Question: What would you do if the family living next door to you, owned a slave?
I bring this up because of this article I just read about a family from the Phillipines who owned a slave. The jist of the story is back in 1943 a woman from a poor village they later called “Lola” was sold by her family to a wealthy family. Later she was “given” by the owner to his daughter and her new American soldier husband who later moved to the United States. “Lola” was mistreated all her life. The kids (all 5) later figured out what was going on and grew resentful of what their parents were doing but felt powerless to do anything about it. When the parents died Lola eventually went to live with the son who tried to treat her as a regular person and give her some comfort in her final years.
Now I bring this up because I have heard about other immigrant families who have someone living with them, whom they often refer to as maybe an aunt or cousin or whatever but who probably is in reality, a slave. Many of these are top, respectful families, many of whom are doctors or other persons top in their fields.
So, I’d like to ask;
Have you seen such situations?
What would or what could you do in such a situation?
I’ve never seen or been suspicious of anything like that.
If I had any evidence at all I would certainly call the authorities. I can’t imagine a case where I would not want to free the enslaved person as soon as possible.
But in reality it could certainly be very difficult to know that from outside the family, unless the enslaved person made some communication to that effect. How would I as an outsider know whether this person was being paid or not, or was being held against their will?
After spending 8 years in prison in an unusually lenient plea deal, Lakireddy Bali Reddy is still wallowing in his mansion with a grand fortune. It’s a sad, sad world we live in.
I would contact a anti-human-trafficking organization first because they would understand the legal situation better than me or the many local police. I wouldn’t want to put a traffic person in a situation where they would just be deported back to their home country and resold.
How would you know that’s not their aunt or their cousin? Obviously, most Americans would report it if they knew someone was being held as a slave but as in the case of the Filipino woman, the family was careful enough to disguise what was really going on.
The closest I saw to this was as a child. I had friend in school from India and his family had a servant I believe they called a Pune. She was an older woman, her quarters were in the basement of their house in a little corner behind a screen. She cooked and cleaned for them and she seemed to adore my friend. I can’t say if she was paid, She was well treated from what I could see. I have heard stories about ill treatment of servants like this, working for subsistence only, but I don’t know much else about the subject or this particular case. I imagine at the time (1960s) her life was as good here as it would have been back in India where they returned around 1970.
So what would I do now if I encountered the same circumstance? Well I’d certainly be curious. If it sounded like indentured servitude or slavery of some sort I’d ask a lot of questions, have concerns, and talk to other Indians I know to try to scope out the situation, and if there were real reason to be concerned contact someone, though I’m not sure who.
