Tom remembers that time a Silicon Valley company exploited Navajo workers

[Ptah]

I stumbled across this while doing research for the Apollo 11 cover story and I just have to share it:

{snip}

In 1965, Fairchild Semiconductors opened a plant on the Navajo Nation in Shiprock, New Mexico. At its operating peak, it employed more than 1,000 Navajos, most of them women. It was actually a sweetheart deal for Fairchild, which only had to pay a portion of the workers' low wages, with the rest being picked up by the tribe through a job-training grant from the federal government. The company also noted (internally, of course) that the workforce had actually been chosen for the large supply of cheap workers, certain tax benefits and the unlikelihood of the women asserting any workers' rights.

However, in "The Shiprock Dedication Commemorative Brochure," the company wrote (in incredibly cringe-worthy and paternalistic language), "The Diné (Navajo) women circuit makers are celebrated as culture workers who produced circuits as part of the 'reproductive' labor of expressing Navajo culture, rather than merely for wages."

It went on to claim that the circuits on the chips bore a resemblance to the complex geometric patterns on Navajo rugs. It lauded the "untapped wealth of natural characteristics of the Navajo...the inherent flexibility and dexterity of the Indians" who had [are you ready?] "nimble fingers."

https://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/danehy/Content?oid=25909409

[marybourg]

1. I saw the abandoned plant on a visit

to the reservation a few years ago. You could still see the shadow of the removed Fairchild logo.