While I originally situated this excessive ethnicity firmly within Mama Elsa (whose eccentricity did not disappoint us in the reunion), as the season progressed viewers were introduced to another figure that served the same purpose: Freda.  As the long-term maid of one of the show’s original cast members (Lea Black) this season was, surprisingly, the first time viewers saw any of this woman who is supposedly an integral part of the Black household.  What makes her entrance significant is not that she was absent from the first season, she is significant because she is a representation of Cuban latinidad that is not only based in African descent (a topic that warrants its own essay) but one that further aligns “Old” Miami with a racialized and excessive quality.  Freda is framed as both superstitious and highly religious and her unglamorous body and lifestyle was set is stark contrast to the aesthetically enhanced housewives.  In one scene, Lea (shown with both hair and makeup done, nicely dressed, with the required high heel) exasperated from calling for Freda, huffs up the stairs to her room where Freda is content to ignore her so that she may read her bible.  Lea speaks to her in broken Spanish, making a comment about Freda’s habit of listening to “that religious” music too frequently.  As just one of the many examples of the patronizing manner in which Lea interacted with her, Freda seemed entirely out of place among the cast.  Lea, who talked to her as if she were a child and suggested that she was responsible for styling Freda’s untreated natural hair, treats her domestic worker of many years more like a helpless rescue puppy than an employee.  The fact that Freda cannot (or chooses not to) speak English further Others her and suggests that she is truly a remnant of a Miami that is slowly fading away.  While there are numerous other examples of “Old” Miami’s excessive ethnicity throughout this season, it is the appearance of Freda that stands out most.  I contend that RHOM used Freda as a narrative device in order to make the primary cast members appear more beautiful, eloquent, and, well, white.

While Freda was the figure in the show most marked by difference, the same narrative device was deployed in the story arc concerning Daisy, Lisa Hochstein’s maid, who is one of the other housewives.  Daisy is treated by Lisa as though she were her sidekick and to reward her for being such a loyal friend, has her plastic surgeon husband give Daisy the ultimate makeover.  There is an observable affection towards Daisy from Lisa, but yet again, it is more similar to the affection doted on a pet than a companion.  While such a connection is comical, that is part of its cover.  Shari Roberts (see: “The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat” 1993), in her analysis of Carmen Miranda, suggests that such comical displays of excess render ethnic subjectivities as harmless and operate as what she terms a “spectacle of containment.”  Therefore, I assert that Freda, Daisy, and Mama Elsa are all deployed within the narrative framing of the show in order to let the producers continue to utilize discourses of the Latin spice while at the same time containing that spice within the bodies of a handful of figures with excessive ethnicity.  Such containment provides the means for a simultaneous indulgence and rejection of what is depicted as “Old” Miami while at the same time heralding the emergence of a newer, brighter, and whiter Miami.