Fabric, written by playwright Henry Ong, is the only known dramatization of the 1995 El Monte Thai Garment Slavery Case.
[1] First performed in 2000, it was produced by the Company of Angels in 2010, in partnership with the Thai Community Development Center to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the landmark case.
On August 2, 1995, in El Monte, California, 72 Thai nationals were discovered working and living in an apartment complex ringed with barbed wire and spiked fences, sewing clothes for major retailers and manufacturers.
[3] Playwright Henry Ong, upon reading an account of the raid in the Los Angeles Times, contacted Chanchanit Martorell, executive director of the Thai Community Development Center.
Under the control of Auntie Suni, the men and women were forced to work long hours (from 7 a.m. to midnight), with no weekend breaks or holidays, to pay off their debts to the traffickers.