The purpose of this paper is to examine how capitalism produces and reproduces racial oppression, by examining the dynamics of one industry in one location:the garment industry in Los Angeles.The L.A. garment industry uses immigrants from Latin America and Asia as workers and contractors. I plan to show how both groups are oppressed by the system, although differentially, by laying out the entire structure of relations in the industry, and the role of immigrants in it.In the course of describing the industry, I hope to demonstrate its excessive corruption at all levels,a corruption that is endemic to capitalism. A system that is characterized by such social decay is totally unequiped to solve such fundamental social problems as massive impoverishment and racial oppression.

This research examines the ways in which race, gender, and capital structure the "War on Terror" by systematically unpacking the connections, and contradictions, in both the global and domestic arenas of US politics and representation of Muslims. The War on Terror is the most privatized war in the history of the US, which provides an important site of analysis to explore the burgeoning industry created and sustained by fear of terrorism. The scapegoating of Muslims as suspected terrorists allows for the uninhibited development and justification for the increasingly privatized Homeland Security State. This research draws upon both the lived experiences of 60 young adult Muslims in Los Angeles along with extensive archival data on Muslim discrimination, to provide a comprehensive overview of the racialized and gendered processes shaping the representation, oppression, and emergent identities of the Muslim diaspora. I situate their experiences within the context of three central dimensions of the War on Terror; state practices and policies, public discrimination and hate crimes, and ideological representations. My research further juxtaposes the imperial deployment of women's rights discourses in justifying the "War on Terror" abroad alongside the widespread infringement on Muslim women's civil liberties in the US diaspora. While Arab and Muslim American communities have been frequent targets of repression, I argue that gender significantly structures the post-9/11 backlash in qualitatively different ways for men and women. That is, Muslim men have been characterized as dangerous, violent, and highly suspect within the popular imaginary and much of Western media, which has lead to the sanctioning of civil and human rights violations, largely through detainment, deportation, and surveillance. In contrast, Muslim women are consistently portrayed as voiceless victims without agency, further invisibilizing their own lived experiences of systemic discrimination as well as the ways in which diasporic Muslim women navigate and resist such structures of exclusion.

The right to organize is the worker's most effective weapon against exploitative conditions. Yet the global “race to the bottom” has turned the weapon of unionizing – and the anti-sweatshop struggle overall – into a double-edged sword. If workers organize they are likely to lose their jobs, as corporations pursue factories where unions are forbidden and cheap labor is therefore guaranteed. But if workers do not organize, their rights will continue to be violated. These conditions pose a significant challenge for the anti-sweatshop movement – a challenge that will increase with the end of apparel quotas. This paper begins by reviewing the impact of the Multifiber Arrangement (MFA) and the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) – two regulatory frameworks that have governed global trade in these commodities for 30 years. This regulatory framework came to an end on January 1, 2005 with the WTO-mandated end of textile and apparel import quotas. A large body of research on the probable result of the end of the quota system concludes that a small number of countries (and primarily China) are likely to be the chief beneficiaries of the end of quotas, while a large number of countries are likely to suffer significant declines in their apparel and textile export industries. The paper discusses two trends which are transforming the nature of global trade in textiles and apparel (indeed, in all consumer goods): The rise of giant retailers as the key actors in the global supply chain, and the rise of giant transnational contractors – based mainly in East Asia – that are emerging as its chief suppliers. The paper concludes with a discussion of what countries can do to mitigate the impact of the end of quotas on their textile and apparel industries, as well as some suggestions for the anti-sweatshop movement.