After Immigration Reform: The "Alien Maid" and the Crisis in Reproductive Labor, 1965-1975

Eileen Boris, University of California Santa Barbara

In the 1960s and 1970s, paid domestic service stood as a privatized solution to the crisis in reproductive labor—or the problem of who will clean and care with the end of the male breadwinner or family wage amid growing entrance of married, middle class women into employment. With African American workers increasingly rejecting live-in positions, employers looked to immigrant women. But changes in law and public policy created a barrier to the “importation” of household workers. The 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act privileged family reunification and skilled workers even for the Americas. The Department of Labor, classified household workers “sixth-preference immigrants (skilled and unskilled workers in short supply),” despite the pleas of employment agencies for a more favorable ruling. Interpretation of “short supply” meant that it was not impossible to gain entrance into the U.S. By 1968, domestic workers received thirty-seven percent of all visas, while over half of applicants from the Americas were for the service sector, with nearly 9 of 10 of these applying as domestic workers. Amended Department of Labor rules in 1969 would require “proof of experience and a promise of a job” to obtain a visa to come to the US as a domestic worker. This paper analyzes rejected visa applications for domestic workers appealed by employers or labor brokers to the Department of Labor. These apparently are the only existent applications; successful visas are not in archives or open. Though constructed to justify worker entry, they reflect the discourse around domestic work while illuminating one path by which workers migrated. It places these visas in the context of the politics of household labor as well as the politics of immigration reform. With fear of fake maids, the problem of household worker morphed into the problem of the undocumented immigrant.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 125. Immigration Policy, Household Workers, and the Politics of Reproductive Labor