lucie

Sociology

Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity: Small Business in the Japanese American Community

Modell, John

Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution

In Getting the Goods, Edna Bonacich and Jake B. Wilson focus on the Southern California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach―which together receive 40 percent of the nearly $2 trillion worth of goods imported annually to the United States―to examine the impact of the logistics revolution on workers in transportation and distribution. Built around the invention of shipping containers and communications technology, the logistics revolution has enabled giant retailers like Walmart and Target to sell cheap consumer products made using low-wage labor in developing countries. The goods are shipped through an efficient, low-cost, intermodal freight system, in which containers are moved from factories in Asia to distribution centers across the United States without ever being opened.Bonacich and Wilson follow the flow of imports from Asian factories, exploring the roles of importers, container shipping companies, the ports, railroad and trucking companies, and warehouses. At each stage, Getting the Goods raises important questions about how the logistics revolution affects logistics workers. Drawing extensively on interviews with workers and managers at all levels of the supply chain, on industry reports, and on economic data, Bonacich and Wilson find that, in general, conditions have deteriorated for workers. But they also discover that changes in the system of production and distribution provide new strategic opportunities for labor to gain power. A much-needed corrective to both uncritical celebrations of containerization and the global economy and pessimistic predictions about the future of the U.S. labor movement, Getting the Goods will become required reading for scholars and students in sociology, political economy, and labor studies.

Wilson, Jake B.

Cornell University Press

In Getting the Goods, Edna Bonacich and Jake B. Wilson focus on the Southern California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach―which together receive 40 percent of the nearly $2 trillion worth of goods imported annually to the United States―to examine the impact of the logistics revolution on workers in transportation and distribution. Built around the invention of shipping containers and communications technology, the logistics revolution has enabled giant retailers like Wal-Mart and Target to sell cheap consumer products made using low-wage labor in developing countries. The goods are shipped through an efficient, low-cost, intermodal freight system, in which containers are moved from factories in Asia to distribution centers across the United States without ever being opened.
Bonacich and Wilson follow the flow of imports from Asian factories, exploring the roles of importers, container shipping companies, the ports, railroad and trucking companies, and warehouses. At each stage, Getting the Goods raises important questions about how the logistics revolution affects logistics workers. Drawing extensively on interviews with workers and managers at all levels of the supply chain, on industry reports, and on economic data, Bonacich and Wilson find that, in general, conditions have deteriorated for workers. But they also discover that changes in the system of production and distribution provide new strategic opportunities for labor to gain power. A much-needed corrective to both uncritical celebrations of containerization and the global economy and pessimistic predictions about the future of the U.S. labor movement, Getting the Goods will become required reading for scholars and students in sociology, political economy, and labor studies.

This collection of original essays examines the social and political consequences of the globalization of the apparel industry in Asia, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the United States. The contributors analyze the countries' trade policies, the apparel industry's network of capital ad labor, working conditions in garment factories, and the role of workers, especially women. Written by scholars of various nationalities and from different disciplines, this volume provides a look at the industry from the perspective of participants within each country and illustrates a general trend toward the internationalization of production and global economic restructuring.

Global Production: The Apparel Industry in the Pacific Rim (Labor and Social Change)

Temple University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bonacich, Edna. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Bonacich, Edna

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bonacich, Edna. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity: Small Business in the Japanese American Community

Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Koreans in Los Angeles, 1965-1982

Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Koreans in Los Angeles, 1965-1982

Behind the Label : Inequality in the Los Angeles Apparel Industry

Behind the Label: Inequality in the Los Angeles Apparel Industry

Labor Immigration under Capitalism: Asian Workers in the United States Before World War II

Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity: Small Business in the Japanese American Community

Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution

Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution

Global Production: The Apparel Industry in the Pacific Rim (Labor and Social Change)