The lines were blurred between the private and public roles of women, the desires of discovering a better life and finding love, and work and caring for children. Symbols and traditional roles presented in the literature help explain women’s use of the language of sacrifice, God, and the Virgin; however, they do not determine or fully explain women’s practices of care. Horton (2009) points out that current scholarship on transnational mothers has focused on gender constructs and ideologies. I do not disagree. My contribution through this research is to show that, beyond analyzing migrant women’s roles from the point of view of gender ideologies, research must focus on what parts of this “ideology” are used, when, and with what purpose. As Brianna, a mother in Queens, told me:
Of course my instinct is to think about my children first … they are my heart. But I also think the husband-wife relationship is very important and I wanted to be with Ronald, that’s why I came with him and left my three girls. Is that a crime? I don’t think so. But people talk.
In another interview in the Bronx, Aruna (A) told me (G):
A: Can I be honest with you? Are you not going to get offended?
G: No, go ahead.
A: You … your type …
G: My type?
A: Yes … blanquita (white lady) like you … don’t be hurt by my comments, ok?
G: Ok, I won’t.
A: You come to this world and you get to choose … felicidad (happiness) for you is not having a million children, you want to explore, travel, meet people, go to school, learn … you know? We are here to have children.
G: Who is “we”?
A: My type of people … you know … darker, poorer … we come to this world to have children. It is a good sign when we get pregnant; it’s good to give children to one’s husband … but [your husband] he doesn’t care if you have children now or if it’s only one.
G: You are right, he doesn’t care right now, or at least he is not telling me!
A: [laughter] What I want to say is that you have time … time to choose different things, you have opportunities, you travel, you explore … and we have to cook and care for our children … but it’s ok, because it’s what we do … I don’t want you to pity me, because it’s what we do … and it’s ok.
G: But when you left Mexico did you think about that?
A: I thought I needed to get out … to immigrate also meant trying a different life for me. I convinced myself it would be good for my girls, but I knew I was trying to find my opportunities. Sometimes I think I’m being punished because of my choices … but then, look at me now. I feel like I was pulled back into where I belong [emphasis added] … not exactly like it was in Mexico, because I have grown and I have more responsibilities now … here and there. But I am again a wife with three muchachos. I’m telling you, God has a plan.
This excerpt from a much longer conversation illustrates the point that I am attempting to make. Most immigration/migration research has focused on gender ideology and the roles women have “here and there” and how, through migration, these roles can transform and empower women (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2001) or simply reproduce the roles from the society of origin (Parrenãs, 2005a). I argue that the issue is more complex and less localized than this debate suggests. One of the interesting things about the interview above is that the mother allowed herself to speak about her own ambitions: she recognized the potential selfishness of acting on her own ambitions but also acknowledged that class and race ultimately collapse into distinct forms of personhood for different groups of women (blanquitas and “my type of people”).
As women establish transnational arrangements of familial ties, their roles become more fluid as they are constantly negotiating everyday decisions regarding children in Mexico and children in the United States. To say that their roles are completely transformed and that these women become “empowered” through the process of migration because of their breadwinner status is to disregard the constant connections they make with what they have learned while growing up about what a good mother and a good woman “should” be. At the same time, to state that women only reproduce the gender roles present in the host society is to ignore the active and creative ways in which mothers care “for them all” here and there. In addition, theoretically, if the very decision to leave was purely informed by marianismo and other symbols, leaving would be synonymous with being a “bad” mother. Instead, women used the social space of our interviews to discuss stereotypes and symbols of what it means to be an “absent” mother. Several had also begun to explore the possibility of freedom from at least a few of the expectations they face in their hometowns, sometimes by giving precedence to one traditional value over another.
Among the constellations in my research, when the mothers had originally departed from Mexico the average age of their children was seven years (though this ranged from eight months to thirteen years), and the mothers and caregivers’ average ages were 23 and 42, respectively. Before migrating, women were living in one of two conditions: with their partners but close to their mothers; or with their mothers. In all cases children were left with kin who had directly participated in their care prior to migration. Women already relied on the help of kin in order to work and support their families. However, the role of the biological mother, the one who gave birth, was recognized as the most important and sacred role. This does not mean that children “love” or “respect” their biological mothers more than their caregivers; in fact the contrary is closer to the truth. What it means is that caregivers keep biological mothers as co-parents at a distance and mothers feel it is their duty to maintain and in many cases to attempt to strengthen bonds with the children they leave behind.
When women gave birth to children in the United States or brought them to this country, they saw the opportunity as a “second chance” to be a good mother, and described it as a moment where they could fulfill their mission in the world. In order to understand gender ideology and ideologies of motherhood, which are associated with sacrifice and childcare, it is important to look at pre-migration structures, shared caregiving or co-caregiving, and the caregiving practices adopted by women so they could care for their children left behind as well as their children brought to or born in the United States.
