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My Family’s Slave

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Family’s Slave

#591

Post by ralphie02 »

jordigh wrote: post #554
akalin wrote: post #547

Here is a damning Twitter thread comparing the article to Lola's published obituary: https://twitter.com/caulkthewagon/status/864656017480708102 It makes the author and his family a lot less sympathetic.

I didn't find the author very sympathetic. He obviously knew something was wrong but never did enough to fix it. I think the article was more of a confession than anything. I get the feeling that the author was wracked with guilt.

I'm sure he and his siblings were pretty sympathetic, which is why the tried to defend her from their parents and help her with her duties. This made their mother angry because they would take their Lola's side.

This is actually quite typical of kids (especially in asian cultures?). Being timid and following your parents orders wholeheartedly are so ingrained it's criminal. The children could only do so much as young teenagers; I question the eldest more because he was 20 and has noticed the slavery for a while yet didn't do much to help their Lola (or maybe he did, the author just failed to mention it).

Regardless, it seems like you're being unsympathetic to the author and his siblings. You don't know what they've been through: poverty, fear, abandonment, humiliation, anxiety, etc (speculations). It's a whole lot easier to judge someone's situation based on your current status and upbringing. Just because you think you would've been more resolute if you were in his place doesn't mean that you actually would have been. Remember, this is a family from Asia in the 60-70s.

Not an attack. Just a reminder to put things in perspective.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#592

Post by jimmywanger »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #413
throwaway66494 wrote: post #216

My family adopted my female cousin nearly 30 years ago from Guatemala. The country was in civil war at the time so bringing her to the U.S. was in her best interest. Unfortunately my mother and aunt (sisters of her birth father) kept her so locked down that she is effectively a slave. My aunt hasn't worked in decades because my little sister has always signed every paycheck over to my aunt. After working for nearly 2…

> Even though I always objected to her treatment, I feel complicit. As an adult who knows this is happening and allows it to continue, you are complicit. There's lots of good advice in this thread. Please do something.

> As an adult who knows this is happening and allows it to continue, you are complicit.

Do you use consumer electronics? Do you know the conditions at Foxconn, or any factory in China? More to the point, do you know how polluted China is right now, and how much manufacturing destroys the country?

So therefore, by your logic, you are complicit.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#593

Post by jordigh »

ralphie02 wrote: post #591
jordigh wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't find the author very sympathetic. He obviously knew something was wrong but never did enough to fix it. I think the article was more of a confession than anything. I get the feeling that the author was wracked with guilt.

I'm sure he and his siblings were pretty sympathetic, which is why the tried to defend her from their parents and help her with her duties. This made their mother angry because they would take their Lola's side. This is actually quite typical of kids (especially in asian cultures?). Being timid and following your parents orders wholeheartedly are so ingrained it's criminal. The children could only do so much as young…

I am Mexican. I had domestic servants too. While their conditions were slightly better (they could visit their families every few months, they had a pittance of a salary), they still live in almost slavery. I too feel guilty for having participated in that and not done enough to stop it. I know what it's like to be perpetuating a class system and not do anything about it.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/nov/10/mexico-city-d...

Re: My Family’s Slave

#594

Post by vvdcect »

Chris2048 wrote: post #496
vvdcect wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only can speak for malaysia and yes this issue doesn't get brought up much, it's quite sickening to be honest. What is even more interesting is that most of the housekeepers are hired by the middle class, the same middle class that is wants racial equality in malaysia..

Middle-class non-ethnic-Malays?

