Gender and

u. s.
Immigration
Contemporary Trends
EDITED BY
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
PRESS
Berkeley Los Angeles London
Publication Information: Book Title: Gender and
u.s. Immigration: Contemporary Trends. Contributors:
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo - editor. Publisher:
University of California Press. Place of Publication:
Berkeley, CA. Publication Year: 2003.
GHAPTER I
Gender and Immigration
A Retrospective and Introduction
Pierret/J: Iiondagneu- SotelQ
The intent of this volume is both modest and ambitious. High-caliber sodal sci-
ence research has emerged on gender and U.S.-bound immigration in recent years,
and this book simply draws together some of the best new work ill the field. The
book includes essays by pioneers who have logged nearly two decades in the field
of gender and immigration, and new empirical work by both young scholars and
well-established social sciemiSls who bring (heir substantial talents (0 this topic for
the first lime. More ambitiously, this volume seeks 1.0 alert scholars and students to
some of the gender consequences emerging from the last three decades of resur-
gent U.S. immigration. 1'bi5 immigration is changing life as we know it, in the
United States and elsewhere. in many ways. One important t;hange concerns the
place of women and men in society.
I ftlt a need to put together this book because of the continued silence 011 gen-
der in the contemporaty social science litcrature on U.S. immigration. Aglance at
the mainjournals and at recent edited volumes on American immigration and in-
ternational migration reveals that basic concepts such as sex, gender, power, priv-
ilege, and sexual discrimination only rarely enter the or research design
of immigration research. This is puzzJing. Gender is one of the fundamental so-
dal relations anchoring and shaping immigration patterns, and immigration is one
of the most powcrfu) forces disrupting and realigning everyday life. It is my hope
that tJ1C chapters in this volume will earn the recognition they desetve. spur a wider
conversation about immigration and how it is changing social life ror women and
men. and prompt immigration scholan to design research that .acknowledges the
gendered social world in which we live.
3
"
PIERRI&TTE HONDAGNEUSOTEl.O
GENO.ER ANt) rMMlOkATlON
THE. EMERGF;NCF.. OF IMMIGRATION SCHOLARSHIP
AND GENDER STUDIES
During 1980$ and 1995, the social sciences experienced major transformallons.
Among lUost nOtable were two separate developmcllIs: Ihe growth in feminist-
oriented scholarship and immigration rese.udl. The establishment of women's
studies programs and research derived from the feminist movement,
which emerged in Ihe t970S to advocate equality for women. ,Feminisl research
called attention to the unequal power relations bc(Ween women and men in soci-
ery and illumi.nated and analyzed how women's and men's actions, positions, and
rdative privileges in society are socially in ways that tend to favor men.
Since then, we have wimessed a shift away from the premise of a unitary notion of
"women" or "men" to an increasingly accepted perspective that acknowledgl'-s how
the multiplicities of masculinities and femininities interconnected, relational,
and, most important, enmeshed in relations of class, race, and nation. Globaliza-
tion, immigration, and transnationalism are significant sites for contemporary in-
quiries of gender.
The growth in immigration research derived nOI Irom a social mo\'ernem like
leminism, but [rom the massive increase in literal human movement across borders
during the hue 20th century. lbday, it is estimated that as many as 150 million peo-
ple live in nations other than those in which they were born. Only a small portion
of these millions have come to the United States, although many Americans be-
lieve that the whole world has descended on their country. u.s. immigrants hut't
reached unprecedented numbers-about 28 million according to the 2000 census-
but this constitutes only about 10% of the total U.S. population, a smaller percent-
age than we saw earlier in the 20th century, hnmigration is certainly nothing new
for the United StateS-il is, afier all, foundational to the national narrative-bw the
resurgence of immigration during the last three decades has taken many Americans
by surprise. Prompted by global restructuring alld post-World War II US. military,
jX)litical, and economic involvement throughout Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin
America, and facilitated by the 1965 amendment to the McCarran-Walter Immi-
gration Act, which erased national origin quotas that had previously excluded Asians,
US. immigration picked up in the 1970S and shows few Sig'llS of diminishing.
In the 1980s and 1990s, immigration to the United States from Asia, Latin Amer-
ica, and the Caribbean increased dt<.Imaticaily. These contemporary immigrants
are a diverse tot, Among them are refugees and preliterate peasants as weil as ur-
bane, highly educated professionals and entrepreneurs, Although a fairly constant
barrage of restrictionist, nativist, and blatandy xenophobic campaigns and
larion has raised tremendous obstacles to these newcomers, the number of legal
permanent residents-those who can be legaily admitted to live and work in the
United Stateg--has steadily increased in the 1995. Nearly one million immigrants
are now granted legal permanent residency status each year. Immigrants and their
childrel\ today constitute about one fifih of the U.s_ population, and the percelH-
ages are much higher in cities such as Los Angeles, New York, and Miami, whel"'.
immigrants concentrate.
Different dinlensiom of immigrant social life are threaded by the dynamics of
gender, and this liolume \"'Xposes some of the complex ways in which these threads
are woven. The chapters cover a range of topics, including the way gender informs
the sexual practices and values among immigranl parents and their adolescent
daughters, transnational politicaJ group participation, household divisions of labOl;
naturalization, and even our definition of childhood. Readers of this volume will
gain insight illlo the lives of immigrants as diverse as affluent, cosmopolitan Indian
Hindu professionals and relatively poor, undocumented, and modestly schooled
manuaJ workers from El Salvador and Mexico. All of the contribUtOrs to these cllap'
tets recognize that gender does not exist in a vacuum but emerges together with
ticular matl'ices of race relations, nation, occupational incorporation, and socio-
economic class locations, and the analyses reAect nuanc.cs of illlcrsectionality.
Distinct approaches and areas of coneel'll, which c;on-espond to different stages
of development, have characterized the gender and immigration scholarship. While
the periodization is nOI nearly as linear as ( present it belo"'; glancing back at. these
legacies will allow us to hetter situate the contemporary research on gender and
immiglation.
FIRST STAGE; REMEDYING THB
EXCLUSION OF WOMEN IN RESEARCH
The first stage of feminist scholarship emerged in the 1970s and early 19805, and
might be labeled ,"women and migration." This early phase of research sought to
remedy the exclusion of women subjects from immigration research and to counter
sexist <IS weil as androcentric biases. It seelUs inconceivable to us today, but several
ver}' highly regarded immigration studies had relied entirely Oil survey or interview
responses from men, and yet, based on this research, had made claims purported
to represent the elltire immigrant population. In some instances, men were asked
to report for their wives and female kin. In other projects, women were unprob-
lematically assumed to automaticaUy foUow maie migrants as "associational" or de-
pendent migrants and were often pol1rayed as somehow detached or irrelevant to
the labor foree. These premises were usuaUy unfounded. I The fIrst stage of research
thus set about the task or actually taking women into account. As modest as this
project seems (0 us today, it was met in many corners with casual indif-
ference and in some instances, w1lh hostile, defensive reception. 2
Given the long-standing omission of women from migration studies, an impor-
tant first step involved designing and writing women imo the research picture. In
retrospect, this stage is sometimes seen as consisting or a simplistic "add and stir"
appr()ach, whereby women were "added" as a variable and measured with regard
to, say, education and labor participation, and then simply ':ompared with
6 PIERRETl'E HONOACNIW-SOn:t.o
GENUER AND 1MM1GRATION
7
migrant men's patterns. This approach worked well in quantitative studies that
to compare, say, immigram lVomen's and men's earnings. This type of ap-
proach, however, fails to adulOwledge that gender is fundamentally about powel:
Gemkr inlorms different sels of social relations that organize immigration and
social institutions (e.g., family, labor markets) in both immigrants' place of origin
and place of' destination.
Other research prqjects of this era focused exclusively on migrant women. This
prompted several problems, among them the tendency to produce skewed "women
only" portraits of inunigration experiences. This approach characterized many his-
torical monographs. Commenting on this trend in the introduction to an edited
volume of multidisciplinary essays on immigrant women, historian Donna Gabac-
cia observed that "the numbers of volumes exploringinunigrant women separately
from men now exceeds the volumes thai successfully integrale women into gen-
eral accounts" (Cabacd't, 1.992, p. xv). Paradoxi<:aUy, this approach further mar-
ginalized inunigrant women into a segregated subfield, separate from major social
dynamics of inunigration.
Equally problematic, as Cynthia Cranford and I have pointed out elsewhere
(1999), both "add nnd stir" and "women only" efforts were often mired in some vari-
ani of sex-role theory. In Ihis view, women's migration is explained with respect to
"sex-role constraint," generally understood to be a set of stable, freestanding insti-
tutional practices and valucs rather than a fluid and mutable system Ihat intersects
"'lth other social institutions. In the !lex-role paradigm, separate spheres of public
and private reign and men's and women's activities are seen as complementary and
functional, while lhe manner in whieh these are relational, contested and negoti-
ated, and imbued with power, plivilege, and subordination is glossed over.
In retrospect, we can see that the inunigrant "women only" and "add and stir"
approaches limit our understanding of how gender as a social system shapes im-
migration processes for aU immigrants, men and women. OnLy women, not mi-
grant men are marked as "gendered," and instifluions with which they interact--
, , .
family, educ<ttioll, and employment, etc.--are presumed to be gender neutral. fhe
preoccupation with writing women into migration research and theory stifled the-
orizing about the ways in which constructions or femininities and masculinities
organize migrlltion and migration outcomes. .
A different and exciting body of feminist migrtttion I'cs:arch appeared In the
early to mid-198os, and although not centered on US.-bound migration, it has left
n significant impact on the field. It rocused on the recruitment of poor, young,
mostly unmarried women from peasant or agrarian backgrounds for wage work
in the new export processing plants owned by multinational fli'ms in the Caribbean,
along the .u.S.-Mexico border, and Asia. These studies alerted us to the linkages
between deinduslrializauon inthe United States and the emergence of a new "fem-
inized" global assembly line. Case studies kom around the globe explored the re-
lationship between young women workers' migration, the shilling gender and gen-
erational dynamics in their family relations, and their incoqloration into new
regimes of production and consumption (see Arizpe & Aranda, Ig81; Fernandez-
Kelly, 1983; Wolf, 1992).
In a key article published in a 1984 special of the IntertUltWfUll MigraJimr Re-
ITiewon women and migration, Saskia Sassen posited a relationship between inter-
migr.ation of young women to work in export mauufitcturing and
agnculture In the ThIrd World, and the increasing labor migration of women from
these counu:ies to the United Both types of female migration, Sassen sug-
gests, are driven by the dynamICs of corporate globalization: the intensification of
profit and the reliance on low-wage work performed by disenfranchised Third
World women. This moment marks a significant switch from a "women only" and
"sex-role constmims" individualistic approach to one that looks more broadly at
how gender is incorporated into corporate globalization strategies.
SECOND S1AG: FROM "WOMEN AND MIGRATION"
TO "GENDER AND MIGRATION"
t': second phase of research emerged in the late 1980s and early 199O
s
,
dlsplacmg an exclusive focus on women with recognition of gender as a set of so-
cial practices shaping and shaped by immigration. Prompted in part by the dis-
ruption of the universal category "women" in feminist scholarship, by heightened
awareness of the intersectionality of race, class, and gender relatiom, by the of>..
se1vation men display, and enact a variety of masculinities, and by
the recognitIOn of the flUIdity of gender relations, (his research focused on two as-
pects: thc genderingof migration patterns andhow migration reconfigures new sys-
(ems of gender inequality for wornen and men.
Among this crop of gender and migra.tion studies are Sherri Grasmuck and
stl,ldy of Dominican migration to New York City, ml,lch of which
IS ttl the book Between Two Islands: Drnninu:an ftuernatWMl Migratum (199
1
).
