Motherhood across Borders

by Gabrielle Oliveira

  On the other side, US-born children and youth discussed the migration of their parents in two instances, when they wanted to inquire about “life on the other side” and when they had to discuss legal status, government welfare, school registration, and the possibility of family trips. At Gemma’s house in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, her daughter Yazmin inquired: “Why can’t we go to Mexico this summer?” Gemma explained that they were waiting for lawyers to figure out the paperwork that would allow the whole family to travel together. Yazmin was not convinced. “Why do you need lawyers to get paperwork? What paperwork?” Gemma did not want to tell Yazmin that she did not have documents and that her status in the United States was actually different from her daughter’s. Later Gemma explained to me that she and her husband were asking for asylum from the United States by claiming that there was political and economic persecution in Mexico. Thus, they could not send their children to Mexico for the summer if they were claiming to the court system that the country was dangerous for them. Yazmin told me a few days later, “I always think my parents are speaking fast in Spanish when they want to talk about travel plans, you know … they try to do that so we won’t understand. But you know Gabi, I’m smart!”

  Children and youth carry both the burden and the honor that migration brings. They are dependent on their families and they experience a disjuncture between their symbolic role as beneficiaries of migration and their actual experiences of power vis-à-vis other members of the family. Children and youth in Mexico expected parents to provide for them while working in the United States, as exemplified by Tina (age 7) when she opened the gifts her mother Brianna had sent through me. “She is there all this time and all I get is one t-shirt. I thought people went there to get rich!” This is what the sociologist Robert C. Smith calls the “immigrant bargain,” which is the expectation that children will work hard in school to salir adelante (move forward) to compensate for parents’ sacrifice by migrating. Smith (2005) and Dreby (2010) both describe the phenomenon where mothers and fathers in the United States become frustrated when they feel that the expectations are one-sided: expectations that they will make lots of money and will be able to provide. However, children and youth in Mexico understand that their parents’ choice to migrate entails them doing well and being able to provide a better life for them. At the same time, children born in the United States question their mothers’ commitment to sending money and gifts across borders when they themselves want more material gifts. The responses of children in the United States and in Mexico are thus mirrored in the sense that mothers’ very explanation for leaving is reflected in their children’s expectations and perspectives on migration. The children at first repeat their mothers’ explanation for leaving. In the end, however, frustration, resentment, and doubt creep into children’s and youth’s responses, which cause backlash.

  In their narratives, children and youth on both sides of the border make sense of inequalities between Mexico and the United States. They do so by reflecting on symbols, cultural values, ideologies, employment, and economic status “here and there.”

  Images of the Other Side: Making Sense of Inequality

  Members of these transnational care constellations perceived and understood the other side to have “more” or “less” than what they had. This inequality, perceived or real, created space for children and youth to imagine the other side. Children and youth on both sides made sense of distance and assessed what it means to be in the United States or in Mexico by thinking about work, class, and material things. Children and youth in New York City valued being able to buy items like shoes, clothes, phones, and video games. Sense-making through difference is not an uncommon practice. However, children and youth in this research showed a degree of specificity that not only was part of existing stereotypes of modern and traditional societies, but was also reinforced by their parents. In the following situation I illustrate how children and youth in New York City discussed their ideas about the “other side” through the lens of inequality and distribution of wealth.

  G: We are going to draw today. Are you guys ready?

  RAMIRO (age 11): Yes!!! What are we going to draw?

  G: We are going to draw what you think Mexico looks like. Ready?

  As we sat in the living room of Violeta’s apartment in the South Bronx in New York City, her four children started painting and coloring, and using glitter and crayons as they began to draw Mexico. After a few minutes Ramiro was very excited to be done. He wanted to explain the drawing to me and make sure I understood every detail and the reasons he had included those details. Ramiro described the picture:

  RAMIRO: Here are the people in Mexico … you see them? They are at farms with lots of animals, a donkey, a cow, chickens, and maybe a dragon … just kidding [about the dragon]! The people in Mexico work a lot, they wake up at 4 or 5 a.m. every day and just work … someone told me that some of the fruit we eat come from Mexico and clothes too. There are trees and forests and a big house there … but there are no buildings and cars like here. They have to work a lot.

  G: Why do you think they have to work a lot?

  RAMIRO: Well, because they are poor.

  G: How do you know?

  RAMIRO: [pause] Because my mom says it all the time, how there is kidnapping in Mexico and she is not letting me go there because I could die … People will take your money no matter what … they want your Nikes, they want your watch … because they can’t have it. Here there are so many stores that sell all that, in Mexico there aren’t, so they steal.

  LEAH (age 8): Gabi, my mom can show you the videos of people without their heads … their heads get cut [off]. Women too … they take things from you. I don’t want to go. I’m scared.

  G: Your brother Andrés lives there, right? Do you think he is also afraid?

