Synopses & Reviews
"Hondagneu-Sotelo challenges the reader to rethink the organization of caring work, the roles of race and immigrant status in the structure of domestic work, the importance of regulations, and the need for legal and personal recognition of the rights and human dignity of each worker. This book is an important contribution to our understanding of work and family among immigrant Latina women and also among the families that employ them."and#151;Bonnie Thornton Dill, author of
Across the Boundaries of Race and Class: An exploration of work and family among Black female Domestic Servants"Through brilliantly nuanced portraits of housekeepers and their employers, Hondagneu-Sotelo tells a neglected story of growing importance, spotlighting the relation of mistress to maid."and#151;Arlie Russell Hochschild, author of The Time Bind
"Domand#233;stica is a pathbreaking study. It opens our eyes to the hidden world of transnational care-work and calls on us to shape domestic and international policies that will bring basic principles of human rights and social justice into that world. Everyone who is concerned about care and equality should read it."and#151;Lucie White, Professor, Harvard Law School
"Beautifully written, sensitive to all the nuances of the situation, and committed to the protection of our most vulnerable immigrants, Domand#233;stica has an important, poignant story to tell; one that will appeal to anyone interested in immigration and the way it is transforming America."and#151;Roger Waldinger, author of Still the Promised City?
"This engaging book bristles with fresh insights into the working lives of immigrant house cleaners and nannies, living on the margins in the nation's capital of conspicuous consumption. Hondagneu-Sotelo beautifully exposes domestic workers' yearnings for respect and dignity."and#151;Ruth Milkman, author of Farewell to the Factory
"I do not know of any other study that captures with such depth of detail and insight the relationship between domestic workers and their employers. This book will be indispensable to those trying to further our understanding of the relationship between class, gender and migration."and#151;Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, Princeton University
Synopsis
Returned follows transnational Mexicans as they experience the alienation and unpredictability of deportation, tracing the particular ways that U.S. immigration policies and state removals affect families. Deportation--an emergent global order of social injustice--reaches far beyond the individual deportee, as family members with diverse U.S. immigration statuses, including U.S. citizens, also return after deportation or migrate for the first time. The book includes accounts of displacement, struggle, suffering, and profound loss but also of resilience, flexibility, and imaginings of what may come. Returned tells the story of the chaos, and design, of deportation and its aftermath.
Synopsis
The momentous influx of Mexican undocumented workers into the United States over the last decades has spurred new ways of thinking about immigration. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo's incisive book enlarges our understanding of these recently arrived Americans and uncovers the myriad ways that women and men recreate families and community institutions in a new land.
Hondagneu-Sotelo argues that people do not migrate as a result of concerted household strategies, but as a consequence of negotiations often fraught with conflict in families and social networks. Migration and settlement transform long-held ideals and lifestyles. Traditional patterns are reevaluated, and new relationshipsoften more egalitarianemerge. Women gain greater personal autonomy and independence as they participate in public life and gain access to both social and economic influence previously beyond their reach.
Bringing to life the experiences of undocumented immigrants and delineating the key role of women in newly established communities, Gendered Transitions challenges conventional assumptions about gender and migration. It will be essential reading for demographers, historians, sociologists, and policymakers.
"I've opened my eyes. Back there, they say 'no.' You marry, and no, you must stay home. Here, it's different. You marry, and you continue working. Back in Mexico, it's very different. There is very much machismo in those men."A Mexican woman living in the United States
Synopsis
"Edited by a leading pioneer of immigration studies, this volume offers some of the latest and most brilliant thinking about what migrant men and women bring to the United States, leave behind and create anew. This is a must read for those interested in immigration, gender, and the many meanings of life."Arlie Russell Hochschild, co-editor with Barbara Ehrenreich of
Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy"Moving between individual decisions and broad political and economic forces, and focusing on family and community in Mexico and the U.S., Hondagneu-Sotelo's pathbreaking book casts new light on the centrality of gender for patterns of migration. A superb intersection of ethnography, history and theory."Michael Burawoy, University of California, Berkeley
"A path-breaking book combining the study of gender with immigration to show how Mexican women and men continually reinvent themselves and their family lives in the U.S. Gendered Transitions offers rich insights into the complexities of women's settlement experiences and marks a new era in immigration studies."Maxine Baca Zinn, Michigan State University
Synopsis
As American women have entered the labor force in greater numbers, the traditional work of wives and mothersand#151;cleaning houses and caring for childrenand#151;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 Workersand#8217; Association, a division of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA).
Synopsis
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. The new preface looks at the current issues facing immigrant domestic workers in a global context.
Synopsis
"
Domand#233;stica is a pathbreaking study. It opens our eyes to the hidden world of transnational care-work and calls on us to shape domestic and international policies that will bring basic principles of human rights and social justice into that world. Everyone who is concerned about care and equality should read it."and#151;Lucie White, Professor, Harvard Law School
"Hondagneu-Sotelo challenges the reader to rethink the organization of caring work, the roles of race and immigrant status in the structure of domestic work, the importance of regulations, and the need for legal and personal recognition of the rights and human dignity of each worker."and#151;Bonnie Thornton Dill, author of Across the Boundaries of Race and Class
About the Author
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo is Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigration (California, 1994) and coeditor of Challenging Fronteras: Structuring Latina and Latino Lives in the U.S. (1997) and Gender through the Prism of Difference: Readings on Sex and Gender (2000).
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
PART ONE: The Job Today
1. New World Domestic Order
2. Maid in L.A.
PART TWO: Finding Hard Work Isnand#8217;t Easy
3. Itand#8217;s Not What You Know...
4. Formalizing the Informal: Domestic Employment Agencies
5. Blowups and Other Unhappy Endings
PART THREE: Inside the Job
6. Tell Me What to Do, But Donand#8217;t Tell Me How
7. Go Away...But Stay Close Enough
8. Cleaning Up a Dirty Business
Notes
References
Index