In 1971, California Governor Ronald Reagan signed into law the Arnett Act, criminalizing the employment of undocumented workers. In Southern California, the political and cultural debate surrounding the Arnett Act in particular and undocumented immigration in general, was specifically a discourse about labor and unemployment. These debates though, imagined undocumented workers taking manufacturing employment away from native-born workers. In so doing, they obscured the actual work that most undocumented immigrants were doing—low wage service work. The result was this work was rendered even more economically, culturally, and politically invisible, a development that was immensely helpful in the further growth of the low-wage service economy and its increasing commodification of everyday life.

All papers are pre-circulated electronically to those who plan to attend the seminar in person. For a copy of the paper, e-mail Heather Radke at scholl@newberry.org, or call 312-255-3524. Please do not request a paper unless you plan to attend.

The Newberry Library Seminar in Labor History is co-sponsored by the History Department of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Northern Illinois University, Northwestern University and the Labor and Working Class History Association