Entre Quatro Paredes (Between Four Walls)

FAXINA, /fah/she/nah/, is a Portuguese word that means deep cleaning, an activity that is much more than a simple tidying up. Brazilian house cleaners call themselves “Faxineiras.” When someone is performing a “faxina,” this person is committed to move things out of their familiar places, to create a zone of chaos and discomfort, so that the dust — long accumulated — can be removed. Also, there is inside “faxineiras” (house cleaners) an interior preparation for the possible surprises that they might find under the rug or behind the sofa. 

FAXINA storytelling was created by me, Heloiza Barbosa, a former house cleaner and Brazilian immigrant. I know firsthand the difficulties of arriving in a foreign country in search of opportunity, how limited the resources many of us have, and that domestic work is one of the few work options Brazilian migrants find upon arriving in the United States. As a former house cleaner, I have seen into this world. I also know how often the immigrant stories have been ignored, forgotten or simply not heard. 

My show tells the stories of Brazilian house cleaners in America; cleaning other people’s houses while creating homes of their own. It is an ethnographic audio-documentary about the lives of these immigrants in their own voices; it is a podcast about the stories that get swept under the rug. And on it you will hear Portuguese language immigrant narratives infused with original music composed by Brazilian musicians. 

“Between Four Walls” is an episode about Elza, an undocumented Brazilian housecleaner who borrowed money from a “coyote” and fled Brazil to save her life, leaving behind her family, her house, her secure job, and her two-year-old son. It is an episode about the structural forces that cause women displacement, about domestic violence as a factor of women migration, racism, urban violence, separation of mother and child, and the aspirations of dreamers. It is an episode about the psychological manipulation and violence of "coyotes." The whole episode had original music composed by FAXINA’s team. We also use FAXINA’s platform to shed light on the work of Brazilian illustrators and artists. Thus, this episode has original artwork by Carli-Ayô, an awarded Brazilian graffiti artist. 

— Heloiza Barbosa