The Hughes Fire broke out Wednesday by Castaic Lake, and has burned over 10,000 acres as of noon today. While crews work to contain it, the total fallout from earlier fires is coming into view. The Palisades Fire destroyed more than 6,600 homes and damaged many more. The neighborhood was mostly wealthy, and people there could afford to hire housekeepers and gardeners. Many of those folks are now without work.
Monica Motta runs a small house cleaning business and has lost her clients in Pacific Palisades, an area that accounted for two-thirds of her income.
She says she has five permanent employees, plus another five who work one or two days of the week.
She hasn’t talked to her Palisades customers about returning to work. “I'm afraid to even touch the subject. … I've been in touch with them … like, ‘Hope you're doing good … if you need anything, just let me know.’ But that's very devastating for them. They lost more than just a home. They lost memories. They lost things that money cannot buy.”
Now Motta is sending her workers to Silver Lake and other LA areas. “I'm distributing whatever we have left between all of us. So that way we all have even a little bit. … Some of them are working just two days, and I'm trying to fill it up here and there.”
She adds, “I said, ‘Either we all eat beans, or we all eat meat.’ Right now we [are] only eating beans and rice, and we're surviving. But we're very hopeful that we will get back.”
Through phone calls to her social circles and distribution of flyers, Motta is trying to advertise her business, see if she can partner with someone else, and add more services to what she’s already doing.
Monica Motta’s house cleaning workers in Pacific Palisades a week before the fire broke out. Credit: Monica Motta.
Meanwhile, with a second Trump presidency, the threat of ramped-up deportation efforts is looming. She says some of her employees have expressed their fears to her. “[They say] ‘Now I don't have to just worry about bringing food to the table because of work. … But on top of that … I'm afraid to go to the supermarket to do the essentials and buy food, because I don't know if immigration is going to be there. … Sundays, we used to go to church and take the kids to eat or something. But not anymore because we're afraid to do those basics.’”
Half her workers are undocumented, half have legal residency in the States, she notes. But even the documented ones fear for their friends and family without papers.
Also on the table in Washington D.C.: taking away birthright citizenship. Motta says that’s unconstitutional.
She notes that she came to the U.S. 20 years ago from Guatemala. She’s determined to make it work in the States. “I'm a proud American, and I don't see myself going back, as much as I love Guatemala. But this is my place now, and we just have to figure it out right here.”