  LEAH: No he is not afraid … because he is really old, he is like 28 years old.

  RAMIRO: He is not 28!

  LEAH: How do you know?

  RAMIRO: Because we play video games together and I asked him … you are so dumb.

  There are several ironies in this juxtaposition. These children live in New York City and their father Silas reported that he had been mugged and beaten twice for being “Mexican”; the children themselves had described not feeling safe playing in the park because of “gangs” of Puerto Ricans. Yet, safety did not come up as an issue at home, only in Mexico. Further, the children hold a perception that Americans are wealthier because of the amount of available consumer goods. Violeta’s children believe there is a need to work more in Mexico, because people don’t have enough. Meanwhile, Violeta works five days a week and earns only $100 per week. Her husband Silas stays at home and watches television all day. In Mexico, Violeta’s mother Tatiana sells animals and food and receives remittances from her daughters and son who live in the United States.

  Ramiro has a Facebook account and communicates with his brother Andrés in Mexico and with other family members. Ramiro knew Andrés was 14 years old because they played video games together. Andrés did not have an Xbox or Playstation in his home in Mexico, but he went to a computer/game store a few blocks from his house and played with his brother. Andrés told me, “I wish I also had an Xbox at home like my brother has in his house in El Norte. I have been asking my mamá Violeta but they don’t send me, I think they have more money there.” Ramiro’s perception of Mexico was informed by a combination of the videos Violeta showed them and how she and Silas talked to each other about Mexico. During my observations, I heard them say things like “I will never go back there” or “the government doesn’t help you one bit.” Both Silas and Violeta sported tattoos on their arms and necks that included the word “death” written inside skulls. There was an obsession with talking about death and Violeta had stated in different moments that she felt a connection with her country when she looked at the skull tattooed on her arm (Lomnitz, 2005). It was not uncommon for them to give elaborate accounts of stories about kidnappings, violence, rape, o
r beatings at the dinner table while the children were eating their meal. There was sometimes indignation toward their home country, but their descriptions at times also sounded more like the plot of an action-packed movie.

  Leah, age 8, showed me yet another representation of what she thought Mexico was. After she was done drawing she picked up her three-year-old sister Kimberly, put her on her lap, and started rocking her from side to side. She made noises that sounded like she was trying to put Kimberly to sleep, patting her back gently and singing her a song. She looked at me and with her sister in her arms told me:

  You know, I was trying to draw mothers and children in Mexico to explain that raising children in Mexico is really hard. Buying a house, even worse! You have to work really hard for your children to put food on the table, to be a good mother. Here in New York there is help and jobs … but you must know that is a hard life over there in Mexico.

  It took me a few seconds to absorb her short explanation. She sounded exactly like her mother at that particular moment. Leah did not get along with Violeta, and she wrote extensively in her journal about feeling unloved by her mother. During my observations, Leah often disagreed openly with her mother. But when we were talking about what she thought Mexico was like, Leah channeled her mother’s narrative to explain the feeling of inequality that exists between Mexico and the United States. In many instances, when the children would complain about not being able to go to the movies or not being able to buy something, Violeta got extremely frustrated, and would give the children a lecture:

  Do you think life is easy? I want you to go to Mexico to see how it is there … how people have to batallar (fight), to be someone … here you kids have it all! You have no idea what it takes to bring up a family and feed you all. I was pregnant riding a bike from one place to another to deliver chickens for your grandmother. Do you think I ever complained? NO. The answer is no. So shut up, now.

  In this case, as with other families I observed, the children adopted the mother’s narrative about how difficult life was in Mexico.

  Figure 3.1. Leah with her sister Kimberly on her lap.

  Another description came from US-born six-year-old Carlito, whose mother, Aruna, had been living in New York City for seven years. Carlito had two brothers in New York who were US-born and two half-sisters in Mexico. When I asked Carlito what he thought Mexico looked like, he explained to me:

  There are cows and chickens, and people work in really hot weather … they work many hours a day and don’t get paid much, then they can’t go to the mall and buy toys.… I had a dream the other day that there were two Carlitos: one was in Mexico and the other one was here. The one in Mexico was running outside with the cows and the donkeys and then … I don’t remember, but I think I remember now he didn’t have a house to live [in] or a school to go … just a soccer ball … then the Carlito here was going to school, eating at McDonalds … It was a dream.

  As he finished telling me that story, his four-year-old brother joked with him, “you cry, you cry.” I asked Carlito if he had woken up from the dream crying and he told me, “I don’t remember,” and followed up with, “do you think that’s how my sisters live?” The week Carlito had this dream was a difficult one for his mother. Aruna did not have a positive relationship with her own mother, who used information about her daughters as leverage to have Aruna send her more money, clothes, and gifts. Throughout the week Carlito heard Aruna describing her worries about what her daughters would eat if her own mother kept on deciding what to do with the money. Carlito showed me a small pot in his bedroom with lots of coins and he told me, “this is for my sisters; they need the money because in Mexico they don’t use cars and the schools are outside, not like in buildings.” Carlito had an elaborate view of how his sisters lived in Mexico and the level of inequality that separated them as siblings. Children and youth in the United States worried about their siblings in Mexico. Children and youth interviewed in New York City (excluding the three infants) expressed concerns for the safety of their siblings and their living conditions.

