Second-Class Daughters examines the lives of 'adoptive daughters' in Brazil: the marginalized informal domestic workers who live in slave-like conditions in the homes of their adoptive families. This powerful account will interest readers invested in the colonial legacies of slavery, as it questions standard ideas about love, family and freedom.

"In May 2014, a couple posted the above advertisement in the Diâario de Parâa, a newspaper based in Belâem, Parâa, Brazil, to find a babâa (nanny) for their baby. The publication of an ad of this nature in a mainstream newspaper reflects the pervasive practice of "adopting" young girls into families for the purpose of exploiting them as unpaid domestic workers (Belträao 2016).1 The listing sparked an uproar among prominent social activist groups in Brazil that marshaled social media platforms to denounce what was viewed as the couple's poorly veiled effort to exploit child labor under the guise of adoption"--