DOMÉSTICADomestic Work in So Cal’s Global City

“the new world domestic order”

• The new world• Early modern roots of globalization = European colonization + native

genocide• Los Angeles Southern California Western Hemisphere (US-

Mexico-Central America)• The new world order (Novus ordo seclorum)

• Post-WWI (Woodrow Wilson) & Post-WWII (UN, NATO,IMF)• Post-Cold War – fall of Soviet Communism & rise of Western

capitalism• Post-9/11 – globalized economies & permeability of borders

• The new world domestic order• Global cities = survival circuits + invisible domestic labor

So Cal Survival Circuits• Los Angeles as global city

• Deindustrialization = growing gap between rich and poor

• Economic center of Pacific Rim = growing service economy

• Pre-existing circuits of imperialism + Bracero Program + MX economic crises feminization of Mexican labor

• Civil War + Military Insurrections increased Central American immigration

Social Reproduction

• Aka “reproductive labor” = “the myriad of activities, tasks, and resources expended in the daily upkeep of homes and people” (Sotelo 23)

• Who performs reproductive labor and why? • Naturalized by gender• Naturalized by race/class

• Home & domestic space as contradictory site of privacy/intimacy as well as labor/exploitation

• Complexity of race, gender, class in patriarchy (Sotelo 22-23)

Tran

snat

iona

l • “To be a good mother, I had to leave my children”• Maternal material duty versus

maternal affective duty• Competing models of

motherhood• Western ideals of “isolationist,

privativized mothering” (Sotelo 25)• Dedicated mother/housewife• Working mother

• Career woman/household manager• Mothering for hire domestic

caregivers and transnational motherhood

• Debates over good mothering = simultaneously resisting and rehearsing gendered, racialized, and classed strictures M

othe

rhoo

d

La Doméstica• Live-in nanny/housekeeper

• Lack of boundaries, lowest wages• Most exploitative of newest

immigrants – “the bridging occupation”

• Food & dehumanization (Sotelo 35)• Live-out nanny/housekeeper

• Clearer boundaries, relatively higher pay

• Possibility for family life• Housecleaner

• Higher hourly wages, shorter work week, flexibility

• Constant cultivation of network & route of casas

Informal Labor• Informal vs formal labor

• Taxed and monitored by governmental agencies; subject to regulation and accountability

• Informality of hiring practice social networks, references and reputations

• lack of official pay standardization• Decrease of wages with longer work tenure

(83)• Withholding of information between

employers (86)• lack of clarification of worker’s duties

and employer responsibilities• Agencies = formalizing the informal for certain nannies (103)

• Lack of clear etiquette for termination = blow ups & white lies

Maternalism vs Personalism• Formal boss-employee relationship vs

informal relationship between employer & domestic worker• Complicated by labor performed in private

sphere• Determined by differing positions of privilege &

power• Maternalism – “a one-way relationship,

defined primarily by the employer’s gestures of charity, advice, assistance, and gifts” (207-208)• White women helping out brown women

• Personalism – “a two-way relationship, albeit still asymmetrical [that] involves the employer’s recognition of the employee as a particular person” (208)• As necessary improvement to invisibility &

dehumanization (201)