This talk examines how media discourse about notes found in garments and the issue of Chinese sweatshop labor in general reinforces the ideological, social, and material basis on which fashion labor markets are segmented.

Minh-Ha T. Pham will be an Assistant Professor in the Graduate Program in Media Studies at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Before arriving to Pratt, she was an Assistant Professor of Visual Studies and Asian American Studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. An interdisciplinary scholar, she writes about the intersections of race, gender, fashion, technology, and consumerism. Her essays and commentary have appeared in, among other sites, The New York Times, The Guardian, CNN, Wall Street Journal, Colorlines, The Atlantic, American Prospect, The New Inquiry, Ms. Magazine, Salon, and Huffington Post. She received a BA in English at University of California, Santa Barbara (1995) and earned a PhD in Comparative Ethnic Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Visual Studies at University of California, Berkeley (2007).