
My Family’s Slave - aaron695
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-story/524490/?single_page=true
======
throwaway66494
My family adopted my female cousin nearly 30 years ago from Guatemala. The
country was in civil war at the time so bringing her to the U.S. was in her
best interest.

Unfortunately my mother and aunt (sisters of her birth father) kept her so
locked down that she is effectively a slave. My aunt hasn't worked in decades
because my little sister has always signed every paycheck over to my aunt.
After working for nearly 25 years my sister has no money, doesn't have a bank
account, has no friends, has dated only once (and they shamed her when she
did), no drivers license, isn't allowed to do anything on her own. She isn't
allowed to walk to work. She isn't allowed to have opinions, or a private
conversation, or until recently, a cellphone.

I finally bought her a cellphone the day after my mother died in 2014. I
thought things would change after my mother died, but my aunt continued her
control.

My sister seems happy and genuinely loves my aunt and now deceased mother. My
family always claimed that her original immigration paperwork had an error
which puts her at risk at deportation justifying her isolation. But I doubt
the sincerity of this claim given that is conveniently forgotten when it comes
time for her to go out and earn a paycheck.

Even though I always objected to her treatment, I feel complicit. But now, I
don't think I could suggest a better way to live. All I can do is set aside
enough money for her retirement. Any thoughts or comments are appreciated but
at the very least I appreciate this opportunity to share her story.

~~~
hyperdunc
Rhetorical questions (that you've probably already asked yourself many times):

Why are you letting this happen and what do you fear will happen if you do
something about it?

~~~
hueving
Many people are hesitant to intervene in something that will likely destroy
their own family. This should not be surprising at all. It happens all of the
time in family abuse cases.

~~~
glogla
Family like this is worth destroying.

~~~
baby
Worth thinking about: is it worth destroying a dysfunctional but happy family?
Are our own standards for freedom worth enforcing on other people's life?

I'm also thinking about that last child in Arrested Development. A lot of
families and people are dysfunctional. But are we functional enough to tell
them what to do?

~~~
cmdrfred
There is another aspect to this. Consider 911, you had 4 planes full of people
and yet it is believed that only 2 - 3 people on a single plane did anything
to stop the hijackers (ultimately saving many lives at the cost of their own).

Uncommon valor is prized and honored simply because it is so uncommon. It is
easy to say how you would act in a situation from the comfort of your keyboard
but when the shit hits the fan are you sure that you are part of the
exceptional 5%? Or are you just another passenger trying to get home? Perhaps
OP is just like most people, not wanting to rock the boat and trying to get on
with his life. Having walked a few miles in his shoes are you certain you'd do
any different? I'd like to think I would but I'd be dishonest to confidently
claim it. "Some cats surf, Some cats make the waves"

~~~
lazyasciiart
At the time, the assumption was that the plane would be flown away, passengers
held hostage for some demands, then released. The first planes had no reason
to think that they were going to die when the hijackers struck. Passengers on
the final plane heard by phone of the other attacks and so knew better what
they were dealing with. And it was more than 2 or 3 of them that did anything
once they did know that.

------
achou
Truly remarkable story.

One thing that struck me is that Lola did so much of the work of a traditional
mother's role: raising the kids, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and even
providing emotional support. The mother had to take on a traditional father's
role in bringing home an income. And the actual father - well, he did neither
role and seemed to just freeload, gamble, abuse, and finally disappear.

All of the work in a traditional mother's role, well it's usually
uncompensated too. Sure it's a "labor of love" but it's also just a huge
amount of work, for decades. An argument could be made that the entire
capitalist system is built upon uncompensated labor. Just ask your mom.

~~~
Mz
I have seen career women kind of jokingly say "I need a wife." I was struck by
the fact that Alex's mother, whom some people here are vilifying, managed to
have a serious career like a man because she had Lola at home to do all the
"women's work." This is mostly being overlooked in discussion and I didn't
know how to bring it up myself. I appreciate you remarking upon it.

~~~
sillysaurus3
As a male, I'd personally prefer to live a life filled with traditional
housewife work. Kids are fun, and I'd like raising them. I like cooking.
Cleaning is pretty fun. More than that, though, employment sucks. If you keep
me fed, clothed, and with an internet connection, I'd be happy as a clam, even
spending eight hours a day doing nothing but housework. I sometimes wonder if
there are others who feel this way, especially women who are mostly forced to
work nowadays.

There's a strange sort of situation: In the past, women were forced to be
housewives, which was awful. Nobody should be forced to be something they
don't want to be. But now that women have the ability to do mostly whatever a
man can do, neither men nor women really have the option of just "being a
housewife." We kind of both have to work. I wonder if it would be better if,
as a family unit, one person decides to do the housewife-type stuff, and the
other decides to pursue a career? You could even switch off after a few years.
That'd be a pretty ideal life for me, I think. But again, in most marriages,
both people have to work.

~~~
creepydata
>neither men nor women really have the option of just "being a housewife." We
kind of both have to work....in most marriages, both people have to work.

Says who? Sure if you take out a fat mortgage and car loans that require two
incomes to repay then, sure, you need two incomes. But you can also just
choose to live in a smaller house and drive cheaper cars instead. The issue is
the lifestyle inflation that comes with two incomes, it is avoidable.(1)

[http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/11/04/raising-kids-
and-r...](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/11/04/raising-kids-and-running-
a-household-how-working-parents-share-the-load/)

>The median household income for families with two full-time working parents
and at least one child under 18 at home is $102,400, compared with $84,000 for
households where the father works full time and the mother works part time and
$55,000 for households where the father works full time and the mother is not
employed.

$55,000 a year provides a good life in 99% of the United States.

BTW, the share of two-parent households in which both parents work full time
is only at 46%.

My way of handling two incomes is saving and investing the vast majority of
the second income, not spending it. That leaves us in a much better financial
position and also a lot of leeway for one or both of us to go without
employment for an extended time. The ultimate goal being to retire early. Or
at least semi-retire.

~~~
anovikov
I think you are typing this sitting at your comfortable 1% Valley workplace.

Nowhere in the world does $55K a year before tax provide anywhere like 'good
life'. It means endless misery and generational psychological poverty passed
on to your children. Only reason of doing it is if your desire to exert
psychological pressure on your wife is greater than even desire to consume. It
simply doesn't sound healthy, and it is almost a crime against children,
because they will grow dirt poor and view this crap as normal.

Background: i earned just $45K a year after tax one year in my life, 10 years
ago. I had no children back then. I still spent $60K eating out some of my
savings, having to cut on anything including some food, and it felt so crappy
i don't advise anyone to repeat my experience.

