The concept of bringing biases over borders was a theme prominently featured in Hondagneu-Sotelo’s “Maid in LA”, and one that arises in the Grewal and Kaplan piece, “Warrior Marks.” Racialized and sexualized prejudices that exist to advantage the dominant or ruling culture or class within a nation confer obvious benefits to those within that ruling class. Beliefs that certain races are simply better suited to some jobs, and absolutely not suited to others, and cultural stereotypes that certain sexes tend to perform labor in specific ways, allow the ruling class to exploit and control with seemingly meaningful justifications. In “Maid in LA”, this is seen in the wealthier, white, America women’s conversations. They discuss “Latina women as ideally suited to caring for children, relying on images of Latinas as exceptionally warm, patient, and loving mothers,” but with no “similar racialized image of cleanliness” (Hondagneu-Sotelo 57). For these American women, their racial biases give them ample room to exploit Latina women, expecting them to be naturally good and naturally interested in their paid labor. However, these racial and sex-based prejudices continue to exist in bodies that do not, on the surface, benefit from espousing racist rhetoric or upholding gendered stereotypes. The transfer of these biases from the dominant culture to the non-dominant, oppressed classes, shows a transnationalization of prejudice.

For the housecleaners and live-in nannies in “Maid in LA”, the learned racism against minority groups within the United States seems at first unproductive and ironic. Hondagneu-Sotelo notes that almost all ire tends to fall on the mothers of problematic children, and virtually no blame is placed on the fathers, by the Latina workers. Hondagneu-Sotelo also writes, “Latina immigrants also operate under racist assumptions, many of which are learned in the United States. They quickly pick up on the country’s racial hierarchies and racist stereotypes. ‘Jews are cheap,’ ‘Mexican Americans and blacks are lazy,’ or ‘Los chinos are too bossy,’ they say” (58). The ability to participate in United States racism serves a few purposes for the Latina women working as maids. First, it brings them a step closer to the dominant white culture, being a necessary part of assimilation. Learning and upholding racism is a major part of culture for both whites and non-whites in the United States, although it only entirely benefits whites, and the Latino community’s uptaking of racism places them in a more advantageous position by moving them closer to the dominant culture, and therefore, closer to power. Mirroring racism espoused by whites, just like mirroring any other behavior typical and central to white society, allows the Latina maids to have a more cemented place in American culture. The adoption of these biases also gives the Latina women more of a sense of control over their environment. Having the ability to categorize and deny potential employers based on their race at least provides the Latina workers with some capacity to predict what their employed lives will look like. Without the financial or language-based means to get a better window into the labor market or United States culture at large, racial and gendered prejudices exist as means of interpreting and anticipating what their labor will look like. For maid jobs specifically, the lack of a centralized employment authority and the deeply privatized nature of the job in the United States means there is little opportunity for entering employees to garner information about the job, and in the face of a lack of strong Central American communities in the American West, racial and gendered prejudices are a window into a future career and a window into a future life as a member of United States society. The transnationalization of these prejudices benefits Latina workers in a few ways, generally by helping them to a closer understanding of the United States perspective on race, and the expectations that naturally follow those racist perspectives.

In “Warrior Marks,” the otherwise oppressed women who set out to make a documentary on FGM in Africa end up in a similar situation as the Latina workers from “Maid in LA,” using racial and gender stereotypes in spite of those stereotypes being hurtful to the documentary-makers themselves. Grewal and Kaplan explain that, “For in order to create a global subject - ‘woman’ - as victim of generalized patriarchal oppression, Walker and Parmar have to utilize both anti-feminist and Eurocentric discourses in the form of authoritative texts” (18). Walker and Parmar both being “women-of-color” in the United States does little to prevent them from upholding the same prejudices used against them when it becomes beneficial to them. While for the maids in LA, participating in perpetuating the biases is more subtly helpful, for Walker and Parmar, the benefits are much clearer: a way to make their documentary more financially and commercially successful by catering it to the oppressive eye. In a society where access to wealth means access to almost everything, and where women and people of color are specifically and violently kept from wealth, proximity to financial success is an obvious motivator for women of color to use their learned prejudices against those it serves to oppress. 

Speaking to a friend recently, we discussed how understanding and using the male gaze serves us despite the fact that it hurts all women in the long-run, including us. Knowing what to say about women to men that we want to impress, what to wear to make a potential male employer look upon us more favorably, how to walk down the street while drawing the least possible male attention, all come at the expense of upholding male gaze as integral to the basic function of American society. While we could actively choose to make decisions based on what men would not find desirable, would not want from us, this comes at the cost of our own personal happiness, success, and occasionally even bodily safety. The choice to not participate in racism and sexism is, ironically, not often afforded to those most negatively impacted by the same prejudices they – we –learn to enforce.