Where am I Wearing: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People that Make Our Clothes
Journalist Timmerman travels the globe in search of the factories that manufactured his clothing. Tracking a T-shirt, underwear, jeans, and flip-flops leads him from Honduras to Bangladesh to Cambodia and China. It is not surprising that he encounters heart-wrenching poverty or gains an eye-opening view of how much the average piece of American apparel is marked up. What is unexpected is the revelation of just how much harm is done to workers when overseas manufacturers are boycotted. Timmerman’s interviews with numerous factory workers make it clear that taking away their jobs is akin to creating a poverty tsunami. Yet, as Timmerman confesses, “There isn’t a single worker who makes my clothes who lives a life that I would find acceptable.” Like most of us, he wants a simple solution to the problem, rather than be faced with the paralyzing morass that is global poverty, and so he suggests some costly, if important solutions. The injustices of the global clothing industry must be more thoroughly researched and addressed. Timmerman’s heartfelt, if somewhat disjointed, chronicle is a good beginning. --Colleen Mondor