THE POLISH FEMALE IMMIGRANT NICHE. DOMESTIC CLEANERS IN NEW YORK CITY AT THE TURN OF THE TWENTIETH AND TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Referring to historical and sociological literature, and based on extensive fieldwork in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in 2006 and 2010, the text presents a particular interpretation of the Polish female immigrants’ work experience in the position of live-out domestic cleaners in New York City. My interpretation is that their work, as they see it, contains elements of both small business enterprise and live-out servant. Generally, Polish Greenpoint cleaners associated small business-like characteristics with working in the middle and upper-middle class homes in Manhattan, while servitude-like ones – with working in the lower middle class Hasidic homes in Brooklyn.