Professor comments on 'The Help' and domestic workers

Professor Mary Romero commented in an August 7 Detroit Free Press story about the new film “The Help,” offering expertise on the state of U.S. domestic workers today. The movie, based on a novel set in 1960s Mississippi, explores the lives of black maids working for white employers.

The majority of women doing domestic work these days are Latina, Romero said, but numbers are hard to come by given that much of the work remains part of the underground economy.

"…A lot of employers don't think of themselves as employers, so they don't offer any kind of benefits. If (the workers) get Social Security taken out, that's a luxury. There's no sick leave, so if they're ill or someone in their family is ill for a long time, they risk being fired,” she said.

“Many women have turned the cleaning field into lucrative professional businesses,” the story reported, “These women get bonded, start companies and own their own equipment, but what you find is that many of those actually doing the work are Latinos,” Romero said

Romero is faculty head of Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She is the author of "Maid in the U.S.A.," and "The Maid's Daughter: Living Inside and Outside the American Dream" (NYU Press), which will be released next month.

Romero’s most recent book is based on more than 20 years of research on a woman who grew up in the maid’s quarters of an Anglo home in a posh Los Angeles gated community. A complex story of identity, belonging, and resistance, it examines the hidden costs of paid domestic labor that are transferred to the families of private household workers and nannies. 

The Detroit Free Press story was picked up by Bangor Daily News, The Republic (Columbus, Ind.), and Centre Daily Times (State College, Pa.).