Lemme Ribeiro Research Artifact

Abstract

In my research project Impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on Bolivian immigrants in São Paulo, Brazil, I studied how the ripple-effects of the pandemic affected this particular immigrant community. Most Bolivians in São Paulo live and work in home-based garment-industry sweatshops, where they have historically faced highly precarized labor and social reproduction conditions.During the pandemic, there was a significant drop in garment-industry production which led to a debasing of already exploitative working conditions, including a staggering drop in wages. Consequently, several São Paulo-based Bolivian families experienced evictions, homelessness, and hunger. Thus many Bolivians returned home early in the pandemic and, as they tried to re-enter Brazil later on, faced new politics of “sanitary” border control that increased cases of undocumentation. As a result, countless Bolivian immigrant families were pushed further into precarity.This research project was developed in collaboration with three local organizations that supported immigrant sweatshop workers before and during the Covid-19 pandemic: the Migrant Support Center, the Alinha Institute, and the Immigrant Women Association. It is also a result of my long-term deep engagement with these organizations and the Bolivian community in São Paulo. I volunteered as a Portuguese teacher and staff member at the Migrant Support Center for four years, in addition to working for a year at the Alinha Institute, where I supported sweatshop owners to improve health, safety and labor conditions. Presently, I am a board member at the Alinha Institute.I will present a poster as my artifact, in which I will combine descriptive text, quotes from qualitative interviews, and images that represent living and working conditions in São Paulo’s garment-industry sweatshops. Through this visual juxtaposition of textual and imagetic elements, I will re-create the emergent narrative of Bolivian immigrants during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, including their struggles and resilience.