Sure, $102K isn't too much either. But it puts you into a totally different
league anyway. I can imagine how to survive on $102K with a kid in a cheap
place, if your house is fully paid and you are an introvert, but not $55K.

~~~
gambiting
Maybe you should stick your nose outside a bit more often? In Poland if you
make ~$20k/year you are super rich, can easily afford to not just buy but
build a new house. There's absolutely nothing miserable about it. Saying that
"nowhere in the world" $55k provides a good life is just hilariously wrong.

Even in UK, I make ~$35k before tax and I'm living a _very_ comfortable life.

~~~
anovikov
I live in Lithuania actually and spend about $140K a year. I don't scrap by,
but no luxuries either, i fly coach and stay in 4* hotels. My kid goes to best
private school, that's about the only luxury i can afford, and that's just
because i am really determined to help her not live her life in same shit as
myself.

~~~
adrianN
Either you're missing a couple of 0's there, or I should retire to Lithuania
right now.

~~~
anovikov
140K of course LOL

------
shas3
Great read! Many Asian countries have the concept of live-in housekeepers. I
think the 'best' (scraping the bottom, here) arrangement is in Singapore,
where the government, laws, and law-enforcement ensure that immigrant live-in
housekeepers are treated fairly- kinda like au pairs, etc. in the US. I knew
someone in India who brought their live-in maid's sister to the US in some
capacity (and AFAIK, paid her wages- she returned happier and was able to put
her kids, etc. in better schools).

I am pretty sure some of these arrangements, especially in poorer Asian
countries like India, Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc. are
effectively, slavery.

In most cases in Asian countries, live-in housekeepers are paid wages and
their families are provided with various amenities and help- kinda like a very
small-scale version of the servants' lives in Downton Abbey. But, there are at
least two very serious problems: 1. cultural norms allow the servants to be
treated very poorly- as second-class citizens, 2. while obscure well-meaning
laws exist to prevent trafficking in India, law enforcement doesn't care much
if they are treated shittily (physical/mental abuse, nonpayment of wages, etc.
often go unreported or are ignored by cops).

~~~
Balgair
Humanity is both so strange and so static. We got 'rid' of slavery in most of
the world no later than a century ago. It was bloody and difficult to do, but
we managed it. Yet, there are still people living as just the same as slaves
century or more ago, in a world of space ships and the internet. Yeah, tech
has helped, we don't have smallpox anymore and the mass famines have stopped
recently, but the deeper gestal psyche is the same. The old saying of history
repeating itself if you do not listen to it comes to mind. But, what can we
do, humans are still humans, basically the same for the last ~10k years. No
matter how much we want to change, how much time and effort and writing and
money and sweat and blood and death and war, we cannot. Its not that we are
dystopian now, maybe, its that we have always been so.

~~~
SCHiM
When you go searching for meaning, chase all the leads, trying to separate
wrong from right. What you find is that beyond all the pop culture tropes, the
outrage and terror about the latest and greatest paedophile revelation, evil
greedy capitalists banker stories, murderous terrorists and backstabbing
trophy wives and all the other stories about 'true monsters'. You'll find that
all the monsters are just humans. Just like you and me.

It's easy to see from far away what is bad, people all over the western world
can point at Hitler in their history books as an example of absolute evil. But
then we'd be missing the complete picture, which is so much worse if you cling
to a traditional view of good and evil. Normal school curriculum (at least
where I'm from) does not teach about the horrific things Belgium did in the
Congo up until the 1960s Or any of the other decimations/genocides caused
directly or indirectly as a result of occupation by the various colonial
powers. Or all the terrible things our ancestors did even further in the past
when news spread so much slower or not at all.

There was a Byzantine king named Basil. Who, after defeating a Bulgarian army
and capturing a number of their soldiers, blinded 99 out of every 100 captured
soldiers and sent them back to Bulgaria to cripple their economy and to
sabotage future war efforts. Man is a savage evil creature imo. I don't think
we ever truly can change. The civilization I and many others enjoy in the
western world is a fragile thing I think. And if we can't make it stick and
spread, and I don't think I can, then when the troubles get too bad we'll be
back to savagery soon enough, or not as the bomb is still hanging above our
heads even if it doesn't feel like that any more.

~~~
venture_lol
There are good people and bad people. There are monsters and humans even if
monsters may have human shape and form.

There is good and there is evil.

One evil act does not absolve another.

Goodness lives forever and evil does not die either

~~~
Banthum
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere
insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them
from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts
through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece
of his own heart?”

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

Jordan Peterson talks about how one of the most important things you can do to
become a well-formed person in terms of moral reasoning is to realize that
you're a Nazi. You're a concentration camp guard. You'd do it, by choice. It
takes a lot of discussion and examples and thought to get to the point where
this is really understood, but it's true and it's important.

I'd say the main thing that convinced me is that I realized that there are
people I'd like to see suffer. Not because it'd lead to some external outcome,
but just because I want them to suffer. You can see this every day in politics
too. People who want to hurt just for the joy of hurting. You can hear it in
their voices when they knock people down at a protest and hurl dehumanizing
snarl terms at them.

And this is present on every 'side'. The only possible difference is in how
much each side embraces this impulse.

Once this is understood - that people aren't divided into good and evil
groups, but rather that every person is both good and evil - a lot of
questions and problems look quite different from the common "good people vs
evil people" frame. A lot of policies and historical judgments start to look
pretty dumb.

And, in fact, the idea that some people are evil is a foundation of evil acts.
The false belief that someone is pure evil is what gives you the excuse to
feel good about making them suffer.

It's ironic that wrong beliefs about the shape of evil in the world are
themselves a foundation for evil.

------
endymi0n
What an incredibly deep and well written story. I did not know or appreciate
that the author Alex Tizon died a few hours before publication - and this
piece was his Faustus, the one personal story he struggled for years to write.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/a-repor...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/a-reporters-
story/524538/)

I rarely use the word masterpiece, but it feels appropriate here.

~~~
propman
I wholeheartedly agree, I was deeply moved by this and loved his writing style
so much and wanted to read something else by him. Shocking that he died so
soon, seemed like such a good man.

------
jstewartmobile
Most of the guys I went to engineering school with were Indians (Brahmins),
and they'd frequently mention how the jobs here paid more, but they still
wanted to go back to India because they'd have to treat their servants
"differently" here. I just assumed it was a payroll issue. Perhaps I assumed
wrongly.

~~~
praneshp
Did you usually ask your Indian clasmates' caste? Or did they volunteer that
information themselves?

~~~
yardie
If you're familiar with Indian culture you can kind of tell the caste from the
surname.

