Shmy Way or the Sweatshop

People who know me know that I’m somewhat obsessed with all things Indian.  I travelled to Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur, and can hardly wait to return to explore different regions of the country.  I read books about the culture, tried to learn a little Hindi, love the food. If the movies Slumdog Millionaire, Gandhi, or Water pop up on TV I can’t stop myself from watching—even though I’ve seen them countless times.  I don’t know why the Indian subcontinent it holds such fascination for me, but it does. Perhaps in my previous life I was Indian. Who knows?

So, the question is: how would my shopping habits change knowing that so many products are made in sweatshops in places like India, where the working conditions are horrible, and children are often employed to make all the wonderful stuff that I covet?
         

While liberal Americans like me cry foul over third world conditions, the notion of the sweatshop was actually born in anti-bellum New York, the center of the nation’s garment industry, with workers in sweatshops making clothes for slaves on Southern plantations.

Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, most Americans made their own clothes at home.  If people were wealthy, they were able to purchase “tailor-made” clothes. Tailoring was an immigrant profession. You didn’t have to speak English. If you could sew, you could work. You could support your family—that was the “opportunity” in the whole Land of Opportunity concept that was America in those days.

As the century turned, and the tide of Irish, Poles, Italians, and Jews continued to flood into America’s ports, the new immigrants took whatever jobs were available. “If the average American woman is the best-dressed woman in the world; the Russian Jew has had a good deal to do with making her one,” said Abraham Cahan, a Lithuanian-born American newspaper editor, novelist, and politician.

In 1910, nearly 70% of all women’s clothing and 40% of men’s clothing sold in the United States was produced in the garment district in New York.

The decline of the industry began in the seventies and eighties. Rents in the garment district increased, American workers were unionized and expensive. An over-seas workforce was a cheaper alternative. So began “outsourcing.” Today, 97% of clothes sold in the US are made in other countries.

With manufacturing moving out of the country, so did the monitoring of how employees are treated.  A US Labor department lists more than 80 countries that employ child or forced labor. The list is alphabetical, beginning with Argentina and ending with Uzbekistan. The products include cotton, garments, gold, sugar cane, tobacco, coffee, leather, electronics… and even pornography.

So what to do? 

Buy clothes at American Apparel?  I’ve never shopped there, but I’m beginning to think that maybe it isn’t such a bad idea. Everything in the store is made in Los Angeles.  The company supports  immigration and health care reform and Prop 8. The cotton is organic.  They pay their workers well, offer on-site medical facilities, and give health care.  The only problem–the CEO Dov Charney and his penchant for sexually harassing and wrongfully terminating his female  employees.  Making it hard for me to support this company despite the “made in the US” label.

Reduce the amount of new clothes that you buy.  Probably the easiest thing you can do.  Simply purchase less clothing. Most of us don’t need or wear all of the clothes in our closet, so if we can curb the impulse to purchase another new piece of clothing, we don’t even need to worry about the issue of supporting sweatshops.

Stay out of department stores, especially big ones. Much of what is sold there is produced overseas, probably in sweatshops. If you don’t see “made in the US” on the label, it’s safe to assume the product was produced in a sweatshop.

 Shop online and look for retailers that make a commitment to using fair labor practices.  One website that I found helpful was sweatfree.org.  Check out the “shopping with a conscience” consumer guide. 

As it turns out, in India, the country I love so much, a 14 year old can begin to legally work. But nearly 22 million Indian children under 14 are forced to work. Fifteen million kids are sold into slavery every day. Think of that the next time you see that six hundred dollar pair of boots you just have to have. Think to yourself: How many months could an Indian family live on $600, and how old was the tike that stiched them together?

Lean On Me

I used to think my mother was weird for treasuring her friends on such a deep level, these women she spent so much time with, particularly after I left for college. But it dawned on me recently that my friends, who are all women except for one, have become more and more important to me as I’ve gotten older. 

I have a good number of friends and they fulfill different roles in my life.  Obviously some are closer than others. Some I’ve known longer; the well is deeper. Some I’m becoming closer with all the time.

I thought I might list what my friends do and have done for me, and how much it means to me.

