<![CDATA[Jezebel: maids]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/jezebel.com.png <![CDATA[Jezebel: maids]]> http://jezebel.com/tag/maids http://jezebel.com/tag/maids <![CDATA[Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera]]> Actress Lupe Ontiveros has played a maid more than 150 times. "I'd get parts if I spoke the way they wanted me to speak," she says. "I did it because it was an investment in my career."

"You'd say, 'You want an accent?' And they'd say, 'Yes, we prefer for you to have an accent.' And the thicker and more waddly it is, the more they like it," the actress, born in Texas, says. She's been in The Goonies, Charlie's Angels and Who's The Boss?. She says: "I long to play a judge. I long to play a lesbian woman. I long to play a councilman, someone with some chutzpah." [NPR]

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<![CDATA[Maid In Lebanon]]> According to a Human Rights Watch report released yesterday, foreign maids in Lebanon have been dying at a rate of more than one a week. Since January 2007, at least 95 foreign maids have died from either suicide, falling from high buildings while trying to escape their employers, or health issues (we're guessing that they don't have healthcare). Interviews with the embassies and friends of those who committed suicide reveal that they were unhappy due to forced confinement and excessive work demands; according to another report, nearly 1/3 of foreign maids in the country are not allowed to leave the homes in which they work. [HRW via NYT]

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