Roma, Latin America and the Domestic Worker

There are different names for them throughout the region, though they all refer to the same type of work. In Peru, they are often called a muchacha or empleada. In Colombia, it’s sometimes guisa or manteca. In Mexico, one derogatory term is gata, used at various points throughout Roma, the film by Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón which is expected to have a successful night at the Oscars ceremony on Sunday evening, where it has been nominated for the Best Picture. The film, based on Cuarón’s childhood in Roma, a middle-class district of Mexico City in the 1970s, has shed some light on a world of work that remains a dark secret in Latin America; that of the domestic worker.

The story centres on Cleo, a young domestic worker who lives with her affluent employers and reveals the complex relationship between domestic workers and their masters. We see all the different aspects of Cleo’s job. She mops and tries (unsuccessfully) to clean the dog dirt that covers the floor. She washes the dishes and she irons all the clothes. She acts as a nanny, turning out the lights and reading bedtime stories to the children before they go to sleep. She is at the same time a maid and a nanny, loved but taken for granted in equal measure.

Cleo, played by the excellent Yalitza Aparicio 

Cuarón’s masterpiece has led to some awkward discussions in Mexico and other Latin American countries with a similar culture of servitude. Though 50 years have passed since the events of Cuarón’s childhood took place, the film remains relevant as the role of the domestic worker is still very present in many Latin American countries. In Peru there were officially 400,000 domestic workers in 2017 (though most analysts argue the real number is well over a million), the vast majority migrant women with a basic level of education. Like Cleo, who comes from Oaxaca but moves to Mexico City to find work, 75% of Peru’s domestic workers hail from the provinces and have migrated to Lima. Of these 400,000, 45% are living-in (cama adentro), meaning that they have a room and sleep in the house where they work. Though some might have a bed, they won’t have a formal contract, health insurance or a pension plan. 78% of Peruvian empleadas are paid under the minimum wage, 54% claiming to be victims of psychological abuse.

The relationship between the domestic worker and the members of the family in whose house they work is often a real clash of the social classes. The parents open up their family to an outsider, in many cases leaving what is most precious to them – their children – in the hands of the young girls for whole parts of the day. An incredible amount of intimacy can be developed, and sometimes deep affection is enjoyed between the domestic worker and the family who employ them. The work also allows domestic workers to taste some of the luxuries that would never be accessible to anyone from their social class not working in a similar role. Some have described it as the total normalisation of inequality.

Yet though there may be genuine affection, a power imbalance exists. You think that they are part of the family, but they aren’t. In Roma there is a scene when Cleo and her cousin, who also works in the house, are watching the television with the family. For one moment it is like this is a happy family watching the television together. Suddenly, though, the mother requests that Cleo brings the father a cup of tea. Cleo does as she is told and gets the drink. She knows her place. She is a servant after all.

Sadly, this is still all too common in Latin America, where there are millions of young girls just like Cleo. Cuarón dedicates the film to Libo, the girl who helped to bring him up and who Cleo is based on. As film critic Monica Castillo has suggested, the film is “almost as if Cuarón were revisiting these memories [of his childhood] and realising how [Libo] must have felt to be treated that way by his mother”. Judging by articles I have read in Peru; the film has made many here come to a similar realisation. Did we treat that girl who lived in our house well? 

Lima, February 2018