Bibliographie complète

Objective: The authors examine how transnational caregiving for immigrant women encompasses a set of complex gendered relationships and roles as mothers and daughters across national borders. Background: Scholars have explored transnational motherhood for women who migrate, often in search of employment, while their children remain in their nation of origin. Much of this research has focused on how migration transforms mother-child relationships. Intergenerational relationships between immigrant mothers and their own mothers, and the emotional and economic care that facilitates these ties, are often left out of the picture of transnational family life. Methods: Through ethnographic work, the authors conducted in-depth interviews with 63 mothers from Latin America who migrated to the greater Boston metropolitan area. Additionally, the authors draw from extensive participant observation with mothers at home, school, and sites throughout their communities. Results: The authors theorize how Latina immigrant women are at the center of a web of multidirectional carework as they negotiate intergenerational responsibilities as mothers and daughters. The women in the present study orient their decisions, paid labor, and child-rearing around sustaining transnational familial relationships across generations. As a result, they provide emotional and economic care in multiple directions, including maintaining relationships between children and grandchildren, even as they adapt to ruptures in receiving care from their own mothers. Conclusion: The authors argue that despite the gendered labor this emotional and economic work entails, the immigrant mothers in the present study value their carework, which ultimately becomes a means for them to exert agency in the face of anti-immigrant policies and discourses.