Modern Servitude

As I read last class an excerpt written by Frederick Douglass, a prominent runaway slave from the Civil War era that advocated for emancipation, the topic of whether maids in societies like Colombia are modern slaves. It came up in the perfect timing, as the last chapters I've read in My Colombian War have discussed household service in the late twentieth century in Barranquilla. Although maids are technically not slaves, it is evident that in many households they are treated as if they were and follow the same slave-master relationship.
Silvana Paternostro talks about Remberto, a boy who worked at her house, the numerous maids, and Imelda, her friend by her family's orders. Paternostro shows everyone that worked for her family as maids without freedom. Imelda talks about having a salary that barely supports the basic necessities of life. As if she was a slave, Imelda was sent by her family to be Paternostro's hired-friend. Her job was to entertain her. Remberto was also living in her house as a servant, also instructed to follow the little girls' orders. The rest of the service came back and forth from her finca and were handled as human capital, moved around as it seemed convenient. There's two sides when observing household service nowadays in Colombia, both equally important. In one side, it is necessary for rich people to hire as much maids and drivers as they can--it is a way for money to filter down through society, giving jobs for the least educated of all. It can be seen as selfish not to hire maids if you can afford it, as someone could really benefit from that. It's probably not the most common cases, but a small city salary can feed many families from a maid's hometown. On the other side, the low salaries and bad benefits (like healthcare) many maids get are very unfair, an authoritarian act from Colombia's upper class. It does help that they pay something, but sometimes the salary is just symbolic and the maids become dependent to following orders if they want anything to eat. It's difficult to judge this situation, whether having maids helps society or it doesn't, but I am certain that if managed correctly it is very good for everyone.

The abuses Paternostro's feudal family made were too much, but there are a lot of families, especially in the present, that do help the maids' lives. A minimum salary is not hardly enough for living, but if a family pays two minimum salaries or above, with the healthcare the law demands, it does help a lot poor people. Americans are shocked when they here two minimum salaries, about $400 or $500, but the cost of living in Colombia is much cheaper and the economy is simply poorer. A maid additionally gets housing, which is mostly not luxury living, but it does include good meals, all basic necessities and surely an improved way of living. If a maid lives where she works, she only has to spend money for the weekends, including the clothes. It is very mean for people to take advantage of poor people and make them become dependent to the job, but I rather look at it in an optimistic way, seeing that as time goes by, Colombia becomes less feudal and people like maids improve their quality of life.
My grandmother has often mentioned her childhood maid or nanny. Her job was to take care of my grandmother and another brother, and she did so with a lot of dedication. She was completely dependent of my great grandfather and she had to spend over a decade raising kids that weren't hers, but after they grew up, my great grandfather bought her a house, not a mansion but good enough, where she later was able to start a family of her own. She was able to sustain her family with her salary as a maid, and as my great grandfather helped her organize her savings, she was able to educate her kids and eventually, probably with financial aid, send them to college. I don't think her descendants are millionaires, but they do have a very good way of living that they would have never accomplished if her mother hadn't worked as a maid. Of course there are a lot of families who just keep their maids dependent and as slaves, but if they find a right employer, maids' lives can change completely. My mom right now is sponsoring my maid's daughter in the Hogar Nueva Granada. It is not the same as Colegio Nueva Granada, but that contribution will definitely transform the family of an almost illiterate mother. Hopefully, as Colombia develops, the role of maids will shift for their jobs to be as formal as any other and a possibility for them to improve.