3 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS: IMMIGRANT WOMEN WORKERS IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Abstract

GraceChang’s DisposableDomestics isaboutmorethandomestics,definedbroadlybythe author to include domestic servants; home care workers (including nurses); personnel innursing homes; and even street sweepers, janitors, and more. It is about how new immigra -tion and welfare reform laws create pools of low-paid, superexploited, and disposablewomen workers. Chang’s focus is primarily on women of color: she describes throughouthow race, class, and gender are imbricated in the subordination of portions of the laborforce, especially the U.S. labor force.Chang discusses the implications of California’s Proposition 187 and its federal ver -sion, the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act (IIRIRA),coupled with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act(PRWORA), all of which denied certain typesof aid and servicesto undocumented immi-grants. Chang also criticizes cost-benefit analyses of undocumented immigration, compar -ing argumentsthat undocumented immigrant women are “welfare queens” and undocumentedimmigrantsin general utilize welfare servicesto a greater extent than they contribute to so-ciety to the argumentsthat immigrantspay in taxesmore than they benefit from servicesand perform necessary labor functions. She takes issue even with the latter position, how-ever, arguing that being pro-immigration isnot the same asbeing pro-immigrant; manypro-immigration argumentstreat immigrantsascommoditiesinstead of aspeople. Thiscommodity view obscuresthe fact that immigrantsare membersof families, sometimeswith minor or elderly dependents, some of whom may be legally resident or even U.S. citi-zens, some of whom remained in the country of origin.Chang points out that the lifestyle of the middle-class, dual-earner, dual-career house-hold is predicated on the labor of undocumented domestic servants, mostly Latina andAsian. It isan exploitation of one classby another. But Chang rejectsthe creation of a“nanny visa” that would enable employersto bring in immigrant workerson contract asdo-mestic servants or home-care workers for the elderly or disabled. She compares such a tem -porary labor contract to those existing under the Bracero Program of 1942 to 1964 and later“guestworker programs,” such as the H-2a agricultural workers’ contract program. Em -ployersfound it more convenient at timesto bypassthese programsand employ undocu-mented workers. Those who came on contract became illegal if they changed employersdue to maltreatment; changing employers would also be forbidden in the case of a “nannyvisa.” Under previoussystemsof contract labor, the point hasbeen, and continuesto be, tosupply employers with cheap laborers with few rights.In a chapter on “Global Exchange,” Chang shows how structural adjustment policiesbothinthethirdworldandthefirstworldhaveledtoatradeinmigrantwomen.Cutsinfoodandhealthcaresubsidiesinthethirdworldforce(or“push”)womenintothemigrantstreamwhere their low wagesare used to care for eldersand children left at home. Cutsin servicesandlackofadequatechildcarefacilitiesinthefirstworldcreateademand(or“pull”)forthelabor on low-waged immigrant workers, available at lower rates if undocumented. Changfocuses on the case of the Philippines, where remittances from migrants constitute “thecountry’s largest source of foreign exchange” (130). The majority of the women are domes -tic servants scattered throughout “Europe, Japan, the Middle East, the United Kingdom and