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doi: 10.1177/00027649921954363pmid: N/A
This article discusses the trajectory of scholarship as it has moved from the “immigrant women only” approach, one closely aligned with sex-role theory, to one that examines both men and women as gendered actors in migration and that recognizes key institutions as distinctively gendered. Early proclamations of immigrant women's emancipation have been reassessed, and the consequences of immigrant women's employment on gender equality in the family no longer seem as straightforward as they once did. New arenas, such as gendered transnational communities, the geographical and spatial contours of immigrant occupational sex segregation, and the inclusion of youth and children in gendered analysis of immigrant communities are also changing the landscape of the gender and immigration literature.
doi: 10.1177/00027649921954372pmid: N/A
This review highlights contributions made by scholars who have treated gender as a central organizing principle in migration and suggests some promising lines for future inquiry. Many significant topics emerge when gender is brought to the foreground, such as how and why women and men experience migration differently and how this contrast affects settlement, return, and transmigration. A gendered perspective demands a scholarly reengagement with those institutions and ideologies immigrants create and encounter in order to determine how patriarchy organizes family life, work, law, public policy, and so on. It encourages an examination of the ways that migration simultaneously reinforces and challenges patriarchy in its multiple forms. Several migration scholars have replaced early feminist frameworks in which gender hierarchy was privileged with more comprehensive and flexible models. These map the simultaneity of gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, class, and legal status on the lives of immigrant and native-born men and women.
doi: 10.1177/00027649921954381pmid: N/A
This article examines the intersection of U.S. employment and gender relations in the family lives of Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrant women and how immigration experiences affect gendered perceptions of work. It is based on intensive interviews with 26 Salvadoran women in San Francisco and 25 Guatemalan-ladinas and indigenous women in Los Angeles, complemented with ethnographic observations. The study shows that immigration affects gender relations, sometimes transforming and other times affirming them. Such changes do not depend automatically on entering paid work but on important social processes of working outside the home in the new context. A partial explanation can be found in the interaction between the structure of opportunity that these Central Americans encounter and their own social position, such as their ethnicity and class. This analysis prevents a universalizing of the employment experiences of immigrant women and a portrayal of these women's experiences in simple or unidirectional terms.
doi: 10.1177/00027649921954390pmid: N/A
This article explores the effects of employment patterns on gender relations among contemporary Asian immigrants. The existing data on Asian immigrant salaried professionals, self-employed entrepreneurs, and wage laborers suggest that economic constraints and opportunities have reconfigured gender relations within contemporary Asian America society. The patriarchal authority of Asian immigrant men, particularly those of the working class, has been challenged due to the social and economic losses that they suffered in their transition to the status of men of color in the United States. On the other hand, the recent growth of female-intensive industries—and the racist and sexist “preference” for the labor of immigrant women—has enhanced women's employability over that of some men. In all three groups, however, Asian women's ability to transform patriarchal family relations is often constrained by their social positions as racially subordinate women in U.S. society.
doi: 10.1177/00027649921954408pmid: N/A
Based on a study of three Hindu Indian religio-cultural organizations whose members live in and around a metropolitan area in California, this article examines the central role played by gender in the creation of ethnic communities and cultures among Hindu Indian immigrants. Gender relations and constructs are reworked during the course of immigration and settlement and are crucial to the Hindu American ethnicity developed in the United States. The author argues that migration and settlement result in an interrelated but distinct sequence of gendered processes at three analytical levels—the household, the local ethnic community, and the pan-Indian umbrella organizations. The processes occurring at the three levels intermesh in a complicated and contradictory dynamic. The contradictions are manifested in the construction of gendered ethnicity and in gender practice, particularly at the organizational level.
doi: 10.1177/00027649921954417pmid: N/A
Throughout the 20th century, international labor migration from the Philippines has exhibited a shift both in global points of destination and in gender composition. Whereas early Philippine immigration consisted predominantly of male laborers to the United States, current flows are directed to more than 130 countries, each revealing distinctive sex differences in composition. To understand fully the gendered dimensions of this global shift, it is necessary to situate current patterns within a global context. The migration of Filipinos to the United States and the rest of the world must be seen as part of an institutional response to a changing world economy. Findings suggest that the role of government and private institutions is deeply implicated in the gendering of international labor migration. Moreover, a state's position in the global economy translates into different institutional pursuits and, hence, different processes and patterns of international labor migration.
doi: 10.1177/00027649921954426pmid: N/A
This article examines how transnational practices and discourses affect existing social identities and power relationships in a northeastern section of El Salvador that has become tightly networked to some of New York City's suburbs owing to years of migration. The author identifies various practices, discourses, and processes influencing gender relations and argues that transnational factors are a significant but not singular agent for change. Conversely, she finds that multiple agents and agencies at the local, regional, and transnational levels affect gender relations. This textured portraiture communicates mixed messages to the youthful population in this region who represent the next generation of likely migrants. In the conclusion, she addresses girls' and boys' attitudes in northern La Unión toward migration and speculates how they have been shaped by transnational processes and gender relations.
doi: 10.1177/0002764299042004009pmid: N/A
This article explores how girls and boys facilitate the establishment of permenent settlement in Mexican immigrant households. Through analysis of 68 interviews, three primary roles are identified: (a) tutors, when children serve as translators and teachers for their parents and younger siblings; (b) advocates, when children intervene or mediate on behalf of their households during difficult transactions or situations; and (c) surrogate parents, when children undertake nanny or parentlike activities. In addition, it was found that girls participate more than boys in tasks that require detailed explanations or greater responsibility. Boys, despite their involvement in household activities, did not have the same responsibility roles as girls did. Finally, the eldest child, regardless of gender, often took the lead role in assisting and caring for younger siblings. These findings advance the understanding of the interaction of immigration, children, and gender in household settlement.
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