Summary

Esme recounts her abusive father and a series of domestic violence with boyfriends. She starts advocacy groups to help domestic workers understand their rights, and she attends boycotts and protests for immigrant rights. She learns many domestic workers have been attacked, raped or their wages have been held back. Employers threaten to call ICE if they speak up. Many of the women Villavicencio speaks with have regrets about certain events in their lives, including Villavicencio’s mother who regrets marrying young and leaving her child in Ecuador.

Another woman Villavicencio meets, Salome Allende, a friend of Esme’s, shows Villavicencio the journal her husband kept in the two weeks before his death from brain cancer. He was turned away from treatment from lack of legal status in the United States. They used a naturalist who changed his diet to organic foods in the hopes...