The Blackwell Companion to Sociology (99 page)

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Immigrant Women and Paid Domestic Work

needs and concerns remained largely `ìnvisible,'' even when highlighted in a

national controversy labeled by some pundits as ``nannie-gate.''

Paid domestic work encompasses multiple tasks ± cleaning, serving, child care,

gardening, and so forth ± and is currently organized in various ways. In this

chapter, I discuss only the employment of immigrant women who do house-

cleaning according to job work arrangements, where they maintain a weekly or

bi-weekly route of employers. Under job work, domestic workers are able to

position themselves as experts to sell their labor services in much the same way a vendor sells a product to various customers, and since they work for different

employers on different days, they are less likely to become involved in deeply

personal employer±employee relations than are live-in domestics or those who

work for the same employer on a daily basis (Romero, 1988).

While job work holds the potential to provide better working conditions and

pay than those encountered by live-in domestic workers, it is still problematic.

Job terms and pay are generally negotiated without the benefit of guidelines

established by government, unions, employment agencies, or private firms, and

domestic workers must locate and secure multiple sources of employment to

survive. My research in a San Francisco Bay area community examined how

immigrant women domestic workers devised ways to improve their employment

in job work, and some of these findings were utilized in an innovative informa-

tion and outreach project in Los Angeles that seeks to upgrade the occupation

for Latina immigrant women. In both the research process and the dissemination

of the research findings, I attempted to incorporate cultural models resonant

with Latino communities. As I gathered research materials, I often acted as a

servidora, an informal social worker, and later in the outreach project, some of the research findings were disseminated through novelas, a popular form of

Latin American print media.

This chapter addresses research, theory, and activism in the context of immi-

grant women who do paid domestic work. I argue that interaction between

sociological research and activism informed by feminism can yield new theor-

etical insights and understandings. First, I discuss and reflect on how a research process informed by feminism shaped a particular set of findings. Feminist

principles shaped the research process by first encouraging me to see immigrant

women as experts in defining their most urgent concerns, thus restraining me

from imposing my own preconceived research agenda, and second inspiring me

to rely on reciprocity. In particular, feminist concerns with reciprocity in fieldwork relationships inspired me to act as a servidora, and this revealed aspects of the occupation that may have otherwise remained concealed. Next, I discuss

how I utilized these research findings in an information and outreach project

aimed at Mexican and Central American immigrant women who do paid

domestic work in Los Angeles. Finally, I reflect on how this process stimulated

further theoretical insights for me. When I returned to ask women in the original community of study for suggestions on some of the materials I had prepared for

use in the Los Angeles outreach project, the comments revealed new insights.

Discussions of theory and praxis often privilege the manner in which research

and theory inform or direct political practices and activities. In this chapter, I Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo

425

suggest a less unilinear relationship between research and theory on the one hand and political activism on the other. In the instance discussed here, the dissemination of the research findings in an advocacy project led to a new understanding

and theoretical interpretations of the research. Research, theory, and activism

run on a feedback loop.

Research and Reciprocity

My research on domestic employment comprises part of a larger study on

migration patterns and changing gender relations among Mexican undocumen-

ted immigrant women and men that I conducted in a Mexican immigrant

community located in the San Francisco Bay area. I chose qualitative methods

± in-depth interviews and participant observation ± in order to develop an

explanation of processes as they unfold at the microstructural level. The materials discussed in this chapter draw mainly from observation and informal con-

versations that occurred in various public and private locales, supplemented by

interviews with 17 women who were working as non-live-in domestic house-

cleaners or had done so in the recent past. All interactions and interviews were conducted in Spanish and research began in November 1986, just as the Immigration Reform and Control ACt was passed, and continued for 18 months.

I had not initially entered the field with the intention of examining how

women organize paid domestic work. As I became immersed in many activities

and groups in this community, I learned that the undocumented immigrant

women there were concentrated in jobs as paid domestic workers in private

households, usually working for different employers on different days. In many

settings, everywhere, it seemed, I saw women talking about how they managed

paid domestic work; I began to focus part of my research on these issues, and as I did, I read books such as Judith Rollins's Between Women: Domestics and Their

Employers (1985) and Evelyn Nakano Glenn's Issei, Nisei, Warbride: Three

Generations of Japanese Women in Domestic Service (1986). The ideas and

approaches used in these studies prompted new questions for me, and so my

ethnographic and interview research emerged in dialogue with some of this

literature.

To date, most studies of domestics are largely based on information gathered

from interviews and historical materials (Katzman, 1981; Dudden, 1983; Glenn,

1986; Romero, 1988, 1992). An exception is Rollins's study (1985), which is

based on interviews with domestic employers and employees and on participant-

observation material gathered by Rollins when she went `ùndercover'' as a

domestic worker, a method that provided a wealth of insights. The novelty and

strength of participant-observation in this study is that it occurred in multiple settings. I did not seek employment as a paid domestic worker, but I interacted

on a regular basis with the women who do the work and I gathered information

at parties, church and community events, and in their homes. Observing paid

domestic workers in their daily social life reveals that many social connections and exchanges undergird what appears to be a privatized economic relationship.

