- Paperback: 309 pages
- Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (April 26 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0520226437
- ISBN-13: 978-0520226432
- Product Dimensions: 22.7 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 463 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #574,073 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Review
"Opens a rare window into the lives of workers who often speak little English and seldom converse with their employers." -- Los Angeles Times
"[A] thoughtful, nuanced account of a troubled world so close to home that it's become almost invisible." -- Mother Jones
"[A] thoughtful, nuanced account of a troubled world so close to home that it's become almost invisible." -- Mother Jones
Book Description
As American women have entered the labor force in greater numbers, the traditional work of wives and mothers--cleaning houses and caring for children--has gradually moved into the global marketplace. Paid domestic work has largely become the domain of disenfranchised immigrant women of color. Unlike the working poor who toil in factories and fields, these women see, touch, and breathe the material and emotional world of their employers' homes. They scrub grout, coax reluctant children to eat their vegetables, launder and fold clothes, dust, vacuum, and witness intimate family dynamics. In this enlightening and timely work, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo highlights the voices, experiences, and views of Mexican and Central American women who care for other people's children and homes, as well as the outlooks of the women who employ them in Los Angeles.
All royalties from this book will be donated to the Domestic Workers' Association, a division of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA).
All royalties from this book will be donated to the Domestic Workers' Association, a division of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA).
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Suburban homes are increasingly replacing inner-city factories as the places of economic incorporation for new immigrants. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Suburban homes are increasingly replacing inner-city factories as the places of economic incorporation for new immigrants. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well-Done,
By
This review is from: Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence (Paperback)
A good introduction into the world of domestic workers in the United States.I must concur with an earlier reviewer in that while the narratives were moving and rich (and while I don't doubt the validity of her research), the relative lack of concrete analyses hindered the claims she was presenting. This slant on humanism, however, was effective in evoking a sense of injustice for the domestic worker and the need for domestic jobs' recognition as a legitimate form of employment, rather than what Hondagneu-Sotelo terms "love labor." A book that definitely makes one think about the silent workers who are so vital, yet seldom recognized in their contributions, to the mechanisms of our society.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A window into a world largely invisible to most people,
By S. Nawyn (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence (Paperback)
Dr. Hondagneu-Sotelo's beautifully written work takes the reader into the world of Latina nannies and housekeepers, showcasing the women's own voices and perspectives while maintaining an academic's sharp-eyed analysis. She chronicles the difficulties of domestic workers while still acknowledging their ability to impact their own work environments. One of the strengths of Hondagneu-Sotelo's book is the analysis of class inequality, particularly the ways that employers awkwardly handle their own discomfort with their priviledge. Her conclusions, rather than knee-jerk dismissals of domestic labor, suggest ways that domestic employment can be viewed as the job it is. The author's thoughts on her own position to her research subject in the preface is worth the price of the book. This book recently won five awards from different sociological organizations, and deservedly so.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Strong on Narrative, Weak on Analysis,
By A Customer
This review is from: Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence (Paperback)
Hondagneu-Sotelo's Domestica is a rich harvest from years of ethnographic research among the Latina domestic workers of Southern California. The detailed stories of women working for women are sure to capture the interest of every reader.That said, I was disappointed that the author, for the most part, fails to embed her findings in analysis by gender, class, and race/ethnicity. For example, while noting that work in the "care economy" is systematically undervalued, very little space is devoted to discussion of the ideologies that define caring work and house maintenance as "women's work", thus relegating both to the lower rungs of waged labor. I had also hoped to see more than the paragraph that was devoted to the uneasy class and racial tensions frequently found in Chicana employer/Latina worker relationships. Domestica's shortcomings are more than compensated for, however, by the wealth of ethnography from which the author draws to tell the story of the women who care for the homes and children of Los Angeles's middle and upper middle classes.
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