Rhetorical Analysis
“Where Sweatshops Are A Dream” In his New York Times opinion column, “Where Sweatshops Are a Dream”, writer Nicholas D. Kristof uses his experience living in East Asia to argue his positive outlook on sweatshops. Kristof wants to persuade his audience, Obama and his team, along with others who are for “labor standards”, that the best way to help people in poor countries is to promote manufacturing there, not campaign against them. He uses Phnom Penh as an example to show why working in the sweatshops is a dream for the families there. They would rather work at a sweatshop than stay in the dangerous garbage dump, searching for something to recycle for change. The writer establishes credibility through his experience living in East Asia and witnessing the living standards improve from sweatshop jobs. That growth included his wife’s ancestral village in Southern China. Kristof succeeds in writing an informative and interesting argument on the positive outlook on sweatshop jobs and how they are a dream to families of Phnom Penh. In Kristof’s argument he presented testimonies of women and children of Phnom Penh, this created effective evidence. These following quotes are from his discussion with some of the women he met while in East Asia. The First was a 19-year-old woman who was scavenging for plastic in the garbage dump. “I’d love to get a job in a factory” she said, “at least that work is in the shade. Here is where it’s hot” (Paragraph 6, pg. 110). Another woman names Vath Sam Oeun, she hopes her 10-year-old boy grows up to get a factory job. This is because she has seen other children run over by the garbage trucks. Kristof says, “Her boy has never been to a doctor or dentist and last bathed when he was 2, so sweatshop by comparison would be far more pleasant and less dangerous” (paragraph 7, pg. 110). These women’s testimonies show a