"They have more money but I speak better english!" Transnational encounters between filipina domestics and Taiwanese employers
Journal
Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power
Journal Volume
10
Journal Issue
2
Pages
133-161
Date Issued
2003
Date
2003
Author(s)
Abstract
This article explores how Taiwanese employers and Filipina migrant domestic workers negotiate their class locations and identities, with an emphasis on the symbolic struggles surrounding linguistic exchanges in transnational contexts. Taiwanese newly rich employers validate their middle-classhood with the consumption of migrant labor service and the investment of English tutoring for their children. Filipinas flee underpaid middle-class occupations in their stagnant national economy to work as foreign maids; they maneuver their linguistic capital, inherited from the American colonizer, to enhance their status vis- -vis Taiwanese employers. This South-to-South employment relationship illustrates the ambiguous micropolitics of producing class boundaries. The English language serves as a means of symbolic domination and resistance in their daily communication and job negotiation.
SDGs
Type
journal article
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