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Adler, Patricia A., and Peter Adler. Paradise Laborers: Hotel Work in the Global Economy. Ithaca: ILR
Press, 2004.
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Resorts have become important to American society and its economy; one in eight Americans
is now employed by the tourism industry. Yet despite the ubiquity of hotels, little
has been written about those who labor there. Drawing on eight years of participant
observation and in-depth interviews, the renowned ethnographers Patricia A. Adler
and Peter Adler reveal the occupational culture and lifestyles of workers at five
luxury Hawaiian resorts.
These resorts employ a workforce that is diverse in gender, class, ethnicity,
and nationality. Hawaiian resort workers, like those in nearly all resorts, consist
of four groups. New immigrants hold difficult and dirty low-status jobs for little
pay. Locals provide an authentic Polynesian flavor for guests, a ready pool of youthful
high-turnover employees, and a population trapped in a place that offers few occupational
alternatives. Managers tend to be middle-class, college-educated young and middle-aged
men from the mainland whose lifestyles are occupationally transient. Seekers, mostly
young, white, and from the mainland as well, escape to paradise seeking adventure,
warmth, extreme sports, or some alternate life experiences.
The Adlers describe the work, lives, and careers of these four groups that labor
in organizations that never close, with shifts scheduled around the clock and around
the year. Paradise Laborers adds to the growing interest in the global flow of labor,
as these immigrant workers display different trends in gendered opportunities and
mobility than those exhibited by other groups. The authors propose a political economy
of tourist labor in which they compare the different expectations and rewards of
organizations, employees, and local labor markets.
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