Cleaning, waiting, Juanita

Juanita came from Jalisco, Mexico and has been waiting for her papers to be approved for 12 years. Her employers try to help her through their connections. She is 33 and holds a university degree. "Here I study English. I'm trying to get my education recognized from Mexico. I got a degree in Graphic design, and I finished, but I can't do anything here. I need to start all over again--They told me I need to finish my GED. I started working, got married, had a baby, I quit. For now, it's hard."

With all her advantages, she faced the same obstacles as less educated immigrants. "I didn't have work, I didn't have papers, couldn't find anything, and I couldn't speak English. I started caring for kids in my house."

Juanita babysits two small children three days a week for $12/hr. "If it's for children only it should be $12 an hour. For cleaning also, it should be more. I clean the house, Monday, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, almost every day I clean the house."

What she likes least about this job is the cleaning. Says Juanita, "I can't take care of the kids and clean. I try to clean when the child is with me. I can't! Sometimes they [employers] don't appreciate what we do. They just say, 'I'm paying her, she can do whatever I want.' They don't see that it's too hard for me. I was working when I got pregnant. And I was cleaning too. I stopped working two weeks before I gave birth. So it's hard work. There are a lot of people like me. They work when they're pregnant and they just keep going..."

Juanita is another who quietly endures the indignity of no food provided. "Sometimes in the house there are not good foods for us to eat and it's not fair. We are with the kids and [employer] hasn't bought anything for us to eat. We don't eat the same foods as kids." This seems like a blindspot for employer mothers. Nannies have dietary needs more like their own and less like the high-fat high-cholesterol mac and cheese preferred by children.