De Leon 1

Alejandra De Leon
Professor Zelaya
Central American Studies 114B
6 March 2014

Undocumented Nannies
Hiring an undocumented nanny has its benefits and disadvantages. The family that hires
the undocumented person has benefits because they save money and their children learn to speak
a different language. When it comes down to the nanny, there are disadvantages. The main
disadvantage for the undocumented nanny is not getting paid as much. Although hiring a nanny
is risky, the only reason why American families hire an undocumented nanny is because they
want to save money while the undocumented nannies do not have many benefits by not getting
paid much.
The process of hiring and helping an undocumented worker is simply easy. As David
Crary stated, in an article about immigrants, typically women who are not documented tend to
get a job that is underground. When the undocumented nanny gets paid, she cannot get paid by
a check because she does not have the proper documentation. Without having such documents,
you cannot have a bank account. Therefore, they get paid by cash and this helps the nanny not be
identified. This is important because if she does get identified, the family still gets to keep her
around.
Americans prefer to help a nanny that is undocumented because she does not ask for
much pay, but when an undocumented nanny does not get the real help from a family that hired
her, she could report it to Jimenez Headquarters, the Central American Resource center. This


De Leon 2
resource center helps immigrant caretakers by offering positive stories about them to people who
are looking to hire a nanny. This helps win over the employers (Crary 1). The resource center
helps the nannies because most do not know where to start. They come to the United States not
knowing whether they have rights or not. Most cases, immigrant nannies do not have rights, but
they still stay in this country to help their families by at least earning American money.
Although the family that hired an undocumented nanny has a risk of going to jail, they do
have their benefits. For instance, a family who has three children that only knows English and
can barley take care of themselves, hired an undocumented nanny named Marta Castillo from
Nicaragua. The relationship between the nanny and her bosses was well, that she stayed within
the family for two decades. The children learned how to speak Spanish because Castillo would
speak to them in that language (Crary 1). The family benefitted from the undocumented nanny
because now their children are bilingual, but they also saved money on not paying her so much
money.
There is an article called Undocumented Latinas: The New Employable Mother where
it explains the real reason to why Americans hire immigrants. There was a survey in the New
York area from the nanny agencies, and undocumented nannies would earn only about $175 a
week. Now, if the nannies have documents and are US citizens, they would earn $600 a week
(Mothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency 259). Being a US citizen makes an impact on
how much they earn because if you are legitimate, then you have right to speak up and let your
voice be heard. Mothers who need nannies go for undocumented workers because they do not
demand a high price. In other words, the undocumented workers know that they do not have a
say on how much they earn because they are afraid that the employer is going to call deportation.
For example, a woman named Amalia Hernandez migrated from El Salvador to the United


De Leon 3
States. She came with four of her cousins and they all came to the US to look for a job. Amalia
found a job, but they were not paying her enough. She complained and she unfortunately lost her
job. Things went to court and Amalia could have been deported from her former boss since her
former boss one the case (Mothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency 261). This just shows,
that nannies that are undocumented get taken advantage of. They cannot even speak up about it
because they get threatened about loosing their jobs. Without having a job, they cannot support
their family that they left behind, or even support themselves.
Hiring nannies benefits the employers by saving money, but the nannies do not benefit
much for it. Thankfully an act called The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986: A
compromise passed. This act provided laws to undocumented people. If immigrants have been
working and living in the United States, they will finally have rights and the chance to become a
documented citizen (Mothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency 262). Undocumented nannies
now have the chance to become a citizen who has papers. Their income needs to go up for the
fact how they do have rights now. This will help nannies send more money to the family that
they have back in their hometown, or it will help the nanny have a better life in the lands of the
United States. The IRCA was a hard act to compromise to, but it will help decrease the chaos
that comes with undocumented nannies. But before the act or if the act does not help
undocumented nannies, there are risks behind it.
As I claimed before, Americans hire undocumented nannies into their families to help
themselves, but risks are involved. First of all, when hiring an undocumented person, you are
dealing with breaking the law. If the IRS catches someone that hired an undocumented nanny, a
ticket is involved, that person would also have to pay tickets that go up to hundreds of dollars.
That is not the only risk that comes with hiring a nanny who does not have papers. Another risk