~~~
13of40
Don't know how contemporary this advice is, but this seems to be the guidance:
[http://www.hindubooks.org/scriptures/manusmriti/ch2/ch2_31_4...](http://www.hindubooks.org/scriptures/manusmriti/ch2/ch2_31_40.html)

~~~
praneshp
In many parts of India, in most cases, Mr Foo Bar's kid will be called Baz
Foo. So as people start calling their kids more modern names not derived from
Sanskrit, the text you linked starts getting outdated.

------
Renaud
Here in HK I sponsor the visa of a Domestic Helper from the Philippines. Her
situation is obviously better that Lola but the cards are really stacked
against them.

They are literally second-class citizens: their visa doesn't entitle them to
any hope of becoming full-time residents, regardless of how many decades of
their life they spent in the service of others. The whole Domestic Helper's
contact is a sham: there is rampant abuse and very little interest in
enforcing any of the few rights they have.

It is a form of institutionalised slavery. Hundred of thousands of helpers are
taking care of people's kids and the elderly, they are indirectly essential to
the success of the economy, yet get little recognition for it.

~~~
eumenides1
Weird question, but why do you still do it if you feel they are second-class
citizens? What's the general local attitude towards domestic helpers.

I've been to HK and I was personally shocked at my local acquaintance's
attitude towards them (negative). At a philosophical level, this is a form of
slavery/racism/caste system. At a pragmatic level, nobody in HK wants to do
their work, people in the Philippines need the income, and most situations are
mutually beneficial. So why not?

~~~
Renaud
You hinted at the reasons: the work they provide is useful and they need it to
provide income to their families.

The system is skewed against them but it doesn't mean you have to take
advantage of the lack of protective rights to abuse your power over their
life.

The helper I sponsor is basically free to do what she wants. She comes a few
hours a week doing basic household chores. She is paid decently and is able to
take holidays back home a few times a year and work for other people to
increase her income.

------
nradov
For those who think it can't happen here, there was a recent case in Silicon
Valley where a group of small business owners was keeping slaves. I actually
ate at their restaurant and had no idea what was going on.

[http://www.mercurynews.com/2015/11/20/plight-of-saratoga-
hum...](http://www.mercurynews.com/2015/11/20/plight-of-saratoga-human-
trafficking-victims-revealed/)

~~~
legolas2412
Isn't spain a reasonable high wage country? I wonder what made these people
accept such lives in the US.

~~~
Mz
from the article:

 _Desperate to make a living after the global economic collapse in 2008 hit
Spain particularly hard, at least three victims accepted the jobs without
meeting the restaurant and salon owners, Estanislao said. In some cases, the
group paid for their tickets and told them they could work off the debt._

------
peterwwillis
I visited Hong Kong a year ago. It is famous for its night markets, its
abundant partying, and the massive financial powerhouses that make their home
here. I did all the tourist things, I partied, I explored, it was great.

A couchsurfing host showed me around the city on a tram. She pointed out
masses of ladies in plain clothing sitting around on the sidewalks and in
streets. It was a Sunday. This was the "maids day", the one day a week when
maids are required not to work.

There were thousands of them, all sitting in groups around the streets and
buildings that were closed on the weekends. Groups of street vendors dotted
the scene. They appeared when the maids did, a sort of "maid economy", where
extremely cheap goods and snacks are sold to the maids on their time off. At
night they sleep on the street, and are easily victimized.

The maids have no place to live. During the week they sleep on the floor in a
closet, or on a cot in the kitchen of a typical Hong Kong home, and work all
day and night, 6 days a week. The little money they make they send home to
their family. They are mostly Filipino, mostly illegal immigrants, and as
such, they have no rights. And because they have no status here, they also
can't get a legal job, leaving them with no other choice to make a living.

There are an estimated 200,000 female domestic workers in Hong Kong (336,000
migrant domestic workers overall), and they are effectively slaves. As many as
56,000 migrant domestic workers here endure forced labor.
[http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/15/news/hong-kong-forced-
labor-...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/15/news/hong-kong-forced-labor-maids/)
As you might imagine, a large number of these maids are victimized by their
"host families".

The really scary thing? I would have had _absolutely no clue this was going
on_ if my host hadn't pointed it out to me.

~~~
MockObject
They aren't permitted to go back home and sleep on the weekends? Why not?

~~~
abalashov
What is this home of which you speak?

~~~
MockObject
The place that they sleep during the weekdays. Or do all the maids always
sleep on the street?

~~~
scott_karana
It's not _their_ home, is the distinction GP was making

~~~
MockObject
That's a distinction without a difference. They have a bed during the
weekdays; why can't they sleep there on the weekends too? That was the
question.

------
iaw
Apparently the author, Alex Tizón died days after finishing the story and
never knew it was chosen for the June cover.

He was 57.

~~~
AceJohnny2
_Alex Tizon built an exemplary career by listening to certain types of
people—forgotten people, people on the margins, people who had never before
been asked for their stories._ [...]

 _Alex did not know that we would be putting his piece on the cover of this
issue;_ he died the day we made that decision, _before we had a chance to tell
him._

How... serendipitous.

~~~
Angostura
A serendipity is a _happy_ accident. I don't this really applies.

~~~
AceJohnny2
Yeah, couldn't come up with the right word, hence the ellipsis :\

~~~
carapace
poignant?

------
valuearb
Horribly compelling story.

When Ulysses S Grants father-in-law died a few years before the civil war, he
left them his slave. The Grants were dead broke, Ulysses had failed at farming
and the slave was worth a lot of money, they could have worked him or sold him
to make the their life instantly better. Instead Ulysses took him to the
courthouse and made him a free man.

How hard is it to have empathy for others?

~~~
randyrand
> How hard is it to have empathy for others?

That really depends on the person. Some people don't have empathy. As a
sufferer of DPDR, a lot of times I don't even feel I have emotion.

~~~
emodendroket
I think that even people with extreme mental disorders can probably imagine
that they themselves would not very much like to be slaves who are beaten and
scolded on a whim.

~~~
JCharante
and yet would continue to support an industry and enjoy the result of torture.

------
neaden
A well written story. I'd be interested in hearing from any Filipino
commentators how common this practice still is/is perceived to be in the
Philippines today. It's ranked 33/167 by Global Slavery Index[0] as compared
to the US at #52.

[0][https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/country/philippines/](https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/country/philippines/)

~~~
barsonme
for people who don't click the link: a larger number is better.

it's ranking by prevalence, so countries like North Korea (rank #1) worse than
countries like the U.S. (#52) and Australia (also #52).

