A historical and cultural exploration of the devastating consequences of undervaluing those who conduct the “women’s work” of childcare and housekeepingMothercoin tells stories of immigrant nannies, mainly from Mexico and Central America, living and working in private homes in the US, while also telling a larger story about global immigration, working motherhood, and the private experience of the public world we have created. In taking up the mothercoin – the work of mothering, divorced from family and exchanged in a global market – immigrant nannies embody a grave contradiction: While “women’s work” of childcare and housekeeping is relegated to the private sphere and remains largely invisible to the public world, the love and labor required to mother are fundamental to the functioning of that world. Listening to the stories of these workers reveals the devastating consequences of undervaluing this work. As cleaners and caregivers are exported from poorer regions into richer ones, they
