Until the last decade or so, African-American and working-class white women cleaned the houses of the well-off in the American South. There has been a striking changeover in recent years. The Maid Project, funded by Humanities Writ Large, focuses on the experience of Durham’s Latina housecleaners. The project brings together faculty, students, and the women themselves to explore the politics of immigration, gender, and labor. It will generate a traveling exhibit featuring the housecleaners’ stories. There is an activist dimension, as well, in the form of panels, op-eds and other outreach aimed at calling attention to the challenges housecleaners face: language barriers, poor wages and lack of benefits, and isolating work conditions, among others.
For more information on this project, visit: http://humanitieswritlarge.duke.edu/emerging-humanities-networks/the-ma…
Department of Romance Studies