I couldn't find a country that was ranked #167 out of #167, though. I think
#52 is as high as it goes.

~~~
codehusker
It seems that a higher ranking is worse.

> The Index presents a ranking of 167 countries based on the proportion of the
> population that is estimated to be in modern slavery. [0]

North Korea, with 4.37% in slavery, is ranked 1.

India, with 1.4% in slavery, is ranked 4.

Philippines, with 0.4% in slavery, is ranked 33.

China, with 0.25% in slavery, is ranked 40.

USA, with .02% in slavery, is ranked 52.

[0]
[https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/](https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/)

EDIT: number -> ranking

~~~
smhenderson
How is a higher number worse if there is less slavery in countries with a
higher number?

~~~
codehusker
I should have phrased it as a higher ranking rather than a higher number. I
assumed 'higher' was clear in the terms of ranks, rather than a larger number.

GP's claim makes it seem like they interpreted as I did.

> ...countries like North Korea (rank #1) are closer to 0...

NK is not close to 0 in relative or absolute slave counts, and I don't see the
utility in pointing out that 1 is closer to 0 than 52.

~~~
smhenderson
Yes, I replied before you edited your post, I get your meaning now. Thanks for
clarifying.

------
BrandoElFollito
I watched a few years ago a French movie about a Parisian family owning a
quasi-slave, a young woman from (IIRC) Africa. The son of the family finally
sent an anonymous mail to an organization which had it taken care of. The
interesting character was the grandmother who was vehemently supporting her
son (the father of the boy who sent an email) until she realized how the
slave-girl was treated.

The movie was average but I am mentioning it here because contemporary slavery
(or almost slavery) can happen next door, today. Even a an average movie (we
call these in French "TV movies) can be eye opening.

~~~
Symbiote
What's the name of the film?

~~~
mycatislenin
Possibly "L'esclavage moderne de Fatou"

~~~
BrandoElFollito
Unfortunately not. I watched the movie some 5 to 10 years ago and I cannot
remember neither the title nor the actors. Sorry.

------
jondubois
This story highlights just how blurry and complex things can get.

Maybe to a lesser extent we are all slaves of the system because we have to
work increasingly long hours for an ever decreasing wage.

I think that the most kind-hearted and generous people tend to slowly slip
into slavery over time because the system tends to reward greedy, selfish
people.

The sudden, massive collapse of the system will come when there won't be
enough altruistic, productive people left to support all the greedy, non-
productive ones which are currently winning the game of natural selection.

~~~
21
Nassim Nicholas Taleb - "The three most harmful addictions are heroin,
carbohydrates, and a monthly salary".

------
SanPilot
My parents were born and have lived in Pakistan for their entire childhood up
to adulthood. They then moved to the United States, where I was born and have
lived for my entire life.

On occasion, I visited my parent's home in Pakistan, although the trips became
increasingly scarce as grandparents passed (now all four are gone).

The house has always had domestic workers present, a single family. The first
few times a maid, who we called Maacy whose children went to a nearby school
and whose husband would work nearby.

Her family was among the lower classes of the country, and her salary brought
her and her children opportunities she could never otherwise have had. I
remember talking with her in the small room that was her quarters; sometimes I
would help her with her work.

On later visits, she had left and another family, whose father served as the
household driver occupied the same space. One time, I saw the previous maid
attending a gathering that was taking place. She recognized me immediately,
sharing an embrace and leaving me on my way.

~~~
danso
The situation you describe seems to involve inequality, but it's significantly
different than what "Lola" is described to have endured. The decision to move
to the U.S. was entirely the author's family's. Lola was promised that she
would get paid enough to move back, but the family never kept that promise.
When she begged for them to allow her to visit her dying parents, they
refused. And then her 5-year visa ran out, and because the family did not deal
with that lapse, Lola was now forced to live in slavery forever because trying
to send her back would jeopardize the entire family's immigration status.
Stupid Lola!

The author is a great writer, and obviously a distinguished journalist. If
this article had been written by the real-life version of "Silicon Valley's"
Peter Gregory (including the untimely death), I have a feeling sentiment
toward the piece would be much different.

------
lordnacho
I had a terrible "Billy" moment a few years ago.

I was travelling and a friend said I could use her house, because it was
empty. This was perfect for me, since I had a wife and kid.

It turns out there was a housekeeper. She did everything for us, made us feel
very comfortable, cooked, served, helped with the kid, etc.

Then one day I found out she didn't have her own room, despite the place being
a multi storey mansion. In fact, she slept on a mat in the kitchen. And not
only that, there would be a phone call each morning to wake her up, from the
master of the house. He didn't want her to get too comfy while the family was
out.

It was all a bit shocking. I still haven't chatted to my friend about this,
because what on earth do you say? And otherwise ordinary western educated
person -in fact a feminist, globalist, left-leaning idealist- who has a slave?
What if I've misunderstood something? Maybe my friend didn't approve of it?
Maybe he did? I'd never be able to talk to my friend again.

I got the housekeeper a present when we left, as she'd been so good at taking
care of us. But naturally I didn't enquire any further into her relationship
with the family.

\-------

My main thought is there's a sort of Stockholm syndrome going on. Lola still
had thoughts for her family back home, but she was so integrated in the new
family it became part of her life, too. I guess it's a coping mechanism. Even
slaves need meaning in their lives, and taking care of kids is meaning.

\-------

Ok, enough of moralizing. Actually I find it comforting that there is at least
some sympathy for my predicament. At least one or two of you think it is
possible that they would behave similarly. Or at least acknowledge the awkward
situation.

I will talk to this friend in person next time I'm in that part of the world,
which should be soon, about this incident, and get the full story of how their
housekeeper lives.

~~~
bflesch
So you're trying to tell us that your feeling of uncomfortness is the only
thing stopping you from growing a spine and standing up for such an inhumane
treatment, that apart from you nobody else can witness?

Have some decency and confront your so-called friend. How can people be rich
and not have the decency to give the person feeding you and your family a
freaking room.

And I really had to constrain myself from using expletives in this reply.

~~~
lordnacho
> Have some decency and confront your so-called friend.

Sounds like you haven't been in this situation.

You know, there's often a gap between how good we think we are, and how good
we are. I feel terrible about it, and the subject comes up now and again of
whether we should say something, and my wife and I feel bad.

It's easy to tell people what they should do, I do it all the time as well,
even to myself.

~~~
MrLeap
There is no question in my mind that I would confront anyone I knew engaging
in the situation you're describing. Among my circles, injustices always seem
to be a third person. Mostly bosses. Boss doesn't give you a day off despite a
month of notice. Boss dicks you around on hours or a promised promotion. The
people I consider friends are folks I can talk to about morality. I've grown
as a person based on the critical things some friends have told me.

Never anything in the same time zone of FRIEND MISTREATS LIVE IN HELP, MIGHT
BE SLAVE, I DIDNT KNOW WHAT TO SAY. This whole thread is hysterical to me.
This is a parody of real life, right?

