Reinventing Dirty Work

Abstract

This chapter examines how immigrant women accommodate themselves to the various demands of low-wage, low-status service jobs by engaging in “boundary making,” processes that circumscribe and redefine the performance of “dirty work.” Boundary making refers to material and symbolic processes in which providers of low-wage work impose limitations on its performance while redefining the work as skillful and important. Dirty work is defined as physical labor that involves cleaning and caring for the human body, its products, and its environs. The chapter first provides an overview of certified nursing assistants (CNAs) who provide elder care in the United States before exploring how immigrants working as CNAs make meaning of work that is often construed as dirty work. Using data from fieldwork in three California nursing homes, the chapter shows how CNAs try to bring some measure of dignity to a low-wage, low-status job, and shape their identity formation as workers and immigrants within constraining institutional contexts.