Globalization In Where Am I Wearing, By Kelsey Timmerman

Kelsey Timmerman wrote of himself in high school in Where am I Wearing?, “Globalization was a foreign problem of which I was blissfully unaware. I didn’t know it existed or that I was against it” (Timmerman, p. 4) After traveling the world to know more about globalization, Kelsey Timmerman developed mixed views on both it and the modern textile industry because he found that globalization has a different impact on almost every person. Some impacts were great, some were terrible, a number of people received small impacts from globalization and others had life changing influences. One group of people that had similar negative consequences from globalization are the American factory workers. One factory in particular would be the ACO facility in Perry, New York. When the NBA cut their ties to ACO in Perry, “Donna and Debbie kept their jobs, but 100 other workers didn’t. Maxine, who had started as a sewer at Champion and …show more content…
Some workers experience both economic and health related dangers. One of the risks of textile assembly is amputation. Timmerman discovers this hazard when he is in Bangladesh, “I ask if there are many injuries. ‘Not too bad, but…’ he motioned a slice across his finger and his forearm to show me that fingers and arms were lost.’” If the workers lose their limbs, they are on their own because they cannot work anymore and they become unemployed. Another danger of working at a factory is the chances of fire. Timmerman tells of stories from Bangladesh in 2010 and America in 1911 about fires in garment factories, “They stood at the windows of the building, 100 feet above the ground, skin boiling, with fire behind and nothing ahead” (Timmerman, p. 75). These American workers were literally and figuratively trapped in the factories because they were poor and they were the only job opportunities. 100 years later, Bangladeshis are suffering the same fate because of