Maids across the US

My family has lived in a few cities in the midwest. The population and mindset across the United States are completely different, which leads to different race relations. In the midwest, getting a maid is a high-cost expenditure. In order to get a maid, one must go through a professional hiring service, who will hire maids out by the hour. In my limited experience maids are not usually ethnic; they're usually white. The standardization and professionalization of maid service in the midwest may be a cause and a result of the high percentage of Caucasians that reside in the midwest as opposed to low-income immigrants. In my experience it is also much more looked down upon to pay much lower than standard wages to immigrant workers. (Yet, in many ways the midwest is much more racialized in that there are much more subtle expressions of racism from even the educated.)

On the west coast, especially in Los Angeles and San Diego, it is much more acceptable to hire maids that are from low-income immigrant populations that may or may not be illegal. This can be explained through an economic standpoint where both parties benefit--the homeowners are able to save money by paying minimally, and the illegal immigrants are able to find jobs that pay higher than they would in their home-country. However, this dynamic perpetuates ideas about race, even in the most subtle ways. I believe race relations are so entrenched that it may be even less important whether an immigrant is actually an illegal or not than their actual race or immigrant status. Like our political representatives though, I do not claim to know the solution, for I'm not sure that making all the illegal immigrants legal citizens would assuage racism. I think it has the potential to increase the tensions even more.