Inevitable Intersections: Care, Work, and Citizenship

Abstract

It has become a truism that US society is facing a “crisis of care.” But what constitutes that crisis, beyond the trend that Americans’ needs for elder care and support services for people with disabilities have surpassed and will continue to outpace the number of care workers available to provide this care? When we look at the landscape of care work, we see that poor immigrant women of color predominate in this labor that is typically underpaid and hazardous on many levels, with abuse of care workers common. Yet we also see the abuse of people with disabilities, as consumers of care services, as well as their exploitation as workers in sub-minimum wage industries. Thus, these groups share exploitative labor conditions and precarious life conditions potentially linking them in broader social justice struggles that they could wage together, or posing tensions that may obstruct such alliances. These links present a number of questions that I argue are at the heart of the true “crisis of care” in our society: (1) How are immigrant women of color and people with disabilities marginalized in society and exploited as workers under similar ideologies, policies, and structures? (2) How are these common vulnerabilities used to pit these groups against each other? (3) What potential alliances could immigrant women of color and people with disabilities engage to resist these divisions and organize for rights, protections, and entitlements from the state in the arenas of care, work, and citizenship?