Nazh KJbria's FMli!r Tightrope: The Changirtg Lives 0/ VUbuJTlWe Americans (1993), and
my own research on undocumented Mexican migration to California, reported in
. GendeTed 1Tat1fltiom: Mexican ExPetW1CCS fll ImmigrfltWn {I 994). All of these studies take
poima of "household strategies," a model explicitly and
used by ma?y migration studies of that period. The critiques put forth
In these books. mformed and driven by feminiSI insights, parlicularly those
from Third World contexts, counter (he image of a unital)' household undivided
by gender and generational hierarchies of powel; authority, and resources.
immigr.ant social networks, these studies underscore, are higWy gendered
instItutions. ThIS body of research highlights contlict ill gender relations, the re-
sull of a strong feminist lens on the lookout 1'01' evidence of patriarchy and male
domination and of methodological reliance on interviews and ethnography. These
methods, as both Pretna Kurien and Patricia !'essar note ill their essays in this vol-
ume, tend 10 throw into relief gender conflicts and negotiations that rmght appear
uncontested when sUlvey methods arc used.
8
GENDER AND IMMIGRATION
9
The second-stage research is also notable for drawing attention to the way.s in
which men's lives are constrained andenabled by gender and also the ways in which
immigrant gend<T relations become more egalitarian through the processes of mi-
gration. This constitutes the "migration and emandpation" studies that Pessar
soberly reassesses in chapter 2 of this volume. Equally as problematic as some.of
the issues that Pessar to is the extent to which these empowerment studIes
were anchored by the idea that immigram women's wages and jobs necessarily lead
to gender equality in families and households. Several of the essays in this volume
(M:enjival; Kurien, E.spil'itu) continue this focus on the family-work nexus, but they
bring considerably more sophistication and attention to dimensions besides wages
and fitmily.
Identifying and naming distinctively gendered orientations to settlement-' "that
is, how immigrant women and men feel about staying in the United Stales and how
these preferences derive from alterations to immigrant gender reiatiol1S-"ls another
accomplishment of second-stage research. Immigrant women's enhanced social
status (won variously through jobs, sodaI network resources, or new interactions
with social institutions) often goes hand in hand with immigrant men's loss of pub-
lic and domestic status, In the United States, immigrant men may for the first time
t
n
their lives. occupy subordinate positions in class, and hie.rar.-
chies. This prompts many of them to express nostalgia and a deSIre to return to
lheir c.oulltry of origin. Several of the essays in this volume use this analysis of gen-
dered setdement outcomes and orientations to explain new terrain, including gen-
dered arenas as diverse as naturalizatioJl strategies (Singer and Gilbertson). par-
ticipation in tr'ansnational political associatiOns (Goldring), and family-work
intersections amongJewish immigrants from different nation-states (Gold).
Olle of the weaknesses of the way many of the second-stage research projects
were conducted is the implication that gender resides almost exclusively in
mesolevel social institutions, such as family, households, community institutions,
or social uctwmks. In retrospect, this meso-focused approach seems myopic and
faulty, and my own work exemplifies this oversight. In (jendtrtd Trmuitiom', I u!lder-
lined the extent to which Mexican migration is gendered by focusing on family re-
lalions and The book argues that while the origins of undocumented
Mexican migration lie in the political and economk transformations within the
United States and Mexico and c8pedaUy in the linkages established bern'cen the
two countries, it is gender operating at the family and community levels that shapes
distinctively gendered patterns of migration. In some families, for example, daugh-
ters and wives may not be accorded permission or family resources with which to
migrate, but they sometimes find ways to circumvent or aller these "patriarchal
constraints."
The problem with this perspective is that not only families and communities but
also other institutions are gendered, including both informal and programmatic la-
bol' recruitmem efforts, as Terry Repak (1995) has emphasized, We live in a soci-
ety where occupational sex segregation stubbomly prevails in the labor force and
consequently shapes labor denHlI1d and migration. This is particularly urgent to-
da): immigrant women from around Ihe world migrate to many postindustrial
for work as. nurses, nannies, cleaners, and sex workers. Particular types of
soctetles create particularly gendered labor demands. This is an important issue to
consider, but work and employment were gcnetally onlyconsidered by second-stage
researchers insofar as women's earnings or job schedules aHected gender relations
in families and households. JUSt because we can "see" gender most saliently in
f.'lceto-face institutions such as families and households does not mean that it is not
critical to the constitution of other institutions and processes.
In our haste to analyze how everyday relationships and institutions enable or
constrain we gave other arenas short shrift. Arnl1ng these are the gen-
dered and ractaJlzed nature of labor ll1<'u'ket, in the nations of origin and destina-
tion, and the ways these are conditioned by globalization, cultural change, and eco-
nomic restructuring. Similarly, the privileging of men, marriage, and normative
heterosexuality in immigration legislation has scarcely received scholarly attention.
Racial formation, Michael Omi and Howard Winant's (1994) conceptualization
of how race relations lire simultaneously shaped by historical and social processes
and built into social institutions, has invigorated race relations research. Similarly,
we may begin to think of Ihis next stage of research as gender formation.
To reiterate, a primary weakness of the second-stage research is that it allocated
too much attention ((l tbe level of family and household, suggesting that gender is
somehow endosed within the domestic arena. Consequently, many other impor-
tant arenas and institutiolU--jobs, workplaces) labor demand, notions of citizen-
ship and changing immigratiQIl policy, public opinion, immigration and refugee
policies, state agencies, :$ites of consumption, media, and tile Border Patrol, to name
a few--were ignored by. feminist fCsearch and appeared then as though they were
devoid of gender.
THIRD STAGE: GENDER. AS A CONSTITUTIVE
ELEMENT Of IMMlGRATION
The third stage of feminist scholarship in immigration researdt is now emerging,
and here the emphasis is on looking at geuder as a key constitutive element of im-
migration. In this current phase, research is beginning to look at the extent to which
p:nneates a variety of practices, identities, and institutions implicated in
Here, patterns of labor incorporation, globalization, religious prac-
!lee and valucs, t;thnic enclave businesses, citizenship, sexuality, and ethnic iden-
tity areJtlterrogafcd in ways that reveal how gender is incorporated into a myriad
of and institutional and structures..As this co/-
lectlon of essays shows, gender orgamzes a number of unflllgram praCllces, beliefs,
and institutions. '
While most of the gender-inflected research continues to be produced by female
scholars, m('1l ul'e making important cOlllributions as well, as the chapters in this
It> l'Il-:RRETTE 1I0!'lDACNE v-son;\.()
volume by Tyner and Gold show, Among the studies looking at coltununity polit-
ical mobiliultion by immigrants b research conducted by Michael Jones-Correa.
Focusing on Larino immigrant political identity and practice in New York City and
building on the research of earlier feminist inquiries that sugg<:SIS that immigrant
men shifl their to their home countries and to the prospect of return
migration as they lose statuS in the United States,jones-Correa (199
8
) reveals that
immigrant women are more likely than immigrant men to participate in commu-
nity organizations that interface with U.S. institutions. Looking at the other side of
this coin, researcher Luin Goldring (this volume) hasstudied the recently emergent
and now quite powerful transnational Mexican hometown associations, organi-
zations formed by Mexican irmnigrams in the United States that typi<:ally raise
funds in the United States to assist with commllllity development projects "back
home." These can be read, Goldring persuasively sugg(",$ts, as that allowim-
migrant men to claim social status denied to themin the newsociety. In these trans-
migrant organizations, which "plm nation-state borders, men find a privlleged arena
of action, enhancing thcir gender status. Women participate in these associations
as beauty pageant contestants or as men's helpers, and although they remain ab-
sent from active leadership or decision-making roles in the transnational associa-
tions, they practice what Goldring calls "substantive social dtizcnship" in com-
munity organizations in the United States.
LOCATING GENnER ANO IMMIGRATION
Chapters 2 and :l iue "''ritten, by two of the most renowned pioneers
in the gender and immigration field. In chapter 2, Patricia Pessar reviews in detail
and with tremendolls howthe field has rdied on analyses of households and
social networks, She calls for greater awareness of how relations of class, race, and
nation shape immigrant women's incorporation, and she suggests that lookingat di-
fferent levels of analysis will lead us to see that immigrant women's gains have al-
ways been uneven and often contradictory, a conclusion that certainly resonates ""ith
several chapters in Ihis volume.
The chapter by globalization theorist Saskia Sassen pushes the analysis of gen-
der to the macro scale. Sassen mggest5 that a new "counter-gwgraphy of global-
ization" is under way and that it is constituted in part by the cross-national, unau'
thorized movements of women liS diverse as mail-order brides, enslaved and
trafficked sex workers, ,HIO undocumented immigrant factory and service work-
ers. Sassen's provocative work is always stimulating, and we can cenainly think of '
a myriad of occupations in postindustrial urban societies now almost wholly de-
pendent on the deliberate recluitment of foreign-bom women, In our postindus-
trial selvice economies, work that native-born women once performed for free is
now purchased in the global marketplace. This prompts us to think about how re-
alignments in gender arrangement.. in host countries have in fact generated labor
GENIH;.R AND IMMl(lltATWN It
demand lor immigrant women, Domestic workers, sex workers, cleaners, and
nurses arc some examples of this occupational explosion.
. e.mphasiz:s the connc:ti,ons between these international labor migra-
tions.' Stru(:tural PoliCies that have undermined poor women's eco-
nomic su:""v:u throughollt pans of Asia, l.atin America, and the Caribbean, and
remlttances for countries such as EI Salvador and the
I loday It IS esttrnatcd that immigrant workers annually send to Mex-
EI the Philippines, respectively, $8 billion, $3-5 billion, and $7
remlUam:es keep these economies afloat. The emotional cannec-
that workers maintain \\lith their families back home fuel the ex-
tenSIVe for a s.ignificant source of foreign exchange
Ihese countries. Sassen s specillcatlon begms to connect some of the dots in the
?tg g!oba! picture and allows us to better understand the specificity of gendered
uumlgratlon to Ihe United States.
GENDER AND EMPLOYMENT
?'he study work to occupy a good deal of space in immigration stud-
lcs--work IS, all, the pnmary reason immigrants come to the United States--
and the followmg clusters of chapters tackle familiar questions of gender and em-
.They doso, however, with an edectic bag of appmaches. Using insights
from poltt.lcal geography,James Tyner Filipino international migration
the UOlted States. The Philippine government channels the movement of Fil-
lplllO women and men multiple sites around the world. Filipinos, Tyner informs
us, now _to J 30 countries, ami ncat(y all cf /kSt flows Ttl/tal a distinctivc
sex comt;ontwn. Fthpmo men have been recruited primarily for construction jobs in
the Mtddle East ("men's jobs") while Filipina women have been routed itlto
H ) b"
,women sJO s as nurses and domestic workers throughout Asia, the Middle East,
Eumpe, Canada, and the United States.
. What remains particularlystriking is that post-lg65 U.S.-bound Filipino migra-
tl?n to be, comparatively speaking, an anomaly. It occurs outside the in-
stitutionalIzed labor contract system, it consists primarily of skilled technicians and
nurses rather than manual laborers, and it includes women muJ men, unlike many
of the more sex-segregated Filipino migration flows. The United States does
not softcn P"lIipino migration, due to the diversity of U.S. labor de-
the of policies, which have emphasized since
196,:} reunification and skilled professional status as criteria for legal perma
nent relurlence.
