Branding Guilt: American Apparel Inc. and Latina Labor in Los Angeles

A study of the marketing strategies of the clothing enterprise, American Apparel, how it targets affluent, educated youth through socially conscious tactics, including a focus on pro-immigrant rights and Los Angeles-made, “sweatshop-free” advertising. The essay analyzes the ideologies and stances behind marketing materials that often contain images of Latinas/os as laborers, and white (European origin) population as consumers, and examines how U.S.-based ethical capitalism operates as a neoliberal form of social regulation to champion personal responsibility and individual freedom, in often hidden and inferentially racist and classist ways.