Description
Book SynopsisSusanna Rosenbaum examines how immigrant Mexican and Central American domestic workers in Los Angeles and the predominantly white, upper-middle-class women who employ them seek to achieve the "American Dream," underscoring how the American Dream's ideology is racialized and gendered while exposing how pursuing it lies at the intersection of motherhood and domestic labor.
Trade Review"One strength of Rosenbaum’s research design is its reliance not only on interviews but also on settings for observation: a middle-class mothers’ group, a domestic workers’ co-op, and an organization advocating for domestic workers’ rights." -- Debra Osnowitz * Gender & Society *
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Domestic Economies provides a novel angle for examining domestic work through its focus on the identities of those who hire and do domestic work, rather than on employer-employee relations, as do most other studies." -- Rhacel Salazar Parren˜as * International Migration Review *
"This is a beautifully written book, recommended for scholars of gender and work, immigration, and family." -- Kristin Marsh * American Ethnologist *
"This important, nuanced and highly readable ethnography will be important reading for scholars and students interested in the globalisation of care and the intersections of migration, belonging, class, race and gender. I would also recommend it to general readers who want to learn more about the critical contributions of immigrant workers to contemporary everyday life, not only in America but across the world." -- Megha Amrith * Anthropological Forum *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. Producing In/Visibility in Los Angeles 27
2. Middle-Class Dreaming and the Limits of "Americanness" 49
3. Making Mothers Count 83
4. Organizing, Motherhood, and the Meanings of (Domestic) Work 115
5. Dreaming American 148
Conclusion 177
Notes 185
References 205
Index 225
