Sara Bongiorni's A Year Without Made in China
A Family's Effort to Boycott Chinese Goods
Dec 9, 2008
In 2005, author Sara Bongiorni, along with her husband, Kevin, and their children Wes and Sofie decided to boycott Chinese goods for one year. They would buy nothing with a “Made in China” label for this year. Bongiorni wrote a book, A Year Without Made in China (2007, Wiley, ISBN-10 0470116137), about the family’s experience in the boycott of Chinese goods.
A Year Without Made in China is Born
A Year Without Made in China starts with Christmas 2004 when Bongiorni looks at a stash of Christmas gifts for her children and thinks about how globalization and Chinese goods are taking over the American marketplace. From her place as a business report, Bongiorni has seen more stories about how “Made in China” is becoming the standard in the United States. Instead of succumbing to globalization and Chinese goods everywhere, Bongiorni decides to see how difficult it would be to boycott Chinese goods for one year.
Good Start to Nothing Made in China
The year starts out with only slight struggles. Kevin decides to build a car with non-Chinese items for their son, Wes. The car does not go over well, but both Kevin and Wes have fun in the process, something that has worried Bongiorni since the decision to undertake the project. As the family progresses through the early part of the year, however, they discover that in some cases, finding non-Chinese items is next to impossible. Almost all electronics, for example, are made in China.
Problems With Boycotting Chinese Goods
The Bongiorni family runs into unexpected problems in their year without “Made in China.” Birthday candles and affordable children’s shoes are two of the items the family discovers are almost all made in China. Bongiorni spends enormous time throughout the year looking for non-Chinese items in catalogs and on the Internet.
Critique of Bongiorni Book
Bongiorni has a brilliant writing style. She is witty and gives the reader a true sense of what a year without “Made in China” is like. Where she fails, however, is in finding solutions to the stronghold Chinese goods have on many portions of the American market. She never considers handcrafted items, for instance, and she does not address thrift store shopping. She looks only to malls. After spending countless hours during their boycott of Chinese goods scouring the Internet for toys, she goes with her husband to a local toy store and finds a dozen or so gifts easily. Yet her time was in catalogs and at malls, leaving her looking in very few places for real solutions.
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