I hate to edge in on godwin territory, but this has reminded me that our
society has not grown at all in the last 100 years. We've accreted a card
house morality that collapses for SO MANY people at the slightest breeze.
Can't let a slave come between friends am I right?

~~~
Chaebixi
> There is no question in my mind that I would confront anyone I knew engaging
> in the situation you're describing. Among my circles, injustices always seem
> to be a third person.

But there should be a question in your mind unless you've actually confronted
something like this yourself (with all of it's associated complexity). Until
then, your certainty is only a fantasy.

~~~
MrLeap
Sure, a fantasy. I doubt you can be convinced, but let me try.

I was always sure that if someone broke into my home, I would confront them -
lethally - if necessary, despite any complexities. Dignity is important to me,
and I'm willing to take risks to keep it. When I was a sweet summer child I
used to think that was the default state of adulthood.

Well, recently someone did break into my home at 3am. Coincidentally I was
sleeping on the couch right in front of the front door. My eyes opened to the
sight of a strange man in dark clothes standing inside my home. I went from
half asleep to awake and armed faster than I've done anything else from deep
sleep. If they had shown me any signs of aggression I'd have shot them.
Fortunately for both of us they panicked and fled.

You're right, the action itself wasn't a thing I deliberated on or decided in
that moment. I told myself I'd do it, but the way I responded in that acute
moment was instinctual and adrenaline fueled.

There are actually some weak parallels between a home invasion and finding out
your friend might be a slave owner.

I can understand why some people would respond to a home invasion with
submission. For some folks, that doesn't even touch their personal definition
of dignity, the function is life > stuff and I can respect that completely.

Yet, when you see your friend possibly engaging in slavery, and mistreating
them to boot.. it's like home invasion with the personal stakes all lowered.
Your life isn't on the line, just potentially the life of the victim and your
friendship. Not only that, but the time frame is extended from do-or-die
adrenaline to days of deliberation if you want. I'd have to work real hard to
come up with some complexities that shake my confidence on how I'd react here.
Basically the maid would have to be skeletor or a war criminal. I really wish
more people were backing me up on this. I'm pretty blown away.

But yeah my knees would probably buckle and i'd let them continue with their
evil so things wouldn't get awkward. Lol nope.

~~~
chrisallenlane
For what it's worth, this entire thread is making me feel like I'm taking
crazy pills. Typically, I appreciate the nuanced, thoughtful, and
introspective discussions we tend to have here.

In this case? Like, what the fuck is there even to discuss here? This is black
and white. You free the slave and deal with "social inconveniences" or
whatever. Jesus Christ.

~~~
true_religion
To me, I'm wondering where the mistreatment is.

We have someone sleeping on a matt, and getting a daily wake up call to do
their work.

Work which presumably they are being paid for---we don't know if they're not
being paid for the work.

Now in the USA, sleeping on a matt in the kitchen is some kind of terrible
situation that no one would live with but....

In my country, _I_ slept on a matt as a child. I wasn't poor. We had a house,
food, private schooling, etc. but kids under the age of 7 slept on a matt. It
was just the way things were done.

Even today, I have relatives who sleep on matt's despite being totally capable
of buying western style beds.

Now as for not having a room of their own, I don't understand the attachment
to a private room as opposed to simply a lockbox or a place to keep your
things. Private rooms seem like a luxury that one can do without, not a _must
have_.

Disclaimer:

Our families maids have private rooms, and beds (which ironically they
endlessly complain are too hot compared to the breezy floor mats they're used
to). They also have savings accounts, and pension funds because the family
matriarch is a western trained banker and believes that in the absence of good
governance, private individuals have to take better care of their employees
livelihood.

~~~
legolas2412
So much this! I am appalled at this thread possibly full of non-asian people
who think having a room and board househelp is slavery.

They are free to quit and renegotiate salaries. Their children are free to do
whatever they want, infact we help in their education and give them gifts. If
anything it tends to be a more empathic employer-employee relationship, albeit
with shit salary.

There is real slavery however, bonded labour, forced child beggars. Seeing
this not being mentioned at all, I don't think we have many asian people here,
just westerners speculating.

~~~
kelnos
I think we don't have enough information to decide either way. The guy who
visited his friend's house seems to think everything wasn't above-board there.
Maybe he's wrong, but the responsible thing to do is follow up on it with the
friend, promptly. It doesn't need to be an accusation, just an "I noticed
something odd; can you tell me what's going on?" type thing. And if the
explanation isn't satisfying, you get the authorities involved, immediately.

Regardless, just because something is culturally acceptable (like Lola's
slavery back in the Philippines), it doesn't make it right.

------
Pseudosudowoodo
This is the second time a text has brought tears to my eyes. The first was
"Where the red fern grows". Read this, it's well written and worth the time.

~~~
83457
Yeah I was listening at work and teared up near the end.

------
dbg31415
When I was in elementary school in the 80s one of my friends has a "nanny" who
slept on a cot in the laundry room in the basement. I didn't think much of it,
a few of us had housekeepers and I just imagined a few other people had live-
in help too, like on TV shows...

A year or two into our friendship, I was over at their house after school and
around dinner time I asked if I could stay. The parents said, "Sure, no
problem... just let your parents know..." They went to talk to the "nanny" \--
who didn't speak any English -- and let her know to set another plate.

There was some miscommunication, the "nanny" didn't expect the father to be
home for dinner, so they didn't quite have enough food prepared for me too,
since they were already one up. That's sort of what my friend translated
after... anyway all I saw was two adults arguing and then the father, not
liking the "nanny" talking back to him, slapped her face. Hard. Then stood
over her with a clenched fist and yelled at her in a language I didn't
understand.

My friend was mortified, he started apologizing to me that I had to see it...
and the mother came to yell at the father... and ultimately I didn't get to
stay for dinner... for weeks my friend just kept apologizing, saying he was
sorry I saw what I saw and sorry his father wasn't kinder to their "nanny"...

At some point, 25+ years later, I saw the "nanny" walking with the mother in a
grocery store. She still didn't speak English, but she smiled at me and knew
who I was. My friend's mother and I caught up, and it hit me... this wasn't
really a "nanny" and I probably didn't have a word for that relationship in my
vocabulary.

She was part of the family, went to all the school functions and plays and
soccer games... cooked for them... kept house... but wasn't related... and who
knows if she was paid or not -- but I doubt it... Still she always doted on
children. Seeing her all those years later, the facial expressions she made
when seeing me were just like seeing a grandmother or aunt. Her face lit up,
and she was just excited and proud to see me all grown up.

Anyway this story was really powerful and reminded me of that woman, and got
me thinking we probably all know a Lola -- some degree of Lola anyway. Slavery
probably isn't as uncommon as we'd like it to be.