No middle class malaysian citizens.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#596

Post by mvindahl »

toadi wrote: post #316
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a male, I'd personally prefer to live a life filled with traditional housewife work. Kids are fun, and I'd like raising them. I like cooking. Cleaning is pretty fun. More than that, though, employment sucks. If you keep me fed, clothed, and with an internet connection, I'd be happy as a clam, even spending eight hours a day doing nothing but housework. I sometimes wonder if there are others who feel this way, espe…

Actually, my girlfriend is the same. She tried working as an employee and even self-employed. But finally, she's happy being a housewife. My mother and even friends frown upon me. Like I push her to be a housewife. Actually, I supported her working and even helped her to be self-employed. But she's most happy being a housewife. I think people just want to have a big home, 2 cars annually 2 holidays and that costs a l…

My wife works as a teacher, 30 hours a week. It's not lavishly paid, and taxes are kind of heavy here (.dk). If she were to become a housewife, we'd be able to cut down to one car and we could even pull our youngest son out of kindergarten. All in all, it would be a very modest strain upon our economy.

So why not just do it, at least for a period of time? Partly because having a job can give a sense of purpose, partly to not lose her options for later, but most importantly because staying at home all day with nothing but kids to talk to is kind of hard on your psyche. After all, almost everyone else is at work.

Contrast that with her grandmother who was a housewife in the 1950s. According to her, there was plenty of manual work involved, and it could be stressful in its own ways. On the upside, the neighborhood was full of housewives. They would drop in for coffee, they'd look after each other's toddlers when necessary, and when the older kids came home from school they would pretty much roam freely with the other neighborhood kids. For better or worse, this kind of "infrastructure" is missing today.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#597

Post by sigi45 »

throwaway66494 wrote: post #216

My family adopted my female cousin nearly 30 years ago from Guatemala. The country was in civil war at the time so bringing her to the U.S. was in her best interest. Unfortunately my mother and aunt (sisters of her birth father) kept her so locked down that she is effectively a slave. My aunt hasn't worked in decades because my little sister has always signed every paycheck over to my aunt. After working for nearly 2…

Go to the police perhaps? Enforce it? Lock through the paper yourself and try to figure out if this is okay?

Re: My Family’s Slave

#598

Post by jploh »

This is heartbreaking but it is well written. I'm born and raised in the Philippines and still here. There are still a lot of people here who hire maids or domestic helpers with very low pay and no benefits such as healthcare. My family used to have domestic helpers as well.

Slave is not the term but the employer is usually referred to as the "master" ("amo" in Filipino).

The practice is seeded deeply into the culture and society. It will probably need generations before this thinking is changed. Some see it is a way to "help" those from the countryside with little to no education to be employed.

It's easy to spot - go to an upscale mall and spot a young couple with kids. There's a good chance they will have a young nanny that's underpaid, overworked and may be badly treated.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#599

Post by fh973 »

Symbiote wrote: post #410
ksenzee wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we probably all know a Lola Not sure what your value of "we" is. I've never met anyone like Lola, and I've never heard a story like this from anyone I know. Then again, I didn't have a housekeeper or know anyone who did. People in my social class were glad to keep the electric bill paid and have a working car to drive.

A few people I socialised with at university had live-in housekeepers, and I wouldn't be surprised if one or two of them had a rough time. Most of the students from Asia or the Middle East, whose parents were paying tens of thousands of pounds for their child to attend a British university, had staff at their parents' home. One close friend was a British girl who'd grown up in Hong Kong, with a full-time au pair. She…

While in Germany the concept of a full time housekeeper is a rich people thing only, we also have this special case of au-pairs who are do not fall under the same regulations, cultural constraints and protections as normal employees. You would not treat an employed housekeeper like people use their aupairs nor would you be allowed to.

I guess this one of the privileges of a certain class that just goes unmentioned and untouched by politics.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#600

Post by dennisgorelik »

kelnos wrote: post #449
dennisgorelik wrote: post #446

Lola was a servant, but not a slave. She was much closer to being a volunteer than to a slave.

Servants get paid and have the freedom to choose their own destiny. Lola had neither of those things.

> Servants get paid

Not necessarily. They could be volunteers.

> freedom to choose their own destiny

Lola had the freedom to choose when she was deciding to move to the US. She also had freedom to choose when she was deciding whether to keep working for that family. If she wanted - she could walk out any time.

Lola also wanted to keep working even when she retired and was even discouraged from working.

Calling that relationship "slavery" is not fair to actual "slaves" who were forced to work against their will.

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