De Nosotros, Con Amor

City home almost four years ago, this
scene evokes nostalgia in me with the
memory of the sound of the broom’s
strokes against my patio floor. Once
the setting is as close to fully nostalgic
and accurate as possible, Cleo and the
family she works for enter the picture.
After another two minutes of looking at
what is now a puddle of water and soap
all while listening to the broom’s strokes
against the tile floor, the camera moves
up to discover Cleo. She is going about
her day, cleaning the house, and doing
so entirely tranquil and content. She
then picks the kids up from school and
makes lunch for the family. At night, the
children’s father comes home and takes a
painfully long time to park his car in their
minuscule driveway, similar to one I know
too well. While the family watches TV on
the couch, Cleo sits on the floor and one
of the children puts his arm around her,
only to have her stand back up when she
is asked to get some tea for the family’s
dad — highlighting the line that still exists
between worker and family. This is an
extraordinarily ordinary routine that is
somehow relatable to most upper-middleclass
Mexican families, as the quotidian
nature of the film makes it extraordinary.
There are events in the film that reflect
the extraordinary within the ordinary
in day-to-day life. A depiction of the
complexities of domestic workers’ lives
that we, as part of the families they work
for, live blissfully yet carelessly unaware
of. Half an hour into the film, Cleo finds
out that she is pregnant. She tells the
father of the baby, Fermín, about the
pregnancy at a movie theater. During
the last couple of minutes of the show,
he leaves the
theater to go to the
bathroom and never
comes back, leaving
Cleo to deal with the
baby on her own. Cleo
then tells her boss, the
family’s mother, that she is
pregnant and asks for her help.
Her boss agrees to help her, but
never finds out anything else about
her circumstances or background.
The children, of course, never find out
about Cleo’s pregnancy or they do not
acknowledge it. Eventually, when Cleo
is about to give birth, she is taken to the
hospital by the family’s grandmother,
and when the grandmother is asked the
most basic information about Cleo, all
she knows is Cleo’s name and that she is
family. Cleo’s childbirth, unfortunately,
ends in a heartbreaking scene as her
child is stillborn. This event is scarring
and life-changing for anyone that
experiences something even remotely
similar, yet, Cleo mourns it and then
moves on. The lack of conversation
between Cleo and anyone outside of
the family regarding her child keeps
the audience in the dark about her life
beyond the family. This maintains the
sense that we can never fully know, nor
are we truly invested in knowing what
goes on in maids’ lives beyond our homes.
According to an article by The Guardian,
90% of domestic workers in Mexico are
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