Living the American Dream?

Well, I pretty much wrote my personal story with caretakers in Monica's blog but I'll post it here:

My caretaker was present in my life from maybe 2 years to pre-K. I don't remember her all too well but she took me to all my activities and watched over me when my mom had work. One thing that hasn't been too significant until this topic this week was the fact that I used to call her "Mama". I mean, how crushing is it for my mother to hear that your daughter is calling another woman your "Mama". 
I still consider my mom to be my true mom today. To be honest, I kind of forgot about "Mama" until this week. Which I mean goes to show that Latina workers go invisible within the American household.

I've really had a strong feeling of passion with this topic this week. Growing up in a very affluent suburb of LA, Latina domestic workers have been pretty significant in my life. A majority my friends have had Latina workers helping their households. If not, their mothers were typically stay at home moms.

In my life, I've had Mama in the beginning of my life and I've had Carmen, from Kindergarten to present day. In a nutshell, Carmen has always come once a week and pretty much just straightens out my house because both my parents work (making it a little hard for my parents to maintain the house on their own).

While reading the articles, I have felt somewhat guilty. Thinking back, I believe I haven't treated Carmen all that well. Since we have had a language barrier, I've always been courteous to her but we have never been close. We make small talk with the little Spanish I know and I have become familiar of her previous life in Guatemala but that's pretty much it. With that said, I could completely see how the Latina ladies were describing their seemingly luxurious life of being live-ins to be a horror story rather than the American dream. I recognized one part of the article I see Carmen doing every week: their only connection to their home country is listening to a Spanish radio station. Everything else is Americanized.

Also, I had the great opportunity to go on an Alternative Break trip to Guatemala this spring break. Having read the articles of this week, I could vividly imagine why women would want to come to America. Conditions in Guatemala are not prime, whatsoever. Many of the children I spoke to at the school we volunteered with mentioned, if anything, one of their parents were in America sending money for them to hopefully come join them in the States. This case luckily happened to Carmen and her daughter, Tamara. But many of the kids talked to me with sad eyes, as if they knew the reality that they would never have the chance to live the life I luckily get to live.

Anyways, this is a HUGE post. But I just wanted to share what I've been thinking :)