Chela/Lupita/Blanca: Audiencing Performances of Doméstica

• In Event: Recasting the Latina Body: Text, Performance, and Audience

Abstract

This work provides an audience perspective of how the role of the Domésticas, Latina immigrant women charged with the care of American homes and children, is performed both on television and in life outside the screen. This essay will focus on Lupita (Renee Victor) and Blanca (Soledad St. Hillaire) on the television show, Weeds, and my mother, Rosa Isela Valles-Morales, a Doméstica working in the United States for the past 32 years.

Author

• Jesus Ivan Valles, University of Texas, El Paso