Tell Mama all about it

THE TIMING WAS perfect. Just as a growing number of American women were entering the labor force, a massive wave of immigration -- much of it undocumented -- was headed north from Mexico and Central America.

With so many U.S. women leaving the home in the 1970s and 1980s, the demand for paid domestic work skyrocketed, particularly in urban areas with large immigrant populations. In the past, only the wealthy few could afford in-house child care, but suddenly the combination of cheap immigrant labor and the expanding purchasing power of two-income households allowed many middle-class parents to hire domestics to clean their houses and to take care of their children while they were at work.

Over the last three decades, plenty of scholars, writers and artists have turned their attention to the phenomenon of the Latina nanny. Two years ago, Hollywood even took a crack at the theme in the movie “Spanglish,” which, of course, featured a European actress playing the role of a Mexican domestic. Yet, oddly, nobody seems to have systematically studied the cultural influence these nannies have had on a generation of upper-middle-class Anglo children, particularly in Los Angeles.

Indeed, other than acknowledging that such toddlers often utter their first words in Spanish, child-care experts have often downplayed the potential cultural influence of Latina nannies. In 1989, one professor of social welfare declared that “there is no empirical evidence anywhere in history that any kind of cultural transmission in fact takes place in these situations.”

Ten years later, The Times cited a Salvadoran preschool owner who reassured Anglo parents that as long as they spent weekends and evenings with their children, they shouldn’t be too concerned about their nannies’ influence.

But such denials may have had more to do with the touchy politics of child care than with anything else. Guilt and jealousy can sometimes enter into the relationship between parent and nanny. Concerned that their parental place could be usurped by a caretaker, mothers -- as well as those who advocate for women’s right to work outside the home -- may downplay the nanny’s role to justify their career choices.

Yet mere common sense dictates that children in their formative years will to one degree or another absorb and mimic the behaviors of the women with whom they sometimes spend long stretches of uninterrupted time.

It is no secret that nannies often develop great affection for the children they care for. In fact, such love is considered a prerequisite to good child care. Whether in the form of Spanish lullabies or Latin American foods or certain traditional values, this nurturing is not forgotten by the children as they mature. Indeed, it’s easy to find thirtysomething Anglo professionals who will tell you that their Latina nannies had a profound influence on their lives.

L.A. playwright Jennifer Berry was so moved by the recent death of the nanny who helped raise her that she wrote a screenplay about an Anglo girl and her Mexican nanny. “I think my nanny gave me my moral compass,” she said. “She taught me unconditional love and imbued in me an affinity for Mexican culture.”

Journalist Anthony York confesses that his mother sometimes still refers to him by “Tonino chiquito,” the name his Bolivian nanny, Blanca, called him. “Blanca definitely informed my worldview,” he said. “Just as I was curious about the story of my grandparents fleeing the Nazis in Europe, the stories of the refugees from Latin America fascinated me. I think that’s why I’m so interested in the politics of immigration.”

Of course, not all relationships with Latina nannies lead to greater appreciation for the people and culture of Latin America. For some, being raised in part by a Latina domestic only reinforces the notion that Latinos are their subordinates. Likewise, bad nanny experiences can leave others with bitter cultural impressions. One young actress from Beverly Hills recently told me how much she resented her nannies for favoring her brothers, a behavior she ascribed to Mexican culture. And even those who have fond memories of their childhood caretakers can lapse into a romanticization of their long-lost Latina earth mother that barely conceals their resentment of their parents’ neglect.

Still others forge lifelong relationships with the women who helped raise them. After his wife gave birth to their first child, businessman Phillip Canter invited his nanny, Aurora Dominguez, who lives in Los Angeles, to visit him for a month in San Antonio. “This is the person who was there when I went to school and was there when I got back,” he said. “I always had this other parent, and we’re still family.”

Of course, people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds have been raising the children of the majority elite for centuries, and there is little evidence that it has shifted racial attitudes. The cultural influence of black nannies in South Africa and in the American South did not subvert legal apartheid in either place. But though we still don’t know the ultimate result of having a generation of Anglo elites brought up by Latina nannies, it is clearly ridiculous to suggest that there is no effect at all.

As Canter put it: “My nanny and her husband took me to a rodeo when I was 4, and now I live in Texas and am married to a Hispanic woman from Brownsville. I can’t prove anything, but you can put two and two together. Everything affects everything.”

GREGORY RODRIGUEZ is an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation.