Divided by Borders. Joanna Dreby

      Divided by Borders

      Divided by Borders

      MEXICAN MIGRANTS AND

      THEIR CHILDREN

      JOANNA DREBY

      University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

      University of California Press

      Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

      University of California Press, Ltd.

      London, England

      © 2010 by The Regents of the University of California

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Dreby, Joanna, 1976–

       Divided by borders : Mexican migrants and their children/

      Joanna Dreby.

       p. cm.

       Includes bibliographical references and index.

       ISBN 978-0-520-26660-5 (cloth : alk. paper)

       ISBN 978-0-520-26090-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

       1. Mexico—Emigration and immigration. 2. Mexicans—Family

      relationships—United States—Case studies. 3. Emigrant

      remittances—Mexico. 4. Households—Mexico. 5. Marital conflict—

      Case studies. 6. Parent and child—Case studies. I. Title.

      JV7402.D74 2010

       306.874—dc22 200901865

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      This book is printed on Cascades Enviro 100, a 100% post consumer waste, recycled, de-inked fiber. FSC recycled certified and processed chlorine free. It is acid free, Ecologo certified, and manufactured by BioGas energy.

       Dedico este libro a

       Cristian y Raúl Mariscal

       (quienes se encuentran en los dos lados de la frontera)

      Contents

       Preface: Ordinary Families, Extraordinary Families

       Acknowledgments/Agradecimientos

       1. Sacrifice

       2. Ofelia and Germán Cruz: Migrant Time versus Child Time

       3. Gender and Parenting from Afar

       4. Armando López on Fatherhood

       5. Children and Power during Separation

       6. Middlewomen

       7. Cindy Rodríguez between Two Worlds

       8. Divided by Borders

       Appendix A: Research Design

       Appendix B: Family Descriptions

       Notes

       References

       Index

      Preface

      ORDINARY FAMILIES,

      EXTRAORDINARY FAMILIES

      Mexican families divided by borders are both ordinary and extraordinary. Parents who live in the United States while their children remain in Mexico experience many of the difficulties faced by all families in meeting productive and consumptive needs. Family members struggle to balance pressures at work with those at home. Gender and generation battles are common. Men and women negotiate the division of labor. Parents and children negotiate authority. In this sense, this book is about rather ordinary tensions in families.

      At the same time, migrant parents and their children live in vastly different environments. Parents live hurried lives, struggling to work hard, economize, and send much of their money back to children in Mexico. For them, the joys of life are found in Mexico. Children live in places where everyday consumption depends upon remittances from parents and other migrants. Contributions from el norte [the north] permeate their daily lives, and many children think that when the time is right, they too will end up migrating for work. Divided by borders and by the lifestyle differences involved in such separations, Mexican migrants and their children find ways to make their relationships with each other meaningful. These efforts are not easy. The difficulties parents and children endure make their stories both remarkable and unique.

      Indeed, the stories in this book skip along a fine line between the extraordinary and the ordinary. Within the chapters that follow, I describe the social conditions that make it hard for parents to provide for their children in Mexico and spur their migration to the United States. I offer explanations for why some women and men make the heart-wrenching decision to leave their children behind. I discuss how their social status as transnational migrants shapes families’ experiences.

      Yet I also tell stories about fairly typical relationships between men, women, and children. Mothers anguish over their decisions to work. Fathers feel pressured to provide economically for their children. Teenagers complain that they need their parents while acting in ways that push parents away. Young children are jealous for their parents’ attention. Parents struggling to understand their children’s changing needs are unsure how to discipline them and worry about their children dating and becoming sexually active. Above all, parents hope their children will avoid their own mistakes and want to provide them with a better future. These themes are likely to sound strikingly familiar.

      This was my experience as a researcher. I am not Mexican, nor Latina. I am not an immigrant. Yet I am a mother and a daughter. For a time, I was a wife. I often found during the four years that I conducted this study that my own life paralleled those of the families I was interviewing. My experiences are instructive about how I managed relationships with the more than 140 participants in this project, gaining access to what they often considered to be private aspects of their lives. They also illustrate the persistent tension between the ordinary and the extraordinary endemic in researching family relationships.

      I ALWAYS THOUGHT YOU WERE NORMAL . . .

      It was in January, after