Bety

Bety has been cleaning homes since she was 11, and she also gets up early every weekday to volunteer at morning mass at her church. She does most of the domestic labor in her own home, but she’ll usually leave off working on her own tasks if someone needs something from her. “If there’s something else that needs to be done other than my thing, I’m going to do the other thing first, even though I know I need the time for myself." So, she carries a large share of mental and emotional labor, too.

She was a single mother at age 17. At 22, she had to leave her first son behind in Mexico while she came to the US to look for work. Once here, she experienced homelessness and endured mental and emotional partner abuse, which is sadly common for immigrant women and girls.

All of these factors – race, class, gender, immigration status, etc. – amplify and reinforce each other to form systems of discrimination, a concept called intersectionality. For example, Latina women’s wage gap is around 42% (earning roughly 58 cents per dollar earned by White, non-Hispanic men). ¹

Bety’s paid labor hours, spent cleaning houses, are represented by heavy, earth-colored forms cast from various types of pot scrubbers. Her unpaid work hours, many of which are spent volunteering within her church community, are represented by lighter disks with holes reminiscent of tracery. Waking hours not spent working are spaces on the chain.

¹ IWPR, It Will Take Nearly 175 Years Until Latina Women Reach Pay Equity (2023)