Asian immigrant women have recorded the highest labor force participation
among in the United States, and Yen Le Espiritu addresses the fa-
how this has affected gender relations in llnu{igrant families. Her
startmg premise IS that occupational and socioeconomic heterogeneity, together
12 PIERRETT HONDAGNEU-SOTEf,O OFNPllR ANI> IMMIGRATION
'j
with racial subordination, determines outcomes. Espiritu situates her analysis in a
triadic taxonomy of Asian inunigrant occupational structure: salaried profession-
als, self-employed entrepreneurs, and wage laborers. Through an exhaustive review
of the literature, Espiritu linds.that each occupational group exhibits distinCtive
gender dynamics. Among Asian immigrant professionals, there seems to be evi-
dence that immigrant women's occupational status as proressionals is morc trailS-
terable to the United States than is men's. In fact, in some instances women's job
status as professionals has allowed them to petition for their husbands and h'lmilies
to legally immigrate to the United States. The men are thus dependent 011 their
wives to obt'lin legal permanent residency status. These resources-legal status and
prolessiomdjob status-seem to translate into more equality in the home for these
women. The situation is very different for Asian immigrant women who may be
equally class privilegt.>d but who remain locked in family businesses, where they may
work in iscllation and remain mired in dependency. Espiritu's work reminds us of
the importance of nuanced analyses of <:lass and
Askiug similar questions about a diverse group of Salvadoran and GuatemaJan
immigrant ",,'omen in California, Cecilia Menjivar observes that California's urban
and suburbun labor markets tend t<J favor Central American women over men.
Central American women find jobs laster, work more hours, and appear to earn,
on avnage, more than their Central American male partners do in California. Yet
conu'ary to what we might expect using a relative resources gauge, this apparent
labor market advantage does not automatically or unifonnJy lead to more egali-
tarian relations in the family. In fact, women's emplo)'ment advantage may inflame
rather than quell family tensions and household inequalities.
Going beyond simple wage differentials to pursue her analysis, Menjivar finds
that cultural-ethnic legades and ideals about gender and family, marriage patterns,
and the sex-segregated venues of employment shape gender olltComes. The ap-
proach in prc."Vious studies has usually treated gender relations in the home coun-
t!)' as monolithic, but Menjivar aciOlowledges important distinctions, in this case
between mestizo and indigenous cultures. Not content to simply acknowledge em-
ployment, Menjivar considers how the context of employment shapes new gender
ideals and practices. While many of the Central American women, for example,
work in private domestic work and bring home new ideals of husbands and wives
sharing cooking and child rearing, the men tend to work with other Latino men
and find support for maintaining their old ways of life. New ideals of companion-
ate marriage and household divisions of labor may emerge together.
3
In the final chapter in this section, sociologist Steve Gold engages the literature
on gendered settlemem preferences. He emphasizes the importance of comparing
imrnigmms' status and employment opportunities in the United States with what
they might conceivably return to in their countries of origin. He compares two
groups of well-educated White middle-class IsraeliJewish and Russian
Jewish immigrants. While both groups are fairly secular, their religious-ethnic iden-
,ity as Jews remaillS an important one 10 them. Here, the intersection of nation,
gender, and ethnicity is key, as RussianJews had their religious and cultural iden-
tity suppressed and disparaged in the former USSR, while the Israeli Jews' ethnic
identity was openly celehrated liS key to the nation of Israel. \-Vhen they come to
the United States, IsraeliJewish men find that they are no longer integral to na-
tion, but they seem willing to accept a demoted ethnic status in return for enhanced
economic opportunities in the United States. By contrast, Israe1iJewish women
often wish to return because they access to women's nCl\'Vorks and the stronger
welfare state r<;sources. What these immigrant women and men left back hOlue
proves to be crucial in their assessments of life in die United States.
ENGENDERING RACIAl. AND ETHNIC lDEN1'l1'lES
Most of the recent immigration research has focused 011 immigrant gt'Oups that are
socioeconomically disadvantaged, those who have entered as labor migrants or po-
litical refugees. Consequently, we know little about gender relations among highly
educated professional and entrepreneurial immigrants \"ho came to the United
States in significant numbers in the 1970S and 19805. The scholarship of Prema
Kurien fills this lacuna and underlines the mutually constitutive fealUres of eth-
nicity, religion, and gender among Hindu Indian inulligrant professionals in South
ern California.
Hindu Indian immigrants generally live in suburban locations, and many of
them have formed new Hindu religious associations. Kurien assesses gender rela-
lions among these groups, but, not content to confine her analysis to the household
or family level, she also assesses gender in these newly invented Hindu congrega-
tions and in larger pan-Indian immigrant organizations. At the level of family and
congregations, Kurien finds that Indian immigrant women make tremendous
strides toward equality: husbands do more housework than they did in India, and
in the congregations women actively reshape the culture in ways that reflect their
own enhanced status. These forward strides, however, are reduced to backward
steps in the large pan-Indian organizations, where men occupy the leadership po-
sitions and, under racist and assimilationist prellSures, seek to present a modeJ-
minority countenance to Americans. At this level, women may find themselves
placed in more retrograde positions than they did in India. Kurien reminds us that
in the reconfiguration of gender rel.:'\tions, diverse levels of anatysUi and ethnicity
are illlcrtwined with distinct outcomes.
Nancy Lopez/moves down the generational scale to consider the educationa[ and
occupational outcomes for second-generation Caribbean young adults. Research
activity on the second generation has flourished as a waage industry, and the
concept of "segu'tentedassimilation," introduced by Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou
(1993), that is no singular outcome. Many scholars have rctently
grappled with finding that across the board immigrant girls, like girls in gen-
eraJ, are obtaining higher levels of education than their brothers. Several com-
mentators have suggcs\ed th.ese outcomes reflect "gendered pathways" (\'Valdinger
HONDAGNcU-SOnn,o
GENDER AND IMMIGRATION 15
& Perlmann, 1998, p. 12). The idea here is that patriarchal notions that girls
greater protection, greater constraints on mobility, stricter Ul or-
der to maintain virtue, virginity, and reputatlon meshes wIth educauonal
that reward compliance and obedience, traits associated with femininity, Meanwhile,
immigrant parents often give boys freer reign, and, for immigrant of ex-
periences of racism may fuel a mascuIinist "oppositional culture" In willeh street
values rather than school values, predominate (Foner, :2000; Waters, 1999)
In dlaptcl; Lopez identifies distinctively gendered experiences with racism, par-
ticularly ill the world of work. Rather than seeing oppositional cult,ure as the key cul-
prit of poor educational ourcomes among youngse(ond-generatlon youth, ex-
amines everyday experiences with racism in mostly sex-segregated occupatlons.
Brilliantly reversing the traditional school-work trajectory, she that
experiences, inflected by race and gender, wind up either motlvatmg or
students to pursue higher education. For some Caribbean second-gcneranoll youth,
partkularly u\e young men phenotypically identified as Black, the .are
particularly harsh, and they are thus mostlikel7 t? ?eclmc.
Young women arc not spared some of the most mSldious forms of raCIal and
indeed, they endure grotesque sexist and made directly
to them in their jobs. But the officejobs where they are to be mcorporated offer
tbem greater opportunities and financial returns for educauon. Hence, more
motivated to pursue education beyond high schooL The consequences of taoal
pression and employment thus appear to most severely disadvantage and demoraliZe
young men, particularly those perceived as Black "
In the subsequent chapter, Mallra Toro-Morn and Marl,Ksa Alicea also focus
young adults through their interview with the and
ciren of Puerto Ricans who came to Ch\cago and New York CIty. Puerto RIcans
are not classic immigrants, as their nation and culture have been fQr:mally coloni7.ed
by the United States since 1898, The labor migration of Puert? RIcans to the US.
mainland occurs in this context, and, inspired by cultural studies, Toro-Morn and
Alicea explore how Puerto Ricans born and raised in the United States see
selves in relation to Puerto Rico. When the authors asked these young Puerto Ri-
cans born and raised in the United States how they imagine "home," the
indicated that their learned notions of home have deeply shaped gender and tden-
tities. Puerto Rican parents disciplined their children in the United States by cou-
stanUy invoking the idea that Puerto Rico is a fixed, pristine c.ultural space,
onc with different rules for boys and girls. For adolescent gtrls, adhenng 10 thn no-
tion of authenticity accentuates gender oppression,
GENDER, GENERATION, AND IMMlCRATION
Many new immigrants perceive the United States to be II dangerous and
able place wraise a family, one where their children will be exposed to dru.gs, V!O-
lence, excessive consumerism, and social norms that contest parental authonty. 1 he
innovative chapters in this section focus on generational relations between immi
grant parenl.s and their children, examining how parents and their children nego
tiale new sodal challenges with cultural integrity. This section includes one chap-
ter on gendered and changing notions of childhood in transnational conteXI.S, and
two others that explore, respectively, how two deeply Catholic immigrant groups,
Mexicans and Filipinos, approach sexuality-which some of them perceive as an
intensified "danger"unamong their adolescent daughters. Sexuality is fundamen-
tal to structuring gender inequality, but the gender and migration literature, with
few exceptions, has shied away from this topic.
In the first chaptel; Gloria Gonzalez-L6pez uses sociological Itlsights and her
background working as a family therapist to explore the content of what Mexican
immigrant mothers teach their daughters about virginity and sexuality in Los An-
geles. Contrary to what she had expected to find in her interviews with twenty
women Irom Mexico City and twenty from the rural state ofJalisco, Mexico, Mex-
ican immigrant women do not blindly foUow the Catholic Church's well-known
sexually repressive teachings, which mandate premarital sexual abstinence and vir-
ginity for their daughters. More important in infOl'ming their views than Catholi-
cism, which the Mexican immigrant women tended to see as separate from their
private lives, were their immigration experiences and the regional cultures from
which they originate. Mexican immigrant women from cosmopolitan, urban Mex-
ico City wcre more open to teaching their daughters about birth control and sex-
ual intimacy than were immigrant women from the heart of ruralJalisco, a west-
ern state widely knOWll in Mexico for its unremitting masculinist culture of charms
(rodeo cowboys), lcquila, and bride kidnapping. The regional patriarchies, or mllhis-
mos regionales, that preV"<lil in these two locales are not, however, the only influences
informing Mexican immigrant women's sexual values and practices. Mexican
mothers want their daughters to remain virgins only to the extent thaI it enhances
their daughters' life opportunities; they soon realize that virginity has less saliem
currency in Los Angeles than it did in Mexico.
The following chapter in this section, based on team research in multiple im-
migrant communities conducted by Barrie Thorne, Marjorie }'aulstich OreUana,
Wan Shun Eva Lam, and Anna Chee, moves further down the agelndder to wbere
scllolars of contemporary immigration have never uead. In this pathbreaking work,
the authors examine immigrant children--more correctly, constructions of child
hood-'in various transnational contexts, analy2ing how culture, age, and gender
mesh. The field research for this chapter examines the diverse experiences of Cen-
.tIal American and Korean children who mostly reside in the Pico Union and Ko-
'rea Town neighborhoods of Los Angeles, and Cantonese, Laotian, and Yemeni
dren in Oaklan<l. I say "mostly reside" because many of these children travel
to their home some to be disciplined, some to learn the home cuI-
and others to simply visit relatives. Even those children who are not physically
. 19 across nation-states and cultures ma}' be exposed to radically different 50-
ial fields.
I'mRIlTTF. HON()ACNEll-$On:I_O
Thorne and her coUeagues underline for us that basic concepts such as "growing
up" and "raising children" imply movement to adulthood and involve a set of pl'aC'
rices that must be applied to children to transform them into adults. \\-'hat happens,
they ask, when parents arc raising children in transnational contexts and must ne-
gotiate conflicting ideals? There arc no uniform patterns, but tWO central guiding
principles, sure to inspire and Ihune future research, are offered: legal constructions
of childhood and adulthood vary, and transnational families must negotiate these;
and gendered constructions of boyhood and girlhood vary within transnational sites.
