foundation4

Born in the USA…Made in China

By Drew

Ok so many of us are buzzing about the announcement that the 2012 Team USA Olympic uniforms designed by Ralph Lauren were made in China! My first reaction was disgust and I assume that was the reaction of most Americans. How dare Ralph Lauren… how dare the the US Olympic Committee! After some thought though I came to rest the blame for such an atrocity not on the USOC or the uniform designer but on.. well myself and Americans in general. I came to this conclusion fairly quickly. As I was fuming about the report I stopped and said to myself “do I even know where the clothing I’m wearing right now was made?” The answer was: “Nope”. So I began pealing off my clothes to check: T-Shirt – Made in Honduras, Shorts – Made in Vietnam, Undies – Made in India, Flip Flops – Made in Brazil. Not a stitch originated from the Country I call home.

Now I consider myself to be someone who takes great pride in supporting businesses based in and products made in the USA. I’m forever suggesting to friends and family to buy local, but still my wardrobe was largely made elsewhere. Sure, somewhere in the back of my head I knew that I was buying clothing (and other products) made in foreign countries. Its so hard to find clothing made in the USA. All of the larger apparel retailers, with the best sales and prices, sell little to no articles made here in our country. So blame the big retailers right? Again… “Nope”. The blame is still ours, after all no one is forcing us to buy two for one t shirts at Target. Believe me I would love to spend $28 on a Gnome Enterprises t shirt handprinted in Brooklyn on an American Apparel shirt made in the USA. (aside: big fan of Gnome Enterprise!) Truth is, like so many Americans, I just cant afford to spend $28 on a T-shirt right now.

Here’s the deal… To buy clothing made in the USA it will cost us more than clothing made in a far away country. Manufacturers in the United States have to spend more to make their product and sell for more to stay in business. In the US, companies must pay their workers a minimum and hopefully a fair wage. Taxes and operations costs are far more in America than they are elsewhere. To put this in perspective, companies like Old Navy and Target have strategically worked out that they can make more money by outsourcing to countries like India and China. Even with the added cost of importing all these goods to America the final cost is significantly less than what it would be if made here in our back yard and we buy it… because its cheaper.

My Nana was known to flip over every item at a store to see the “Made in…” label. not because she thought products from China were cheaply made, but because she felt strongly that to buy things not made in the USA was “putting an American out of work” Where did we loose this sense of national pride and concern for our neighbors? When did saving a dollar become more important than the unemployment rate in this country? Can we get back to a place where Americans do buy locally and support ourselves?

We all really just need to try harder to look at those labels and spend a little more, if we can, on items made in this great country of ours. If we really cant afford to do that, I think it’s essential to know where these products are originating from just the same. It is that awareness alone that gives us our best chance at change. We also need to stop pointing our fingers at the government and organizations like the USOC. It’s not their fault, its ours. If we didn’t create a market for imported goods this wouldn’t be an issue. At the end of the day a Team USA Olympic uniform made in China possibly best represents who we truly are as Americans. Like it or not…

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tags: brooklyn, fair, Made in China, Made in the USA, sustainable

this entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2012 at 10:33 am and is filed under general, Made in the USA. you can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed both comments and pings are currently closed

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