style="font-size:15px;"> Eventually, I left with Claudia’s “Nunca le voy a perdonar” and Efrén’s “No acepto que mi mujer intervenga en eses asuntos” pounding in my head.
GENDER ROLES IN MIGRANT FAMILIES
Efrén and Claudia’s relationship was not as one-dimensional as this incident suggests. In fact, Efrén and Claudia reconciled the next day and noticeably enjoyed each other’s company every time I saw them together afterward. Unlike other couples who frequently complained about their partners, Efrén and Claudia quite often expressed their great love for each other over the four years I knew them. And although Efrén was “machista” in some ways, he supported Claudia’s work as a schoolteacher in a town where it was unusual for women to work outside the home. Yet this dramatic incident between them illustrates how complicated family relationships can be, involving feelings of deep pain and hurt alongside those of profound love and support, when they are strained during periods of separation. In Mexico, as in the United States, approximately one in four women have experienced physical violence from an intimate partner, as did Claudia.2 Although a painful feature of family life, domestic violence is not the focus of this book. Rather, I highlight the confrontation between Claudia and Efrén because it illustrates one of the major sources of tension in migrant couples that in this case erupted in an incident of physical violence. Mexican families have been characterized as highly valuing family unity, or familism [familismo], and as adhering to rather clearly defined gender roles, with men as providers and women as caregivers.3 These roles must be renegotiated during periods of migration.4
Specifically, when married couples live apart, men’s and women’s authority in their families may come into conflict. Men’s power in families is achieved mostly via honorable economic provision.5 As evident in Efrén’s comments, Mexican men, even when they are loving fathers, feel their masculinity is tied to some degree to their ability to be macho.6 When fathers migrate, they act honorably in the face of economic adversity, sacrificing their own comforts for the sake of their family. For men like Efrén, migration legitimizes their power as head of the household.
In contrast, women’s authority in Mexican families is related to their morality as the primary family caregiver. Women’s roles as caregivers are celebrated and likened to the self-sacrificing characteristics of the Virgin of Guadalupe—Mexico’s incarnation of the Virgin Mary.7 Latin American scholars describe this culturally specific version of maternity as marianismo. According to this ideal, a woman should be self-negating and a martyr for her children, because she is spiritually and morally superior to men.8 When men migrate alone, women must adjust to their husband’s absence by assuming full responsibility for the family and home, which involves a great deal of sacrifice. One mother explained how she achieved moral superiority while her husband was away: “I learned how to earn respect from men. . . . I learned how important it is to defend oneself and one’s honor as a woman.” Women like Claudia feel it is a slap in the face for their husband not to recognize this sacrifice and respect the authority they must assume at home and in the wider community while the husband is away.
It thus seems inevitable that fathers’ migrations cause some conflict in marital relationships as women and men must reconcile gender role expectations with the realities of living apart.9 Indeed, gendered adaptations to male-led migration patterns are well documented, as are incidents of marital conflict resulting from migration.10 While it is understandable that migration causes conflicts between women and men, the way gendered expectations influence mothers’ and fathers’ relationships with children has been largely disregarded. Too often children like Efrén and Claudia’s son hiding under his covers in the back bedroom are depicted as a sidebar to the marital drama that arises during migration. Although child rearing is a crucial phase in the process by which gender differences are constructed and maintained, gendered expectations in parenting when women join men abroad as family breadwinners have yet to be fully explored.11
In this chapter I bring one dimension of inequality in families divided by borders to the fore: that which results from the differences between Mexican mothers’ and fathers’ migrations. The comparison of motherhood and fatherhood shows that differences in gender roles diminish when parents and children are separated due to migration. In analyzing migrant parents’ efforts to maintain contact with their children over time, I show that mothers’ and fathers’ interactions with children are quite similar.12 Yet parenting from afar is not equal for mothers and fathers. Mothers and fathers differ in their processes of leaving and returning home, affecting their relationships with the children who remain in Mexico. Moreover, family members’ evaluations of migrant mothers and fathers are colored by conventional gendered expectations. In other words, although gender role differences diminish during periods of separation, gender continues to shape parent-child relationships. While parents and children live apart, family members ascribe meanings to their interactions, what sociologists have called “doing gender,” in a way that reinforces the expectations that mothers be family caregivers and fathers be family providers.13 Ultimately, migrant mothers bear the moral burdens of family separation to a much greater degree than fathers do.
MANAGING SEPARATION
Given descriptions of conventional gender roles in Mexican families, I was surprised to find that migrant mothers’ and fathers’ experiences converge in parenting their children across borders.14 Their methods for staying in touch with children are remarkably similar. Separated from their children, mothers and fathers rely on the same three techniques to communicate with their children: weekly phone conversations, the sending of gifts, and regular remittances. Physical separation results in standardized mechanisms of transnational parenting. Mothers and fathers also perceive similar risks associated with changes in their family life abroad to potentially erode their relationships with children in Mexico.
Phone Calls
Although seemingly straightforward, regular phone conversations are not always easy to arrange. Not all parents have easy access to a phone in the United States. Many do not have land lines and either use cell phones or public pay phones. Nearly all use calling cards, which offer the best rates to Mexico, but numbers often ring busy during peak calling times.15 Also, parents have to ensure that their children have a place to receive their calls. Many do not have a home phone in Mexico and call their children at a neighbor’s home or at a local caseta. (A caseta is a small business in Mexico where people can receive phone calls from abroad for a minimal fee.) Despite technical difficulties, most parents interviewed, regardless of gender, reported calling home once a week, fitting calls around work schedules. Likewise, 61 percent of the children of migrants I surveyed in the Mixteca reported talking to their parents in the United States once a week or more. Children of migrants report more frequent phone communication with relatives in the United States than do children without migrant parents.16 There is no significant difference between children’s frequency of communication with migrant mothers and migrant fathers, nor in the frequency of phone calls reported by daughters and sons.17
Both mothers and fathers gave a similar checklist of things they discussed with their children over the phone. They ask about school, how siblings are behaving, and what things children want sent from the United States. School progress is particularly important to parents, and many offer material rewards to children who work hard in school. I listened to José, father to fifteen-year-old Brian, when he called home one Saturday. Brian answered the phone. José said hello and asked how Brian was doing. Then he asked when Brian would have his high school entrance exam. I assume he learned the date of the exam, because José next asked, “What do you want me to get you, a stereo or a tape player?” They discussed the benefits of each, and José concluded that a stereo was better and he would send that. He asked what else Brian would like as a gift before asking to speak to the boy’s grandmother.
Typical conversations also focus on the economic aspects of the