As the authors note, some immigrant parents have expeetntions (adultlike responsi
w
bilities, induding work in family businesses or caring for younger siblings) that con-
flict with late 20th-century American notions of childhood, which tend to emphasize
sentimentality, play. and educational development. These too are gendered.
The final chapter in this section, by Yen Le Espiritu locuses on the regulation
of young women's sexuality. Based on interviews conducted with Filipino Ameri-
can parents and children, she finds that Filipino immigrant parenrs do impose
strong expectations and restrictions on their adolescent daughters' sexuality and
dating practices. In doing so, she argues, they are not acting out some scripted cui-
wl"allegacy, but rather reacting to the experience of colonialism, the Ameril:an-
ization of their nation, and their experience of racism in the United States. "Racial-
ized immigrants," Espiritu argues, "claim through gender the power denied them
through racism." Policing their daughters' bodies and restricting their spatial mo-
bility is one of the few venues through which raciaUy subordinated groups can re-
construct White Americans as inferior and themselves as superior. Espiritu shows
that immigrant parents do this not by invoking the simplistic madonna/whore
dichotQH1.y, but rather by invoking notions of cultural-ethnic and national aUlhen-
lidty. fiJipinas, the parents tell their daughters, do not act with the sexual freedom
and autonomy of White American girls. This exacts a deep emotional cost on the
daughters, lor whom sexual transgressions or even modest outings .....;th friends sig-
nily not (lilly gender and generational contestations, but larger betrayals of race,
nation, and culture.
CtNDER, CITIZENSHIP. AND THE TRANSNATIONAL
Transnationalism, which emphasizes the ongoing attachments that immigrants
maintain with people and institutions in their places of origin, has seriously chal
w
lenged conventional ideas about immigrants and immigration. Radler than view-
ing immigration as a linear, one-way process that requires new immigrants to sever
all connections with the old country, scholars inspired by transnational approaches
examine how people stay connected and often form a cohesive community across
nation-state borders. This final section of the book brings together four eSSi\)'S that
considc, the place of gender in transnational practices and institutions.
In the first chaptel; Sarah Mahler draws on years of research in Salvadoran
immigrant communities in suburban Long Island to ask how a panicular mraJ area
OENf>f:R Mill IMMICRATION
of 1 Salvador has been affecled by om-migration and the creation of new transna-
tional communities. Gender relations are malleable to all kinds of processes, and
Mahler shows how local, national, and transnational processes inlerseet 10 shape
immigrant social networks and gender ideals for children and youth. At the other
end of the generational spectrum, Mahler investigates the relatively new and quirt-
tessel1tially transnational occupation of cross-border couriers. These are self-
employed entrepreneurs who travel back and forth across international borders to
deliver remittances (the largest source of foreign exchange for El Salvador), let-
ters, pal1:els, and appliances. While the work is risky, older women are preferred in
this occupation because they are seen as trustv.orthy and capable of easing peo-
ple's worries. In this instance, conceptions of womanhood that hark back to Vic-
torian ideals of women's moral superiority seem 10 give women an edge.
In the next chapter, Ernestine Avila and 1examine how the exigencies of domes-
tic work, financial scarcity, and precarious legal status have ft)f(:ed many immigrant
!women to leave their children behind in their counmes of origin. While they cafe for
Iother people's children in the United States, immigrant domestic workers mayeu-
Icounter long separations of time and space from their 0\Vl1 children. Our analysis
Iunderscores the emergence of new imemational inequalities of social reproductive
!work and focuses on how these women are forging new meanings of motherhood that
i we call "transnationalmotherhood." l>articular migration and employment patterns
Ibring about new meanings of family life and new definitions of what constitutes a
! "glX>li mother," but these are generally accompanied by ambivalencesand great costs.
! Ties and loyalties to the "old country" are an enduring feature of immigration,
i but immigrant women and men may express these loyalties in different ways. lm-
Imigrants from.countries such as the Dominican Republic, Colombia, and Mexico
! have formed thousands of hometown associations in the United States. These are
j social and civic dubs that allow migrants living in the United Stares to sponsor par-
Ities, engage in collective fund-raising for public works projects in their town of ori-
Igin, and sometimes to influence political campaigns in the country of origin. Based
: on an examination of Mexican hometown association:; in Los Angeles, Califor-
i nia, that are tied to towns in Zacatecas, Mexico, Lum Goldring discovers thai it is
r primarily men who prevail in aU of the leadership positions. In a provocative and
: compelling argument, Goldring argues that the Mexican hometown associations
j<:Ot1stitute a unique site for a "masculine gendered pr<>ject," one that allows Mex-
l::ican immigrant men-particularly those with sufficient resources-to recoup the
; status and privilege they lost through migration.
Ii, Tn the final chapter, Audrey Singer and Greta Gilbertson interrogate a littJe-
bUI key legal passage for many immigrantS, naturalization. The pursuit
US. citizenship intensified among many Latino immigrant groups during the
;;bighly clin.ate Qf the t99OO. Contrary to the image of naturalization as
'. the ultimate fon'n of assimilation, many immigrants in California were simply scared
; iow becoming U.S. citizens by California's t994 passage of Proposition t87-whkh
'; promised to deny public health care and public education to the children of un-
18
GNl>R ANO IMMIGRATION
t.
NOTES
I. The idea that women are neces.1arily migrallt foUowers is informed largely by the his-
tory of lhe guest worker programs in Europe and the Bracero contract labor pl'Ogram in the
United States. Women's agency was 3.'lSumed to be absent. In both instances, the intention
was to recruit male immigrant labor fol' a finite, temporary period of time, but instead per'
manent liuni/y setdement came about after women kin migrated.
2. As modest lIS thi. first-stage project seems to us today, some commentators responded
with blatant, vitrioli<: hostility. British anthropologist Anthony Leeds for example,
opined that "the category of 'women' seems to me a rhetorical one, not one which has (or
can be proved to have) generic scientific utility," and he decried this focus as "individualis-
tic, reductionist, and motivational." argued that fO<.;using on migJ"'<\m women would
deflect scholarly attclltion away from structural processes of capitalist labor exploitation.
That itt itself is teUing, as it encodes the assumplion that women do not act in economic or
structural COI1\CXIS and are somehow doisttred lind sheltered from capitalist institutions.
3 The rise of tlCW ideals of companionate marriage and marital intimacy among Mex-
ican immigrants has been documented byJennifer Hirsch (2000).
inunigrants. While that proposition uhimately proved unconstitutional, REFERENCES
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ITugran ugee an mmlgratlon esponsl I Ity ct RA}--a complex piece .'. . . . .
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8
3). rw u't Oft sold, I OJld my people: J1lomm mui indlLltrial.
stgned tnto effect the same year as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportu- in Mtxio'sfrolltin. Albanv: State University of New York Press.
niry Reconciliation Act. 111 their chapter, Singer and Gilbertson explore how Do mer, Naney. (ItoOO). Frcm /l;$ /;ll.wl tlJ JFK: ){tW 1'Jrk's fWD if,cat waves !if immigratum, New
minican immigrant women and men responded to these pressures_ Sensitive to life- Havell, CT: Yale University Pnss.
course stages, they provide a close-up examination of multiple orientations in one Gabacda, Donna. (1992). Introduction. In Donna Gabaccia (Ed.), SuJdng CQl/lmOll ground:
Dominican tl'ansnationa! family that spans five generations and sixty-five members. slUdus 0/ WfJmtll in tilt U.S. (pp. xi-xxvi), Prae.ger.
Some of t.he men, lhey fwd, see acquisition of u.s. citizenship as a way to advance Grasmucl, Shern, & Pessar, Between tu>o. u/.andr: Domlllltl11l mltrnotuJllIl1 m'!lm-
their return to the Dominican Republic, thereby uncoupling I'csidenry and state . tum. & Los Angeles: of Press. , .
izenship, while many of the women pursue naturalization to further the project of S. (2MO). En tlJUlfU 1nlfJer manda: Gender, gener"uoll, and geography I!l a
oAtftemer r' d " h } . l.:'dr . d d h'ld MeXIcan u'ansnauonal commuJlIly. In Nancy Foner. Ruben G. Rum.baut, & Steven],
"'-, . 1 an conncctlon wit l.lelf e,w en an gran c 1 ren . . " . . .
All f
'h h . I' b I I .'. '. . Gold (Eels.), ImmJgrtltwn re.search for a tltW Ctlliury: Mul!idUClplmary PtfrJpectlWS (pp. 369-S89)
o tee apt.ers U1 tJIIS ook c ear y move far beyond "add and stir" or 1m N " k R 11 S to d'
... .. , ew lor: usse . age ..oun allon.
::lIgrant women "app.roaches. I hey also stretch us well the earlier Hondagneu.Sotelo, Pierrettc. (1994). (;mdtrtlJ transitions: Mexicon experiences if immigratiQI!.
empowerment studies, wInd. tended to couch gender changes tn elthet"or terms, Berkeley & Los Angeles: Ulliversity of California Press.
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Berkeley &. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
CHAPTER 2
Engendering l\1igration Studies
The Case qf New lmmtttrants in the United States
Patricia R. Pessor
This review highlights contributions made by scholars who have treated gender as
a central organizing principle in migration, and it suggests some promising lines
for future inquiry. When gender is brought to the lbreground in migration studies,
a hOSI of significant topics emerge. These include how and why women and men
experience migration differendy and how this contrast affects such processes as llet-
t1emetll, return, and transmigration. A gendered perspective demands a scholarly
reengagcment with those institutions and ideologies immigrants create and en-
counter in the "home" and "host" countries in order to determine how patriarchy
organizes family life, work, community associations, law and public policy, and so
on. It also encourages an cxaminafion of the ways in which migration simultane-
ously reinfoN::es aod chaUenges patriarchy in its multiple forms. I
New immigration research is developing a more sophisticated understanding
of gender and patriarchy. It avoids the common fallacy of equating gender only
with women, and it ac::knowledgcs the "u'ansgressive" fact that non-White immi-
grant males may be stripped of patriarchal status and privilege by White men and
women (Espiritu, (997). Consequently, a new wave of migration scholarship chal
lenges feminists who insist on the primacy of gender, thereby marginalizing racism
and otller structures of oppression. In place of theories that treat structures such
as gender and race as mutuaUy exclusive, this recent work urges us to develop the-
ories and design research that capture the simultaneity of gender, class, race, and
ethnic exploitation. The payoff is explanatory models that account for outcomes
that have largely eluded those who employ more unitary fnuneworks. fbr exam-
ple, by acknowledging and theorizing the interpenetrating class, racial, legal, and
gender oppressions charactcri7.ing immigrant women's lives, we are best prepared
10 interpret their modest challenges 10 patriarchal privilege and cxploittive fam-
ily practices, despite the facI thiU migration tends to narrow the material and so-
dal )Undalions for gender inequities.
ENGENDERING MIGRATION SHIDIt:S 21
THE MIGRANT AS MALE
More than a decade ago I wrote,
Until recently tbe terlll "migranl" suffered from the saml." gender stereotyping found
in the riddles about the big indian snd [he little indian, Ihe surgeon and Ihe son. III
each case the term carried a masculine connotation, unless olherwi,e specified. '"Vhile
tbi$ perception makes for amusing riddles, the assumption thaI the "true" migrant is
male has limited the possibility fOr generalization from empirical research and pro-
duced misleading theoretical premises. (pessar, Ig6G, p. 273)
To appreciate why women were largely absent from empirical research and writ-
ings produced in the t950s, 1960s, and early 1975. it is useful to consider the the-
oretical assumptions guiding much of the migration scholarship of that period.
