The rich family, for instance, is usually white, educated, heterosexual and of course powerful. On the other hand, the middle-class or lower class, with less power, such as domestic worker for example, are of non-white, non-Western origin, such as Hispanic or Black, and so forth. Of course, the mate is usually a woman, although there are some exceptions, and that fits the gender specific labels or dichotomy that certain jobs are for women only/mostly or men only/mostly. Most of the time, in soap operas, the men are the one working, usually in an office or some sort of business building, while women are found mostly at home, taking care of the household and the family, doing mostly shopping, gossiping or anything that is usually associated with the assumptions of what women are supposed be doing traditionally. If women are given any jobs, they are shown as accessory/helper to man, such as secretary for example. This, of course, is not shown to be considered of such significance and it is used as just another detail of their character and a way to show that this is a "typical thing" for women to do. However, here I want to differentiate between different "race" groups of women. The reason is because women of color are, usually, given the roles of lower paid working women, or the role of being immigrants/new comers, and usually have an accent to define that, and are mostly light skinned. Hence, gender becomes a matter of "subdued labour and imperial plunder" and race is used as a tool of " labour power, cross-hatched by gender"(Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality In The Colonial Contest; 1995, pp.4)
As well, I would like to point out that there are soap operas in which hierarchical relationships are also being romanticized. In Passions, for example, the daughter of a Hispanic woman, who happens to be and immigrant and a domestic worker working for a very rich, white and powerful family, falls madly in love with the younger son of this family who is engaged to another woman who is from the same race, class and status. Thus, what we are shown here is the "poor girl falls in love with a rich boy context" how it is being romanticized by having her acting all sweet and innocent, and not giving up on him because she loves him so much. We do not often see the opposite case in which a poor boy falls in love with a rich girl. I find this to be problematic because of the racial power positioning between men and women or between different groups of women for that matter. To clarify, what I mean by the word romanticized is that the bigger picture and the real/hidden message is being glossed over by a romance, in this case. Further, the son eventually starts realizing that he is falling in love with the mate's daughter, and although that might make it look romantic, there is a problem, not only because he is already engaged to another woman, but because he is from a different class, race and status. This brings me to the point that interracial relationships are not as likely to be shown as same-race relationships, whereas in the real world, especially nowadays, there are a lot of interracial relationships. In other words, a white woman is more likely to be with a white man, black woman with black man and so forth.
It was not until recently that the TV media, including soap operas, began to include more people of different "racial" groups and in particular Black characters. However, "Hispanic and Asian characters remain virtually invisible on the screen, despite their rapid growth in the real world"(Sally Steenland, Content Analysis Of The Image Of Women On Television; 1995, pp. 182-183). Therefore, it is safe to say that there is not much of variety of characters from different "race" and ethnical backgrounds in soap operas, and the one who are included are usually changed to fit in the white, North American standard norm.