Domestic Work, 1937
Natasha Trethewey
All week she's cleaned
someone else's house,
stared down her own face
in the shine of copper-
bottomed pots, polished
wood, toilets she'd pull
the lid to--that look saying
Let's make a change, girl.
But Sunday mornings are
hers--
church clothes starched
and hanging, a record spinning
on the console, the whole house
dancing. She raises the shades,
washes the rooms in light,
buckets of water, Octagon soap.
Cleanliness is next to
godliness ...
Windows and doors flung
wide,
curtains two-stepping
forward and back, neck bones
bumping in the pot, a choir
of clothes clapping on the line.
She beats time on the rugs,
blows dust from the broom
like dandelion spores, each one
a wish for something better.
from Domestic
Work, 1999
Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minn.
1) What
is the issue or challenge you are addressing? Explain.The
challenges we are addressing are Domestic Worker. Domestic Worker is the worker
that works in the employer household. Unfortunately, some of them got abuse and
they don’t have a very fair wages. And even sadder, some of them couldn’t even
contact with their family back home or died in an accident during the training
period.
2) Why
is this important to you and your community and who does it impact? Explain.It is important to my community to work with together with me
and help the Domestic Worker because every year, an estimate of 300,000
domestic worker in Malaysia and mostly got abuse and even got killed. But we
can make a different by do something to make the world know that Domestic
Worker are not slave for us to abuse them and we should not rely on them every
time.
3) What
kinds of surprises have you encountered in your research?Before
I studied this unit, I didn’t know that most of the domestic workers got abuse
even though some of my mom side’s aunts/uncles are a domestic worker. But after
learning and discussing about these issues, I was kind of shock and thinking
that the news that I found was unreliable, because since my country is a
resourceful place to get domestic workers, we could meet many of them in the
airport when they return home at the end of the year. But they had never spoken
about “abuse” or anything that would harm them only that the life condition was
not as good as they expect plus that usually when people think about Malaysia,
they would think about the nice side of it not the bad side.
4) How
does learning about this issue make you feel and why?From learning about this issue, it make me feel sad and feeling quite
ashamed of how people like me or anyone could have stand up and speak for
Domestic worker rather than being a bystander, because as I said up there,
every day about 300,000 domestic worker got abuse and the number might get rise
if we don’t stop the issue. By that as the Human Rights declare “all human are
set to be free” therefore domestic worker should have more freedom simply
because they are human like us and they are worthy to have a life like all
human do.
