Invisible Labor, Invisible Rights

Abstract

Immigrant women of color have long formed the backbone of the American domestic workforce, and in the past few decades, they have been increasingly stepping in to fill the country’s deepening childcare crisis. While scholars have examined the racialized, gendered, and classed dimensions of domestic labor and the transnational “global nanny chain,” far less attention has been paid to immigrant women of color who enter the United States through legal, temporary guest worker programs. This Note focuses on the United States’ au pair program—a J-1 Cultural Exchange initiative—to examine the intersectional vulnerabilities faced by au pairs from the Global South and other developing countries. It argues that these au pairs are uniquely exposed to exploitation not only because of the inherent precarity of live-in domestic labor but also due to their “liminal legality”: a form of legal marginalization that simultaneously grants and withholds rights, creating a precarious state of in-betweenness. Drawing on recent litigation, demographic shifts in the program, and an intersectional framework, this Note highlights how these au pairs are often excluded from effective labor protections and struggle to assert their rights within both legal and social structures. It concludes by calling for robust anti-retaliation protections and expanded access to labor organizing as essential mechanisms for empowering minority au pairs and addressing the structural harms they face.