~~~
ksenzee
> we probably all know a Lola

Not sure what your value of "we" is. I've never met anyone like Lola, and I've
never heard a story like this from anyone I know. Then again, I didn't have a
housekeeper or know anyone who did. People in my social class were glad to
keep the electric bill paid and have a working car to drive.

~~~
Symbiote
A few people I socialised with at university had live-in housekeepers, and I
wouldn't be surprised if one or two of them had a rough time.

Most of the students from Asia or the Middle East, whose parents were paying
tens of thousands of pounds for their child to attend a British university,
had staff at their parents' home.

One close friend was a British girl who'd grown up in Hong Kong, with a full-
time au pair. She complained that the other HK and Chinese girls she shared a
kitchen with didn't know anything about cooking or cleaning, since their au
pairs had always done everything for them. In her case, her parents told her
to "help" the au pair with chores, in the same way I helped my mum, so she'd
learn. Presumably, her parents knew the arrangement in Hong Kong wouldn't last
forever.

I've also met a couple of people working as au pair's here, both ~20 year old
women mixing the work with studying, which is the usual sytem in Europe. It
looks like a very poor deal, for example [1] £320/mth for what's not far off
full time hours (37.5hr/wk would be full time in a government job).

[1] [https://www.aupair.com/en/job/lisburn-united-
kingdom-765795....](https://www.aupair.com/en/job/lisburn-united-
kingdom-765795.php)

~~~
nylonstrung
That's pretty insane and a stifling arrangement for everyone involved I'd
imagine.

Why does a college kid need a live-in housekeeper?

~~~
Symbiote
Back home.

Not at university in London.

Maybe I didn't make that clear.

------
moonka
I found so much of this fascinating. Not just the circumstances of Lola being
brought over here, but the children's recognition of what was happening.
Learning family horrors (and trying to rectify them) such as this can be one
of the hardest things to deal with when growing up.

------
akalin
Here is a damning Twitter thread comparing the article to Lola's published
obituary:
[https://twitter.com/caulkthewagon/status/864656017480708102](https://twitter.com/caulkthewagon/status/864656017480708102)

It makes the author and his family a lot less sympathetic.

~~~
jordigh
I didn't find the author very sympathetic. He obviously knew something was
wrong but never did enough to fix it. I think the article was more of a
confession than anything. I get the feeling that the author was wracked with
guilt.

~~~
ralphie02
I'm sure he and his siblings were pretty sympathetic, which is why the tried
to defend her from their parents and help her with her duties. This made their
mother angry because they would take their Lola's side.

This is actually quite typical of kids (especially in asian cultures?). Being
timid and following your parents orders wholeheartedly are so ingrained it's
criminal. The children could only do so much as young teenagers; I question
the eldest more because he was 20 and has noticed the slavery for a while yet
didn't do much to help their Lola (or maybe he did, the author just failed to
mention it).

Regardless, it seems like you're being unsympathetic to the author and his
siblings. You don't know what they've been through: poverty, fear,
abandonment, humiliation, anxiety, etc (speculations). It's a whole lot easier
to judge someone's situation based on your current status and upbringing. Just
because you think you would've been more resolute if you were in his place
doesn't mean that you actually would have been. Remember, this is a family
from Asia in the 60-70s.

Not an attack. Just a reminder to put things in perspective.

~~~
jordigh
I am Mexican. I had domestic servants too. While their conditions were
slightly better (they could visit their families every few months, they had a
pittance of a salary), they still live in almost slavery. I too feel guilty
for having participated in that and not done enough to stop it. I know what
it's like to be perpetuating a class system and not do anything about it.

[https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/nov/10/mexico-
city-d...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/nov/10/mexico-city-
domestic-workers-life-lesser-person)

------
RangerScience
Note - This is a modern tale, and the title is accurate. This isn't about
unearthing stories from the 1800; this is by the son raised by the slave in
question.

This was very much worth the read. It's touching and troubling and a human
story.

------
hnaccount123
Someone commented on twitter that it's weird how much he empathizes and is
complicit with his mom, especially after owning a slave. He also points out
that he mentions she worked at Fairview Training Center, which doesn't exactly
have a good history -
[http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/01/erasing_...](http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/01/erasing_fairviews_horrors.html)

Usually I feel like pointing out these things is sort of not understanding the
perspective, but also after reading Lola's obituary
([http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016807437...](http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016807437_pulidoobit20m.html))
it seems like Alex Tizon resolves himself of a lot of the responsibility for
the cruel things his mother has done. Am I missing something here or does this
seem to humanize her cruel actions a little bit too much...

~~~
helb
Seattle Times published a followup yesterday:

Why the obituary for Eudocia Tomas Pulido didn’t tell the story of her life in
slavery, [http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/why-
the-o...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/why-the-obituary-
for-eudocia-tomas-pulido-didnt-tell-the-story-of-her-life-in-slavery/)

------
southphillyman
Interesting that the author and his siblings had empathy for the servant. In
most American Slavery stories the entire household, including young children,
are portrayed as being evil and unforgiving towards the slaves. In these
situations I wonder if there is any sort of innate feeling of compassion and
decency and how that manifest itself in a culture where slavery and cruelty is
the norm.

~~~
bmmayer1
Yes, except as a full grown adult, the author never reported the situation to
the authorities, took this 'secret' to the grave and even 'inherited' his
slave from his parents. He said he paid her an allowance (which didn't sound
like much) and also didn't make her work after she lived with them, but that's
a token effort to right the injustice of decades of work without pay.

~~~
MaxfordAndSons
Are you an American? If so: America has never paid reparations to former
slaves or their descendants. He may have only paid her a token sum, but it's
better than the rest of us have done, so don't act holier than thou about it.

Also, he clearly didn't plan to take his secret to the grave, it's on the
cover of the Atlantic.

~~~
bmmayer1
So, obviously my citizenship or my country's history has no bearing on the
merits of my criticism. It seems you want to have a completely different
argument.

I think it's fair to criticize someone for being aware that a person is being
enslaved and not doing anything meaningful about it for the same reason that
it's fair to criticize onlookers who fail to call 911 on a crime in progress.

------
tmaly
Lola happens to be the word for Grandma in the Philippines.

The description of this idea of a live in slave is alive and well in many
parts of Asian and the Middle East.

Life in the Philippines is quite a struggle especially in the provinces. I
know of a few people that live and work in Hong Kong doing the same job
described in the article, but they are doing it for two families for very
little pay.

~~~
seppin
I am wrong to think that this kind of thing is more acceptable in Asia than
anywhere else?

~~~
lacampbell
It's more acceptable outside the west. Western cultures were the ones who
decided slavery was a universal sin and had to be eradicated everywhere.

There are still whole races of people kept as slaves in sub-saharan Africa,
for example. And I mean outright slavery, no ambiguity about it.

Abolitionism is a Eurocentric concept.

