Autoqueen Trilogy, Part I

Autoqueen Trilogy, Part I features Mohana Sundari, a thirty-nine-year-old woman living in Tamil Nadu in southern India. Mohana is part of a small but growing group of women driving auto rickshaws in the capital city of Chennai. Many, even in India, are unaware that...

Re:Work and the IRLE Present “Labor Studies 101”

It’s back-to-school season, and we’re sharing a recording of “Labor Studies 101” from our archives at the IRLE, the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. In this episode, our IRLE director, Toby Higbie, interviews Kent Wong, our previous long...

Stranded

In 2020, India suddenly went into a national lockdown without advance planning or adequate government support, which led to a humanitarian crisis in addition to the COVID-19 public health emergency. Millions of jobs disappeared and hunger was a serious issue. Tens of millions of migrant workers struggled to get home — often on foot — and many died attempting the journey. In this episode, we bring you the story of Gulzar, a migrant worker who left his village as a child and traveled across the country, to earn money to support his family.

Coming Home

A group of undocumented youth cross the border from the US into Mexico to cross back and turn themselves into border patrol. Why would you do something that would so blatantly risk you ever being able to come into this country again? We follow the story of one courageous young person, Luis Leon, and the journey that took him from a small town in North Carolina to the border crossing in Laredo TX.