No+longer+hidden+in+the+home+-+Immigrant+domestic+workers+building+a+movement+in+metro+Chicago

**No longer hidden in the home: Immigrant domestic** **workers** **building a movement in metro Chicago** Mechthild Hart, Professor, DePaul University [mhart@depaul.edu]



**Keywords:** Migrant domestic workers, engaged scholarship, coalition-building

**Track**: Community outcomes and impact

**Format:** Poster presentation


 * Date & time: ** Friday 3:20 - 4:30
 * Location: ** Salon 4/ Salon 9

**Summary:** As an ally of a Latina workers’ collective, the National Domestic Workers Alliance NDWA), and the Latino Union of Chicago I have been participating in organizing efforts of household workers for the past six years, both locally as well as nationwide. Gaining public respect for domestic work and claiming the protection of labor and immigrant rights requires a large-scale, concerted effort. Organizing is inseparable from building deep coalitions with groups and individual representatives of different social categories and realities. This study documents how forming a strong base of Latina, white(native and immigrant), African American, African, and Asian household workers and their allies makes everyone involved travel across a multitude of racial-ethnic, cultural, and class divisions.

Moreover, any efforts of building alliances with domestic workers are always confronted with the patriarchal construction of “women’s work.” It is work that is done in the privacy of the household and that reminds us that we have live, changing bodies that need multiple kinds of attention and care. How the workers themselves develop pride in their work, how they obtain public voice and space, and how their allies deal with their own dismissal or silencing of “domestic” work, these are all questions guiding this study.

By documenting the process of movement building and forming coalitions across different organizations and institutions, this study not only documents the historic moment of an emerging organization of household workers but also contributes to a discussion of “engaged scholarship." It demonstrates that the engaged scholar needs to confront her position of institutional power, and radically re-configure such “power” by transforming it into an account of diverse resources that can differently serve as a basis for building effective and lasting coalitions.

**References:** DAMAYAN Migrant Workers Association. (2010). //Doing the work that makes all work possible: Research narratives of Filipino domestic workers in the tri-sate area//. New York: DAMAYAN Migrant Workers Association.

Domestic Workers United & Data Center. (July 2006). Home is where the work is: Inside New York's domestic work industry. Retrieved from [|http://www.domesticworkersunited.org]

Hart, M. (2010a). Latinas and domestic caring work. In M. Alicea (Ed.), //Latina portraits//. Chicago, IL: Mujeres Latinas en Acción.

Hart, M. (2010b). Radically democratic learning in the grounded in-between. In D. Ramdeholl et al. (Eds.), //The struggle for democracy in adult education. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education//, //128//, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Hart, M. (2005). Women, migration, and the body-less spirit of patriarchal capitalism. //Journal of International Women's Studies, 7//(2). []

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Keating. C. (2005). Building coalitional consciousness. //National Women’s Studies Association Journal, 17//(2), 86-103.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Metha, C., Theodore, N., Mora, I., & Wade, J. (2002). //Chicago's undocumented immigrants: An analysis of wages, working conditions, and economic contributions.// Chicago, IL: Center for Urban Economic Development.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Mujeres Unidas y Activas. (2007). //Working conditions of California household workers//. San Francisco, CA: Mujeres Unidas y Activas.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Rowe, A. C. (2008). //Power// //lines: On the subject of feminist alliances//. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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