Newcomers in the Workplace

"Newcomers in the Workplace" documents and dramatizes the changing face of the American workplace, transformed in the 1980s by immigrant workers in all sectors. This collection of excellent ethnographies captures the stench of meatpacking plants, the clatter of sewing machines, the sweat of construction sites, and the strain of management-employee relations in hotels and grocery stores as immigrant workers carve out crucial roles in a struggling economy. Case studies focus on three geographical regions Philadelphia, Miami, and Garden City, Kansas where the active workforce includes increasing numbers of Cubans, Haitians, Koreans, Puerto Ricans, Laotians, Vietnamese, and other new immigrants. The portraits show these newcomers reaching across ethnic boundaries in their determination to retain individualism and to insure their economic survival. Author note: Louise Lamphere teaches in the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. Alex Stepick is Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Florida International University. Guillermo Grenier is Director of the Center for Labor Research and Studies, and Chairman of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Florida International University.