Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy

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