DANA ULLMAN,

"In short, I was a slave"

Published September/2017 in Colorlines

Filipina nanny Edith Mendoza moved to the U.S. to care for a German diplomat's family. She ended up working 100-hour weeks for $4 an hour and becoming seriously ill.

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Portrait of Edith Mendoza, 51, in the hallway of her apartment building in Queens, NY. Filipina nanny Edith Mendoza moved to the U.S. to care for a German diplomat's family. She ended up working 100-hour weeks for $4 an hour and becoming seriously ill. She made it out in 2016.

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Edith Mendoza, 51, catching the 7, nicknamed "the train of immigrants" by locals in Queens, NY.

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Edith Mendoza, 51, heads home after work in Queens, NY. Filipina live-in nanny Edith Mendoza left her Qatar-based job in 2015 to work in the United States for the family of Pit Koehler, Counsellor of the United Nations’ German Permanent Mission to the United States. She says she was promised $10 an hour, 35 hours a week and overtime pay but ended up working 100-hour weeks at their suburban New York home, making what amounted to about $4 an hour. Mendoza became so ill that at one point she had to wear an adult diaper for heavy bleeding.

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Edith Mendoza, 51, at the apartment she shares with three roommates in Queens, NY.

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Edith Mendoza, 51, in her neighborhood in Queens, New York. Ms. Mendoza supports her son, daughter and husband in the Philippines.

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Edith Mendoza, 51, in Queens, NY. “When I got this job I felt blessed and filled with hope for my family. They paid regularly until four or five months everything changed. They demanded more work. I [asked] would they add more to my salary. They told me, ‘Edith, everything is free for you.’ Yes [they broke my contract], but I don’t know everything at that time. I don’t know about the [Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights]. I don’t know what I am supposed to do, who to contact, so I just keep silent doing what they told me to do. I was powerless. I was scared I might lose my job or they might send me back to the Philippines.”

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Edith Mendoza, Sherile Pahagas and Ms. Pahagas's son catch up in Queens, New York.

After a chance meeting in a Manhattan park with Sherile Pahagas, another domestic worker who had been employed by the of the Koehler family, the two women joined forces. They are now suing the Koehlers. The complaint alleges breach of contract, unpaid wages and labor violations.

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The suffering [Sherile and I] are facing now is that it’s hard to get job. I don’t have reference. Sometimes [employers] will use that to pay you less. It’s hard to talk to my family about what is going on. It’s really something that keeps me depressed. If I stayed in Qatar, maybe I’d have paid all the loans that I have in the Philippines and my house and my kids [wouldn’t] suffer. So it’s also pride for me to live without telling my family or my previous employer because I’ve been good to them and they were good also to me. It’s very hard to go back to what is past. It seems that I am fighting a wall. Will I break it and reach there? It is very hard to break that wall.”

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Mendoza escaped in July 2016 with the help of Damayan Migrant Workers Association. While Koehler’s diplomatic immunity may protect him, Mendoza sued him and his wife, Marieke this summer for labor exploitation. Sherile Pahagas, another previous employee of the Koehlers,’ has also filed suit.

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Edith Mendoza, 51, prepares dinner at the apartment she shares with three roommates in Queens, NY. I was not comfortable…always out of place. I would cook for them but feel hungry and shy. I remember what [Marieke] said to me when I ate some leftovers: ‘You ask me first before you have to eat.’ The worst was the two birds [that were] free to fly all over the house. I think I got sick from the birds. I ask [the Koehlers] to buy gloves, to buy masks. They never did. I bought them myself and they never reimbursed me. [Marieke] ignored me.

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Edith Mendoza, 51, cleans offices in Manhattan, NY three times a week.

After November 2015, it was too long to do this hard work. I would start my day before 6 a.m. and end after midnight. It seemed like I had been in a tournament of boxing or a marathon. I only feel rest on Sunday when I express myself to God and pray, ‘Help me Lord please give me rest I’m so tired.’ So what can I do? Just do the work because this my job. I don’t want to lose my job because I need money."