Domestica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence is a powerful book by Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, that exposes the everyday realities of undocumented female workers in Los Angeles, California. The purpose of this book is to challenge the reader to shape domestic policies that will bring basic principles of human rights and social justice into this invisible realm of domestic labor. Although domestic labor is clearly visible, this type of employment is treated as invisible because the employers refuse to view themselves as people that are hiring individuals to clean their homes. In addition, the employees being hired refuse to acknowledge domestic labor as a job because through patriarchal ideology house cleaning is attached to women, thus they view it as a type of hobby. By challenging the state of thought that patriarchy has produced, women will view domestic labor as what it truly is. A job, and thereby demand the recognition, respect and benefits which are owed to them. With patriarchal ideology in play, in the Hispanic/Latina/o/Mexicano culture house chores are considered a dominant idea traditionally attached to women, a mentality which does not change when coming to the U.S. and trying to make ends meet. Thousands of undocumented women, when first arriving in the U.S. are met with a house …show more content…
Due to this type of employment being viewed as a women 's job, the assumptions that domestic labor is a part of women 's nature leads to the belief that they should be paid low wages due to the job not being demanding. As a direct result this type of employment encourages oppression and transforms domestic labor into “servitude.” Therefore, women are constantly bombarded with extra duties that they are obligated to put up