  At the same time, many of the children I interviewed in Mexico assumed that their families in the United States had a better life than they did, replete with consumer goods. Children and youth made the distinction between Mexico and the United States based on material things that directly differentiated socioeconomic status. Ana (age 18), one of three sisters who lived in Mexico away from her mother Camila and her three siblings, described what she imagined the lives of her siblings to be like: “All I know is that my mom has her own grocery store and that my siblings wear nice clothes and they always have what they want. In our case I have to ask her to give me things, I know they have more there.” Brian (age 1) and Pilar (age 13) also described the “better life” they assumed their siblings had in the United States. They used the phrase “Viven mejor” (They live better) to explain how their siblings lived. After doing participant observation and interviews with the 30 children who belonged to the 20 transnational constellations, I observed a pattern in how they responded as to how they imagined the United States to be. The pattern is exemplified by this conversation with Yuri (age 11) in Mexico:

  G: How do you imagine New York or the United States to be like?

  Y: I think it’s really big … with big, big buildings and a lot of stores where people buy gifts.

  G: What about where your siblings live?

  Y: They live in these big buildings I think, but I think my house is bigger … and they shop at these stores and send us nice gifts [she showed me a t-shirt she was wearing]; everyone has money there and they buy the newest bicycles and new shoes and they can eat at McDonalds all the time, right?

  Y: [After a moment of hesitation] they could send us more if they wanted to … [very low voice and looking down to the floor]

  G: What do you mean?

  Y: Maestra (teacher), you and them have so much more than we have and then all we get are a few things every month … why can’t they share more?

  Children and youth began their answers with broad descriptions of what the United States or New York City looked like, as illustrated in the drawings interlude. But they quickly transitioned to a narrative where they described a sense of inequality based on material goods and money. As they transitioned into a narrative that seemed more resentful, they were not totally comfortable seeming ungrateful. When Yuri’s grandmother, Rita, heard him say “Why can’t they share more,” she gave him a look that showed me and him that she was upset. She said, “How can you say that? After all the effort your mother puts into working and sending you things.” Of the 30 children and youth I interviewed in Mexico who were part of the 20 constellations, 27 complained about inequality in the distribution of money and material goods between siblings. This finding challenges assumptions that inform the debate that has long existed in migration studies on the benefits of remittances. Children and youth feel the socioeconomic divide between families “here” and “there.” The way children and youth perceive upward socioeconomic mobility is linked to consuming material goods. My analysis reveals that within this transnational context, children create their own versions of the story using inequality as a base for comparison. Thus, they are assessing the economic and political inequalities on the other side of the border.

  Suárez-Orozco (2002) argues that the poorest immigrants suffer tremendous adversity as a result of immigration, but in spite of these difficulties they often improve their economic and social circumstances. I cannot affirm that without a longer study. However, many of the children of maternal immigrants in Mexico and in the United States did share that opinion, and as a result came to expect certain benefits from migration. While US children and youth do not think about the migration of the parents as much as the children and youth in Mexico do, the assumption is that by living in the United States they are “better off.”

  Symbols of development are present in the description of what the United States looks like, but the lack of these same symbols illustra
tes the narrative toward Mexico. A parallel can be made with the work by Kearney (2004), who argued that basic conceptualizations of the anthropological subject began to change rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s, to deal with the expressions of identity and class in this complex world.

  Scholars like Kearney and Roger Rouse (2011), who has also worked in Mexico, explain that the main influence that inevitably demanded and stimulated a theory of a more complex subject than the individual was the ethnography of migration across national boundaries, especially migrations of persons between “traditional” and “modern” societies. Children and youth’s imaginaries remain very much attached to ideas of what is modern and what is traditional in the form of material goods.

  The “Rest” of the Family: Sense of Belonging

  Studies regarding the effects of migration on children suggest that children show some resentment toward migrant mothers and less so to fathers. In her work with children of immigrants in Ghana, Cati Coe argues that children express more pain about the migration of parents than the parents themselves. She points out that children complained about two aspects of migration: the dispersion of the nuclear family, and the care they received from caregivers (Coe et al., 2011, p. 102). I documented children and youth in Mexico complaining about the scattering of the family, but more about not belonging in what many of them called the “new family.” Even though children and youth rationalized the reasons behind the migration of their mothers, resentment emerged regularly. The children in Mexico struggled to reconcile their feelings of anger and abandonment with the constant discourse that they should be grateful for their mother’s sacrifice on their behalf.