My mum worked at the Dylex factory at 233 Carlaw Avenue in the 1980s. It is now a loft development catering to Toronto’s yuppie and artsy crowds. Its name, Garment Factory, pays tribute to its industrial past. Growing up, I had never visited the site. Chinese immigrants of my parents’ generation did not have many opportunities in the Canadian labour market. They had little formal education, spoke little or no English, were unfamiliar with Canadian culture, and had few connections outside the Chinese community. These constraints meant that women mostly worked in Chinese restaurants or in garment factories (like my mum), while men mostly worked in restaurants or in the construction industry (like my dad). The Dylex facility was just a six-minute walk from our house in South Riverdale (now known as Leslieville). However, as the industry changed, Dylex relocated the finishing work my mum did to another location in a suburban industrial park in the early 1990s, requiring her instead to commute an hour each way. Eventually, NAFTA and shifting global supply chains accelerated the decline of Toronto’s garment industry. Dylex filed for bankruptcy in the mid-1990s and was completely shut down by 2001. By then, garment jobs in Toronto…
