The Other Immigrants:
Women Workers in the U.S. Labor Movement

Women have been invisible in the majority of studies, debates and in the general image of immigration to the United States.

The Other Immigrants Project addresses two issues – the immigration debate and the lack of participation by Latina women in the labor movement. In this project, the documented histories will expand the image of who will be impacted by the “solutions” being debated on immigration. STITCH's project will work to include women immigrants in the national debate and discussions about immigrants as well as recognizing the increasing presence of Central Americans in this story.

The project is also designed to diversify and grow the U.S. labor movement as well. The United States labor movement has been continually challenging itself to become more representative of the working population. In addition to helping the labor movement, Latina women themselves have the most to gain from joining unions, as both women and Latinos report the biggest increase in salaries and benefits from unionization. Yet there are still many cultural barriers that stand in the way, unions especially do not always know what messages will resonate with Latina immigrant women or what issues they most want addressed. In this project, Central American, women workers, will, using their own words, histories and suggestions as a guideline, help labor organizations understand how to recruit and retain this population.

How Can We Support Immigrant Women's Struggle for Workplace Rights?

In 2007, STITCH will use our experience with popular education methodologies, a history of worker and women-driven projects, and proven ability to take the cues for our work from the populations we serve to greatly increase and focus our work in the United States by creating a new, U.S.-based project focusing on Latina, women immigrants.

In the first stage of this project (starting in 2006 and finished in early 2007), STITCH will use our experience in capturing women's stories to talk to immigrant, Central American women in the United States in partnership with local unions, nonprofits, and worker's centers. The women's stories we believe can serve the purpose of giving the public, policy makers, labor organizations (particularly unions), and perhaps workers themselves a broader picture of immigration, since women are often not included in the statistics and stories of immigration, and about their participation in labor organizing. We will specifically focus on how organizing can be improved, how more women can be recruited and retained, and given leadership roles in labor organizations. STITCH will publish these interviews in a bilingual booklet.

The second phase of the project will be to bring together immigrant women and union leaders for a total of 3 to 5 local dialogues that will further give them a platform (both at the national and regional level) for their stories as well assisting STITCH in further defining our work on this issue.

The information from the local dialogues with those women and organizations we have worked with and others will be crucial determining what might be most useful to immigrant women workers in their labor organizing and immigrant rights organizing especially in relationship to unions and other labor organizations and what role STITCH might play.

Interested in being a part of the Local Dialogues?

STITCH will be travelling to different parts of the country to meet with local leaders and immigrant workers. Our current schedule includes:

Miami: March 24, 2007

Washington, DC: Late April, 2007

Other Potential Sites:

Midwest/Chicago, IL

West Coast/San Francisco, CA or Los Angeles,CA

Northeast/Boston, MA

For more information about becoming involved in this project or about receiving the final product : Contact Cassandra Baker at Cbaker@stitchonline.org