A colonial labor system and other forms of racial oppression shaped the productive and reproductive labor of racial ethnic women in ways that made their experiences fundamentally different from those underlying the construction of feminist analyses of women's oppression. For black, Mexican-American and Chinese-American women, key concepts such as the private-public dichotomy, gender conflict within the family and the division of reproductive labor need to be reformulated. This study examines the historical evidence on black, Mexican-American and Chinese-American women's work from the mid-nineteenth century to the present in light of contemporary Marxist-feminist and colonial labor system theories. Thus, the author begins to reformulate and synthesize key concepts in these contemporary theories to explain the experiences of racial ethnic women.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Acosta-Belen, Edna
(ed.). 1979. The Puerto Rican Woman. New York: Praeger.
2.
Almquist, Elizabeth M.1979. Minorities, Gender and Work. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.
3.
Almquist, Elizabeth M.
and Juanita L. Weherle-Einhorn. 1978. The Doubly Disadvantaged: Minority Women in the Labor Force. In, Women Working, Ann H. Stromberg and Shirley Harkess (eds.). pp. 63-88. Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield Publishing.
4.
Baca-Zinn, Maxine
. 1982. Review Essay: Mexican American Women in the Social Sciences. Signs8:259-272.
5.
Baker, Sally Hillsman
and Bernard Levenson. 1975a. Job Opportunities of Black and White Working-Class Women. Social Problems22:510-532.
6.
Baker, Sally Hillsman and Bernard Levenson. 1975b. Earnings Prospects of Black and White Working Class Women. Unpublished Paper.
7.
Barrera, Mario
. 1979. Race and Class in the Southwest. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
8.
Barrera, Mario
, Carlos Muftoz and Charles Ornelas. 1972. The Barrio as an Internal Colony. In, Urban Affairs Annual Review 6, Harlan Hahn (ed.).
9.
Blassingame, John
. 1972. The Slave Community. New York: Oxford University Press.
10.
Blauner, Robert
. 1972. Racial Oppression in America. New York: Harper and Row.
11.
Braverman, Harry
. 1974. Labor and Monopoly Capital. New York: Monthly Review Press. Evelyn Nakano Glenn
12.
Brown, Carol
. 1981. Mothers, Fathers and Children: From Private to Public Patriarchy. In, Women and Revolution: A Discussion of the Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism, Lydia Sargent (ed.). pp. 239-269. Boston: South End Press.
13.
Brown, Jean Collier
. 1938. The Negro Woman Worker. Women's Bureau Bulletin 165. U.S. Department of Labor. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
14.
Byington, Margaret
. 1974. Homestead: TheHouseholds ofaMilltown. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
15.
Camarillo, Albert
. 1979. Chicanos in a Changing Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
16.
Carmichael, Stokely
and Charles V. Hamilton. 1967. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America. New York: Vintage.
17.
Cheng, Lucie
and Edna Bonacich. 1984. Labor Immigration Under Capitalism: Asian Immigrant Workers in the United States Before World War II. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
18.
Clark, Kenneth
. 1965. Dark Ghetto. New York: Harper and Row.
19.
Coolidge, Mary
. 1909. Chinese Immigration. New York: Henry Holt.
20.
Davis, Angela Y.1971. Reflections on the Black Woman's Place in the Community of Slaves. The Black Scholar2:3-15.
21.
Davis, Angela Y.1981. Women, Race and Class. New York: Random House.
22.
Dill, Bonnie Thornton
. 1979. The Dialectics of Black Womanhood. Signs4:543-555.
23.
Easton, Barbara
. 1976. Industrialization and Femininity: A Case Study of Nineteenth-Century New England. Social Problems23:389-401.
24.
Elesser, Nan
, Kyle MacKenzie and Yvonne Tixier y Vigil. 1980. LasMujeres: Conversationsfrom a Hispanic Community. Old Westbury, NY: The Feminist Press.
Fogel, William
and Stanley Engerman. 1974. Time on the Cross. Boston: Little Brown.
27.
Foner, Philip S.
and Ronald L. Lewis. 1981. The Black Worker: A Documentary History From Colonial Times to the Present, Vol. VI, The Era of Post-War Prosperity and the Great Depression, 1920-1936. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
28.
Frazier, E. Franklin
. 1939. The Negro Family in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
29.
Garcia, Mario T.1980. The Chicana in American History: The Mexican Women of El Paso, 1880-1920 A Case Study. Pacific Historical Review49:315-337.
30.
Garcia, Mario T.1981. Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880-1920. New Haven: Yale University Press.
31.
