Jimmy’s Carwash Adventure (La Aventura de Jaime en el Autolavado)

Jimmy’s Carwash Adventure (La Aventura de Jaime en el Autolavado), by Victor Narro (Brooklyn, NY: Hard Ball Press, 2016)

For a change of pace, we are pleased to offer a review of an illustrated, bilingual story- book targeted to readers from four to fourteen years of age. It’s a simple story about young Jimmy and his pedal car, and the carwash he likes to visit with his dad, where the workers even manage to run his car through the wash. Later, Jimmy learns that the workers are trying to organize so as to better their conditions, and he takes some action on his own to support the workers’ movement. The book includes relevant questions and issues for teachers, librarians and/or parents to use in discussions with children.

I investigated the back story of this book, since the author is not a “children’s book author”. Victor Narro is the Project Director for the UCLA Labor Center and has been involved with immigrant rights and labor issues for over 35 years. He is co-author of Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in America’s Cities (2008), and Wage Theft and Workplace Violations in Los Angeles (2010). He is co-editor of Working for Justice: The L.A. Model of Organizing and Advocacy (2010) and No One Size Fits All: Worker Organization, Policy, and Movement in a New Economic Age (2018). I asked him if he had ever written a book for children and, if not, why did he write about Jimmy and his consciousness-raising “carwash adventure”? Narro advised me that it was his first children’s book, which he decided to write after noticing carwash workers bringing their children to organizational meetings. He thought then about a children’s book to instill the values of solidarity and economic justice in our children. Narro described his extensive involvement with the carwash workers as follows:

“I got involved with this industry in the 1990’s when I was Workers’ Rights Project Director for Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. Then State Senator Tom Hayden sent a group of workers to me from a West LA carwash. They had suffered egregious violations. I then connected with other legal services organizations, and we formed a coalition to help them and other carwash workers. We uncovered an industry filled with major wage theft and health and safety violations. We worked on passing the Carwash Worker law in California in 2003 to begin regulating this industry. I joined the Labor Center in 2003 and began researching this industry with the help of UCLA students. I begin producing research reports and in 2006, I met with the AFL-CIO about the possibility of the first ever union organizing campaign in the carwash industry. A series of more meetings and producing more data led to a project with AFL-CIO and United Steelworkers to begin conducting outreach to carwash workers. This organizing project led to the official launch of the CLEAN Carwash Campaign in April 2008. The AFL-CIO and USW launched the campaign to organize carwashes into a union where the workers would become members of USW Local 396. Today, the CLEAN Campaign is very vibrant. It has a Carwash Worker Center, and USW 396 is continuing to represent workers in around 30 carwashes.”

The book is dedicated “para todos los trabajadores ‘carwasheros’ y su lucha diaria por la dignidad y el respeto” (“to carwash workers and their daily struggle for dignity and respect”). It is a cause we can all support, alongside young Jimmy.

Reviewed by Keith Danish, Newsletter and Book Review Editor of the New York Labor History Association.