Sharing and Negotiating Caregiving Obligations
Mothers and caregivers in this research rarely discussed migration plans prior to mothers’ departures. They may have been living in the same house and already sharing child-rearing tasks, but when it came to the decision to migrate, mothers who participated in this research did not communicate or “prepare” their children prior to departing. This pattern is contrary to other studies, such as that of Zentgraf and Chinchilla (2006), who report that mothers did do their best to prepare children for their departure. In the case of the 20 focal families in this study, all mothers described the time preceding their departure as a struggle. They described their decisions as “quick” and “sudden.” One mother said it was “like ripping off a band-aid.” There was no preparation or talks prior to parting. The first reason was that children were young, so mothers did not see the need to explain. The second reason was similar to what Dreby (2006) found to be true among migrating fathers: fear of upsetting the children. Finally, the mothers described the process to be too painful, and felt that constant discussion of leaving may have cast doubt on their decision.
Even though caregivers were raising the children who remained in Mexico as if they were their own, the children do not seem to lose sight of their migrant mothers. The different simultaneous dynamics (intergenerational) present within these constellations show that care is a complex and ambiguous concept. Care as a semantic field covers different meanings: to care for, to care about, to take care of (caretaker), to give care (caregiver), or even to be caring. This corresponds with different ethic and normative notions of care. As mentioned previously, most immigrant mothers left their children with maternal grandmothers as primary caregivers. According to Dreby (2010)
, “Migrants believe maternal grandmothers to be the most logical caregivers for their children during their absences” (p. 149). However, in my research it was not uncommon to see paternal grandmothers who have lived with the children before migration taking care of them. Many women reported leaving their children with their own mothers because they were already living together and shared a house. Thus, in a sense, their perception was that there was no “complete rupture,” as the physical home of the child remained the same. Despite strong emotional ties that grandmothers have with their grandchildren, grandparents rarely question biological parents’ attachments to their children. Caregivers, however, sometimes faced a paradox. They did not question the claim that biological parents held over the children, despite their own deep attachment to them. Further, they did not question the decisions their sons and daughters made to move north and reunite with their husbands or wives, which they considered proper, but they sometimes resented being left behind, especially when resources were insufficient to take on the responsibility of raising a child.
Care is the single most important aspect that keeps a constellation together. As women crossed the border, contrary to common perception, their sense of responsibility and duty toward not only their child or children but also toward the mother they left behind is intensified. Neither Gemma nor her mother, Emma, envisioned a life where they would share caregiving obligations transnationally, as they did not create this plan together.
Thus, for both of these women the constant worry about not overstepping boundaries as mother and daughter contributed to the tensions that arose from the everyday practice of parenting. As grateful as she was for her mother taking care of Daniela, Gemma struggled with the fact that her daughter “loved” Emma as her own mamá. Emma, on the other hand, did not want to “take over” the role she understood to pertain to the biological mother. Gemma, like many of the mothers interviewed, was conscious about the limits of her role in caregiving. If children in Mexico were young, the relationship between mothers in New York and caregivers in Mexico tended to align without much disagreement. It was when children were in their teenage years that the duties of caregiving and the obligations became more salient. I observed multiple occasions when mothers in New York and caregivers in Mexico discussed on the phone everyday decisions related to curfew, freedom to come and go, health needs, and above all schooling. The ideals of motherhood described in the beginning of this chapter were re-conceptualized by both mothers and caregivers; in almost every case in my study the latter were maternal grandmothers. Kin-related obligations and obligations expected to be performed by mothers happened across transnational space, and mothers in New York and caregivers in Mexico actively created ways to “take care” of each other and the children involved.
Gemma’s particular story sheds light on a pattern I found in relationships between caregivers and mothers. The first component had to do with Gemma’s past; she was once with a man whom she left. That fact created a source of anxiety for both of her parents, who wanted to see her married with children. Her mother, Emma, supported her decision of leaving Daniela because she understood Gemma to have a need to be formally married, given that she was known as a dejada. Thus, her commitment to her daughter’s need to be seen as a “good” woman and wife trumped one of the basic concepts of “good” mother for Emma—physical presence. Second, after taking care of Daniela for a few years, Emma was emotionally attached to her but ready to hand her over when Gemma returned to Mexico. The decision to leave Daniela a second time was made with support from Emma. Gemma felt she had “lost” the mother love she once had with Daniela. Both women also worried about safety during border crossing and made a decision that was different from what they had agreed on a few years back. In that moment, together they created an alternative way of caring for Daniela. All caregivers and grandmothers interviewed conveyed one particular feeling over and over: preoccupation. Caregivers worried about their own daughters, they questioned how good they themselves had been as mothers, and in many ways they described their shared responsibilities with their daughters as second chances to be “a good mother.” On the other side, mothers worry about their children and their own mothers. Thus, the “hierarchy of responsibility” was not only challenged, but constantly reversed. In a mirrored way, mothers in New York City also saw their US-born children as giving them a second chance to be good mothers. Therefore, caregivers and mothers in New York City had very similar preoccupations regarding to whom they were good mothers and, above all, if they could indeed “care for them all.” The idea of good mothers as discussed by women reflects care, and emotional and financial support are part of the puzzle as well. Children and youth also had their expectations of the contact with their mothers to be one that reflected support above all.
