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“I was a free and independent worker” Keypunch Operating as Mind-Numbing Refuge for Korean-Canadian Immigrant Women
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Abstract
This paper examines the overlooked history of Korean Canadian women keypunch operators (KPOs) in 1970–’80s Canada. KPOs were responsible for preparing computer-readable data and thus crucial to the emergence of business computing, machine learning, the digital humanities, and so much more, yet their labor and stories have largely been forgotten and consistently devalued. Management considered these jobs part of a “clerical ghetto” and struggled to find workers to fill and remain in these stressful and highly surveilled pink-collar jobs. Drawing on oral interviews and archival research, we show how these immigrant women navigated their workplace, which was shaped by racialized and gendered stereotypes—such as them having “nimble fingers.” Intriguingly for some, this job became a mental relief from domestic responsibilities and language barriers. Through this sense of being “free” and “independent” workers, we argue that KPOs exemplify an early form of gamified labor. Yet, unlike modern platformized labor, this was “treadmill labor”—labor without upward mobility. We also examine how Canadian multiculturalism reinforced ethnic divisions in the workplace, undermining cross-cultural solidarity and fostering ethnonationalist silos. By centering the voices and experiences of Korean Canadian women, this paper recovers a forgotten story of marginalized labor and offers a new origin point for understanding gamified work as foundational to the rise of computing and today’s digital economy.
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