I wear garments touched by hands from all over the world
35% cotton, 6% polyester, the journey
begins in Central America
In the cotton fields of El Salvador
In a province soaked in blood,
Pesticide-sprayed workers toil
in a broiling sun
Pulling cotton for two dollars
a day.
Then we move on up to another rung
- Cargill A top-forty trading conglomerate, takes the cotton through
the Panama Canal Up the Eastern seaboard, coming to the US of A for
the first time
In South Carolina At the Burlington
mils Joins a shipment of polyester filament courtesy of the New Jersey
petro-chemical mills of Dupont
Dupont strands of filament begin
in the South American country of Venezuela Where oil riggers bring
up oil from the earth for six dollars a day
Then Exxon, largest oil company
in the world,
Upgrades the product in the country
of Trinidad and Tobago
Then back into the Caribbean and
Atlantic Seas
To the factories of Dupont
On the way to the Burlington mills
In South Carolina
To meet the cotton from the blood-soaked
fields of El Salvador
In South Carolina
Burlington factories hum with the
business of weaving oil and cotton into miles of fabric of Sears
Who takes this bounty back into
the Caribbean Sea
Headed for Haiti this time -
May she be one day soon free -
Far from the Port-au-Prince palace
Third world women toil doing piece
work to Sears specifications
For three dollars a day my sisters
make my blouse
It leaves the third world for the
last time
Coming back into the sea to be
sealed in plastic for me
This third world sister
And I go to the Sears department
store where I buy my blouse
On sale for 20% discount
Are my hands clean?
(Song composed for Winterfest,
Institute for Policy Studies. The lyrics are based on an article by
Institute fellow John Cavanaugh, “The Journey of the Blouse: A Global
Assembly.” Lyrics and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon. Songtalk Publishing
Co. 1985)