Most scholars were by neoclassical theory, and according to one popu
lal' variant, those individuals with the ability to pl'oject themselves into Ihe role of
"Western man" headed off to the dties where the benefits of modern life could be
attained (Lewis, 1959; Redfield, 1955). And it was males, indeed, who they alleged
were more apt to be risk takers and achievers, whereas women were portrayed as
guardians of cOlmnunit)' tradition and stability. Hence, ill Everett Lee's (1966) scm
inal "push-pull" theory of migration, we learn that "children are carried along by
their parents, willynilly, and wives accompany their husbands though il tears them
away from the environment they love" (p. 51).
Migration research of this period also suffered from the more general tendency to
. disregard women's contributions to economic, political, and social lift. AsJune Nash
(1986) writes, "Whether investigators were influenced by neoclassical, Marxist, de-
pendency or deveiopmentalisl paradigms, they tended 10 stop short of an analysis of
women's condition in any but the mosl stereotyped roles in the family and biological
';reproduction" (p. 3). The same ideological template operated as labor-importing na-
ilion$, such as France, chose to enwnel'llte immigrant women alongside chiJdren as de-
.pendents rather than workers in official immigration statistics (Morokvasic, J984).
Not surprisingly, researchers of the day designed studies of immigrant popula-
tions that induded only male subjects. Thus, in the inuoductlon to their 1975 book
on migrant workers in Europe,John Berger andJean Mohr write,
Among the migrant workers in Europe Ihere are probably two million women. Some
work in factories, many work in domeslic service. To write of their experience ade-
quately would require a book itseU: We hope this will be. done. Ours is limited to the
experience of the male migrant worker. (p. 8)
in 1985, we nnd Alejandro Pones explaining that the surveys he conducted
the course of the 1970S wilh Mexicans and Cubans in the United States had
be restricted to male family heads because they
Jelt at the time thaI an exploratory study, directed at comparison of two immigrant
groups over time, would become excessively complex were itlO encompass all cak-
JNI !'A,RICI" R. I'SSAR
f"NOF.NOf.RIN(. MWRATION S'tlJPlts
gories of inunignml.$. In mbsequcflt interviews, howevcr, respQndems were also used
informallls about major characterisucs of Olher family members, in particular, their
Wives. (Pones & Badl, (98), p. 95)
male hia.s also existed in the works of many immigration historians of the pe-
nod who either assllmed that. only male immigrants' lives were worthy of ollicial
and scrutiny (Handlin, 195t; Howe, (976) or that die histolYof male
migrants was gender neutral, thus making it unnecessary to treat women at all,
except perhaps in a few pages on the family (Bodnar, Weber, & Simon, IgB'2).
SCHOLARSHIP ON IMMIGRANT WOMEN
Once scholarship gained a foothold in migration studies, it progressed
Ihrough a senes of stages common to the broader engagement between feminism
and the social sciences. In the 1970S and 19805, researchers attempted to fill in the
gaps that resulted fi'om decades of research based predominantly on male immi-
grants. In their rush to fill this void, the more empiricaUy minded migration schol-
ars tended to treat gender as a mere variable rather than as a central theoretical
concept. l'br example, in Douglas Gurak and Mary Kritz's (198:2) writings on Do-
minican and Colombian immigrants in New York City, we learn of high rates of
female labor forec exceeding rates priol' to emigration. Yet, these
ernpiril:al findings are never txmtextuali1.ed in a larger discussion of gender seg-
mentation within the sending and receiving labor markets (see Gabaccia, 1994;
Sasscn-Kooo, 1984) nor extended through an examination of the impact women's
wage lilbor has had on relations within these immignmt families and the
"..ider communities (see Pessar, 1986, (988).
Although there is now a sizable body of empirical studies on women immigrants,
which is aimed al redressing a tradition of male bias, we are only beginning to
take the next step in reformulatmg migration theory in light of the anomalous and
findings revealed in this body of work. The remainder of this essay
reVIews the key components needed to more fbUy engender migration studies. I
note where advances have been made and suggest where fUlure theorizing and
search should proceed.
ENGENDERING MIGRATI.ON THEORY AND RESEARCH
Researchers have only recently begun to explore how changing politico-economic
conditions in labor-exporting and labor-importingsocieties differentially affect men
and women and how thi.s, in turn, may provide them with contl'asting incentives and
constraints on movement and foreign settlemem.
2
Hondagneu-Sotelo ([994). for ex-
ample, notes that the Bracero Program provided opportunities for male laborers and
that thest individuals went on to create informal social networks that recruited ad
ditional men. It was Hot until the 19705 that equally effe<:tive women-to-wornen net-
works consolidated (Kossoudji & Ranney, 1984), In contrast, Irish migration in the
19th and early :wth cen!Uries was female dominated. As Hasia Diner (1983) and
PauJinejackson (1981l explain, the larger transitioll from an agrar
lan, feudal mode to an industrial, capitalist one was exacerbated in Ireland by the
loc.\1 norms of single inheritance and single do\vry. These changes affected women
[nore heavily than men, leading increasing nwnbers of women 10 conclude tllat their
Dest chances for employment (ovetwhelrningly in domestic service) and eventual
marriage could be hAmd by emigrating to the United States. It was women who ere
ated and maintained the migration chains that linked female kin and friends and
that produced a pattern of migration that was basically a femalc mass movement.
3
Researchers argue that export-led production in Third World countries carries
different implications for female and male workers, although in both i.nstances it is
mignltion-indudng (l'ernandez-Kelly, 1983; Sassen-Koob, 1984). Offshore pro-
duction promotes displacement and international migration by creating goods tltat
compete with local wmmodities, by feminizing the workforce without providing
equivalent factory-based employment for the large stock of under- and unemployed
males, and by socializing women for industrial work and modern consumption
without providing neededjob stability over the course of the women's working lives.
For several decades, the United States has attracted proportionally more female
migrants than other labor-importing cOlllltries have, and women constitute the ma-
jority among U.S. immigrants from Asia, Celllral and South America, the Carib-
i hean, and Europe (Donato, 199:2) This dominance reflects economic restructuring
in the United States and the subsequent growth of femaJe-imellSive industries, par-
ticularly in service, health care, microclectronics, and apparel manufacturing. Ac-
cording to Yen Le Espiritu (t997), immigl'ant women, as feminized and racialized
are more employable in these industries than their male coun-
s due to "the patriarchal and radst assumptions that women can afford to
rk for less, do not mind dead-end jobs, and are more suited physiologically to
ain kinds of detailed and routine work" (p. 74). She illustrates with a quote from
%' hite male production manager and hiring supelvisor in a California Silicon
Valley assembly shop:
Ii; Just three things llook tor in hiring [entry-level, high,tcch manufacturing operatives]:
small, foreign, and female. You find those three things and you're pretl:)' much amo-
iJ:' matically gllarantecd the right kind of worklhn::e. These little foreign gals lire grate-
I hired-very, very grateful-MilO malleI' what. (J[osseld, 1994, p. 65. as dted
in ESPlntll. 1997)

1
1
,'Revisionist schQlarship on immigramenclaves provides a further example of the
gower of inquiry. The earliest writing on the Cuban cnclave in Mi
tli praised it as a of economic incorporation that, unlike the secondary sec-
provided iml'l'iigrants with significant returns to education and previous job
as well as opportunities for training and comparatively higher wages
fbrtes & Bach, tg8S). More recent research on the Cuban enclave (Portes & [cnscll,
PATRICIA R. rnSAIl
ENGENDERING MWRATION STUDIl!:$
25
1989) and the Chinese enclave in New York City (2hou, 1992; Zhou & Logan, 1991),
which control for gender, reveals a far different pattern, however, with women re-
ceiving few, if any, of the advantages their male counterparts enjoy. In thC' case of
the New York City enclave, Min Zhau (199:2) writes, "Betler-payingjobs in the cn-
clave economy tend to be reserved for men because male supremacy thai domi-
nates the Chinese culture (and the Western culture) reinforces gender discrimina-
tion in the enclave labor market" (p. 182). Greta Gilbertson (1995), too, concludes
in her study of Dominican and Colombian immigrants employed in Hispanic firms
in New York that rather than conferring benefits to women, enclave employment
is highly exploitative. Indeed, she claims that some of the success of immigrant
smaU-business owners and their male workers wmesat the expensc of subordi-
nated immigrant women.
Finally, in a sobcring piece 011 U.S. immigrants' "progress" over the decade of
the '9805, Roger Waldinger and Greta Gilbertson (1994) find that although male
immigrants Irom select countries (e.g., India, Iran,Japan) were better able to con-
vert their educalion into higher occupational status rankings than were native-born
\Vhill:s of native parentage, none of their female counterparts were able to do the
same. f'or example, relatively few females were able to convert high levels of edu-
cation into prestigious jobs as managers, professionals, or business owners. If the
social erasure of immigrant women caused assimilationists to dwell on and cele-
brate the progress of immigrant men alone, Waldinger and Gilbertson's research
shows that "making it" in America may sadly, yet, be a story about men despite
the inclusion of women (p. 440)'
Migrati<m studies have not only benefited from an appreciation of the wn)'s in
wbich gender operates within the processes of economic displacement and the de-
mand for inunignmt laoor, A gcndered optic is also essential to appreciate the role
played by mediating institutions, such as households and social networks, in inter-
national migration.
RETJilNKINO HOUSEHOLDS AND SOCIAL NETWORKS
There is general agreement that the inclusion of the household and sodal networks
has helped elucidate the factors that precipitate and sustain migration as well as
wndition its eRects. Simultaneously, however, there have been calls to refine the
ways in which these analytkal constructs have been conceptualized and opera-
tionalized.
has been primarily wrectcd at formulations of the household. Inspired
by leminist scholarship, critics have objected to the notion that migrant households
are organized solely on principles of reciprocity, consensus, and altntism. They have
countered that although household members' orientations and actions may some-
times be guided by norms of solidarity, they may equally be informed by hierarchies
of power along gender !lnd generational lines; thus, the tension, dissention, and coali-
tion building these hierarchies produce within the migration process also must be
examined (Grasmuck & Pessar, 1991). A panicularly graphic example of a lack of
consensus among household members is provided by Pierrene Hondagneu-Sme!o
(1?91), who describes a young Mexican wife whose fear of abandonment by her
nllgmnt husband her to pray that he will be apprehended by the Border Pa-
trol sent back home her and her young children (p. 4J). In the sociologist's
words,. On.ce listen to the VOices of Mexican immigrants ... the notion
that IS by collective calculations or household-,vide strategies be-
C",omcs mcreasmgly difficult to sustain" (p. 55).
There is also a problem with the lIew economists' relatively narrow view of the
nature of migrant households' cost-benefit analyses (Stark, 199
I
). It fails to ac-
knowledge that the calculations involve not only a consideration of the market teon-
omy, the household political economy as well. For example, when unmarried
women urge their parents to aI/ow them to emigrate alone, parents
weigh th: threat to the famil)"s reputation posed by the daughter's sexual freedom
the very.real economic benefits her emigration
/WlIl Similarly, III the benefits of return migration, many Domini-
loon unmlgl'ant women assess the personal gains thut settlement and blue-collar ern-
tbe United have brought them against the expectation or "forced
.retlrement back on the Island (Pessar, 1995
b
).
