Michael S. Brown - Böcker

Workers at Risk is a powerful and moving documentary of workers routinely exposed to toxic chemicals. Products and services we all depend on—glass bottles, computers, processed foods and fresh flowers, dry cleaning, medicines, even sculpture and silkscreened toys—are produced by workers in constant contact with more than 63,000 commercial chemicals. For many of them, the risk of death is a way of life. More than seventy of them speak here of their jobs, their health, and the difficult choices they face in coming to grips with the responsibilities, risks, fears, and satisfactions of their work. Some struggle for information and acknowledgment of their health risks; others struggle to put out of their minds the dangers they know too well. Through extensive interviews, the authors have captured in these voices that double bind of the chemical worker: "If I had known that it would be that lethal, that it could give me or one of my children cancer, I would have refused to work. But it's a matter of survival and we just don't consider all these things. Meanwhile, we've got to make money to survive."

Workers at Risk is a powerful and moving documentary of workers routinely exposed to toxic chemicals. Products and services we all depend on—glass bottles, computers, processed foods and fresh flowers, dry cleaning, medicines, even sculpture and silkscreened toys—are produced by workers in constant contact with more than 63,000 commercial chemicals. For many of them, the risk of death is a way of life. More than seventy of them speak here of their jobs, their health, and the difficult choices they face in coming to grips with the responsibilities, risks, fears, and satisfactions of their work. Some struggle for information and acknowledgment of their health risks; others struggle to put out of their minds the dangers they know too well. Through extensive interviews, the authors have captured in these voices that double bind of the chemical worker: "If I had known that it would be that lethal, that it could give me or one of my children cancer, I would have refused to work. But it's a matter of survival and we just don't consider all these things. Meanwhile, we've got to make money to survive."

This work is a biography of Victorio Acosta Velasco, a Filipino-born journalist and labor leader who immigrated to the United States in 1924. At this time, thousands of young Filipinos were coming to America to further their education, find opportunity, and realize the idealism the U.S. was rumored to offer. Upon arriving in Seattle, however, Velasco learned that the 'American Dream' hardly applied to dark-skinned immigrants. Devalued by the workforce and spurned by white women, the disillusioned Velasco became involved in Filipino activities, but never conceded his place in American society. Amongst other achievements, he published poetry in nearly a dozen mainstream anthologies on American literature. Ultimately, by the end of the Second World War, Velasco had learned to approach his Caucasian relationships with more circumspection, and also began to experience intra-ethnic conflicts with other Filipinos. This book seeks to counter the negative, one-dimensional portraits of Asian men in popular media, and informs its readers of an authentic and challenging Filipino-American experience.