Another example from Asia. Two people were kept as slaves for 14 years in a
tofu factory. This is in a developed country with a GDP per capita comparable
to Spains. They were caught and fined 40k USD, no jail time.

[http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3105152](http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3105152)

~~~
MrZongle2
_Western cultures were the ones who decided slavery was a universal sin and
had to be eradicated everywhere._

Were they wrong?

~~~
lacampbell
No, they were not. Slavery _is_ a universal wrong.

~~~
matz1
Right or wrong is relative. Including slavery.

~~~
legolas2412
It's just about whether you believe in equality and freedom or not.

~~~
matz1
Yes, not all human care or believe in that.

------
jhulla
Wonderful and deeply moving narrative.

Unfortunately through modern capitalism & the global supply chain we are all
complicit in slavery.

The lowest cost of labor is zero or near zero. The challenge for
miners/garment makers/manufacturers/industrial farms/etc. is to circumvent
local laws & regulatory bodies while expanding their profit margins. Once past
the local regulatory hurdle, the global supply chain adds successive layers of
obfuscation and legitimacy until finished goods reach our homes. At that
point, we can't tell anymore the amount of slave labor (or environmental
externalities for that matter) that went into the product, so most people buy
with little regard.

The solution is to strengthen regulatory bodies at all steps of the process
worldwide with punitive damages to violators making the cost of circumventing
labor laws greater than the benefit from exploiting poor/at-risk populations.
This is an ongoing challenge for all governments worldwide - the difference is
only of scale. Whether it is the plight of poultry workers in the midwest,
slave fishermen in asia, trafficked women in Europe or indentured workers the
world over, exploitation is an intertwined economic and moral problem.

As for Lola, I found it heartwarming that the author accompanied her home
twice.

------
throwaway87787
From Steve Sailer:

> Affluent Immigrants Culturally-Enriching Modern USA with Their Diverse
> Customs, Such as Slave-Owning

[http://www.unz.com/isteve/immigrants-culturally-enriching-
mo...](http://www.unz.com/isteve/immigrants-culturally-enriching-modern-usa-
with-diverse-customs-such-as-slave-owning/)

------
danso
I'm late on commenting on this. Saw the story passed around here and on social
media and figured it'd be worth waiting until the evening to read...

I actually ended up reading Tizon's piece after seeing this Tweet from someone
I follow, which pointed out sanitized obituary, which Tizon played a part in
informing:

[https://twitter.com/WendyBrandes/status/864655516227784704](https://twitter.com/WendyBrandes/status/864655516227784704)

[http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016807437...](http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016807437_pulidoobit20m.html)

I greatly appreciate Tizon's life work and his decision to write about Lola,
but I'd be lying if I didn't admit to feeling a great sense of
disillusionment, in some ways greater than I've felt about any recent
purported journalism scandals, or even the classic infamous ones [0].

It's a complex story and well-told, one in which I simultaneously feel great
hatred for Tizon's mother while also seeing Tizon's conflicted perspective. I
know how I'd _want_ to act if I were in Tizon's shoes, but (assuming a
reasonably reliable narrator) I empathize with how he was constrained to take
what seems like obvious moral action. Journalists, even Pulitzer Prize-winning
investigative reporters, are just human, I suppose. But to know that someone
could have the moral impetus to do such important investigative reporting on
behalf of the victimized in our world, yet could not himself call out the
modern-day slavery present in his life...that is deeply unsettling.

[0]
[https://www.cjr.org/the_feature/the_fabulist_who_changed_jou...](https://www.cjr.org/the_feature/the_fabulist_who_changed_journalism.php)

~~~
abalashov
Well, like you said, he's only human. And in order to write about his own
family's story in a compelling and provocative way, one has to have some
journalistic thesis to offer, not just to give a matter-of-fact descriptive
account. That requires reaching some conclusions and finding some closure on
one's own first.

Don't underestimate the psychological escape velocity required to overcome the
pull of that which has been presented to you as normal--and which you believed
in some measure to be normal--for much of your life, notwithstanding
occasional misgivings and questions. That pull can persist well into middle
age, and long after you've realised the problem _intellectually_. And of
course, there are practical questions to consider, such as how such a
revelation might tank one's career or credibility as a journalist. That might
seem unprincipled, but remember that any moral position is diluted by one's
own ongoing deliberations.

Finally, writing about people who are still alive and who may be impacted by
your story is an often overlooked source of sensitivity. Imagine how this
story might have impacted Alex Tizon's own mother if published while she were
still alive.

------
huac
The story is very well written, but the perspective of the slavemaster's son
was jarring for me to read.

------
bandrami
Editor's note: a reporter's final story

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/a-repor...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/a-reporters-
story/524538/)

Wow

------
balls187
I grew up in Subic Bay Naval base. Every military family had a local filipino
house keeper, and I remember one of ours vividly.

I had to text my mom and find out if we paid her--I couldn't imagine my family
owning a slave.

~~~
creepydata
So, What did your mom say?

~~~
balls187
> So, What did your mom say?

"Paid house keeper plus all supplies and food. Helped her family also."

While I have no proof, I'm inclined to believe her. It's hard to imagine my
parents owning a slave AND the US Military allowing it's personnel to keep
slaves AND word of that not making it back to the US Mainland.

~~~
merpnderp
Knowing how base authorities handle off-base housing, I'd say the chances of
this are next to zero. I doubt there's a military officer who isn't fully
aware that the US's war with the most casualties was the one to end slavery.

~~~
anigbrowl
I hope you're right, but it's also worth looking into the history of the
Philippine-American war, which like many smaller wars seems to have been
largely forgotten by history. I wasn't even aware of it until I came upon a
gruesome picture of US soldiers posing in front of a pile of thousands of
skulls in one of my history books.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_Wa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War)

~~~
aedron
Completely forgotten, and one of the most brutal and disgusting genocidal
military campaigns in (fairly) modern time.

------
vanesa-
Couldn't hold my tears at the end.

------
GuB-42
One thing that I find somewhat surprising will all stories involving slavery
is how masters are consistently portrayed as assholes in a way that goes
further than what would be a "normal" master/slave relationship.

Even if you think as a slave not as a human being but as, say, a working dog,
or even a nice tool, it is not proper treatment. Most dog owners genuinely
love their dogs and don't punish them more than what is strictly necessary.
Most people naturally respect and grow attached to their "partners", whether
there are humans, animals or even inanimate objects.

So why do slaves, who are are capable of empathy, speech, and everything that
make us human get treated worse than a mechanic's favorite wrench?

~~~
ben_jones
Slaves often serve as a reference point for social standing in society. If you
can push the bar lower, you can effectively raise your own position. I also
imagine the standard appeal of bullying others and holding power over others
played a role.

