Behind the Kitchen DoorHow do restaurant workers live on some of the lowest wages in America? And how do poor working conditions—discriminatory labor practices, exploitation, and unsanitary kitchens— affect the meals that arrive at our restaurant tables? Saru Jayaraman, who launched the national restaurant workers’ organization, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, sets out to answer these […]

Based on over four years of ethnographic research among street vendors in Los Angeles and on interviews with family members of vendors and former vendors living in Mexico, Rocio Rosales examines the influence of a sending community and its social networks on migrant outcomes in the US. These social networks affect migration patterns, ease entry […]

More Americans are choosing to dine healthy and ethically at restaurants offering organic and fair-trade ingredients. Yet few diners are aware of the working conditions at the restaurants themselves. How do restaurant workers live on some of the lowest wages in America? And how do poor working conditions—discriminatory labor practices, exploitation, and unsanitary kitchens—affect the […]

Jane McAlevey's first book, Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell), published by Verso Press, was named the "most valuable book of 2012" by The Nation Magazine. She has served as Executive Director and Chief Negotiator for SEIU Nevada, as National Deputy Director for Strategic Campaigns of the Healthcare Division for SEIU, and she was the Campaign Director of the one of […]

This talk will explore the incorporation of Filipino immigrants in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century, focusing on the interplay of colonialism, racial boundaries and citizenship policy. The influx of Filipinos to the United States that followed the annexation of the Philippines confounded American authorities tasked with enforcing traditional racial […]

Migrant Teachers investigates an overlooked trend in U.S. public schools today: the growing dependence on overseas trained teachers, as federal mandates require K-12 schools to employ qualified teachers or risk funding cuts. A narrowly technocratic view of teachers as subject specialists has led districts to look abroad, Lora Bartlett argues, resulting in transient teaching professionals […]