For decades the U.S. has struggled to find a balance between the sanctity of the family and protecting women from domestic abuse. Imagine the difficulties faced by immigrant women, who aren’t protected by the same laws as U.S. citizens. Immigrant women may also face language and cultural barriers that discourage them from seeking help. Furthermore, they can easily be threatened with deportation or a bureaucratic break up of their family.

While the corporate exploitation of immigrants has garnered much public attention, there seems to be very little concern about domestic abuse. Part of the problem is that these woman are ensconced in the “private sphere” of the family, and thus they have no voice that can be heard in civil society (beyond the occasional chivalrous journalist or charitable organization that offers to speak for them). They are trapped in their Nobody status until the police come to process the handling of a dead body. Only through death and red tape do they actually become a Somebody: documented in a file, registered in a database, and preserved as a statistic.