." Scholars who adopt what may be called a moral economy perspective tend to
:r:ev: households as essentially passive units whose members are collectively vic-
by t.he larger econ?my. We see this vision in the pioneering work of
Meillass()ux (1981) on African migrant households and domestic commu-
s. He that lhe domestic and productive activities of the migrant
who 10 rural communities were essential for the social reproduc-
of male migrant labor on a seasonal and generational basis. Although Meil-
IIX acknowledged that women who engage in nOllcapitalist activities within the
are in a contradictory and exploited relation-
VlS.i\-V1S the this observation wd not lead him to analyze
equally exploltatJve SOCIal and economic relations within migrant households.
such a model of passive and unitary househOlds, we are totally unprepared
CQunt such "transgressive" as the decisions of mallY Kikuyu
mlgli
3l
e alone to a nearby City rather than accept the onerous burden of
talmng h'U
es
and lands over the duration of their migrant husbands' and fa-
'prolongekl absences. Nici Nelson (1978) describes these exploited women as
. g with their feet" (p. 89).
Now, more IS after the of Meillassoux's (19
8t
) work, we
. ue to compile addltlonal studies documenting the social reproduction
19rant by households (Dandier & Medeiros, 19
88
;
th, Ig8;), Soto, 1987). What IS III far shoneI' supply, however are treatments
e strains and limitations on the perpetuation of a labor For exam-
.we need comparative research Oil whether and howthe "enforced" immobil-
of migrant wives and sisters is contested by womcn responding to the increased
demand for female labor both in export-oriented industries at home and in im-
mig-rant-dominalcd sectors abroad (Grasmuck & Pessa!', 199J), Along these lines,
we'require more research on how images, meanings, and values associated with
gendtr, consumption, modernity, and lhe family circulate within the global cui-
rurll/ econom}' (Appadurai, 1990) and how these "icleoscapes" and "mediascapcs"
are interpreted llnd applOpriated in vatied sites by difierent household members
in way. dmt either promote or constrain mobility (Mills, 1997) Finally, there is also
a paUCity of 011 the limits to grandmothers' and other kin's willingness
and capacities to care lor Ihe children left behind and to "resocialize" rebellious
youth sent "home" by their distraught tl'lignmt parents (Basch, Schiller, & Szan-
ton Blanc, 1994; Guarnizo. 1997)
The (,ommon claim that the immigrant family in the United States is an adap'
tive social u)rm requires Ftthinking. This proposition assumes an immigrant house-
hold already firmly in place (Perez. 1986). 1t diverts our attention from the impor-
tant task of analYl.ing legislation and government policies that effectively block or
limil the formation, unification, and material well-being of immigrant families (Es-
piritu, 1997; Garrison & Weiss, 1979; Hondagneu-SQtelo, t995; Hondagneu-Sotelo
$( Avila, 199J; Moham)', 1991). We also need to turn a critical gaze 011 the accom-
panying rhetoric that these initiatives thinkable and credible. Fot' example,
work on the Chinese Exclllsion Act points t its racist and sexist precepts; begin-
ning with the 1875 Page Law, aU would-be immigrant women were sus-
pected of being prostitutes who would bring in virulent strains of vene-
real diseases, introduce opium addiction, and emice young white boys to a life of
sin" IChan, 1991, p. 138).
Fi'nally, households have assumed an important place within transnational mi-
gration theory as we". Researchers stress that household members often d:velop
economic strategies tbat transcend natiOllallabor markets and pursue SOCIal re-
production strategies that may similarly seretch across national divides, as, for ex-
ample, when immigrant women work abroad as Monies/housekeepers while their
children renlain in their countries of origin (Hondagneu-SOlelo & Avila, 1997). Re-
celli work on the related phenomena of "u'ansnationaJ mothering" and "the new
employable mothers" (Chang, 1994) has raised important questions about the
meanings, variations, and inequities of motherhood in the latc !2oth century,
Research on migration and SQclal networks has not received as concerted a cri-
tique and retooling as has the schola.rship on migrant households. Back in 19
8
9,
Monica Boyd observed that milch of the research on social networks remained in-
different to gender. fortunately. since then there has been some progress in ex-
plot'lug the multiple ways in which gender configures and organizes immigrants'
social networks. For example, Christine Ho (1993) maintains that kinship lies at
the center of Caribbean social life both at home and transnationally, and it is
w()men who give these networks shape and substance. Feminist scholarship has also
challenged the popular assumption that immigrants' sodal networks are sodaU)'
inclusive, As Houdagne;lJ-Sotclo (1994) writes, "Immigrant social networks are
tNCNDEl\Ii'lC STIJI>If;S fq
highly contested snciil! resources, and they are flOt always shared, even in the same
family" (p, r8g). In f.'\ct, she found thai migrant networks were wlditionalJy avail-
able to Mexican males; now that women have developed independent female net-
works, it is not uncommon fOT family and household members to use entirely ('lif-
ferenl social networks (p, 95).
The new scholarship on the gendered dimensions of the supply and demand
for immigrant labor and of the role of migrant hOllscholds 'lnd social networks in
the migration process has inspired iii complementary line of research that explores
the relationship between migration and women's emancipation,
MIGRATION AND EMANCIPATION
,
[Many scholars have examined the impact immigrant women's regular wage work has
Ion gendered relations. A review or this literature poilllS to the (act that despite gen-
ider inequities in the labor market and workplace, immigrant women employed in the
iUnited States generally gain greater personal autOl1omy and independence, whereas
tmenloseground (e.g., Grasmuck &Pessar, t991; Guendelman& 19th;
IHondagl1eu-Sotelo, 199+; Kjbria, 1993; Lamphere, IgB7: Pedraza, 1991). fbI' exam-
;pie, women's regular access to wages and their greater conttiburiol1 to household sus-
tenance frequently lead to more control over budgeting and other realms of domes-
tk making. It also provides Ihem with greater leverage in appeals for male
alssistance in daily household chores. There is some indication that the smaller the
wage gap between purlIlers' earnings, the greater the mao's willingness to participate
iin domestic work (Espilitu, 1997; Lamphere, Zavella, & Gonzales, 199$ Pessar, 1995b).
women's spatial mobility and their access to valuable social and economic
ijesoUfces beyond the domestic sphere also expand (Hondagneu-50telo, [994: Pes-
J99Sb), In the words of immigrant men and women can be found further evi-
that migration and settlement bring changes in traditional patriarchal
. 1gemenrs.ln what NazI! Kibria (1993) describes as a tongue-in-cheek
.gender transf9rmations, several Vietnamese immigrant men told her, "In Vietnam
man of the house is king. Bdow him the childt'en, then the petS of the home,
d then the women. Here, the woman is the Idng and the man holds a position be-
the pets" (p. loS} Conversely, a Mexican female returnee wid her interviewers,
California my husband was like a mariposa (meaning a sensitive, soft, responsive
tterfly). Back here in Mexico he acts like a distant macho" (Guendelman &
z-ltriaga, IgB7, p. 268).
The pioneering work on women and migration tended to couch its conterns in
, either-or terms: Was migration emancipatory or subjugating for women?
soon concluded that immigrant women did not or consistently
their statuS in the home, workplace, or community (Morokvasic, 1984). For
dividual immigrants, like many of my Dominican informants, gait\S have been
QSt pronounced in one domain (e.g., the household), whereas gender $ubordina-
continues in other arenas such as the workplace and ethnic associations (Gras-
28 PATRICIA R. PESSAR
& Pessar, 1991}. J<or olher immigrant women, "gains" \<\-1thin a specific sphere,
like the hOl.\sehold, are frequently accompanied by strains and contradictions. This
fact is dearly in Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila's (1997) research O!1
trans.lllItlOnill mothenng. Although many Mexican and Central American immi-
grant .nannies and housekeepers take pride in their paid repmductive work. espe-
claUy In caring for other people's children, and in stretching the dennition of moth-
erhood ?readwinning, thue are substantial costs. According to the
authors, ill ill space and time from their communities of origin, homes,
nod hush,nnds, these must "c,ope \vith stigma, guilt, and
Ciltiosm from others (p. 7). fhere are also SignS of generational conflicts within
immigrant households, which incline some women, such as the Vietnamese immi-
gl:ams (1993) studied, to recommit themselves even morc forcefully to pa-
u'll\rch.\l s!stems "becauseQf the power it [gives] them, as mothers, over
[transgressIVe] children" {p, 143).
4
To fOI' these seeming inconsistencies and
contradictions in immigrant women's lives, it is useful to recaU Myra Ferree's (199
0
)
.that of oiu' feminist models founder because they have sought
consIstency m working women's lives where no such consistet1cy exist.s.
Although lhere is now broad consensus that immigrant women attain some lim-
ited, albeit uneven and sometimes contradictory, benefits from migration and set-
dement, we await the next wave of scholarship. This would consolidate and then
deconstruct the available literature (0 determine those gendereddomains in which
the greatest and least gains for women have been made. And it would both isolate
and interrelate those factors that condition these outcomes. These would include
age, employment history (prior and subsequent to emigra-
race, ethmclty, sexual preference, sodal dass, and legal status as well as fam-
Ily structures and gender ideologies (prior to and subsequent to emigration). As we
proceed in such a venture, it will be necessal)' to deCOllSlrUct excessively inclusive
lerms such as 1atwl-elhniJ: women and Taria/ked subjects. Promising work lies ahead
as we explore how the evolving processes of racialization and social stratification
and. between '}\Sian," "Latino," "Caribbean," and "European" populations
& Wmant, ,1994) afTect the gendered identities and experiences of specific im-
l'mgran! to assess those factors that facilitate or impede gen-
der It would be Wise to systematically reengage those accounts that qualify
01' the claim that migration improves women's status (Castro J986' Zhou
) F
' ',' ,
or example, we are likely to find less change among immigrant popum-
tJO?S such as the whose premigration gender ideologies already
asSign wwes to essential dUlleS III both the domestic and productive spheres (Lam-
phere, (986).
. 1do not imend to mininlize the importance of those factors tllat may
mltlgate patriarchal.pmctices, 1 want to suggest that differences among
regardmg the emanctpatory nature of migration may originate, at least
lJ\ part., III th: actual research strategies pursued. In a formal research setting, such
as one ill WlllCh surveys or structured interviews are administered, an immigrant
ENGENUERING MIORATION STlJOIES 29
IVoman's decisionito cloak her own and her family's experiences in a discourse of
unity, femalesacr!fice, and the woman's subordination to the patriarch rcpresents
a safe, respectful, land respectable "text." As I look back on my own work, this is
the female voice tlIat usuaU)' emerged from my attempts at survey research. By con-
trast, my ethnographic collection of discourses that reveal family tensions and strug-
gles emerged far more frequently OUI of encounters whett my presence was inci-
dental, that is, not the defining purpose for the ensuing dialogue, or after mallY
months of participant obsclvation had substantially reduced the initial formality
and suspicion (see Pessar, 1995a). In light of our increased appreciation for the di-
alogical nature of the research encounter, I am hardly surprised that the fieldworker
who has presented some of the richesl and most compelling case material on
women's circumvelltion or contestation of patriarchal authori!)' assumed the roles
of both activist and researcher and was no doubt perceived by many of her in-
formants as a transgressive female herself (Hondagneu-Sotelo, p. xiii). Nei-
ther am I surprised that the chronicler of by far the best histories of divergent mi-
gration projects spent more than '2 years studying a limited number of immigrant
families in both Mexico and Northern California and chose to feature in his writ-
ings only one family with whom he lived and socialized (Rouse, 1987, 1989).