 

• Listen to me when I’m having a problem with my husband or my son.
• Recommend: books, boutiques, restaurants, travel destinations.
• Cook amazing meals for my family and me, usually for Jewish holidays.
• Tell me when they’ll be at the beach so that I can meet them there and have someone to talk to when my kid has left me for other kids and/or the ocean.
• Support my ridiculous purchases. (Which are never really as ridiculous as theirs, I think they’ll agree, but I still feel that way.)
• Let me sleep on their couch. (This is an allusion to visiting friends in Brooklyn, not fighting with husband. We’ve never done the sleep-on-the-sofa-mad thing, though I think we’ve both pretended to start to do it at least once. We love each other too much to sleep apart in anger. Neither of us I don’t think wants to ever send that message.)
• Share an apartment with me and teach me how to be an adult. (This could be my husband too!)
• Tell me to get off my butt and walk harder, to join a campaign, to admit when something is my fault.
• Listen with patience and answer my inane questions about iphones, ipods, and computers over and over again.
• Bring me smoothies when I’m constipated after surgery.
• Walk with me…which really keeps me in shape.
• Talk to the nurse when she calls on my cell phone to deliver the horrible news that my mother has died.
• Tell me their problems, ask for my advice, and let me help them.
• Send me some of the funniest emails.
• Call…just to check in.
• Let me horn in on their date nights when my husband is travelling.
• Read my blogs.

I didn’t have a lot of friends as a kid.  Maybe because I didn’t know how to be a friend, maybe because we moved around a lot. Who knows?  I think I’m a pretty good friend now, at least I try to be. 

I don’t know what I’d do without my friends.  I’m not sure they always know that, but it’s true.

 

Do you have enough?

How much is too much?  In the age of a bad economy or even a good economy for that matter, how much do we really need?  I’m not talking about the Buddhist concept  of giving up everything, just the practical question of having as much as you need and not more. 

My husband and I recently did some re-modeling.  When it was finally done, I looked at it and said to my husband that it was “fancy”.  He promptly countered, “No it’s not.   Fancy means over-the-top or ostentatious.  Our house is clean and under-stated.”

Now, maybe growing up with an OBGYN for a father, meaning that his family wasn’t rich, but they always lived in new, large and well appointed houses.  To him, it wasn’t fancy.  Growing up with a professor/scientist’s and then a nurse’s income; fancy is all relative.  My mom would have seen our house and thought it was very very fancy.  She grew up in the east end of London in a cold water flat.  My father picked cotton in a rural farm in Louisiana.  One person’s under-stated is another’s fancy.

What do we really need?  What do I think I need?  Ok, I need my health.   First and foremost. But, I always say that and in the next breath, I think things like, I need some new work-out clothes, a new facial cleanser, something to make my skin less wrinkly, a fall handbag, a spring handbag, new boots, comfortable platform shoes, a new cell phone,  whatever some stylist says I need, a new book, a trip somewhere, anywhere…I could go on. 

I write a column about shopping.  I’ve been spending a lot of time in boutiques.  I have made a pact with myself that I will not buy from a store that I’m writing about. But there are a lot of boutiques in the world, and I can’t write about all of them.   So, I rationalize that buying something that’s unique or one-of-a-kind is worth it.   I’m like a bird watcher, spying the rare breed.  Only in my case, I hunt and kill the bird, stuff it and take it home.  What is it that makes people, particularly women, want to shop?  Experts say that 90% of all compulsive shoppers are women.  Instead of taking pleasure in the things I’ve got, I too often obsess over the things I don’t. 

When I buy something new, I give away something old.  That way, I’m not continuing to collect more and more.  It started with my son’s toys. I hated the visual of an only child with boxes of stuff all around him like a little prince.  This works well.  It gives me pleasure knowing that someone will get use out of a good pair of pants that frankly, I just can’t fit into anymore.

At some point enough has to be enough. Right?  Is it too much to want more from my looks?  I buy creams and lotions, but the girls are starting to head for the border.  I haven’t gone down plastic surgery highway yet, but will my creams lead to laser, then to Botox?  Is Botox the gateway drug to plastic surgery?  I’m pretty sure that my fear of surgery will prevail.  The imagined conversation at my funeral: ”She had to have perfect boobs. Now she’s gone. Oh, the price of beauty.  Let it be a lesson to us all, ” my friends and family would say. 

The truth is, it makes me uncomfortable having what I think of as  “too much.”  It takes away the joy of getting something new, waiting for it, dare I say… earning it.  I’ll continue to enjoy what I have, and the less I shop, the more I realize that I’ve got a lot.
         

 

 

 

My Candlelight Vigil

It started with an email from moveOn.org–one of my favorite non-profit, grassroots organizations: Candlelight vigil for health care reform at the Mount Soledad Cross in La Jolla. Lately I’d been increasingly frustrated by the national dialog on this very important issue. Instead of preaching to my (converted) friends or to my husband, who wishes perennially that I’d get either a soundproof room or an audience, I decided to put shoe leather to the problem and hike up to the Mount. 

