"An Unlikely Collection of Union Militants": Portuguese Immigrant Cleaning Women Become Political Subjects in Postwar Toronto

Authors

  • Susana Miranda York University

Keywords:

Food & Service workers of Canada [union], Labour union participation, Portuguese American women, Strikes & lockouts, Women immigrants

Abstract

This paper examines the ways in which Portuguese immigrant women office cleaners gained a public presence during a six-week strike in 1984, both on the picket lines and in Toronto's newspapers. Their ethnic, gender, and class identities were central in their transformation into public, political, and militant subjects.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Author Biography

Susana Miranda, York University

Susana Miranda, York University, conducts research on the experiences of Portuguese immigrant women in Toronto's cleaning industry, including building, hotel, and domestic cleaning, in the post-World War Two period.

Downloads

Published

2007-10-01

Issue

Vol. 32 No. 1 (2007): Volume 32, Number 1 (2007)

Section

Labouring Feminism Thematic Cluster

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

2. Authors are aware that articles published in Atlantis are indexed and made available through various scholarly and professional search tools, including but not limited to Erudit.

3. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

4. Authors are permitted and encouraged to preprint their work, that is, post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process. This can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Read more on preprints here.