Documentary tells it like it is for Latina domestic workers
You notice her scrubbing the sinks in South Station, diligently working in a stoic-faced silence. You hear her knocking on your hotel room door, politely seeking permission to clean up your mess. You see her on Beacon Hill, pushing a baby stroller occupied by a child that obviously belongs to someone else.
The stereotypical role of Latina immigrants as domestic workers is so integral that their presence acts as a silent backdrop to everyday life around the city. Filmmaker and Boston University alum Anayansi Prano set out to give these women a voice.
On Tuesday night, Prano appeared at Boston University for a presentation of her documentary, ''Maid In America." The film, which chronicles three years in the lives of three Latina domestic workers in Los Angeles, has been broadcast on the PBS series Independent Lens and has garnered critical buzz and media attention. Even so, the small confines of a BU basement, where the screening took place, lent an intimate and emotionally charged quality to the atmosphere.
Lively Latin music helped fuel the chatter among a racially diverse crowd of undergrads and faculty members. Aldonsa Pereyra, a secretary at BU's Howard Thurman Center, took a seat in the back of the room with her young son in tow. As a woman who was born in the Dominican Republic, she says she knows family members and friends who are involved with domestic work. ''I hope this movie gives me insights into what they're thinking, feeling, and what their expectations might be."
Once the film started, the audience was silent. There were three film subjects: Judith, a mother of four from Guatemala; Telma, a single mother of three from El Salvador; and Evangelina, who holds a college degree and is from Mexico.
All of them were shown making sacrifices and enduring various hardships knowing they will never gain much being undocumented immigrants. One scene depicts Judith as she's bedridden by her pregnancy and the flu. She is frustrated by her employers' lack of compassion. ''They only see us as work machines," she says.
During the concluding Q and A session, a visibly emotional Pereyra expressed anger that Latinas have endured injustices across the border for generations. ''I was that little girl," she said, referring to the 4-year-old in the film who didn't recognize her own mother after a long absence.
Log on to www.maidinamericathedoc.com to check for local broadcast dates on PBS or to arrange educational screenings through the site's outreach program. 