The cross itself is a 29 foot high Latin-style cross that stands 822 feet high. There is an awesome, 360 degree view of San Diego, Coronado and Mexico.  I’d never been to a vigil and this one  was only five minutes from my house (provided my husband dropped me off; the uphill walk would have taken the better part of fifteen minutes, I suppose).  I thought this would be a good place to go and be with other people, like me,  who wanted health care reform.  I just hoped it wouldn’t turn into a town hall meeting filled with insane, gun-totting red-necks spewing their Obama-hate all over everyone. For all the dislike I had for Bush Jr., I never held a sign or wore a tee-shirt with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler.  Don’t make me bite your pinky off. 

I called my friend, who doesn’t want me to use her name, because she is paranoid (maybe because she stays home all day watching Fox TV news and plotting escape routes to Baja California) and asked her to go with me.  She’s furious about the health care debate.  She can’t stop saying how stupid Americans are.  She grew up in country that has universal health care.  I knew she would go with me in support.     

                         Assuming there wouldn’t be parking near the place—I was sure it would be packed with clear-thinking Americans hoping to discuss the single payer option—I went ahead and asked my husband to drive. He annoys me so much of the time, I figure, what the hell, let him drive.  When we got to the parking lot at Mount Soledad, the sun was just starting to set.  It was a beautiful night, balmy, clear, complete with an orange glow in the sky. My friends new walking shoes, neon green, evanesced softly in the reflected light. 

Not too many people were there at first, but they trickled in slowly.  We signed in with the local organizer, a man named Earl.  An affable guy, Earl seemed truly concerned that everything was in its place.   He had a table set up and asked us to make name tags–my friend hesitated, but eventually caved to the peer pressure and pasted a name tag on her shirt.  People were wearing their best political tee-shirts and carrying home-made signs and flashlights.  One channel 7 news camera and two police cars were there to witness. If I was a philosophy teacher I’d pose this question to my class—can a demonstration really occur if there is no media on hand to witness it? Eighty people signed in.

     The plan was to begin the vigil by listening to a speech by Ted Kennedy played out of Earl’s boom box.  Unfortunately, the boom box didn’t cooperate.  Since it felt like it was taking forever with Earl nervously futzing with the boom box—and since she was worried about the condition of a frail-looking older woman in attendance, one of a party of five from White Sands of La Jolla, who wanted a chance to air her health care grievances—my nameless friend suggested Earl skip Ted Kennedy’s speech—even though we all recognize him for the lion he was, the last remaining Kennedy  brother, despite that minor detail of the dead girl in his car at Chappaquiddick—and get straight to the meat of this pro-healthcare rally,  the part where people get to stand up and air their grievances.

     And so it was that the speakers stepped up and told their sad and maddening stories of being denied coverage by their insurance companies.  A military man who had great insurance, thanks to the government, said he feels bad for the rest of us who don’t have it.  Other stories were about people who  had lived abroad; they told of their experiences with “foreign” health care.  One woman who lives half the year in France and half in the US said, ”My medicine costs 75% less in France than in the US.” As this woman spoke it made me think of an article I’d read at Salon.com.  The writer had recently moved to New Delhi to write for a newspaper.  She wanted to get acclimated to the food and water and so began drinking and eating everything the locals did.  As a result, she got very sick, very fast.  After a few days of suffering, she asked an Indian friend to find a doctor for her.  At 9:30 am her friend called the hospital down the street, and the writer had an appointment at 10am with a gastroenterologist.  She was given an antibiotic.  She left the hospital after paying her bill—a total of $6.00.    The last woman to speak was a San Diego Unified school teacher.  She was told by her doctor that she needed to take Fosomax to increase her bone density.  Her insurance company denied her.

It seems to me the most interesting people (in terms of entertaining reading, at least) aren’t  the ones who want universal health care, but the people who don’t. A nurse at one of my doctor’s offices went off about Obama’s proposal being the wrong thing for America.  “It’s like when Hitler made the car for the common man, the VW bug, while everyone else drove Mercedes’. If anyone can figure out what she meant by this, I would appreciate you sharing it in the comment section below.