SETTU:MENT, RETURN, AND TRANSNATIONALITY
!A gendered approach is essential to account for men's and women's orientations
!to setdemelll, return, and transmigration. Indeed, gender-free models of migrant
lsettlemem and return (e.g., Piore, (979) are hard to defend in light of informants'
1statements such as the one dted above by the Mexican rerum migrant who saw her
!"butterfly" turn back into a distant macho and tht1 joking remark of a Laotian
irefugee, "When we get on the plane back to Laos, the first thing will do is beat
lup the women" (Donnelly, t994, p. 71.). Research shows consistently that gains in
!gender equity are central to women's desires to setde, more or less permanently, to
!.pTOtect their advances (Chavez, 1991; Georges, 1990; Goldring, 1992; Hagan, 1991;
'iliondagneu-Sotelo, 1994-) In contrast, many men seek to return home rapidly to
,regain the status and privileges that migration itself has challenged. In my own
rk, I document many Dominican women spend large aillounts of money
expensive goods, such as major appliances and home furnishings, which
e to root the family more securely in the United States and deplete the funds
ary to orchestrate a successful reentry back into Dominican society and ceon-
Conversely, mFn often favor a far more frugal and austere pattern of con-
plion that is with their claimthat "five dollars spenltooay meant five
re years of postponing the return to the Dominican Republic" (pessar, 1986,
284)
Further stride5 in our understanding of how immigrant women consolidate set-
lent have been made by Hondagneu-Sotelo (1994), who ob5Crves that, as tra-
nal family patriarchy weakens, immigrant women assume more active public
3
PATR.ICIA R. PESSAR
ENGENllERING MIGRATION STUDIES
3/
and social roles--actions that at once reinforce their improved status in the house-
hold and ultimately advance their families' integration in the United States. She
identifies three arenas in which this consolidation takes place: the Jabor market in
which women seek permanent, nonseasonal employmenlj institutions for public
and pl'ivace assistance; and the irnmigrdnt/ethnic community. Hondagneu-Sotdo
and others have shown that women are particulady adept at locating and using
finandal and social services available in the new society (Chavira, J988; Kibl'ia,
1993) and in using social-networking skills for community building (O'Connor,
(990 ).
As researchers continue to explore community building and community activism
among new immigrants, they would be wise to take a leaf from immigration his-
rorians who have noted that women's sense of community often differs substan-
tially from that of men, who tend to gravitate to formal institutions such as politi-
cal parties and labor unions (Hyman, 1980; \'Veinberg, 1992). Moreover, it should
be borne in mind that women are positioned difihendy than metl with regnrd to
both the broader economy and the state. As women, they are socially assigned re-
sponsibility for the daily and generational sustenance of household members, even
when. as is the case for many immigrants, family wages are wholly insullkient.
Reseilrrh is badly needed to determine whethcI' and how immigrant women man-
age W overcome very real concerns over legal vulnerability to confrOn! the state
over family and community welfare issues (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1995; Sacks, 1989;
Susser, 1982; TorrueUas, Bemmt}'OI; &Juarbe, 1997; Zavella, IS87).
Recenl work on migrants' transnational identities, practices, and institutions
lIens liS that permanent settlemem or pel'l'nanent return are merely two of the pos-
sible outcomes; lives constnlcted across national boundaries is anothel: As several
scholars have noted, gender remains marginalized within transnational migration
theory and research (Hondagneu-Sotelo & Avila, 191m Kearney, 1995; Mahler, n.d.).
Based on the lew studies that do consider gendel; we are left with the impression
that men are tlte major players in tmnsnationaJ social fields (Graham, 1997; Oug,
1993). Sarah Mahler (n.d.) astutely questions the implicit message that women are
more passive and argues that when the reseal'Ch focus is shifted from public do-
mains, such as illlermll.ional investmenl and hometown associations, to more pri-
vaI.e ones, such as the management of transnational migrant households, a differ-
ent representation emerges (see also Ho, 1993; Hondagneu-Sotelo & Avila, 1997;
SOlO, 19H7). On this score, Sandhya Shukla (J997) observes that South Asian women
have organized across the diaspora and subcontinent around the problem of do-
mestic violence. She notes that through tllese transnational activities, "the South
Asian woman" is being constituted as a political subject. As such, some of these
women have come to comest the more mainstream, patriarchal narratives of eth-
nic identity and solidarity that are emerging in diverse diaspora communities. These
II)ainsm:am narratives, she claims, arc vigorously and romantically nationalist
rather than embracing the women's pan-elhnic identity of South Asian. And they
"are steeped in images of traditional nudear G'lmily with its specified gender
roles as a Illetalhor f()r distinctly cultural values in the face of Western change"
(p. 270 ). Shukla' work alens us to an important dialectic that has received insuffi-
cient scholarly ,ttention: the mutually constituting projcc:ts of racial and ethnic
"othering" of upmigl'ants and ethnics carried out by members of host countries
Iln.d the of often fundamentalist, cou.nternarratives produced
lby othere4 subJects_ What arc the roles of men and women in either sup-
or these projects? And in what ways are the symbols of na-
'bon, dlaspora, and belongjng imbued with notions of gender and sexuality? Surely,
;much more is needed to determine how transnational migration idemi-
.ties, practices, ard experiences are gendered and whether patriarchal ideologies
. and roles arc reaffirmed, tempered, or both within transnational social spaces. We
also need to sitUl\te gender within the current historical moment-one in which re-
note between economic globalization and the rena-
Donahzmg of politICS (Hams, 1995; Sassen, 1996). One extremely unfortunate by-
product c.ontradktion is the recent Icndency for US. policy makers to
cbnl'actenze tmmlgrant women and children as dangerous others whose rapaciOlls
pemands on the public coffers thwart the state's ability to fulfilJ its social contract
/!ith the "authentic" and truly "deserving" members of the nation (Chavez 199
6
IHondagneu-Solelo, 1995; Naples, 1997). \ , . ,
J:
i
!.
A RI:ENCOUNTER WITH FEMINIST STUDIES
earliest work on Dominican migration, I was quite adamant about the gains
. Dominican immigrant women had made (Pessar, (986). My enthusiasm
maled from sources: a flush of early feminist optimism (see Pess,n,
sa),.my observations based on fieldwork in both the Dominican Republic and
.Unlted Slates changes in gender practices (Grasmuck & Pessar, (991), and a
sIre to commulllcate my female informants' at what they viewed as far
ore equitable gender relations. Yet, as I have come to both follow the Jives of
over years and critically engage the comparative liter-
on ImmigratIOn and patwuchy, I have tempered my enthusiasm. I now con-
that, in general, ..,'omen's gains have been modest In retrospect,
Jleve many of us antiCipated a far greater degree of emancipation for immi-
nt because our theoretical guideposts were firmly planted ill early fem-
fo understand why most immigrant WOmen have only nibbled at the
gms of we must abandon the notion that gender hierarchy is the
determlllauv;c stntccure in thcir lives. This leaves us with tile f."ll' more daunt-
task of how and men's lives are affected by multiple and
related forms of oppressJ(;m lmked to gender, class, !'ace, ethnicity, and
status.
any US. feillinists were encouraged by economic trcnds in the t970S and
s. There w:s a marked increase in the propol'tion of dual-wage-earning
and escalating rates of male unemployment served to underscore the centrality
PATRICIA fl. rf.SSAR
of women's contributions 10 household budgets. Predictions of profound changes
in U.S. gender relations and family structures followed. Heidi Hartmann I 8 ), for

t . .lhat tl!;_ incn:i1s.eJn .. /ema e-headed !;ouseholds

washy defmition deleterious for women and theIr famlhes. She wrote, . To the ex-
tent that there is a family crisis, it is by and large a healthy one, parucularly for
\....omen" (p. 49), This \IIIlS the case, she nlaintained, because increased economic
I opportunities lor women had, in her WQI'ds, allowed women "t? to he.ad
I
I their own households ralher than to live with men. Along SImilar hnes, Ahce
I Kessler-Harris and Karen Brodkin Sacks (1987) observed that women's improved
i ac<:ess to wages allowed them either to resist gender and generational $ubordina-
! tion within the family or to "avoid family situations altogether" (p. 7
0
),
I A review of the Iitemture on irmnigrant families unearths scant evidence of a
radical revamping of gender ideology and lines of authority or of au
tory abandonment of conjugal units, despite rates of for
\IIomen that rival those of native-born Americans. We learn of VIetnamese Ullm,-
grant women who defend their own "traditional" what.
perceive to be individualistic and unregulated Amencan (Kibna,
1993). and of Latina nannies who endorse motherhood as a full-tlttle vocation when
penni\ (Hondagneu-Sotelo & Avila) 1997), We a
minicau woman who describes her divorce as "one of the saddest days In my hfe.
Not only did 1 lose the respect I once had as a married woman) but my childl'en
and I lost the material suppal1 [my husband] was able to provide" (Pessar, 1995
a
,
p. 4
1
). Many researchers report that inlmigrant women view their employment as
an extension of their obligations as wives and mothers (pedraza, 199
1
; Segura, 1991)'
With rhe cavear that they are merely "helping their husbands", a refrain tbat im-
migrant women frequemly repeat to researchers (Cnavira, 1988; Pessar, 1995<\)-"
these women manage to keep the fires of patriarchy burning by minimi:z.ing long
hours in the \IIorkplace and substantial contributions to the household budget. Why
h,lVe these immigrant women been less inclined than their White, N011h Ameri-
C<ln counterparts to level assaulrs on patl-iarchal domestic ideologies and practices?
IMMIGRANT FAMIlJS AS BASTIONS OF RESISTANCE
There are multiple external forces that buffet immigrant families. Legislation in-
formed by racist and sexist discourse has in the past and present severely challenged
the survival and weU-being of immigranl la01ilies (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1995; Mo-
hamy, 199
1
). Immigrant men are increasingly frustrated and scapegoated;
peet, and are expected, to be the breadwinners. Yet rhey face structural lfnpedi-
ments that block the fulfillment of this role" As Patl'ic.ia Fernandez-Kelly and Anna
Garda f)99
0
) remind us, "for poor men and women the issue is not so much the
preSence of the sexual divisioll of labor or the persistence .of patriarchal ideolo-
gles but the difficulties of upholding either" (p. 148}. Owing to an aU too common
tendency to confll\.le male dominance with patriarchy, many socia} scientists have
ENOENDRINO Ml(;IlATION SnJI)IF.S
been ()r reluctant, to appreciate their informants' unwillingness to lose th
benefits dt-rived from some patriarchal marital tmions (Nash, 1988).:i Whethe
through choke or necessity, large numbers of immigrant women have also assume,
wage-earning responsibilities. Their pursuit of employment is far more oHell th
result of sovere economic need and an expression of vulnerability than an indica
tion of their strength within the home and marketplace (Fernandez-Kelly & Gal
cia, 199('). As noted above, it is often because they arc "small, foreigll) female" anl
non-White that they enjoy the dubiQUS advantage of being the preferred categoJ;
of labor for the lowest paid and most insecun: segment of the economy. In light 0
these multiple assault.5, it would be patronizing to interpret immigrant women',
struggles to maintain intact families as acquiescence to traditional patriarchy
Rather, in many cases, these struggles represent acts of resistance against lhos(
forces within the dominant society Ihat threaten the existence of poor, minorit)
families (see Collins, 1990; Zinn) Weber Cannoll) Higginbotham, & Thornton Dill,
1986). This does not mean, as Evelyn Glenn (1986) reminds us, that immigrant
women do not simultaneously experience the fi\mily as an instrument of gender
subordination. Indeed, their attempts to use wages as leverage for greater gender
parity in certain arenas of domestic life attest to fact. The dilemma confronting
many immigrant women, it would seem) is to defend and hold together' the family
,while attempting to reform the norms and practices that subordinate the women
(Glenn, 1986, p. 193).
