In a Day's Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America's Most Vulnerable Workers

by Bernice Yeung

Overview

2019 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in General Nonfiction

Winner of the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award

Winner of the 2018 Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice

"In a Day's Work is a . . . much-needed addition to the literature on sexual harassment in the U.S."
—The New York Review of Books

A searing exposé about the hidden stories of immigrant workers overlooked by #MeToo—at turns heartrending and hopeful—by acclaimed journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Bernice Yeung

Apple orchards in bucolic Washington state. Office parks in Southern California under cover of night. The home of an elderly man in Miami. These are some of the workplaces where female workers have suffered brutal sexual assault and shocking harassment at the hands of their employers, often with little or no official recourse. In this harrowing yet often inspiring tale, investigative journalist Bernice Yeung exposes the epidemic of sexual violence levied against women farmworkers, domestic workers, and janitorial workers and charts their quest for justice in the workplace.

Yeung takes readers on a journey across the country, introducing us to women who came to America to escape grinding poverty only to encounter sexual violence in the United States. In a Day's Work exposes the underbelly of economies filled with employers who take advantage of immigrant women's need to earn a basic living. When these women find the courage to speak up, Yeung reveals, they are too often met by apathetic bosses and underresourced government agencies. But In a Day's Work also tells a story of resistance, introducing a group of courageous allies who challenge dangerous and discriminatory workplace conditions alongside aggrieved workers—and win. Moving and inspiring, this book will change our understanding of the lives of immigrant women.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620973158
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	03/20/2018
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Bernice Yeung is an award-winning journalist for Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. She was a 2015–2016 Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Mother Jones, and The Guardian, as well as on KQED Public Radio and PBS Frontline. She lives in Berkeley, California.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Weight of Silence 1

1 Finding the Most Invisible Cases 11

2 The Open Secret 33

3 Behind Closed Doors and Without a Safety Net 65

4 When Only the Police and the Prosecutor Believe You 93

5 All That We Already Know 123

6 The Ways Forward 145

7 ¡Sí Se Pudo! Yes We Did! 167

Epilogue: "I survived" 197

Acknowledgments 201

Notes 203

Index 215

Editorial Reviews

03/12/2018
In this exposé of workplace sexual violence against women, Yeung, a journalist from the Center for Investigative Reporting, amplifies the voices of some of the American economy’s most marginalized workers. As in the companion radio and television series, Rape in the Fields, the book breaks ground by exposing the ubiquity and severity of the abuse leveled against female farmworkers, domestic workers, and janitors by their employers. The author mitigates the difficult material by bringing humanity, empathy, and hope to each page. There are plenty of heroes to celebrate, such as Vicky Márquez, a former janitor who now does site visits for a nonprofit with the mission “of fighting labor exploitation among janitors working the graveyard shift,” and the women who testified against Evans Fruit for overlooking information that their orchard foreman was sexually harassing female farmworkers. Moments of indignation in Yeung’s writing feel completely justifiable. “Though these cases are described as he-said, she-said cases, the woman’s account is seldom given equal consideration,” she notes. The book concludes with guardedly hopeful descriptions of workplace training programs, government regulation, and union advocacy. Even more moving, however, is the sense of a reporter deeply committed to her sources and her material. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2018-02-06
An investigative report exposes rampant workplace sexual abuse against female immigrant workers.Yeung shares the illuminating and often shocking stories of harassment against low-wage, at-risk workers deemed vulnerable due to the nature of their immigration status and their dependence on their employment in order to support a family. Based on three years of reportage through her work with the Center for Investigative Reporting team, the author documents and updates several case studies of workplace abuse against domestic workers. During her research, Yeung accompanied an undercover investigator checking in with night-shift janitors embroiled in a "black vortex" of rampant abuse and unaccountability due to the silencing of those terrified of termination or worse. She met farmworkers, domestic help, and hotel and janitorial workers, many of whom shared stories of sexual assault and personal threats. These compelling examples of exploitation and dehumanization represent a pattern of abuse and a silent epidemic affecting (mainly) female immigrant workers across the country. The author notes how many are motivated by fear and a hostile anti-immigrant political climate to reluctantly accept the "open secret" of their fate as abused employees: "The combination of undocumented immigration status and worries about losing a job serve as a powerful muzzle." Yeung also spotlights a wave of recent protective legislation and lawsuits brought against companies who are aware of the allegations against them yet choose to remain neutral and of the serpentine legal strategies involved in sexual harassment cases. These statistics alone point to an epidemic problem in dire need of outside intervention. In continuing to expose these atrocities, Yeung and those like her hope to call much-needed attention to the toxic environment these underserved workers are subjected to and bring about an end to their maltreatment. A hopeful chapter on the inroads made toward training workers on how to identify and report workplace violence signals a new understanding and valuing of domestic employment.A timely, intensely intimate, and relevant exposé on a greatly disregarded sector of the American workforce.

Kirkus Reviews

Praise for In a Day's Work:
2019 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in General Nonfiction

Winner of the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award

Winner of the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice

One of BuzzFeed's "21 Amazing New Books You Need to Read This Spring"

"In a Day's Work is a . . . much-needed addition to the literature on sexual harassment in the U.S. . . . [B]uilding a cross-class movement as Yeung shows, will mean learning to stop unseeing the working women around us."
—The New York Review of Books

"[Yeung] tells compelling stories that illustrate systemic problems without reducing people to mere players in a legal argument. She skillfully knits case studies into rigorous policy analysis. Most important, Yeung traces paths toward progress beyond merely raising awareness."
—The Washington Post

"As pundits opine about #MeToo in the pages of every major newspaper, Yeung does something better: Rather than giver her own view on how to solve the scourge of sexual violence, she shows us what these workers themselves have been doing to address it. . . In a Day's Work shows us how to stamp out sexual violence: We don't have to reinvent the wheel; these women have been leading the way. All it takes is to join them."
—Bookforum

"The author mitigates the difficult material by bringing humanity, empathy, and hope to each page. . . . The book concludes with guardedly hopeful descriptions of workplace training programs, government regulation, and union advocacy. Even more moving, however, is the sense of a reporter deeply committed to her sources and her material ."
—Publisher Weekly

"A timely, intensely intimate, and relevant exposé on a greatly disregarded sector of the American workforce."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"In a Day's Work is exactly what I've been waiting for—some serious attention to the great majority of sexual harassment victims, who aren't Hollywood stars but the low-paid women whom we depend on to pick farm produce, clean offices, and care for our children. Bernice Yeung's scalding exposé should dramatically affect the way we see women's abuse in the workplace."
—Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed

"In a Day's Work is a must-read for all who believe time's up on abusive employment practices for all workers. Yeung shows us through these courageous stories that the time to change the balance of power is now."
—Saru Jayaraman, author of Behind the Kitchen Door

From the Publisher