The only difference between the Bel Air of the '90s and the Bel Air of my childhood is that now the nannies are Latina instead of British, and the cars European instead of American.
I don't have an entourage. In fact, I have no live-in help.
… immigration reduces the wages of domestic workers who compete with immigrants. That’s just supply and demand: we’re talking about large increases in the number of low-skill workers relative to other inputs into production, so it’s inevitable that this means a fall in wages.
In Hollywood through the 50s, there were black, English, and Middle European housekeepers and maids.
Domestic workers allow many people with disabilities to maintain independent, productive lives and live in their own homes - not in institutions.
I come from a family of domestics. I think most African-Americans of my age do. They were trusted by their bosses. I have met so many white people that spent more time with their nannies than they have with their own parents.
We don't have butlers. Obviously we have people who look after the houses, but I try not to run things formally.
I'm proud to represent those hands that labor in this country. I've given every maid I've ever portrayed soul and heart.
I'm with an old family" was the euphemism used to dignify the professions of white folks' cooks and maids who talked so affectedly among their own kind in Roxbury [Massachusetts] that you couldn't even understand them.
Our nannas are losers.
Even Hollywood millionaires are now clamoring for legal protections for their illegal-alien nannies and gardeners, though such elites would hardly countenance a similar legal laxity that would allow foreign film technicians, screenwriters, and actors to flood southern California to work in their industry for a fourth of their own pay.
You know what Arnold Schwarzenegger and Meg Whitman have in common? They both got in trouble for stiffing the maid.
Aren't maids the ultimate art critics?
It is also very important to observe, that menial servants are absolutely necessary to make the resources of the higher and middle classes of society efficient in the demand for material products.
When you live closely with people, you don't see who they really are. In particular, with nannies, they only exist in your home, and when they leave, they don't really exist anymore for you.
Having a separate bathroom for the black domestic was just the way things were done. It had faded out in new homes by the time the '70s and '80s rolled up.
