The Film | Domestic Workers’ Resources | Immigration Issues | Books | Sources

The Film

Filmmakers’ Web Site: Impacto Films
The official Web site for MAID IN AMERICA includes a film trailer, “On Location in Guatamala,” photos and information on scheduling community and classroom screenings.

Domestic Workers’ Resources

Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA)
Created in 1986 to advance the rights of immigrants and refugees in Los Angeles, CHIRLA is a multiethnic coalition of community organizations and individuals who advocate for positive change.

United Domestic Workers of America (UDWA)
Inspired by the work of labor organizer Cesar Chavez and his group, United Farm Workers, UDWA was formed in California in 1979 to represent domestic workers, homecare attendants and in-home care workers.

Domestic Workers United (DWU)
Founded in New York in 2000, DWU is led by a multi-racial steering committee of domestic workers seeking workplace rights that include paid vacations, medical insurance, sick time and protection from discrimination.

CAAV: Standard Working Contract for Domestic Workers
This sample contract was created by Domestic Workers United (DWU) and is available in both Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat (PDF) formats as a resource for both domestic workers and their employers.

National Day Laborer Organizing Network
A nationwide umbrella organization for many member organizations focused on immigration rights (not exclusively limited to day laborers). This comprehensive site features links to information on civil and labor rights, breaking news and an e-newsletter of interest to domestic workers.

Immigration Issues

National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights
This coalition’s stated goal is to “work to promote a just immigration and refugee policy in the United States and to defend and expand the rights of all immigrants and refugees, regardless of immigration status.” The site includes an online archive, the organization's quarterly newsletter, publications, curriculum and reports.

The Immigration Portal
This vast site created for immigrants, employers and lawyers, includes forms, interactive forums, breaking immigration news information and a weekly e-newsletter.

Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)
Formed in 1968, MALDEF is a nonprofit Latino litigation, advocacy and educational outreach institution. Its Web site has information about education, immigration issues, public resource equity issues and media outreach on Mexican-American concerns.

Central American Resource Center (CARECEN)
Located in Los Angeles’ Pico-Union district, CARECEN provides free representation and consultation for immigration court proceedings and procedures, as well as free seminars on legal issues, civil rights and immigration law.

U.S. Dept. of Immigration & Customs Enforcement: Office of Detention & Removal
Currently active in Southern California, this division of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement takes illegal immigrants into custody and oversees their deportation.

Americans for Legal Immigration
Another active organization seeking to eliminate illegal immigration, this citizen group’s four-point platform seeks to secure U.S. borders; crack down on employers that knowingly hire illegal immigrants; remove all taxpayer-provided benefits to illegal immigrants; and enforce existing anti-immigration laws.

The Minutemen Project: California Immigration Bills and Analysis
This compilation page from the Minutemen Project, a citizen group that patrols the U.S./Mexican border and has been accused of vigilantism, links to California bills relating to immigration issues, and updates their history and status regularly.

PBS: The City / La Ciudad
This bilingual site provides information on immigration issues and includes a U.S. immigration timeline, facts, myths and realities, a quiz, a glossary and a section on women and immigration. Also available are lesson plans (grades 6-12) and a discussion guide.

PBS: The New Americans: Immigration Myths and Realities Quiz
How much do you really know about immigrants—where they come from, who they are, and what impact they have on America? Take this interactive quiz and see how you score.

PBS: American Family: Las Nannies
Watch a five-minute video clip about Latina nannies in the Los Angeles area, produced by KCET as a short documentary supplement to the American Family drama series on PBS. View additional streaming video clips about Latino life and culture in East L.A.

Books

Maid in the U.S.A.
By Mary Romero
(Routledge, 10th anniversary edition, 2002)
The book that inspired the film, Maid in the U.S.A. is considered a landmark study of the struggle and exploitation of women and immigrant domestic service workers in the United States. Romero, a professor of Justice Studies at Arizona State University, presents an overview that combines race, class, and gender analysis.

Immigration in a Changing Economy: California’s Experience
By Kevin F. McCarthy and Georges Vernez
(Rand, 1997)
An analysis of the immigrant labor force in California, with demographic studies, economic statistics, projected effects on the public sector and a discussion of policy implications for the state.

Mexifornia: A State of Becoming
By Victor Davis Hanson
(Encounter Books, 2003)
Hanson—a classics professor at Cal State Fresno, a fruit farmer in California’s Central Valley and a fifth-generation Californian of Mexican heritage—writes about his ambivalence as California transforms into “Mexifornia,” in a combination political analysis and memoir.

Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence
By Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo
(University of California Press, 2001)
This in-depth look at the lives of domésticas and their employers, written by a sociology professor at the University of Southern California who is also a second-generation Latina-American and longtime advocate of CHIRLA.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Making It in America
By Barbara Ehrenreich
(Henry Holt, 2001)
A New York Times bestseller, Nickel and Dimed details the author’s attempt to survive on a series of minimum-wage jobs, one of which is working as a maid.

The Working Poor: Invisible in America
By David K. Shipler
(Vintage Books 2004)
Shipler, a former New York Times reporter, examines the lives of Americans who are working but unable to afford the necessities in the modern economy, and how immigrants fit into the system.

Minding the Children
By Geraldine Youcha
(Scribner, 1995)
An historical look at the various forms childcare has taken, from the founding of America to the present day.

Sources
The following served as information sources for several pages on this site: