Food is more than just sustenance
Food is important for maintaining identity and stability during the unsettling experience of migration. For women migrants, food becomes important not only as sustenance but for maintaining a migrant woman’s sense of self. Food is a complicated experience for domestic workers in Singapore, as the women prep and cook the food in the household, but they can have limits to their access to the food they are surrounded by, and unlike a restaurant chef who may also have similar limits, the workplace of domestic workers is also their home for the time being. Access to food is dependent on the type of relationship that domestic workers have with their employers and my research demonstrates that this relationship usually changes over time. For many participants, food was not readily available to them when they first arrived in Singapore, as they either had to change employers who previously mistreated them with food or they had to develop a bond over time with their current employers in order to negotiate the access to food that they now have. The most common finding was that many domestic workers had to “wander through the woods” before obtaining their positive experiences with food access.
One of the most complicated aspects of domestic worker food security in Singapore has to do with the fact that the women come from a completely different culture than their employers who are providing the food. In Indonesia, rice and vegetables are a part of every meal, as I had many participants say things along the lines of, “If Indonesians have not eaten rice, it means they haven’t eaten yet,” or “Indonesians need rice to survive.” Though many domestic workers eat the same foods as their employers for meals, many do not have access to culturally appropriate foods, and are forced to change their diets in order to adapt to their living conditions in Singapore. Though there are some pros to changing their diets, many women reported that they felt hungry when access to culturally satisfying foods were limited and some even experienced health problems and unwanted weight loss from having to change their diets to suit the lifestyle of their employers. Some domestic workers, who had the freedom to go grocery shopping for their employers, would resort to purchasing their own ingredients with their own money, in order to make traditional Indonesian dishes for themselves (if they were allowed). It is important to note that not many women have enough time to cook separately for themselves; most women do not have the freedom to buy their own foods; and the income of domestic workers in Singapore is not enough for them to be able to provide themselves with food on a regular basis, which is why employers are expected to provide their basic needs. Although many domestic workers reported that they ate the same food as employers for lunch and dinner, many reported that “status” foods, such as fruit and sweets, were not available to them in the households. In most cases where these status foods were accessible, the domestic workers were reprimanded for eating those same foods, so in a state of fear and confusion, they often refrained from consumption. The basic rule in most of the households was that the domestic worker must ask before they eat anything – it may sound simple enough, but remember that the employers’ house is also the place in which they call home for the time being.
Food security was voiced in an ambiguous manner; despite some women having many restrictions imposed on them in their employers' households, their current experiences with food were better than those around them or better than they had in the past, so they did not feel that they had problems with food. As diverse as the food experiences were, there was one universal in my study: the domestic workers always missed the food from their home country and preferred it to Singaporean foods.