Lisa Nakamura’s “Indigenous Circuits” gives a compelling (albeit disturbing) history of the tech field’s exploitation of women of color: “When we look at the history of digital devices, it is quite clear that the burden of digital media’s device production is borne disproportionately by the women of color who make them” (920). While Nakamura’s article is informative as a case study, that women (of color and otherwise) and children have historically been taken advantage of by industry certainly will surprise no one. The article reminded me of the “Radium Girls” who were poisoned by the U.S. Radium Corporation from 1917 - 1926. According to Wired magazine, “After American troops joined the war in Europe, the factory in Orange, New Jersey won a contract to supply radium-dial instruments to the military.” It seems like every advancement in the history of technology has, at least at its inception, been toward the advancement or enhancement of military capabilities, and the case of the Radium Girls, like the Navajo women that Nakamura discusses, is no different. The Radium Girls weren’t making microchips; they were using the new technology of luminous paint to make glow-in-the-dark watches, at first for the military. Dipping their paintbrushes in radioactive paint, they were told to use their lips to make fine points on the brushes to paint the tiny numbers on the watch dials. Nakamura points out that Fairchild’s brochure actively advanced the narrative that the Navajo women who were working in the plant enjoyed the work, because it was so much like the rug-weaving that they enjoyed. While this, of course, is a narrative constructed by Fairchild, the article gives little indication that the workers were treated poorly. I can’t speak to whether the Radium Girls enjoyed their work but, presumably, they felt that they were somehow helping with the war effort, which likely would’ve given them some sense of pride. Also, if what the Wired article says is true, they weren’t suffering under oppressive factory conditions:

The painters were teen-aged girls and young women who became friendly during the hours together and entertained themselves during breaks by playing with the paint. They sprinkled the luminous liquid in their hair to make their curls twinkle in the dark. They brightened their fingernails with it. One girl covered her teeth to give herself a Cheshire cat smile when she went home at night.

While the Radium Girls, as far as I know, weren’t exploited in a racialized sense, I’m assuming that they were employed for reasons similar to the gendered reasoning that Nakamura suggests motivated Fairchild: their hands were small, and presumably dexterous. There are many parallels between the Navajo workers and the Radium Girls and, doubtlessly, countless other stories of manipulation and exploitation of culturally marginalized people could easily be excavated from the annals of the history of technology. Nakamura observes that “Fairchild’s Shiprock plant was far more than just an outlier. Instead, the company represented it as a new and innovative model for cheap domestic electronics manufacture: insourcing rather than outsourcing” (924). What I don’t understand is how this is any kind of justification. Whether American or foreign companies are exploiting workers domestically or abroad, it’s still exploitation. The championing of “insourcing” seems absurd, since the effects are the same: maximizing profit at the expense of workers. I don’t see how geography is relevant. Nakamura pays careful attention to the ways in which Fairchild took advantage of the Navajo women’s culture, and she provides an illuminating close reading of the company’s brochure, noting that:

Depicting electronics manufacture as a high-tech version of blanket weaving performed by willing and skillful indigenous women served two goals: it permitted the incursion of factories into Indian reservations to be seen as a continuation of tather than a break from “traditional” Indian activities, and it pioneered the blurring of the line between wage labor and creative-cultural labor; one seamlessly became the other. (931)

While I’m not excusing this appropriation of culture, I wonder how current practices of outsourcing to countries with lax or else absent labor laws is any better. Granted, nobody’s culture is being exploited, but people can be taken advantage of in so many other, no less valid ways. I guess my main problem with this article is that, while a fine case study, it merely chronicles the history of one group, by a company that doesn’t even exist anymore. And not only that, it only marginally relates this to technology or the technology field. The company that exploited these women only happened to be a technology company. But this kind of exploitation happens all the time, by all kinds of companies. While certainly Apple and Microsoft are guilty of similar practices, so are so many non-technology companies. Is American Quarterly publishing articles about sweatshops in Indonesia? Is anyone writing them? And to what end?