Just to be clear I think this behavior is abhorrent, this is just my attempt
to understand the mindset.

~~~
beat
That's the attitude that maintained Jim Crow in the south (and still maintains
anti-black racism today). "We may be poor white trash, but at least we aren't
_black_ ". (Black isn't the word that would be used, though)

------
selimthegrim
Steve Sailer in the comments suggesting the best idea for reparations in this
case blew my mind.

~~~
nyolfen
the bit he mentioned about this guy's autobiography was really something else

------
alistproducer2
My mother is from Jamaica and I have a similar story. I was in Jamaica last
summer visiting my grandmother. We were sitting on he porch and she was
telling me how disappointed she was in her sister, who she raised as a
daughter​, as she "gave" the daughter of the women who helped raise my mother
to her sister. I remember being struck by that language. I began wondering
what the real nature of the relationship between my grandmother and the woman
I affectionately knew as "aunt erma." I wonder how common these kind of
arrangements are around the world.

------
hitekker
>The night ended when she declared that I would never understand her
relationship with Lola. Never. Her voice was so guttural and pained that
thinking of it even now, so many years later, feels like a punch to the
stomach. It’s a terrible thing to hate your own mother, and that night I did.
The look in her eyes made clear that she felt the same way about me.

The mother makes me wonder if losing your humanity means becoming an animal.

~~~
anigbrowl
For a lot of people with experience of abuse, animal relationships are
arguably superior to human ones because animals are more emotionally reliable.

Another way to look at this is to consider humans as eusocial animals and
speculate on whether someone is more concerned with their identity/position
within a given or monolithic social body or their position as a discrete
conscious individual. Over time the dichotomy between these positions might
result in acute psychic stresses.

There's a conjectural argument that schizoid tendencies are an evolutionary
remnant of social organization, most famously explore din Jaynes' _The Origin
of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_ , which is worth
reading even if you reject his thesis.

------
anotheryou
An honest question: Is the "animal howl/cry" something normal to write? To me
as a non-native speaker it sounds tinted in a bad way.

On something else: "I tapped the cheap plastic box and regretted not buying a
real urn, made of porcelain or rosewood." Even in the very end, she's still
not one of them for him. I'm glad though, he was brave enough to write this
article anyways.

~~~
sleepychu
> _An honest question: Is the "animal howl/cry" something normal to write? To
> me as a non-native speaker it sounds tinted in a bad way._

I'd say so, I think it refers to a sort of primal response to pain, a reaction
you'd have if you were deeply wounded.

------
keeptrying
It's amazing how people who see themselves as virtuous people are complicit in
netting out such abuse in someone they all rely on a lot.

I'll posit that this happens a lot.

it's very easy to "miss" \- because of the power of social proof. You see so
many people mistreat someone and thus it's easy to fall into the same
behaviour.

Check your own relationships - I think you'd be surprised at what you'd find.

------
creaghpatr
Wow that was a remarkable piece of writing

~~~
Pieman103021
Absolutely, my immediate reaction was just wow. Past the amazing story, the
way he tells it really makes it seem so real. I never imagined modern slavery
to be so casual to the slave master, and I certainly never thought about how
it would effect the slave master's children.

------
jploh
This is heartbreaking but it is well written. I'm born and raised in the
Philippines and still here. There are still a lot of people here who hire
maids or domestic helpers with very low pay and no benefits such as
healthcare. My family used to have domestic helpers as well.

Slave is not the term but the employer is usually referred to as the "master"
("amo" in Filipino).

The practice is seeded deeply into the culture and society. It will probably
need generations before this thinking is changed. Some see it is a way to
"help" those from the countryside with little to no education to be employed.

It's easy to spot - go to an upscale mall and spot a young couple with kids.
There's a good chance they will have a young nanny that's underpaid,
overworked and may be badly treated.

------
rumblefrog
I usually never read something this long. But this is well worth it. A very
touching story as well.

------
abalashov
It's been a while since I read something that truly brought tears to my eyes.

What a moving, eye-opening and well-written piece of literature! Everyone owes
it to themselves to read this story.

------
cdelsolar
My God, what an amazing article.

------
throway555666
Lola was indeed a victim, but she was as much a victim of a culture and
religion that raised her to be subservient and compliant and uncomplaining as
she was one of human hand.

[http://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/notes-and-essays/lola-
pu...](http://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/notes-and-essays/lola-pulido-alex-
tinzon-reaction-a1890-20170518-lfrm)

------
treehau5
Beautiful story. That's all I can say.

------
huxflux
I must say theatlantic.com's Adblock is reallly annoying...

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Justin_K
Magnificent story

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Dimi9909
such a sad story.

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futun
I assume the writer of the article will be imprisoned... /s

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quirkafleeg
(Hate doing this, but as it's not a typo but a common mistake that may spread)

The noun is _advice_. Advise is a verb.

(AFAIK this isn't a British/American difference.)

~~~
dang
We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14355449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14355449)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
quirkafleeg
This is bizarre. Informative, factual posts that are not rude or insulting are
"off topic" now?

It wasn't a grammar Nazi post or about a typo, advice/advise is a common and
easily corrected error that _should_ be corrected, and I did so as politely as
possible. Most people would appreciate it (I know I would).

All you've done by removing a _single post_ (with multiple upvotes) from the
thread is increase the chances that other people will copy/make the same
mistake.

Edit: in fact it's even more baffling than I first thought, you didn't even
remove it, you simply moved it to a position where some people, if they get
that far, will not understand what it's about.

------
syngrog66
not appropriate for HN

------
dennisgorelik
Lola was a servant, but not a slave. She was much closer to being a volunteer
than to a slave.

~~~
kelnos
Servants get paid and have the freedom to choose their own destiny. Lola had
neither of those things.

~~~
abalashov
If I had to read the grandparent's comment charitably, there is a formal
distinction in that Lola's relationship to the family was not legally
institutionalised. If they tried to stop her from leaving the house by force,
they would be committing a crime.

Whether it amounted to _de facto_ slavery is a different question, as I
pointed out in another comment on this article.

~~~
kelnos
I fail to see how the distinction matters. If you are treated like a slave,
act like a slave, required to do a slave's work, and aren't compensated and
are coerced into giving up your freedom, then you are a slave. The legalities
or formal relationship is irrelevant. The de facto nature of her slavery is
all that matters.

~~~
abalashov
I don't disagree with you in the slightest, personally. I was just trying to
provide some interpretation of the possible guiding sentiment behind ancestor
comments.

------
randyrand
I'm curious how this story fits into today's US politics. For those that are
unaware, the Atlantic is a politically left USA website, so typically there is
some connection to modern politics in the life-story pieces.

~~~
Steko
The Atlantic is a 160 year old magazine that leans a lot more to the center
than to the left.

