Introduction

IN JUNE OF 1995, Judge Samuel Kiser decided in favor of a father’s “right” to prohibit the mother of his daughter from speaking Spanish to the child. The judge claimed that teaching the child to speak Spanish would condemn her to a future of servitude as a maid: “What are you trying to do? Make her a maid for the rest of her life?” Although the judge received considerable criticism from the Mexican American community, his statement exposed a number of important taken-for-granted beliefs about race, ethnicity, social class, and gender. In the first place, while seldom stated overtly, many Americans believe that patriarchal authority should be supported by the state. In the second place, the claim that Mexican women in Texas are hired as private household workers because they speak Spanish, implies that culture constrains the individual’s opportunities in the labor market. Claims of cultural determinism are consistent with the corollary view that assimilation is the path to upward social mobility. However, these commonly held beliefs do not explain two facts: bilingual and monolingual English-speaking Chicanas and Mexicanas dominate the occupation in Denver, Albuquerque, and other cities in the Southwest; English-speaking Latina immigrants in Los Angeles are able to negotiate higher wages than monolingual Spanish speakers, but are unable to find higher paying jobs outside of domestic service. The judge’s ruling demonstrates, but does not explain, why domestic service is perceived as “Mexican women’s work” in Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona or “Latina’s work” in California. Cultural determinism does not explain the relegation of Latinas to domestic service any more than it does the fact that the occupation has traditionally been treated as Black women’s work in the South.