Image of a thin yellow line illustration on a dark blue background. The illustration shows an outlined apartment building and an outline two story house next to each other. 3 of the windows are highlighted yellow showing the silhouette of one person cleaning a fabric with a red spray bottle, the silhouette of one person lifting a baby in the air, and the silhouette of one person cleaning the window.

The Invisible World of Domestic Work

University of Washington

Year
Jan.—March 2018

Deliverables
Microsite
Infographics
Copywriting

Featured as a resource on the City of Seattle’s website.

Investigating immigration through the lens of household labor in the United States.

To begin unpacking the expansive political arena of immigration, this information design project focused on telling the story of people who come to the U.S. to work as domestic workers. While common in other countries and cultures, in the U.S. these workers are often hidden in private homes and thus unrecognized socially and politically.

Image of a screenshot of a webpage on a yellow background. The top of the webpage is a section with a header that reads "The Workers" with text and a bar graph, and a section with a header that reads 'The Employers"

Image of two webpages side by side on a dark blue background. The left page has a heading that reads "Immigration is a means of economic survival", and the right page has a heading that reads "In their own words: abuse, exploitation, and finding freedom".

Image of a screenshot of a webpage on an orange background. The top section contains a quote that reads "Nanny care is often represented as a rich mother's indulgence, but, in a country that provides few options for affordable child care, the practice just as often represents a negotiation between two working mothers, dividing their labor between work and parenting." The section below shows a graph of the distribution of work visa types by country in 2016, with the headline "Work visas offer no labor protections."

Image of two webpages on a gray background. The left page shows a headline that reads "When work is home, there are no rules" and a section below that shows stories from domestic workers. The right page shows a map of the US with state victories of passing a domestic workers bill of rights.

Project Challenges

Research
Finding accurate data for domestic workers, who are often survivors of human trafficking, was difficult. There are no hard numbers about how many are employed annually, where each of them come from, and how long they stay. To balance this, I complemented the minimal data about workers’ conditions with visa information that is easily available from the U.S. Department of State.

Copywriting
I wanted this infographic to have a narrative tone that would not trivialize this subject, and would humanize these workers in a way that is respectful, optimistic, and just. As a result, I opted for concise language paired with quotes from interviews and research papers.

Organization
Combining statistics in a persuasive way was a new task for me, so I aimed to get a lot of feedback and critique from my peers about what seemed out of place or needed a better transition. Similar to writing an essay, much of the development at the end of the project involved moving pieces around or rewording key takeaways.

Special thanks to Sidney Chun, the campaign manager for the Seattle Domestic Workers Alliance, for offering insight and an expert opinion for this project.