Domestic Economies

<div>In <i>Domestic Economies</i> Susanna Rosenbaum examines how two groups of women-Mexican and Central American domestic workers and the predominantly white middle-class women who employ them-seek to achieve the American Dream. By juxtaposing their understandings and experiences she illustrates how immigrant and native-born women strive to reach that ideal how each group is indispensable to the other's quest and what a vital role reproductive labor plays in this pursuit. Through in-depth ethnographic research with these women at work at home and in the urban spaces of Los Angeles Rosenbaum positions domestic service as an intimate relationship that reveals two versions of female personhood. Throughout Rosenbaum underscores the extent to which the ideology of the American Dream is racialized and gendered exposing how the struggle for personal worth and social recognition is shaped at the intersection of motherhood and paid employment.</div>