She’s not my maid, I’m hers
Mara Floyd
Fort Myers, FL
Doris* and my mother have been best friends for over 40 years. Both teachers with their masters’ degrees, the two women from neighboring cities met at an educational conference. They were as different as could be. One was married, one was divorced. One owned a house, the other lived in an apartment. One had a large, loving, supportive family,; the other had few support systems. One was black and one was white. But they were best friends for years and years. And when they grew too old to live independently, they moved away from each other to live near their daughters.
Doris raised 5 children, all of whom went to college, some becoming physicians. She travelled every time there was a family member’s birthday, graduation or wedding anniversary. She loved to make jewelry out of macrame and shells. And she loved educating children.
Mom had 4 children, 3 of them lived with her ex-husband. Two went to college, two worked in factories.
She travelled to Florida one week a year, or drove 5 hours to visit her mother a few times a year. She loved to collect seashells, to read, and she loved to educate children.
One summer, Doris and my mother vacationed together to Sanibel Island, FL, a place with pristine beaches, quaint shops and restaurants. (It is a marvelous place, and both still talk about meeting there again even now) As the story goes, they were together one morning, sunning and walking the beach collecting seashells. Someone came up to my mother and asked her “Is Doris your maid?” My mother, furious with the presumption, and with a serious, deadpan face did not respond in anger, but merely said, “Oh no, She’s not my maid, I’m her maid!”
Doris and my mother are now both in their 90’s. They both retired from teaching years ago. Both have suffered great losses. Both are very frail and require the help of their families to meet their needs. But they remain true friends. Friends that always acknowledged their differences, but saw past them, and enjoyed the bonds that matter: Shared Values, Mutual Respect, 401Love.
My mother boiled the girl’s utensils.
Michael Vines,
New York, NY.
Just want to make sure that you understand “the girl” was how many people in the 50-60’s referred to their maid.
You are smart to be Mexican
Teresa Gonzalez,
Weslaco, TX.
Many people say expressions like this one without taking into consideration its being offensive. They don’t think or recall that being smart or dedicated to your job, school etc has nothing to intervene with your knowledge or nationality. Not because your Mexican they will treat you how they want. This is an example of many “maids or housekeeping” have to go through, because the people think that if they are doing those kind of jobs it’s because they don’t know anything, and just ” because they are Mexican. From my point of view they will be the ones being ignorant people who don’t even know what they are expressing.
Generations: slaves, maids, marching, why?, what?
Louise S. Malone,
Albuquerque, NM.
My family were originally slave owners in South Carolina. I watch the point of view change with each generation.
I have pride in my black!
Candayshia Loyd,
Flint, MI.
Growing up I was taught to be a quiet and polite black woman. I had to take persecution from men and I had to do what they said. I’m not someones servant, im not a maid. I’m going to be your Black Women President one day.
“White” papers over background identity.
Catherine Kehl,
Cleveland Heights. OH.
When we divide ourselves into “us” and “other” we don’t only lose the other, we lose ourselves. I was twenty-seven before I realized that my mother sometimes spoke to me in Spanish not because she’d picked some up in college before travelling in South America in her twenties, but because her side of the family, some of whose forebears had been (wealthy) Spanish speaking settlers of California had maintained the language so as to be able to speak to their Mexican maids. I suppose that touches on some of the Cal-Mex cooking, anyway.
But does my late discovered hispanic background, such as it is, have more to do with who I am than having grown up close to my Japanese aunt, or having been a second language speaker of Chinese, and enmeshed in parts of the Chinese community for the last twenty-some years? I am an oversized white girl daughter of the Pacific Rim, I suppose, a fact that became more clear when I moved to Cleveland and couldn’t easily find half my kitchen staples in the supermarkets there.
Brown woman private school not: maid
Isabel Cristina Dominguez
Dobbs Ferry, NY
I love this project! It is so insightful- there are so many things to say about one’s self… I am going with the one that faces me everyday in my work place… but I could write so many others!
I ate lunch with the maid.
Sandra Morris
Armuchee, GA
I grew up in Vidalia, Ga. in the 60’s. I was babysat by women of color who also cleaned house for my mother. I couldn’t understand why they ate lunch after we did. My parents let me eat lunch with the maid after they had their lunch. When I got my driver’s license I refused to let the maid sit in the back seat. She always sat up front with me. As our last maid grew older I would stop at her house on the way to visit my parents and see her first. I loved her very much. She was always happy to see me and my children.I had many arguments with my father about why he wouldn’t pay for improvements to her house. I don’t know why I never felt prejudiced. When our school was integrated, through basketball I made friends with the black boys and would let them touch my very long hair on the way to out of town games. There was a cheerleader with long blonde hair who refused them. I never understood what the big deal was. I have to hand it to my parents. They tolerated my opinions. In college when a group of girls came to spend the night at my house, they never gave any sign that the black girl was the first to eat with them and spend the night at our house.
Lena was our maid, MISS her!
Lisa Freund Taylor
Laclede, MO
In reality, she was our caregiver. Raising a white womans children in southeast Texas in the 60’s. Divorce broke up our family and she just disappeared.
Wow!!! They really let them teach
Deborah Council
Wilmington, DE
In 1970, I was doing my practice teaching in Barrington, NJ and took on of my student’s to an outing. When I returned her to her home, her mother informed me that the neighbor approached her and told her how lucky she was to have had two (2) maids in a day. She told the neighbor, I wasn’t a maid but her child’s teacher and she responded with the six words stated above
We had a maid I loved.
Christina Koomen
Roanoke, VA
This was the first sentence that came into my mind as far as saying something about race in my own life. There is nothing new about this “story” — a white family of comparative privilege employs a black woman in the household, and the kids in that household comes to regard her as a loved one. Her name was Ruth Canon. As a shy only child, I was almost happier to hang out with Ruth in the kitchen than seek the company of other children. There were times when I needed a babysitter after hours and would be dropped off at Ruth’s house, instead of her coming to us, and the difference in our living situations was stark. Only as an adult have I come to understand the complexities of this relationship and the socioeconomic drivers behind it. And yet, on some level, I can’t help but believe that two people caring about one another, for whatever reason, is all that will ever truly transcend issues of race.
I want to be like you
Michael Manning
Somerville, MA
I was bused in 1969 to a school in Roxbury, Mass., and was myself discriminated against because of the color of my skin. I was white and most of the students were black. I couldn’t understand their anger with me, I didn’t know that I had done anything. All I knew was that I wanted to be just like them. Eventually I had friends in school who were black, the few that would dare to have a white friend. I can still hear them saying, ‘Mike’s okay’ as kids would try to fight with me. As if I, of all whites, was alright. I had to confront an anger, a discrimination, that I didn’t even understand, that I was not responsible for, that I couldn’t possibly overcome. It was an intensely formative experience. No matter how I was picked on I never stooped to using any of the language that was in the air in those years. What they didn’t know was that I wanted to be them for so many reasons, their smiles, the way they played and ran, the smell of their skin and hair, even their anger, which was so present.
White people can choose blissful ignorance.
Zoe Miller
Somerville, MA
