Racism against immigrants devalues domestic labor, which hurts all of us
Why everyone (including men) should care about what Trump is saying about Springfield, Ohio.
I imagine you’re already horrified by Donald Trump’s racist (and bogus) claims of Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio. You might even be laughing at the absurdity.
But there’s a deeper reason we all should be loudly rejecting Trump’s (and JD Vance’s) latest flavor of racism.
Racist scapegoating of immigrants not only puts all people of color in immediate physical danger. The far-right Proud Boys marched in Springfield over the weekend. People made bomb threats to public schools last week, causing them to close. But it also further devalues the sort of work that many of those immigrants are forced to do once they get to the U.S.: domestic labor.
Haitian immigrants are among the most exploited workers. They are more likely than all other immigrants or people born in the U.S. to work in low-wage service occupations, including cleaning houses and caring for children, the elderly, and sick people.
“Domestic labor,” “housework,” “care work,” “adulting,” whatever we want to call it—it’s necessary for life and a healthy society.
Someone has to raise the kids and care for the old folks and cook the food and clean the house and schedule the doctor’s appointments and haggle with the insurance company and maintain the connections with family and friends.
But in our capitalist society, this essential work is unappreciated and undervalued.
It’s often not even considered work at all. As Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser write in Feminism for the 99%, domestic labor is “taken for granted, treated as [a] free and infinitely available ‘gift’ that require[s] no attention or replenishment.”
A lot of domestic labor is literally treated as free. Those of us who have to work at a “real” job for a living have to work a “second shift” at home. This falls disproportionately on women. But men in the U.S. have been doing more of it over time.
When this work is paid—say, for a nanny or housecleaner—the pay is often very low. Over half of domestic workers in the U.S. earn less than $15 per hour, far below a living wage. For Latina domestic workers in particular, many are struggling to find work and provide for their families.
The National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) writes:
“Latina domestic workers are not only excluded from basic workplace protections, but they’re also more vulnerable to exploitation due to their immigration status. This double burden is forcing far too many Latina women to live in the shadows, working grueling hours for meager pay, all while facing discrimination and abuse.”
So, why should men care? Why should anyone who isn’t an immigrant or domestic worker care?
We should care because what Trump and Vance are saying is racist and disgraceful. And it’s probably going to get people hurt. But we should also care because we’re all in this together. We, as in those of us who work for a living—unlike billionaires like Trump and Elon Musk (who helped spread the Haitian immigrant story).
When a rich and powerful person points the finger at immigrants, it furthers their exploitation and cheapens the work they do. This also cheapens the value of the work all of us do. And all of us (especially women) are doing way too much work right now for way too little pay.
Adjusted for inflation, average hourly wages in the U.S. have fallen since the early 1970s, while average hours worked have steadily climbed. Corporate profits have soared. Budgets for public services have been cut to lower taxes on the rich. More and more women have entered the workforce (which is a good thing!).
All of this is straining many families to a breaking point. Women are bearing the brunt of working the “second shift.” As sociologist Jessica Calarco says, “Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women.”
Families who are lucky enough to have enough money to hire help can take the edge off. But they are forced to exploit the cheap labor of immigrant women.
In the words of feminist political philosopher Nancy Fraser, this:
“simply displaces [domestic labor] onto less privileged women further down the chain. It’s like musical chairs—when the music stops, someone must be left without a seat. In effect, the liberation of privileged metropolitan women is built on extraction from the [Global South.]”
Rates of stress and burnout across demographics are soaring. Most of the men who come to me for therapy are struggling to keep all the balls in the air, between work and family. While the divorce has been dropping for decades, more and more women are initiating divorces.
What we need is a society and economy that values all the work we do outside of work.
It’s real work. It’s hard work. It’s essential work. We all should be working less hours at our “real” jobs, for the same (or more!) pay. We all deserve more time for family life, rest, political participation, and simply hanging out.
Racism against immigrants is wrong and should be called out as such. And it also makes the society and economy we want even harder to imagine, let alone achieve.
Now, a question for the comments below (or email me at jeremy@jeremymohler.blog): How do you feel about the election?
(P.S. If you become a paid subscriber for $5/month, you’ll get my weekly Friday Q&A posts with tips for a healthier, more fulfilling relationship, plus the warm feeling of supporting my writing!)
Thank you for writing this.
Something that I think Naomi Klein’s Dopplegangers articulated well is how corrosive hyper-individualism can be, and is. I saw someone comment on one of your notes lamenting that childcare is seen as work, since having a child is a two-way relationship that is “mutual” and provides tremendous joy. And while I agree that reducing a relationship with a child down to the work involved doesn’t quite get at the truth of it, this article of yours articulates well how much time spent on care detracts from our ability to particulate in an economy—which is the only way we can create supports for ourselves. And those supports are quite precarious ones, at that. And the people who can often provide supplemental social support to those who can afford it—read: immigrant and low-income workers—also serve a vital function for the society in the only way our society allows anyone to: through work.
Work/money is our keystone touch point into society in the framework of hyper individualism, and it’s also quite a convenient set up when people go looking for someone to blame. Because if the individual is at the center, then the individual must be at fault for their situations.
People in minimum wage jobs cannot afford to pay minimum wage to domestic care workers - so either we need all “job” jobs to be more than minimum wage, or accept that domestic care will receive less than minimum wage (so essentially most industrialized countries require such workers, and making them illegal allows for more exploitation)
And that’s even assuming minimum wage is sufficient to live with dignity - it isn’t.