APALC El Monte Animated Short

This animated short is based on the true-life harrowing story of 72 Thai laborers who were held captive and forced to work 18-hour days for many years in a Southern California sweatshop.


Produced by Elaine Tang, a longtime volunteer and Harvard-Westlake intern at APALC, the animated short was developed with the help of Xing Xing Digital, a leading digital animation company located in Beijing, China. Earlier today, Lifeng Wang, president of Xing Xing Digital, attended a private screening of the video at APALC.

The animated short depicts APALC's advocacy on immigrant workers' rights through the journey of Thai women who were enslaved as garment workers at a sweatshop in El Monte in 1995. APALC, along with its community partners, secured the release of the 72 Thai workers who were imprisoned behind razor wire and watched by armed guards. They were forced to work up to 18 hours daily under deplorable work conditions and paid less than a dollar an hour. With APALC's assistance, the Thai workers joined with 22 Latinos who co-labored in a downtown front shop and brought a ground-breaking lawsuit which resulted in a favorable settlement and more importantly, a key ruling on corporate responsibility in the garment industry. The workers became strong advocates for workers' rights and helped pave the way for the strongest anti-sweatshop legislation in the country. APALC assisted them in securing their legal status and by 2008, dozens of the El Monte workers became citizens and celebrated their long journey in making America, a country that they challenged to live up to its ideals, their permanent home.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• APALC
• Asian
• Pacific
• American
• Legal
• Center
• 1995
• Thai
• Worker
• El
• Monte
• Case
• Xing
• Digital

[yerk3]

@weiner66 You cited the word as evidence that this was "PRC propaganda." You picked out one word and took it about a mile out of context in order to make sinister claims about this video. The analogies all stand.

[weiner66]

@yerk3 Yes really. Harmony a bad thing? Never said it. Interior decorator Nazis? Whites & coloreds? Got anymore stupid analogies?

[MrThorhalland]

Yes they do, I live in Thailand.

[yerk3]

@weiner66 Not really. Just because they use the word "harmonious" doesn't mean that it has anything whatsoever to do with the PRC. Harmony is not a bad thing just because someone on the other side of the world uses it as an euphemism for having everyone do as they say. Do you accuse interior decorators of being Nazis when they talk about creating more "room to breathe" in a room? Are people who separate their whites and colored clothes when they're doing laundry trying to bring back Jim Crow?

[yerk3]

@MrThorhalland No they don't. 

[MrThorhalland]

All the Thai people look Chinese,

[weiner66]

"harmonious society".. hey that's PRC propaganda speak