CRRES Speaker Series Lecture

Presented by the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society

Low wage working immigrant women's experiences are either discussed through a lens of empowerment or framed as oppressive. But how do women workers make sense of their labor? How does race, gender, nationality, and immigration status shape their stories. In my research using ethnographic methods, I investigate the socio-political construction of the 'low-wage worker' by examining the everyday experiences of Pakistani and Indian Muslim women working in ethnic beauty salons. This talk will point to how immigration processes and labor practices shape low-wage work and illuminate how women workers create an authentic self through their unpaid and underpaid work.