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Immigrant Women and Paid Domestic Work

Ethnographic research involves constant face-to-face interaction over a pro-

longed period of time, and playing different roles offers the researcher different perspectives on social reality. The vantage point from which the researcher

interacts and observes constitutes an important part of the research strategy; it structures the investigation's findings and shapes the parameters of the investigator's research roles and findings (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1988). My different

roles, besides student/researcher, included activist and community organizer,

friend, nosy person, and servidora. Reciprocity was a central component to all

these roles, but here I wish to focus on how this played out as I assumed elements of what appears to be an autochthonous woman's role in Latino immigrant

communities.

Servidoras are Latina women who act as informal purveyors of information

and who provide referrals and personal services to immigrant families. Two

Chicana women and two immigrant women, one Mexican and the other Gua-

temalan, served a large number of families as community brokers, and I used

them both as role models and sources of information. Although I worked in legal

services and in a bilingual education program in this particular community seven years prior, it was not my old contacts so much as my English language and

literacy skills, and my concurrent involvement in community organizations, that

were valuable. I regularly accompanied individuals and families to collection

agencies and doctor's and lawyer's offices, translated bank statements and

insurance policies, provided updated information on amnesty-legalization provi-

sions, and so forth. My activities as a servidora opened windows to immigrant

lives that would have otherwise remained closed to me. These activities also

opened the windows to a series of ethical issues.

The Ethics of Reciprocity

Ethics in field research generally refers either to covert research, where the true identity and purpose of the investigator remains unknown to those who are

studied, or to the protection of human subjects (Bulmer, 1982). The practice of

reciprocity, a practice consonant with feminist principles, also raises several

ethical issues.

Why use reciprocity in the first place? Reciprocity offers a way to lessen the

asymmetry of doing research among people lacking basic resources, rights, and

power in society. For me, reciprocity was a way to avoid a more colonialist way

of doing research or just entering the field to pillagè`raw data'' for export. It allowed me to engage in more of a mutual exchange, whereby people's time,

efforts, and energy in helping me with my research project were compensated by

some of the resources to which I had access.

But was it less exploitative? In some cases, reciprocity served as an informal

quid pro quo, as an IOU for participation in research. In several instances,

people ± most often men ± offered to pay me cash for my assistance with

filling out forms, translations, or transportation and instead I negotiated their participation in a formal interview (to which they had already agreed, but

Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo

427

were procrastinating). Some of the women with whom I spent a good deal of

time often thanked me for being such a good friend, such a ready and patient

listener. One older woman compared me to a public health nurse she had known,

and another referred to me as à`saint'' for helping poor people in the commun-

ity. Although initially flattered, I grew uncomfortable with these rituals of

deference. The results of my assistance were minimal, and, more importantly,

these same people helped me too. Often when I was praised I would interject

something to the effect of, ``Well I'm a student and I appreciate the help you give me with my project too.'' Although it seemed cold and calculated, I tried to

remind them of my research interest, as it more adequately reflected the

exchange.

Some of the most revealing information I collected did not come from the in-

depth interviews but was disclosed to me in the context of being a friend. People enmeshed in explosive family conflicts or problematic decisions often produced

unedited, but reflective, outpourings of emotions, motives, and private incidents.

Like the best letters and the best diary entries, these outpourings resulted from personal crises. People offer some of the most revealing details of their lives

when they are not relating to one as a researcher. This is double-edged, for

although all the respondents consented to serve as ``human subjects'' in the

research project, it was when I served in capacities other than ``questioning

researcher'' that I obtained some of the most telling information. Acting as a

servidora, I gained detailed knowledge of personal finances, marital intimacies, and conflicts. With regard to paid domestic work, I sometimes wrote letters or

made phone calls on the women's behalf when they asked for pay raises, I

observed the women complain about particular employers or other domestic

workers, and I listened very carefully when they discussed their strategies for

dealing with these problems.

Although all the women knew I was conducting research, my reciprocity

obscured my research intent and availed more information to me. Yet rather

than seeing reciprocity as constituting unbridled coercion or deceit, I believe it made the research process more egalitarian. Although my primary goals were

clearly different than the respondents' interests, our interests did not necessarily conflict. Reciprocity allowed me to exchange a service for what the subjects were giving to me.

Judith Stacey (1988) has argued that researchers acting as friends or advocates

leave subjects open to betrayal, exploitation, and abandonment. While research

relationships are problematic, I maintain that reciprocity in field research can represent an instance where the means justify the means. The traditional appeal

to non-exploitative research generally argues that the ends, or the finished

research product, justifies the means. In this scheme, the dangers and risks

assumed by research participants are outweighed by the potential benefits,

such as a cure for a disease. This justification for the effects of research on

people's lives derives from the physical sciences, and human subjects protocol in the social sciences generally mimics this approach, despite how poorly the

protective clauses translate from the physical to the social sciences (Duster et al., 1979).

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Immigrant Women and Paid Domestic Work

The standard human subjects protocol informs respondents that the end