In Chap­ter 6, “Inti­ma­cies,” the soci­ol­o­gist Mary Romero presents a nuanced por­tray­al of the com­plex rela­tion­ships with­in a Bev­er­ly Hills fam­i­ly and their live-in Mex­i­can house­keep­er, Car­men. The Smith fam­i­ly, con­sist­ing of a Hol­ly­wood agent father, a moth­er, and their four chil­dren, share a house­hold with Car­men and her daugh­ter Olivia, resid­ing in the maid­’s quar­ters. This set­ting illus­trates a micro­cosm of Amer­i­can soci­ety, where two dis­tinct cul­tur­al back­grounds coex­ist, with devel­op­men­tal dynam­ics that chal­lenge racial hier­ar­chies. As Olivia matures, she grap­ples with her sense of iden­ti­ty and belong­ing amidst her inter­ac­tions with the Smith chil­dren.

The pow­er dynam­ics with­in the house­hold shift as Olivia rec­og­nizes her unique posi­tion with­in the fab­ric of the fam­i­ly while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly feel­ing the weight of her her­itage. The nar­ra­tive empha­sizes the blurred lines between employ­er and employ­ee, depict­ing how the chil­dren lean on Car­men’s author­i­ty in ways their par­ents can­not com­pre­hend. In a role-rever­sal irony, while Olivia embraces her mes­ti­za and Chi­cana iden­ti­ties, she also treads a path that brings her clos­er to her employ­er’s soci­etal sta­tus through her even­tu­al career tra­jec­to­ry in pub­lic rela­tions.

Through engag­ing with the broad­er soci­etal issues of race and class, the chap­ter moves beyond the inti­mate sphere into the larg­er con­text of Lati­no and white rela­tion­ships in the Unit­ed States. The bound­aries of these inter­ac­tions are defined by an under­ly­ing ten­sion char­ac­ter­ized by fears, prej­u­dices, and the per­ceived threat of loss regard­ing “white­ness.” Here, the pres­ence of Lati­no work­ers threat­ens to unveil the con­struct­ed illu­sions of afflu­ence that define mid­dle and upper-class lifestyles.

Romero fur­ther explores how Lati­no indi­vid­u­als per­form crit­i­cal labor—often unseen and unrecognized—contributing to the pros­per­i­ty of their employ­ers in ways that chal­lenge tra­di­tion­al notions of racial and eth­nic struc­ture. Despite their crit­i­cal role in sus­tain­ing Amer­i­can life, these work­ers often face sys­temic bar­ri­ers and stig­mas asso­ci­at­ed with their social sta­tus and eth­nic­i­ty.

The chap­ter con­cludes with reflec­tions on how shared expe­ri­ences and inti­mate rela­tion­ships across cul­tur­al lines can dis­man­tle racial divi­sions, offer­ing the poten­tial for deep­er under­stand­ing and acknowl­edg­ment of inter­de­pen­dence in soci­ety. The sto­ries of indi­vid­u­als like Julia Rodriguez serve as poignant reminders of the resilience faced against sys­temic bar­ri­ers, high­light­ing a jour­ney toward recog­ni­tion, iden­ti­ty, and empow­er­ment.