     I don’t know what the new health care program will end up being.  My unselfish hope is that people who don’t have health care will have it.   My selfish hope is that I’d like to keep the health care that I have but not have to worry about losing it,  about being denied coverage for things I need, or paying through the nose for it. Do you know that I recently discovered that my husband and I have been overpaying for our health care for nearly fourteen years to the tune of nearly 6,000 a year? I was being covered for another pregnancy even though my husband had a vasectomy. I can do the math but I haven’t. Just to not be ripped off so blatantly would be a good start.  

http://pol.moveon.org/healthcare_cantwait/?id=17194-2058199-vp1EWfx&t=2

 

Goin’ Home

The Stone Bone

People say you can’t go home again. I think you can; I guess it has a lot to do with how you feel about your past. Flying recently to Dulles Airport in Washington DC—embarking upon an eight day vacation of both pleasure and obligation—I wondered how it would feel to be a tourist in the city where I grew up.  

I arrived in DC at age two.  I was born in Walnut Creek, California, but my father’s job at the National Institutes of Health brought us to DC.  For most people, DC represents one of the ultimate power centers in the world.  For me, it was a place where as a child, my mom would encourage me to take off my clothes in the sweltering summer and wade into the Reflecting Pool near the Lincoln Memorial; I remember so clearly  my mom—a hot number in her day– standing proudly nearby in her sixties-era mini-skirt.  I learned to ride my bike in the urban jumble of early Adams Morgan without the assistance of a parent, flying down the hills and through the historic cobble stone alleys; in this safe hippie neighborhood of group houses and new businesses, I felt the freedom to go anywhere, developed the wanderlust I still have today.  I sat in the aisle at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with my mouth hanging open and watched Judith Jamison perform with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.  I got my period while marching down Constitution Avenue, participating in an anti-Reagan protest.  My driving lessons included learning to navigate the leafy and serpentine Rock Creek Park; I cut my teeth on the city’s roundabouts, designed in the 1700s by the French architect Pierre L’Enfant in the same style as Paris. I snuck out of the house to see Prince at RFK Stadium wearing my signature bright pink eye shadow; my mixed chicks curls were blown out to afro-texture and cut into an eighties-typical asymmetrical geometric shape—complete with a long braided tail. At one time or another, I had  boyfriends in SW, NW, SE, Dupont Circle, Takoma Park, Mount Pleasant, and Georgetown. To get to my school, the Duke Ellington High School for the Arts, I walked a mile to the metro, took a 30 minute subway ride on the Red Line to Dupont Circle, then caught the bus to Georgetown.  In DC I celebrated my most important life milestones. I smoked my first joint, fought my first fight,  lost my virginity, graduated high school, got married, performed at Arena Stage (one of the oldest and most prestigious regional theaters in the nation), had my son, and buried my mother.  

Now, I was going to be a tourist with my family.   A month before we left San Diego, I made an effort to obtain permission to tour the White House from our congressman, 50^th district Republican,  Brian Bilbray.   I had seen the White House as a child.  Prior to 9/11, it was a right of passage for all DC school kids. I wanted my son to have it. Unfortunately, Bilbray’s office had to approve the White House tour, and we were not approved. Maybe it was because I had been an Obama precinct captain? Or maybe it was because I had waited to the last minute. I could only wonder. The congressional office did offer us a self-guided tour of the National Archives Museum (complete with a pass that butted us in line ahead of many others) and a private tour of the Capital.

The National Archives Museum was beautiful and fascinating.  If you’re a person like me who gets turned on by research, this museum is the mother-load that holds the nation’s history.  I was moved by the genealogy information that can found by archivists, and by the recent discoveries of Holocaust survivors’ Swiss bank accounts.   My son was moved by seeing one of the last existing copies of the Magna Carta. (Just when you think you’re raising a Philistine, you’re surprised, huh?”

In all the years that I lived in DC, I had never visited the inside of the Capital, so I was looking forward to the Capital tour.  I must say that it would have been better without Bilbray’s aide,  a kind of  ”Miss California”,  with her California up speak. When she began to ramble on about the failings of the Obama health care bill, I said nothing. My family was relieved. Besides, there’s nothing cooler than that place in the rotunda where you can hear somebody whispering from across the room. Worth the price of admission, to be sure. 

As the days went by, we all got into it, even my husband, who hates being a tourist. One day we walked from the Smithsonian to the Lincoln Memorial, a feat in 93 degree/90 percent humidity east coast weather. We saw the Vietnam memorial, the WWII memorial, the statues of the Vietnam nurses and the Korean soldiers, the Washington Monument presiding over all. My husband likes to call it the stone bone. He told stories of his weekly Sunday news people’s co-ed touch football games on the grass beneath the bone.

