My Mother was a KeyPunch Operator (But She Never Learned to Drive)

This Nellie Y. McKay lecture in the Humanities delves into the history of keypunch operators in North America by combining personal reflection and critical theory. Keypunch operators—people (mainly female) who translated documents into computer-readable cards—have been key to the rise of modern large-scale computation, but surprisingly little has been written about them. By the 1970s, these women were mainly immigrants, chosen both for their “nimble fingers” and basic English skills, which prevented them from entering more lucrative jobs. Intertwining her mother’s experiences, the history of Korean-Canadian immigration and critical ethnic studies, Professor Wendy Hui Kyong Chun shows how this story of both exploitation and empowerment, boredom and joy resonates with current labor conditions.