The Maid's Daughter

Mary Romero's book The Maid's Daughter is a rich and detailed sociological account of the lives of a live-in maid and her daughter. ~Jessica M. Vasquez, National Catholic Reporter

While there are numerous books examining the lives of domestic workers, in The Maid's Daughter has delved into less-studied questions...while it is often argued...that microsociological research can yield results with macrosociological implications, Romero shows this more convincingly than many. ~Elizabeth J. Clifford, Ethnic and Racial Studies

A compelling story of how a maid's daughter moves from a girlhood of rage and resentment to a level of empowerment, as a grown woman, that will make readers want to stand up and cheer. Blending life history and cultural analysis, Mary Romero shows that it is possible to do creative ethnographic work that is of service to both the academy and society. Although the identity of Romero's protagonist must remain anonymous, her struggle will live on in this memorable book. ~Ruth Behar,author of Translated Woman

A page-turner. The book's remarkable protagonist tells a compelling story...with each episode, the reader cannot wait for the next. How will she negotiate high school, dating, college campus politics? Mary Romero's more than two decades of research have produced a book worth waiting for. ~Renato Rosaldo,co-editor of The Anthropology of Globalization: Cultural Anthropology Enters the 21st Century

The circumstances of & Olivias true storygrowing up in the servants quarters of a gated luxury suburbmay evoke Upstairs, Downstairs meets Beverly Hills 90210, but the narrative is infinitely more profound and subversive. A unique, autobiographical collaboration between two brilliant women, The Maids Daughter relentlessly interrogates every facet of privilege and subalternity to achieve a psychological complexity and irony worthy of a great novel. ~Mike Davis,author of Planet of Slums

[Romero] transforms twenty years of recorded interviews with a woman referred to as 'Olivia Sanchez' into a highly readable book which juxtaposes Olivias story, as told to Romero, with sociological commentary, research and selected interviews with other children of domestic workers. This thought provoking study raises many questions to wrestle with on both individual and societal levels Open-minded readers may find their views transformed after reading this engaging narrative. ~Englewood Review of Books

Why read it: This isn't The Help. Romero's nonfiction book relies on 20 years of research and is an anthropological study into identity politics and the myth of meritocracy. ~Diverse Magazine

A valuable case study and a dramatic life story, this oral history explores identity and illuminates race, class, and gender in America at a peculiarly intimate intersection between upper-middle-class white families and the women of color who provide domestic labor for them ~Library Journal

While The Maid's Daughter: Living Inside and Outside the American Dream is an emotionally draining book at times - the reader is witness to the abusive treatment of others - it is well worth the depth of experience and knowledge one gains by reading it...Author Romero has successfully encapsulated the plight and struggles of domestic workers and given the reader a great deal to contemplate. ~New York Journal of Books

For this sequel to her groundbreaking study on the social inequity of domestic work, Maid in the U.S.A., Romero spent two decades following Olivia, who was raised in between two worlds, living in an upscale Los Angeles house where her mother worked as a maid. ~Ms. Magazine

Twodecades of research culminate in the real-life story of a Mexican-American girl navigating issues of class, race, and identity in contemporary Los Angeles. ~Los Angeles Magazine

This detailed, intimate investigation of domestic work from the perspective of a domestic worker's child is a significant achievement that reads like a more academic Random Family. ~Publishers Weekly

A moving work that deconstructs the American Dream at the fraught intersection of race, class and gender. ~Kirkus

In her new book, The Maids Daughter, Romero is again the perfect scholar respectful, curious, honest about her own orientation. Shes a listener, allowing the women she talks with to guide the way in which their stories are revealed... Its very moving work; thoughtful, sensitive, the best possible use of scholarship to open our eyes. ~Los Angeles Review of Books

There are no inherently good and evil characters in this story--just people trying to deal with the problems that come with having too much money, or not enough. ~Los Angeles Times

Readers who found the popular novel The Help annoyingly glib and superficial may find The Maids Daughter, an oral history and sociological study, astonishingly complex and often raw with emotion. ~Washington Independent