Domestic Economies: Women, Work, and the American Dream in Los Angeles (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780822370024)

In Domestic Economies, Susanna Rosenbaum examines how two groups of women--Mexican and Central American domestic workers and the predominantly white, middle-class women who employ them--seek to achieve the "American Dream." By juxtaposing their understandings and experiences, she illustrates how immigrant and native-born women strive to reach that ideal, how each group is indispensable to the other's quest, and what a vital role reproductive labor plays in this pursuit. Through in-depth ethnographic research with these women at work, at home, and in the urban spaces of Los Angeles, Rosenbaum positions domestic service as an intimate relationship that reveals two versions of female personhood. Throughout, Rosenbaum underscores the extent to which the ideology of the American Dream is racialized and gendered, exposing how the struggle for personal worth and social recognition is shaped at the intersection of motherhood and paid employment.

Author: Susanna Rosenbaum
ISBN-10: 0822370026
ISBN-13: 9780822370024
Publisher: Duke University Press
Language: English
Published: 12/08/2017
Pages: 248
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.83lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.60d