The importance of keeping multiple-wage-earning families intact is underscored
;by statistics revealing far higher incidents of povertyamong female-headed immi-
want households than among similar conjugal units (Bean & Tienda, 1988; Pes-
1995b; Rosenberg & Gilbertson, 1995). Maxin.e linn (J9B7) provides a more ad-
h'equate depiction of these female-headed units than that proposed by Hartmann
(1987):
Cooditions associated WI.'th female-headed families al11o.ng racial-ethnic.s are difr.er
u
ent and should be inrerprc\ed differently. Because while families headed by women
have much higher average incomes than minority in the same situation, we
must not confuse an overall improvement with whal is in raet an improvement for
women in cenain ro<:ial categories, while other women are lefl III the hottom in even
worse conditions. (p. 167)
)'\ 1n spite of the many social and material disincentives militating against the dis-
panding of unions and the formation of femak-headed households, there are,
several immigram populations, such as Dominicans, with cxtl'emelt
rates of female Research is needed to account for the lactors (011-
:Pibuting to differing rates of marital instability and female headedness within and
immJgrant p()pulations in the United States (Bean, Berg, & Vall Hook,
We alsb require more in-depth investigations to the survival strate-
of poor Immigrant families (Menjivar, I99S). Several researchers have pointed
to the importance of household extension, that is, the incorporation of adults other
identified "gender subordination" as a primary problcfn, rearrangements induced by
migration do result in the diminution of familial patriarchy, tmd these uansfonna-
may enable immigfllnt womellto bener confront problems derived from class,
rada!1ethnic, alld legal-stat\lS Their endeavors may prtlmpr more rc-
ceptiveness to feminist ideology and organizations in the future. (p, 191)
comparative research is needed 011 the local and global faCtors and
\)roCl'sses leading bOlh to the development of feminist consciousness and orgalli-
and to its supprcssion.'
The materials presented in this section highlight lhe inadequacy of shldying
liendcr removed fi'om other interpenetrating structures of different'e, slIch as race
\ild sodal class. Another related body of scholarship thaI merits serious altention
.. of works emerging out of cultural studies and etbnic studies, This schol-
ip addresses how representa.tion, of W'!lite Americ.an men and women
and those of immigrams and ethnics of color are mutually COn5t1tlltmg. 'This 5<:hol-
Other Dominican women accounted for their departure from the workforce in
terms similar to those ori Cuban women interviewed by Fernandez-Kelly and Gar-
da (1990), They had enVisioned their employment alongside their husbands as a
temporary venture necessary until the f"mil;' could achieve its goal of sodal ad-
vancement. Once this goal was attained, women's employment apparently con-
tradicled a more enduringand apparent.ly v.alued notion of the family and the sexes
that features the successful man as the sole breadwinner and the successful woman
,as the guardian of II unified household, These cases reveal thaI a unilillear and
junproblematk progression from patriarchy to parily is by no means assured. They
lalso point out the need for continuing research on class differences not ouly be-
itween immigr:Ull and nl\tive-born women but among immigrant women as well.
. Relatively few slUdid address the question of whether migration promoles or
hampers a feminist (Shukla, (997). Most of these report, not surpris-
ingly, lhat tht' majority of the immigrant women studied do not tend to identifY as
femillists or participate in feminist organizations (Hmer, 1986; Hondagneu-Sotelo,
1995; Pessal; 1981-). Immigrant women, we are lOfd, are more likely to base their
dissatisfactiom and complaims about life in the United States OIl linked
to class, race, ethnicity. and legal-starus discriminatiofl railler than to gender, 1'01' ex-
ample, according to Nancy Foner (1986), her Jamaican female informllnts experi-
enced racial and class inequalities more acutely than gender-based and
this sense of injustice gave them a basis fOJ' unity withJamaican men. Moreover,
tbe many domestic workers in their ranks felt no sense of sisterhood with their up-
per-middle-class White employers, whose "liberation" these iltUnigram women fa-
cilitated by providing inex.pensive child care so lhat their (emale employers could
competc in the male occupational world (toner, 1986). Nonetheless, Hondag-
neu-Sotelo's (1994) point is weU taken when she concludes Ihat although nOlle of the
Mexican immigrant women she imerviewed
""'hen we had lillaU>, pURhased our home and our business, Roque insisled thaI 1 stop
working, He said it \()uJd 1)(' good for the children and good for all of tIS. At firsl I
proltslt1d. because I never again wanted to bc totally depcndent upon a man.... Ihit
then I began 10 think about how mIlch I have sutfercd in this countty to make some-
thingf",( my f.lITlU)'. And I thought, even lhough we own a home anda business,
Amerkans think lhe werSl of LIS. They Ihink we ail seU drugs, have tOO many babies,
lue away lheir jobs, Of ilrc living off the government (i.e., receiving welfare). I de-
cided, I'm going 10 show them lhat I am as good as they are, thai my husband is so
lhal I don't hiwe 10 work at all.
This woman's wonh echo a broad.;'! c1aiw advanced by f.spintu (1997) and olhers: in
a hOSlik envilOnnwru, "some women of color, in contrast to their white counterpans,
view unpaid dOlnestk work-having children ami maintaining families--ll1ore as a
_
j 34 "ATRIClA R, PESSAR .

than the husband and wife int() the househnld, These- coresident adults provide ad-
{.
j .. inC.ome.to COt.tlf>eosatc ftW low c. arnings or sporadic unemployment and fa-
cilitate the labor force participation of married and single mothers (Angel &
Tienda, 198:1; Kibria, 1993. Rosenbcl-g & Gilbertson, 1995)
Although poor immigrant families may experience difficulties in upholding a
palrian::hal division of labor and often sufler socially and materially as a conse-
quence of men's unemployment, upwardly mobile couples may confront the op-
posite challenge. They must confront the contradiction thai dual wage earning
poses for households that have achieved, by their standards, a middle-{;lass stand-
ing, In ce/'lain Dominican and Cuban immigrant families, {or example, women's
"retirement" to the domestic sphere is a favored practice for marking the house-
hold's collective social advancement (fernandez-Kelly &. Garda, 1990; Pessar,
19951\). Many of the Dominican women I knew who agreed to leave wage em-
ploymentclcal'ly \'iewed their alternatives as being improved social status for the
entire family through f(,male rdirement, on one hand, versus improved gender re-
Jatiom for the wifi: rhrmtgh continued wage work. onlhe Qther. 1n leaving the work-
force, many of the mOSI conflicted women chose to place immigmmideology, with
its stress on s(ocial mobi,lity, and traditional family domestic ideology, with its em-
phasis on both patriarchy and collective interests, before personal struggle and
gains. Such actions, of course, contradict the feminist tenet that women's interests
are best served by positioning themselves in both the household and workplace (H:r-
Ice, 1990)' S(mle of my informants saw themselves struggling on another front
10 challenge the distoned and denigrating cultural stereotypes about Latino im-
migrams helu by rnany members of the majority l:ulturc. M the following quote
from olle of my female informants illustrates, Dominican women resisted these
negative stereotypes by symbolizing the household's respectability and elevated
social and economic status in II fashIOn common to the traditional Dominican mid-
dle class: dtey removed themselves from lhe visible prOdtlCdve sphere.
PATRICIA R. I'ESSAR
t;NGENOt:RING MIGRATION STUDIES
37
arship makes Ihe important poim that ideological representations of gender and
sexuality are central in the exercise and perpetuation of patriarchal, racial, and
class domination (Espiritu, 1997). For example, it has been claimed that the repre-
semation of Asian men as both hypersexual and asexual and of Asian women as
both superfeminine and masculine exists to define, maintain, and White
male virility and supremacy (Espiritu, 1997; Kim, 1990 ).
CONCLUSION
Migration scholars have made grear advances in moving beyond an earlier male
bias ill theory and research. And Ihe dilys when gender was treated as merely one
of several equally significant variables, such as education and marital status, are
mostly behind us. We are now moving toward a more fully engendered under-
standing of the migration process. This article has noted several key advances and
has signaled the way to developments in theory and research. We are start-
ing to accumulate case studies documenting how men and women experience mi-
gration differently, how they create and encounter palriarchal ideologies and in-
stitutiolls across transnational migration circuits, and how patriarch}' is rea/fumed,
reconfigured, 01' borh as a consequence of migration. The time is ripe to build on
and move beyond these rich individual case studies toward a more comparative
framework of mignltion and patriarchy. In doing so, it will be necessary to discard
the nOlion that gender oppression transcends all divisions among men and women.
Rather, we must develop theories and analytical frameworks that allow us to cap-
ture and compare the simultaneity of the impact of gender, race, ethnidty, na-
tionality, class, and legal statu.s on the lives of immigrants and native-born men and
women. Thus, we await the next wave of research that is at once committed to
comparative studies among immigrants yet refuses 10 stop there. We should resist
disciplinary precedents that tempt liS to gheuoize the gendered study of immigrants
within migr'Hi()n st\ldies. We are all far better served by taking the next step to re-
late our investigations of the representations, identities, and social conditions of im-
migralll men and women to those prevailing among members of the majority
VVhite and minority "brown" segments of US. society as well.
NOTES
I. I restricllIl)'llCU' here to a discussion of research on nansnationallIligmtion 10 andbe-
Iween Ihe Uniled Slales and its labor-exporting partners. Review essays and edited volumes
on women and illlernational migration include Phi:r.aclclea (1983). Morokvasic (1984), Simon
and Brellell (1986), Pedn1Za (1991), Tienda and Booth (1991), Gabacda (1992), and Buijs

z. or Ihe limited scholarship that does exhl on the factors comributing to displacemellt,
far altelllion has been paid to whal is cOllvelltionally thought of as labor immigration
than refugee displacement. In cny view, Ihis imbalance needs redressing; recem scholarship
that examines rape and gt ... ,nita! mUlilation as buman rights violations generally largeted at
women is a step in the direction (Hoskin. 1981; Saadawi, 1980). Another promising lint
of scholarship eh e assumption that women, in particular, are subordinated lind
"silenced" in refugee C' s (Billings, 199.;).
3. fur researth on feinale-Ied Salvadoran migration to Washington, D.C., see Cohen
(1977) and Repak (1995)' I
4. AJthough Kibria messes Vietnamese immigrant mothers' use of pattiarchaJ
privilege to mailltain over children who emulate elements of American youth cul-
ture, Vicki Ruiz (19911) de$cribes Mexican immigrant mothers who fmd themselves 1101 pit-
ted between two worlds !'but navigating multiple terrains at home, at work, and at play"
(p. 151). Following 011 observations, I suspect thaI immigrant women may S<lmetimes
find themselves as by transgressive: e1emenlS of u.s. popular culture as are their
children (though for differing motives) and may accordingly join forces widl uleir
progeny to challenge fealilres of traditional family ideology and patriarchal practices. And
at other times, women may find that their OWlI aucmpts to nibble at patriarchal structures
make it difficult for them to fully oppose their children's related challenges. ror example, Do-
minican womell's desires to anchor their flllUiJies in the United States by expending income
on expensive commodities likely compromises their opposition to their children's use of their
own income to participale in commercial youlh cuilure, More work needs to be done to iden-
tify and explore the subjectivilies, social practices, and S<lcial sites around which immigrant
mOlhers (and parents) enforce children's adherence to preemigralion patlerns and those
around which new coalit\om for change are emerging.
5. I thankJune Nash for poinring this out to me.
6. A topic thai merit! further study is national and global initiatives laken by immigrant
and refugee women to engender the universalist conception of human rights (see Afkhami,
. 1994; Smith, 1994)
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Gender and
u. s.
Immigration
Contemporary Trends
EDITED BY
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
PRESS
Berkeley Los Angeles London
Publication Information: Book Title: Gender and
U.s. Immigration: Contemporary Trends. Contributors:
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo - editor. Publisher:
University of California Press. Place of Publication:
Berkeley, CA. Publication Year: 2003.