Genovese, Eugene
. 1974. Roll, Jordan, Roll. New York: Pantheon.
32.
Gilkes, Cheryl
. 1982. Successful Rebellious Professionals: The Black Woman's Professional Identity and Community Commitment. Psychology of Women Quarterly6:289-311.
33.
Glenn, Evelyn Nakano
. 1983. Split Household, Small Producer and Dual Wage Earner: An Analysis of Chinese American Family Strategies. Journal of Marriage and the Family45:35-46.
34.
Glenn, Evelyn Nakano
and Charles M. Tolbert II. 1985. Technology and Emerging Patterns of Stratification for Women of Color: Race and Gender Segregation of Computer Occupations. Revised version of a paper presented at the Women, Work and Technology Conference, University of Connecticut.
35.
Goldman, Marion
. 1981. Goldiggers and Silverminers. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
36.
Gutman, Herbert G.1975. Persistent Myths About the Afro-American Family. Journal ofInterdisciplinary History6:181-210.
37.
Gutman, Herbert G.1976. The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom. New York: Pantheon.
38.
Harevan, Tamara
. 1977. Family Time and Industrial Time: Family and Work in a Planned Corporation Town, 1900-1924. In, Family and Kin in Urban Communities: 1900-1930. New York: New Viewpoints.
39.
Hartmann, Heidi
. 1976. Capitalism, Patriarchy and Job Segregation by Sex. Signs1:137-169.
40.
Hartmann, Heidi
. 1981a. The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union. In, Women and Revolution: A Discussion of the Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism, Lydia Sargent (ed.). pp. 1-41. Boston: South End Press.
41.
Hartmann, Heidi
. 1981b. The Family as a Locus for Gender, Class and Political Struggle: The Example of Housework. Signs6(5):366-394.
42.
Hirata, Lucie Cheng
. 1979. Free, Indentured and Enslaved: Chinese Prostitutes in Nineteenth Century America. Signs5:3-29.
43.
Hooks, Bell
. 1981. Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. Boston: South End Press.
44.
Humphries, Jane
. 1977. Class Struggle and the Persistence of the Working Class Family. Cambridge Journal of Economics1:241-258.
45.
Ikels, Charlotte
and Julia Shang. 1979. The Chinese in Greater Boston. Interim Report to the National Institute of Aging.
46.
Jensen, Joan M.1980. Cloth, Butter and Boarders: Women's Household Production for the Market. Review of Radical Political Economics12(2):14-24.
47.
Jensen, Joan M.1981. With These Hands: Women Working on the Land. Old Westbury, NY: Feminist Press.
48.
Jones, Jacqueline
. 1984. Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work and the Family from Slavery to the Present. New York: Basic Books.
49.
Katzman, David
. 1978. Seven Days a Week: Women and Domestic Service in Industrializing America. New York: Oxford University Press.
50.
Kessler-Harris, Alice
. 1982. Out to Work. New York: Oxford University Press.
51.
Kim, Elaine
. 1983. With Silk Wings: Asian American Women at Work. San Francisco: Asian Women United of California.
52.
Kingston, Maxine Hong
. 1977. The Woman Warrior. New York: Vintage.
53.
Lee, L. P.
, A. Lim and H. K. Wong. 1969. Report of the San Francisco Chinese Community Citizens' Survey and Fact Finding Committee. (Abridged Edition). San Francisco: Chinese Community Citizens' Survey and Fact Finding Committee.
54.
Lerner, Gerda
. 1969. The Lady and the Mill Girl: Changes in the Status of Women in the Age of Jackson. American Studies10:5-14.
55.
Lerner, Gerda
. 1973. Black Women in White America: A Documentary History. New York: Vintage.
56.
Li, Peter S.1977. Fictive Kinship, Conjugal Ties and Kinship Claim Among Chinese Immigrants in the United States. Journal of Comparative Family Studies8(l):47-64.
57.
Ling, Pyan
. 1912. The Causes of Chinese Immigration. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences39:74-82.
58.
Lyman, Stanford
. 1968. Marriage and Family Among Chinese Immigrants to America, 1850-1960. Phylon29(4):321-330.
59.
Lyman, Stanford
. 1974. Chinese Americans. New York: Random House.
60.
Lyman, Stanford
. 1977. Strangers in the City: The Chinese in the Urban Frontier. In, The Asian in North America. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio Press.
61.
Massey, Douglas S.1982. The Demographic and Economic Position of Hispanics in the United States: 1980. Report to the National Commission for Employment Policy. Philadelphia: Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania.
62.
