Collective Creativity
Mujeres Mágicas: Domestic Workers Right to Write
Mujeres Mágicas: Domestic Workers Right to Write grew out of the depth of a two-year writing workshop at Mujeres Unidas y Activas that developed the voices of domestic workers -- nannies, housecleaners, and care workers -- as writers and protagonists in their own stories. Despite the critical labor of domestic workers, most of whom are immigrant women and women of color, the two-million-strong workforce continues to face systematically low wages, high rates of abuse, and few labor protections. This genre-breaking anthology brings visibility to domestic workers’ fight for recognition, offering an inside look at the power of organizing through art and culture.
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Reviews:
“This luminous blend of poems and essays from leaders within the domestic workers movement reveal the universal power of story and storytelling. Through childhood memories, life at the border and building political power here in the U.S., I was touched by the strength, awareness and vulnerability the writers brought to the page. An inspiring must-read.”
Ai-jen Poo, Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance
“Mujeres Mágicas is a brave, moving, and powerful collection that carries us inside the lives and truths of Latina immigrant women, narrated on their own terms. Over and over, I found myself floored and moved by the courage, pain, resilience, and insight found in these pages. This book is essential reading, beautifully woven, and an enormous gift.”
Carolina de Robertis, author of Cantoras and The Gods of Tango
“I can think of no other book cutting through the rhetoric of hate to speak truth to power in the ways that have been enacted by Mujeres Mágicas. This is literature at its most immediate, urgent, and necessary existence in our world. This is resistance. I celebrate these women, their words, and their lives. I celebrate this book as it tears through the fabric of these dark times.”
Truong Tran, visual artist and poet
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Testimonials:
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“There are things that have happened in our lives that we are learning how to tell. This project has allowed me to look inside myself to give birth to my creativity. We finished the workshop knowing that as women, immigrants, and Latinas, we can write. And instead of others writing our stories about what has happened to us, we are writing our own stories.”
Lulu Reboyoso, domestic worker, writer, and organizer with Mujeres Unidas y Activas
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“I came to the workshop feeling insecure that I wouldn’t be able to write my own story. But this space allowed my writing to come from my heart. I didn’t believe that as an immigrant woman without a formal education, I could call myself a writer or a poet. Now I can. While our stories are not easy to hear sometimes, you can learn a lot from us.”
Maria Hernández, domestic worker, writer, and organizer
Las Malcriadas Writers Collective
Who We Are:
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Since the publication of Mujeres Mágicas we have formed Las Malcriadas Writers Collective, expanding our reach to include writers – primarily immigrant women and domestic workers – at the US/Mexico border in Texas who have formed Las Malcriadas Fronterizas.
Our name, malcriada, meaning bad-mannered is a way to reclaim what has been said about us as we embrace our rebellious voice and stories and was inspired by Las Malcriadas member and writer Lulu Reboyoso:
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But the seeds of being a malcriada, a misbehaving rebellious woman, had already been planted. And in these times, I am not alone. We malcriadas are multiplying….
And multiply we did! Las Malcriadas Fronterizas has now published the book Mujeres Indomables (Lulu Press, 2023) with the support of Las Malcriadas in California.
