This chapter explores how Domésticas Unidas (DU) creates alternative support networks, what I call “patchworks of care” comprised primarily of immigrant women working from the margins to fill resource gaps in state systems not designed to protect them. Their care network supports domestic workers and home care workers who have been historically excluded from labor protections and access to adequate health care resources. Employing feminist methodologies, participant observation, historical analysis, and oral histories, I trace DU’s evolution from conversations among domésticas on bus route 97 into a powerful labor organization with over 200 members. I examine DU’s political activism, education/training opportunities, and cultural healing practices, “la cultura cura” that support members in the absence of adequate labor protections. I argue that DU creates a patchwork of care through political activism, education/training, and cultural conviction to support its members in the absence of state protections for immigrant domestic workers, professional caregivers, and home care workers. As the women share testimonios of exploitation and resistance, they engage in a process I refer to as narrative healing that aids in transforming individual trauma into collective action through horizontal networks and multilayered structures of political resistance. By positioning domestic workers’ experiences as authoritative knowledge bases, DU enables members to navigate institutional invisibility while simultaneously challenging their historical exclusions. This research contributes to understanding how marginalized care workers create multilayered approaches to meet immediate needs while addressing long-term transformation of care labor systems.

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Healing Patchworks of Care: Domestic Worker and Home Care Labor Organizing in San Antonio, TX

  • Amanda Gray Rendón

摘要

This chapter explores how Domésticas Unidas (DU) creates alternative support networks, what I call “patchworks of care” comprised primarily of immigrant women working from the margins to fill resource gaps in state systems not designed to protect them. Their care network supports domestic workers and home care workers who have been historically excluded from labor protections and access to adequate health care resources. Employing feminist methodologies, participant observation, historical analysis, and oral histories, I trace DU’s evolution from conversations among domésticas on bus route 97 into a powerful labor organization with over 200 members. I examine DU’s political activism, education/training opportunities, and cultural healing practices, “la cultura cura” that support members in the absence of adequate labor protections. I argue that DU creates a patchwork of care through political activism, education/training, and cultural conviction to support its members in the absence of state protections for immigrant domestic workers, professional caregivers, and home care workers. As the women share testimonios of exploitation and resistance, they engage in a process I refer to as narrative healing that aids in transforming individual trauma into collective action through horizontal networks and multilayered structures of political resistance. By positioning domestic workers’ experiences as authoritative knowledge bases, DU enables members to navigate institutional invisibility while simultaneously challenging their historical exclusions. This research contributes to understanding how marginalized care workers create multilayered approaches to meet immediate needs while addressing long-term transformation of care labor systems.