Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the discomforts of domestic service, asking how employers make sense of the occupation. Bringing the public into the private, domestic service forces employers to see how broader social inequalities are produced in the home, through everyday ‘intimate’ interactions and spaces.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the discomforts and disturbances of domestic service. In particular, it focuses on employers—native-born, middle-class women in Los Angeles—and the ways they understand and seek to understand this occupation. Breaching the public/private divide, domestic service disrupts the perceived intimacy of the household and forces attention to seemingly seamless processes of social reproduction. If interactions within the household serve to reproduce broader social norms and practices, a relationship to the home is also crucial to attaining and maintaining middle-class status. A reflection of its owners, the home stands for the possibility as well was achievement of the American Dream; this dream posits a classless middle-class society and promises success for anyone willing to work hard. The physical presence, and labor of, immigrant women inside private homes confounds these expectations, bringing social and economic disparities into sharp relief. Moreover, placing the public in the private, domestic service dispels the belief that personal accomplishment and family relationships are separate and separable from broader processes of inequality. Domestic service thus transforms the middle-class home from symbol of inclusion to a space of exclusion. Indeed, many middle-class Angelenos only see their privilege when they hire someone to clean their homes or care for their children. Attempting to reconcile these contradictions, employers must (re)consider who they are and want to be, as well as, who they want their children to become. In so doing, they rethink notions of family, success, and 'Americanness' and rearticulate the boundaries of national belonging.