McLemore, Dale
. 1973. The Origins of Mexican American Subordination in Texas. Social Science Quarterly53:656-670.
63.
McLemore, Dale
. 1980. Racial and Ethnic Relations in America. Boston: Allyn Bacon.
64.
McWilliams, Carey
. 1971. Factories in the Field. Santa Barbara, CA: Peregrine Publishers.
65.
Melville, Margarita B.
(ed.). 1980. Twice aMinority:MexicanAmerican Women. St. Louis: C. V. Mosby.
66.
Mirande, Alfredo
and Evangelina Enriquez. 1979. La Chicana: The Mexican American Woman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
67.
Mora, Magdelina
and Adelaida R. Del Castillo (eds.). 1980. Mexican Women in the United States: Struggles Past and Present. Los Angeles: Chicano Studies Publications.
68.
Moore, Joan W.1970. Colonialism: The Case of Mexican Americans. Social Problems17:463-472.
69.
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick
. 1965. The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Prepared for the Office of Policy Planning and Research.
70.
Nee, Victor
and Brett deBary Nee. 1972. Long Time Californ'. New York: Pantheon Books.
71.
Pachon, Harry P.
and Joan W. Moore. 1981. Mexican Americans. Annals, American Academy of Political and Social Science454:111-124.
72.
Painter, Nell Irvin
. 1976. Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After the Reconstruction. New York: Norton.
73.
Palmer, Phyllis Marynick
. 1983. White Women/Black Women: The Dualism of Female Identity and Experience in the United States. Feminist Studies9:151-170.
74.
Pleck, Elizabeth H.1979. A Mother's Wages: Income Earning Among Married Italian and Black Women, 1896-1911. In, A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History ofAmerican Women, Nancy F. Cott and Elizabeth H. Pleck (eds.). pp. 367-392.
75.
Rodgers-Rose, La Frances
(ed.). 1980. The Black Woman. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
76.
Saxton, Alexander
. 1971. The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in California. Berkeley: University of California Press.
77.
Sokoloff, Natalie
. 1980. Between Money and Love. New York: Praeger.
78.
Sterling, Dorothy
. 1979. BlackForemothers: ThreeLives. Old Westbury, NY: The Feminist Press.
79.
Taylor, Paul S.1929. Mexican Labor in the United States: Valley of the South Platte, Colorado. University of California Publications in Economics6(2):95-235.
80.
Taylor, Paul S.1937. Migratory Farm Labor in the United States. Monthly Labor Review (March): 537-549.
81.
Taylor, Ronald
. 1976. Sweatshops in the Sun. Boston: Beacon Press.
82.
Thorne, Barrie
. 1982. Feminist Rethinking of the Family: An Overview. In, Rethinking the Family: Some Feminist Questions, Barrie Thorne and Marilyn Yalom (eds.). pp. 1-24. New York: Longman.
83.
Tsuchida, Nobuya
(ed.). 1982. Asian and Pacific American Experiences: Women's Perspectives. Minneapolis: Asian/Pacific American Learning Resource Center.
84.
U.S. Bureau of the Census
. 1933. Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, vol. 5: General Report on Occupations, Chapter 3, Color and Nativity of Gainful Workers. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
85.
U.S. Bureau of the Census
. 1973. Census of the Population: 1970. Subject Reports, Final Report PC(2)IG. Japanese, Chinese, and Filipinos in the United States. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
86.
U.S. Bureau of the Census
. 1933. Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1980. Population, Volume II: General Report, Statistics by Subject. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
87.
U.S. Department of Justice
. 1977. Immigration and Naturalization Service Annual Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.
88.
U.S. Department of Labor
. 1977. U.S. Working Women: A Databook. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin 1977. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
89.
Weinbaum, Batya
and Amy Bridges. 1979. The Other Side of the Paycheck: Monopoly Capital and the Structure of Consumption. In, CapitalistPatriarchy and the Casefor SocialistFeminism, Zillah R. Eisenstein (ed.). New York: Monthly Review Press.
90.
Welter, Barbara
. 1966. The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860. American Quarterly (Summer):151-174.
91.
Westcott, Diane Nilsen
. 1982. Blacks in the 1970's: Did They Scale the Job Ladder?Monthly Labor Review (June):29-32.
92.
Willie, Charles
. 1981. A New Look at Black Families. Bayview, NY: General Hall.
93.
Wu, C.1972. "Chink": A DocumentaryHistory ofAnti-ChinesePrejudice inAmerica. New York: Meridian.
94.
Yap, Stacey G. Y. 1983. Gather Your Strength Sisters: The Careers of Chinese American Women Community Workers. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Boston University.
