Duration: 30 minutes
Directed by: Renee Tajima-Peña

The half-hour documentary, Labor Women, is a portrait of three immigrant daughters who are part of a new generation transforming the American labor movement.

Quynh Nguyen is a trilingual organizer who moves easily between Vietnamese, Spanish, and English as she mobilizes meatpackers in their demands for a union contract. Sri Lankan American Karla Zombro confronts the challenge of being a lead organizer as well as openly gay within the Respect at LAX Living Wage campaign for airport workers fighting for a contract with the Argenbright company. Jun Chong is a Korean American activist with a labor-community coalition in South Central Los Angeles. She represents the most marginalized of workers – welfare recipients who are being forced into workfare programs. Nguyen, Zombro, and Chong are nothing like the common images of young Asian American women in the mainstream media, such as the submissive lotus blossom of the past or the young dot-commer “model minority” of today. They are passionate advocates for social change who exemplify the American labor movement in the 21st century.