“El Jefe” by Shakira: the story of a fired babysitter and an immigration crisis without a solution

Shakira It doesn’t stop making news. After his applauded presentation at the MTV Music Awards on September 12, where he sang several of his hits and closed with a flourish to the rhythm of “Sessions #53″-the theme next to Bizarre in which he talks about the infidelity of Gerard Piqué– the Colombian released the video for “The boss“, a song with Ruled Force, a band of American Mexican regional music, with which, in addition to entering this genre for the first time, it speaks of a global problem such as immigration and labor exploitation but with the peculiarity of giving this name and surname and incidentally throwing a new dart at his ex-partner.

“Seven thirty and the alarm has sounded. I want to be in bed, but I can’t, I take the kids at 9. The same coffee, the same kitchen. The same old thing, the same routine. Another shitty day, another day at the office. I have a shitty boss, who doesn’t pay me well. I arrive walking and he arrives in a Mercedes Benz. “He has me as a recruit, he is a very son of a bitch,” tells us the beginning of “The boss”, but as the topic progresses, it becomes more frontal.

“How ironic, how crazy, this is torture. You kill yourself from dawn to dusk and you don’t have a single piece of writing. They say that there is no evil that lasts more than a hundred years, But there is still my ex-father-in-law who has not set foot in the grave.”.

Almost at the end of the song, Shakira says this phrase: “Lili Melgar. For you this song, they didn’t pay you compensation”, thus revealing a topic as sensitive and controversial as labor exploitation but with a clear villain in the middle: Gerard Piqué, of who is said to have fired the Bolivian nanny without recognizing her benefits.

Who is Lili Melgar?

Lili Melgar was the babysitter in charge Milan and Sashathe sons of Shakira and Piqué, since these were babies. In several photographs, the woman of Bolivian origin appears with the former couple and the children.

Although without a name or surname, the first time we heard about the lady was when the former footballer’s infidelity came to light, that is, in mid-2022. Then it was said that it was she who had realized several details that were going happening at the footballer’s house in the absence of the singer and which ended up revealing that the Barcelona defender was being unfaithful to her with another woman.

Until then these statements were just rumors, however, Melgar’s presence in the video of “The boss“does nothing more than confirm the arbitrary dismissal of which he was a victim by Piqué.

On her TikTok account, the nanny shared an excerpt from the video clip in question and wrote: “thank you, ???? out of respect I can’t speak”, causing a series of positive reactions towards her from her followers.

For its part, Dariana Melgardaughter of Lili, confirmed in one of her tweets that her mother was not compensated and that she currently works for Shakira in Miami.

About the situation of migrants

Something that has attracted a lot of attention in the video clip of “The boss”, is when we see Shakira and members of Ruled Force, about what is known as ‘The Beast’, a Mexican train whose task is to transport raw materials to the United States but which has been used for years as a means of transportation by migrants from Central America to illegally reach the North American giant.

Considered extremely dangerous and subhuman, this also called ‘Death Train’, continues to cross hundreds of people daily. According to EFE data, more than 2.76 million undocumented migrants were intercepted by the United States at the border in 2022.

“A double feeling”

“When we talk about migration, in general emphasis is placed on the migration of qualified professionals with specializations that the destination countries need to cover, especially in the medical field, nursing, manual labor, agriculture, etc. So, in these countries a kind of double feeling is generated, on the one hand they need them because their economy moves in part with the great contribution of skilled and unskilled migrants, but on the other hand a series of antibodies are created against migrants thinking that we are invading them or believing that jobs are being replaced by the often cheap labor that exists because the contractors, to pay less, prefer an irregular… So, it is a set of feelings that has a different political impact in each country. Thus, for example, each Peruvian migrant has a different profile in each country depending on the social background of origin and the labor market of the destination countries and the regulations…”, he maintains. Teófilo Altamirano, doctor in Anthropology and Social Sciences, and expert in migration processesin conversation with El Comercio.

The specialist says that the United States continues to be the destination country with the largest arrival of migrants, there is already a large community of Latinos, therefore it becomes much easier to find a job and adapt even without speaking English.

In Europe, on the other hand, the job market is different, even for qualified professionals because reality is more competitive. “The European community is experiencing this massive migration that comes from Africa and passes through the Mediterranean. There are days when there are two or three thousand people who arrive, especially in southern Italy, Spain, etc. And this has caused a kind of protectionism or nationalism because apparently they are invaded by these people who come without any qualifications, without speaking the same language, so adapting them is going to be a much more difficult task than in the United States,” says Altamirano. .

The Latino workforce

In recent years, Europe became the ideal place for those Latinos who arrived in search of a job that would allow them to survive and send remittances to their families. If we talk about Spain, many elderly people retire to live alone and need the support of someone “and the Latin woman has always been very efficient, very affectionate, a way of being that is very much ours.” However, legality does not always go hand in hand.

In the case of Lili Melgar, Altamirano affirms that what happened with her and Gerard Piqué is repeated in many places. “The Spanish, French, Italian employer can easily get rid of his domestic worker because there is a growing labor market and there is always someone waiting on the list to join.”

“In each case it is different but in general it happens that the majority of domestic workers are hired informally. Each family hires under its own terms, there is no employment contract that says how long the job is for, how much the salary is, or that details its social benefits. Then the employer is in a position to fire him at any time and not even the embassies can be behind all this because he is completely overwhelmed. Then everything is left to the fate of the migrant. Fortunately, in the European mentality, it is clear that the Peruvian woman is very faithful and very industrious,” she adds.