The Silicon Valley of Dreams - Part 2

This book is really interesting to me because firstly, it approaches the issue in a different style because it first examines the history of the place before diving into the issue. The reason being that racism and environmental injustice has been going on for a long time since the Gold Rush - more than 100 years ago. It was interesting to note that although the industries changed from mining to farming and eventually electronics; the racist hierarchy that is very apparent at the workplace did not change. Those who were in the managerial positions were always Caucasian whereas the laborers and workers were mainly minority races.

In addition to this, it was also interesting to note that factories hired laborers of similar nationality in their production plants. By keeping people of different nationalities separate from each other, I suppose it does encourage some sort of indirect racism not just among the supervisors and workers but also among the workers themselves. By segregating the workers by race, the company can possibly reduce the amount of interactions that the workers have with other workers of different races, making it more difficult to organize and fight against workplace injustices.

The fact that companies transferred pregnant women to other departments because the chemicals used caused miscarriages did not make much sense. If the chemicals used were that harmful, we should stop using them altogether for fear of other health issues. When I first read this book, I was surprised to see the number of hazardous waste produced in making electronic products. I've always thought that the manufacturing process of electronics was relatively cleaner compared to other industries in a sense because it did not involve the "smokestacks" and production of soot and black smoke. This was discussed in the book as how the electronics industry was portrayed very early on before people began to realize how polluting they were.

I think some people do see the electronics industry as relatively cleaner than other industries which brings me to a different subject - the media. It is scary to think that the media influences such a large part of our lives. Almost every household in the US owns a TV. Imagine the influence the media has on us. We are being fed information, correct and incorrect on the daily basis and we make decisions and form ideas based on what we see and hear on the TV. I suppose a good way to inform the public regarding the issue of environmental injustice would be to use the media as a tool to help curb environmental injustice by informing the public.

I think it's kind of funny on how we have "fair-trade" items on the market such as coffee and chocolate but we don't have "fair-trade" computers or radios. We are willing to pay more money for items made outside our country than to sustain the local economy by paying higher prices for electronics made in our own country. I guess these are just some of the questions that came up after reading chapters 3-5 in the book.