Study Offers Complex Portrait of Domestic Workers

Yes, they notice when you engage in family fights and extramarital affairs. If your teenager uses drugs, they may know before you do. If you offer them only hot dogs in a house stocked with gourmet food, they feel the slight.

Those are some of the observations made in a USC study of Los Angeles’ army of domestic workers, the women who care for the children and clean the homes of tens of thousands of Angelenos.

The study, “Domestica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadow of Affluence,” conducted by USC sociology professor Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, opens a rare window into the lives of workers who often speak little English and seldom converse with their employers about anything except housework.

The study paints a picture of a complex relationship that is strained by the lack of rules and regulations governing the sector--even at a time when the immigration and economic booms have made domestic workers increasingly common in Los Angeles homes.

Today, based on research on Latina immigrant employment, Hondagneu-Sotelo estimates that there are more than 100,000 domestic workers in Los Angeles County--adding that no one knows for sure.

“Suburban homes have replaced Ellis Island and inner-city factories as a key entry point for new immigrants,” she said.

“The work of housecleaners and nannies is a bedrock of our culture and economy,” she said. “Without them, L.A. would come to a screeching halt. Yet the work and the women who do it remain invisible and disregarded.”

The study’s conclusions were gleaned from 68 in-depth interviews with domestic workers, employers, advocacy attorneys and domestic employment agencies, as well as a broader survey of 153 domestic workers contacted at bus stops, parks and evening English classes.

One of the study’s more interesting revelations is that although many people assume that wealthy employers pay more, some live-in domestic workers in Los Angeles County’s most affluent communities--Bel-Air, Pacific Palisades and Malibu--reported earning less than their live-in counterparts in middle-class suburbs. The live-in salary range, typically $150 to $350 a week, often violates minimum wage laws, Hondagneu-Sotelo said.

Live-in jobs are considered the least desirable and are filled largely by immigrants new to America, the study found. Many live-in domestics reported dawn-to-midnight work schedules, six-day workweeks and sexual harassment.

They also described being treated as if they were invisible, or oblivious to family indiscretions--from drug use to affairs--committed around them. The workers viewed meals as an important boundary marker, and saw not being asked to sit down and eat with the family--or being served inferior food--as a symbol of their exclusion.

“These women have left families and friends, and know no one in this city,” she said. “Life can be very alienating.”

Many Americans who hire domestics are uncomfortable with the idea of servants, Hondagneu-Sotelo said.

“With no history of aristocracy, and given our history of master-servant relationships during slavery, some employers feel embarrassed, uncomfortable and even guilty,” she said.

As a result, employers are reluctant to recognize themselves as bosses or formalize the relationship with amenities such as living wages, sick days and paid vacations, she said. Hondagneu-Sotelo suggests that, ideally, even deeper reforms--such as medical and Social Security benefits, perhaps through the creation of government programs--would be implemented.

“Domestic workers deserve dignity, a living wage and respect,” she said. “The long-term interests of our society depend, in part, on the quality of cleaning and caring jobs.”

The study’s conclusions were no surprise to the immigrant nannies gathered Tuesday at a park in Santa Monica, who reported earning $250 to $400 a week to work in nearby homes with values of more than $800,000.

“Employers need to have more of a conscience, and realize that their workers are human beings, just like them,” said Jamie Genola, a Philippine immigrant happily employed as the $400-a-week nanny for the 5-year-old son of two attorneys. “Just because one doesn’t speak much English, does that give them an excuse to treat us as inferiors? No.”

Several nannies said they had endured conditions described in the study--particularly when they first came to the United States--but found better employers as they became more familiar with Los Angeles.

“People always tell me, ‘You are so lucky,’ ” said Blanca Lidia Guardado, who has cared for the two children of a doctor and his wife for seven years.

Guardado’s employers give her a month of paid vacation--which her family spends back in El Salvador--and permit her to bring her 13-year-old daughter to work with her. Her employers asked if they should provide her with medical care, but Guardado is covered by her husband.

“They’re so good to me, but we’re not all so lucky,” Guardado said. “I have friends who say their bosses yell at them.”

The study found that many workers crave more personal relationships with their bosses, often perceiving the lack of interest in them as racial prejudice.

“The women who are taking care of babies are doing very intimate work, and they expect employers who will talk to them and listen and respect them,” Hondagneu-Sotelo said. “Some women I interviewed were paid OK, but they left the jobs because of this very cold, distant treatment.”

A full 40% of the domestic workers who were mothers had left at least one of their children behind in their home country, the study found. The study formed the basis of Hondagneu-Sotelo’s book on the subject, “Domestica,” which is published by the University of California Press and will be in stores this month.

In a city in which domestic servants have become common, “parents should be careful of the message they are sending their children,” Hondagneu-Sotelo warned. “Are they telling them there is one group that gives orders and another that obeys them?

“What happens behind closed doors says a lot about who we are as a society,” she added. “We should begin to collectively imagine and design domestic jobs which, like other forms of employment, can allow domestic workers to enjoy living wages, their own family lives and opportunities for their kids.”