To date, most research on immigrant women and labor forces has focused on the participation of immigrant women on formal labor markets. In this study, contributors focus on informal economies such as health care, domestic work, street vending, and the garment industry, where displaced and undocumented women are more likely to work. Because such informal labor markets are unregulated, many of these workers face abusive working conditions that are not reported for fear of job loss or deportation. In examining the complex dynamics of how immigrant women navigate political and economic uncertainties, this collection highlights the important role of citizenship status in defining immigrant women's opportunities, wages, and labor conditions. Contributors are Pallavi Banerjee, Grace Chang, Margaret M. Chin, Jennifer Jihye Chun, Héctor R. Cordero-Guzmán, Emir Estrada, Lucy Fisher, Nilda Flores-González, Ruth Gomberg-Munoz, Anna Romina Guevarra, Shobha Hamal Gurung, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, María de la Luz Ibarra, Miliann Kang, George Lipsitz, Lolita Andrada Lledo, Lorena Muñoz, Bandana Purkayastha, Mary Romero, Young Shin, Michelle Téllez, and Maura Toro-Morn.| Title Copyright Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction. Immigrant Women and Labor Disruptions Part 1. Critique of the Neoliberal State 1. Street Vendors Claiming Respect and Dignity in the Neoliberal City 2. Elvira Arellano and the Struggles of Low-Wage Undocumented Latina Immigrant Women 3. This Is What Trafficking Looks Like Part 2. Ethnic Enclaves 4. Gendered Labor 5. Paradoxes of Patriarchy 6. Changing Expectations Part 3. Informal Economies 7. From Street Child Care to Drive-Throughs 8. Living the Third Shift 9. Reinventing Dirty Work 10. Extending Kinship Part 4. Grassroots Organizing and Resistance 11. Immigrant Women Workers at the Center of Social Change 12. Transfronteriza 13. Formalizing the Informal 14. FLOResiste Afterword Contributors Index | "By including the voices of the women currently doing the majority of reproductive work in the US, Immigrant Women Workers adds an important element to the conversation. Immigrant Women Workers captures many of the issues of perpetual importance to immigrant women workers."—Women's Review of Books

"This work carries important implications for labor educators and organizers... This book solidly reinforces the concept as Audre Lorde explains, that single issue research and organizing is ineffective because we do not lead single-issue lives."—Labor Studies Journal

"Grounded in rich ethnographic data, each of these informative case studies makes for compelling reading in addressing these workers' current conditions and positions. Highly Recommended."—Choice

"The editors have succeeded in bringing together a wide range of excellent ethnographic research from scholars from different social science disciplines. What distinguishes this volume from other academic books on the subject is the authors' explicit intention to make manifest their double role as academics and activists. The authors present concrete data and analysis meant to give basis to future strategies to improve the situation of women migrants... The collection provides relevant and timely case study material for teaching and research into the gendered effects of the recent economic crisis and neo-liberal policy-making on the lives of migrants in the USA."—Ethnic and Racial Studies

"An important volume that highlights the ways in which immigrant women in the US are both adapting to, and fighting to improve, their workplaces."—Labour/Le Travail


"A valuable addition to a growing body...