I braved the crowds with my son and toured the Holocaust museum.  We ate lunch at the Holocaust Cafe. In the museum,  I began to cry and my son gave me a hug and told me to “pull it together mom, you’re going to embarrass me.” I explained that I couldn’t imagine something so horrible happening to our little family.  He read every sign and looked at every photo.  I was so proud, I kvelled.

          On our last day, we “visited” my mother at the Parklawn Cemetery.  In the Jewish tradition when you visit a grave site you leave a stone on the grave marker.  This is done because at one time grave monuments were made of mounds of stone.  So, when you visit and leave a stone it shows that we are never finished building a monument to the deceased. We left pieces of coral that I had found here in California to symbolize the West coast East coast connection.  I know she would have liked the fact that there was some thought paid to the ritual.  She also would have loved the little rainbow flag I planted there, l think, always one to let her freak flag fly.

          As always, when I arrived home, I wanted to kiss the tarmac like the pope. San Diego is my home and in many ways it’s better for who I am now.  But like they say, you can take the girl out of the District of Chocolate, but you’ll never get the DC out of the girl.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Cozbi

Since I started this blog, I’ve been lucky enough to visit a lot of small boutiques, meet their owners and talk clothes and fashion.  My recent trip to New York was no different. 

My goal was to find a really unique, small, and out of the way cool boutique and only spend money on clothing that I felt I couldn’t find anywhere except at this store and only in New York.

On my first day out, thanks to one of my oldest friends Michelle, I found the snowflake of boutiques in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, Cozbi.  As we walked in, we were greeted by the owner, Cozbi A. Cabrera. 

Cabrera is a tall, statuesque, dark-skinned beauty. She was wearing one of her own creations, the “must have” dress for the summer season; made of white eyelet, under which she wore a soft cotton white slip.  I was taken. 
Her clothes are the ultimate in classical femininity. The designs are sexy because they are cut and tailored to fit a woman’s body perfectly. All handmade in Brooklyn.  Most of her dresses are in either Jackie Onassis style or shift dresses in prints as bold as Pucci, but with a distinctly African twist. 

I tried things on, and asked her to hold my favorites. I needed to think.  We went back to Michelle’s apartment to check the Cozbi website. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design.  She began her career making handmade collectible cloth dolls called Muñecas; dolls in Spanish.  The dolls are collectors favorites and have been featured on Oprah.   Her heritage is Honduran.  She is the illustrator of the picture book Beauty, Her Basket  which Publishers Weekly called “a quiet treasure” in a starred review.

After much debate, calls to my fashion guru Jamie, many hours of shopping/shmying around Brooklyn, the lower East side, NoLita and Soho, I ended up back where I started.  I bought a dress at Cozbi.  It fits like a glove.  It’s one-of-a-kind. It makes me feel good to support women like Cozbi Cabrera.  I wish I lived closer.  My husband is probably glad that we don’t.    

http://www.cozbi.com/page1.html

  

  

Passione Boutique

Passione Boutique is  tailor made for the recessionista in all of us—the woman who loves to spend and enhance her wardrobe but still has a firm desire to be frugal in these tough times of ours. Rita Diste, a native of Ischia Italy, opened Passione Boutique in La Jolla in June. This very warm and charming store is located in the Fay Center, next door to the Empress Hotel.  It sits at the end of a cobblestone walkway flanked by flowers.  “Hopefully when you visit the store, you’ll feel as if you’re coming in to see one of your girlfriends at her house, ” Diste says in her wonderfully-accented English. 

            After giving a lot of thought to what brands of clothing she should carry in this rocky economy, Diste says she knew that there was one clothing line women in San Diego would love–List.

            Based in Rome, List’s claim to fame is that their designs resemble the best-loved Italian designers—Prada, Moschino, and Gucci—at a quarter of the price.  Using a team of young designers, who keep their eyes on fashion trends, List has been a successful brand around the world for many years.  Adding it’s own unique twist on designs, List maintains quality while keeping prices reasonable. 

Passione Boutique carries the prêt-a-porte collection.  The spring and summer line is filled with vibrant color. There is very little black; all the pieces are meant to blend together to build one great wardrobe.  “The line works especially well for San Diego because it easily transitions from season to season.” Diste says.

 Passione Boutique offers the look of Italy without the price tag.  Savvy shoppers will be happy to know that this store is the only place in the US to find List. 

Take a little trip to Rome without leaving San Diego and visit your Italian girlfriend Rita Diste at Passione Boutique in La Jolla.

http://www.passioneboutique.com/