Domestic Economies
Subtitle: Women, Work, and the American Dream in Los Angeles
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9780822372264
Subjects: Hispanic american women; Women household employees; Women, employment; Middle class, united states; Motherhood; Los angeles (calif.), social conditions
Description: Examines how two groups of women - Mexican and Central American domestic workers and the predominantly white, middle-class women who employ them - seek to achieve the "American Dream." by juxtaposing their understandings and experiences, she illustrates how immigrant and native-born women strive to reach that ideal, how each group is indispensable to the other's quest, and what a vital role reproductive labor plays in this pursuit. Through in-depth ethnographic research with these women at work, at home, and in the urban spaces of Los Angeles, the author positions domestic service as an intimate relationship that reveals two versions of female personhood. Throughout, the author underscores the extent to which the ideology of the American Dream is racialized and gendered, exposing how the struggle for personal worth and social recognition is shaped at the intersection of motherhood and paid employment.