Disposable Domestics

Table of Contents

Foreword by Mimi Ambramovitz
Introduction
1 Breeding Ignorance, Breeding Hatred
2 Undocumented Latinas: The New Employable Mother
3 The Nanny Visa: The Bracero Program Revisited
4 Global Exchange: The World Bank, "Welfare Reform," and the Trade in Migrant Women
5 Immigrants and Workfare Workers: Employable but "Not Employed"
6 Gatekeeping and Housekeeping

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Excerpt

Chapter 1: Breeding Ignorance, Breeding Hatred

In 1994, during one of the worst, but certainly not unprecedented, systematic attacks on immigrants to the United States, immigrants and their allies began sporting T-shirts bearing the face of an indigenous man and the slogan, "Who are you calling illegal, Pilgrim?" reflecting indignation at the ignorant and malicious anti-immigrant sentiments of the day. Specifically, this was in direct response to a campaign that had been brewing for years in policy circles and "citizen" groups, culminating in California state's Proposition 187. The initiative proposed to bar undocumented children from public schools and turn away undocumented students from state colleges and universities. It also proposed to deny the undocumented an array of public benefits and social services, including prenatal and preventive care such as immunizations.

While the overt purpose of this voter initiative was to curtail immigration, ostensibly by restricting the use of public benefits and social services by undocumented immigrants, the real agenda behind it was to criminalize immigrants for presumably entering the country "illegally" and stealing resources from "true" United States citizens. More to the point, Proposition 187 came out of and was aimed at perpetuating the myth that all immigrants are "illegal" at worst and, at best, the ca...

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Praise

“What makes Chang's analysis so forceful isn't just the collusion she demonstrates between immigration, welfare, and international policies.… It's also the powerful and incontrovertible connection she draws between policies and people.… These appear, to great effect, on almost every page of Disposable Domestics.”
—Women's Review of Books

“Chang argues persuasively that poor immigrant women—largely Third Worlders—have become a central focus of ‘public scrutiny and media distortion, and the main targets of immigration regulation and labor control’ in the United States.… [A]n invaluable contribution, showing how the regulation of immigration and labor is inextricably tied to matters of gender, as well as to those of class, race and nationality.
—The Nation

“Grace Chang makes an enormous contribution by showing how immigrant women workers facilitate the operation of the global economy. These are histories at risk of invisibility.”
—Saskia Sassen, author of Guests and Aliens

“What a book for both scholars and activists! It offers a much needed understanding of the multi-faceted linkage between global and local issues in today’s world. Grace Chang shows us how that linkage affects women with both clarity and passion.”
—Elizabeth Martínez, author of De Colores Means All of Us

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