The tense culture clash in American Factory revealed the chasm in management and
employee workload expectations. A 2019 New York Times review by Monohla stated: “This is political without being self-servingly didactic or strident, connecting the sociopolitical dots intelligently”. The documentary sets the stage for understanding complexities in the globalized world. For Fuyao, the glass-making company, the most important concern was not how much they earned, but how Americans viewed Chinese immigrants and China as a major competitor in U.S. manufacturing. A major labor difference was evident, showing that this American-based company was successful largely because of the significant number of Chinese immigrants
willing to work long hours, while American workers worked fewer days and received higher pay.

The cultural clash surfaced when American workers protested the emphasis on quantity over quality, believing that Chinese immigrants were being asked to do too much for too little. One example is when a female Chinese worker was fired for taking a day off while severely sick. She said, “I am tired, but I have no choice. Safety does not pay the bills.” This highlighted how the workplace conditions were unfavorable and contributed to her illness. As an immigrant, she had no choice but to work undocumented, and Fuyao was the only company willing to offer her a job. The vice president of Fuyao Glass remarked, "America is a place to let your personality run
free" (1:14 minute mark). He argued that there is a cultural trait in the U.S. that makes its citizens overconfident. For many foreigners entering the United States, there is a level of rigidity they are accustomed to, and in a shared work environment, these differing cultural ideas and operationalmethods inevitably clash.