De Leon 4
is that the nanny herself could get deported (Risks to Hiring an Undocumented Nanny 1). For
example, if there is a fire in a house of the employee, the nanny is going to be in need for calling
9-1-1. When the firefighters and the police arrive, they are going to need some sort of
identification. If they see that she does not have a State idea, or a paper if residency, she will get
deported back to Central America if that was where she was from. Just because the employers
pay nannies by cash if they are undocumented, it does not mean that the undocumented nanny
cannot get caught. The children that the nanny takes care of are in risk too because they made
bond with the nanny. The children are going to have to go through the process of warming up to
a new nanny.
Hiring an undocumented nanny has its benefits and disadvantages. Undocumented
nannies think that once they step into the land of freedom, it will be easy to get a job in order
to support their families. Fortunately, there are Americans that prefer to help and hire immigrants
as nannies because they do not have to pay as much money as they would to a woman who is a
citizen from the United States. But there are risks. The American families that hired an
undocumented nanny have a great chance in getting caught by the IRS. This leads to getting a
ticket that is worth hundreds of dollars. Another risk is that the nanny herself gets deported when
she gets caught. On a closing note, undocumented nannies do eventually have the right to better
their lives.








De Leon 5
Annotated Bibliography
Bray, Ilona. "Risks to Hiring an Undocumented Nanny." Nolo.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb.
2014
Bray has given us the source on the reasons why it is risky in hiring a nanny. When a family
hires an undocumented nanny, they are breaking the law. If the family ever gets caught, the
family gets a ticket that goes up to hundreds of dollars. Another risk is that the nanny can get
deported if she were to ever get caught. This leads to the nanny loosing her job and not being
able to send money to her family. But the worst risk of all is that, if the family gets caught paying
the nanny by under the tables, then the family can get into trouble with the IRS.
This source was helpful because it gave me examples on how hiring a nanny is risky. It was short
and it went straight to the point, so it was easy for me to locate what the main point of the article
it was. This resource benefitted my essay because I mentioned that it is risky to hire an
undocumented nanny. The article helped shaped my argument by supporting my examples and it
also mentioned a few things that I had in my essay.







De Leon 6

Glenn, Evelyn Nakano., Grace Chang, and Linda Rennie. Forcey. Mothering: Ideology,
Experience, and Agency. New York: Routledge, 1994. Print
The authors of this book provided well examples about undocumented women. However, I only
read chapter twelve. The chapter is called Undocumented Latians and it claims on the reason
why American families hire undocumented women as families. The reason is because they want
to save their money. The nannies that do not have papers earn up to $175 a week, while nannies
that have papers earn $600 a week. The chapter also mentioned about an act that helps
undocumented people have a chance on getting papers only if they have proof that they have
been living and working in the USA.
This chapter of the book benefited my essay because the information that was in the chapter
supported my thesis in my essay. My thesis was that Americans hire undocumented women as
nannies because they want to save money. The main goal of this resource was to provided
information on how much an undocumented nanny earns. This resource shaped my argument by
focusing on my main point.






De Leon 7

"More Illegal Immigrants Hired as Housekeepers and Nannies." More Illegal Immigrants Hired
as Housekeepers, Nannies - USATODAY.com. David Crary., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.
Crary asserted in this resource that if a woman who is undocumented and is in need for a job, she
would be vulnerable for any paying job. When an undocumented nanny gets paid, she cannot get
paid by a check because she does not have the proper documentation. She cannot have a bank
account because the IRS would find out and the undocumented nanny would be deported. Crary
also provided information about a place called Jimenez' headquarters: The Central American
Resource Center. This resource center helps immigrant caretakers by offering positive stories
about them to people who are looking to hire a nanny.
This resource was different comparing to the other two because it had some examples that I
wanted to mention in my essay. There were also some examples that kind of contradicted each
other, so I consider this resource biased, so I would not recommend this resource. However, as I
mentioned, I used this resource because it provided information that I did not find anywhere else
and that was The Central American Resource Center. It did support my thesis in some ways, but
I would not use it again.