Working one or more jobs was a reality to these migrant Mexican women. They often compared the amount of work they now had with how much they worked in Mexico before leaving. As soon as they became mothers in Mexico, the majority of their time was spent at home. Even if they worked outside of the house it normally involved making tortillas, selling chicken, or working at the small family stores that were usually attached to their homes. Some women, however, had held jobs as housekeepers in towns that were farther away from their pueblos. Even women with those jobs felt like they had more time to dedicate to their children, and that was synonymous with “good mothering.” In New York, women found themselves facing three different mothering realities. For the children they left behind, they became the breadwinners who cared for and supported them financially; transnational mothers are not replacing “caregiving” with “breadwinning” in their definitions of motherhood, but they are expanding their definitions of motherhood to encompass breadwinning and they recognize that this may require long-term physical separations as the ultimate sacrifice (Hondagneu-Sotelo & Avila, 1997). For the children they brought over to the United States, women discussed guilt as well as a sense of sameness. Maria Fernanda, a migrant mother, told me, “Florencia [daughter she brought with her from Mexico] is illegal and so am I. She helps me take care of my younger children and now she has a baby herself, so in a way we are both illegal mothers.” Finally, for the children born in the United States, migrant mothers were the primary caregivers and main economic supporters, as working mothers; however, they often felt an emotional distance from one another because of language and cultural barriers (detailed in chapter 3).
When I asked mothers if they planned to ever go back to Mexico, their responses were mixed. Sara explained:
Felipe, my son, has asthma. The center where we go is right in front of my apartment. The government pays for it and I have help … in Mexico I would have to take a truck and go three hours to find a hospital for my son. Is that fair to him? No. But is it fair to Agustín that he is left there in Mexico?
It is interesting to note the notion of illness that exists in Mexico and in the United States. In many instances mothers discussed how allergies and mental illnesses were not as prevalent in Mexico when compared with the United States. Thus, even though New York City was considered a better source of treatment, they were not always sure that their children would actually need that treatment if they were in Mexico.
When Sara first migrated, her mother, Clarisa, supported her decision because Sara was a teenage mother whose boyfriend just disappeared. Clarisa wanted her daughter to find love and happiness. But then Clarisa began to feel that Sara was missing out by being away from her son, Agustín. Sara had recently separated from Felipe’s father, so Clarisa said, “she is not caring for a man anymore, so she should now come back and enjoy her son.” Sara found out that her husband had impregnated another woman. She told me that when she confronted him, he hit her and forced her to have sex with him. She confronted him again, threatening to kill him with a knife. Her sister, Rosa, told me she came downstairs from her apartment and tried to calm Sara down. The two of them got into a fight as well, and Sara stopped talking to her sister. Sara’s husb
and told her that he had recorded her threatening to kill him and that he would have her arrested. Sara’s boss could not understand what was going on, so I helped by translating and then going to the lawyer with Sara and her boss to translate the conversations. In the end, Sara’s husband was bluffing—he had not recorded. Clarisa could not understand how Sara could still stay in New York and provide for Felipe and Agustín if she was a single mother now. Even though this story made me reflect on the way men abuse women in these situations, it was also clear that there were moments when clashes between grandmothers and mothers’ understandings of care and motherhood were at the forefront of the relationships.
Conclusion
While child-rearing patterns vary widely from one society to another, in most it is primarily mothers who are expected to perform this vital function. Yet in many families in developing societies, many mothers are physically absent. In the majority of the countries in the world, women engage in domestic internal migration prior to international migration. In the United States there is a strong tradition of quantitative studies that link child development with mothers’ physical presence. For the past several decades, hundreds of thousands of women, many of them mothers, have been migrating from poorer countries to wealthier countries in search of employment. Contrary to ideas that they are abandoning their children (Parreñas, 2005a) or turning them into “Euro-orphans” (Lutz, 2012), these “transnational mothers” believe they can fulfill their maternal responsibilities by earning much-needed cash for better food, clothing, shelter, and—above all—improved chances for an education (Segura, 1994).
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