Taking care of children for a shot at the American dream

Karen Aguilar (not her real name) was 25 years old and living in Medellín. She was doing well, but not exactly flourishing. One day, she lost her job and decided to respond to her friend’s persistent suggestions: “Come to the United States.” She arrived in New Jersey in June 2018 as an au pair, and she hasn’t left yet. The au pair program is one of 14 temporary migration programs administered by the U.S. Department of State under the J-1 Exchange Visitor Visa. It is designed to provide a cultural and educational exchange between a foreign person (aged between 18 and 26) and a host family. The individual is in charge of caring for the host family’s children in exchange for accommodation, food, $500 for education and “the right to wages that meet federal standards,” according to a report by the International Labor Recruitment Working Group. Despite this, sponsoring agencies limit wages to $4.35 per hour.

Those interested in the program must contact a specialized and accredited agency to handle the process. In 2018, more than 20,000 au pairs arrived in the United States. During the period from 2016 to 2018, the top five countries of origin were Germany, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and South Africa. In that period, Colombia sent a total of 6,876 au pairs.

Karen is clear: “I think it was the worst year of my life, they treated me like a slave. I had to clean, wash and work until 9:30 p.m. When you live with them, they simply don’t respect schedules. They come to you and say ‘oh, Karen, this happened’, and if you are in your room, how do you say no?” According to regulations, an au pair must not work more than 10 hours a day or more than 45 hours a week.

According to Maribel López, the lead paralegal of the Center for Migrant Rights (CDM), “the agencies sell the idea that this is a cultural exchange program strictly for educational or learning purposes, but the reality, as with other temporary visa programs, is that the labor component is very strong, and it is very easy for labor rights to be violated.”

The process to become an au pair is very simple. And that may be one of the reasons why many people choose this program. Eliana Martínez (not her real name) thought it was the best option to learn English. “They interview you in English with very basic questions, which I would think anyone could pass. You have to be under 26, you can’t have children and that’s it, technically that’s it,” she explains. Dayana Fernández had just finished university and was at a party when a friend told her she was going to be an au pair. Dayana didn’t know what it was, but the explanation of the program was enough to interest her: “I was motivated by the fact that it was with agency. It wasn’t about going to another country to find your own way, but was rather a guided process.”

Eliana says that you can never know what to expect, “but successful cases do happen.” It’s a coin toss as to whether the au pair’s rights are respected. Carolina Torres, who returned to Colombia after finishing the program, says that “many agencies do not sufficiently study the families where they stay. And when the girls have problems, they end up returning them to their country.”

Entering U.S. society and economy involves a series of emotional and physical costs. Karen, in addition to that first bad year, went through all this extra toil: “I do not come from a family with money, I don’t have a family that helps me, in the end I help my family and I have always asked myself: where do I serve my parents the most? My answer will always be here.” Six years after entering the program, she is still in the U.S. She went through the months of the pandemic working in construction, picking up garbage, cleaning offices. Now she is a nanny, earning more than $700 a week and working part-time. She is grateful that she was not able to leave during the Covid-19 pandemic because if she had, she might not be here today: in her apartment in Midtown Manhattan and with her husband, a Wall Street stockbroker.

A year ago, the State Department began a process to change the rules regarding wages, hours, duties, and overtime for au pairs. “While we applaud the changes, we submitted comments to further improve protections. For example, one of the things is to limit the fees and deductions that agencies and families charge au pairs.” Contracts must establish that labor rights are enforceable, so oversight mechanisms outside of agencies must be created. “We believe that the program should be under the monitoring of the Department of Labor,” says Lopez.

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