Children of Global Migration: Transnational Families and Gendered Woes

by RhacelSalazarParrenas (Author)

• New

  Hardcover
  2005

  $105.21

  With an ethnographer's ear and a social critic's lens, Rhacel Salazar Parrenas illuminates the care deficit of the immigrant second generation, the children of transnational Filipino families left behind by mothers and fathers who labor in the global economy. -Eileen Boris, University of California, Santa Barbara

• New

  Paperback
  2005

  $24.58

  In the Philippines, a dramatic increase in labor migration has created a large population of transnational migrant families. Thousands of children now grow up apart from one or both parents, as the parents are forced to work outside the country in order to send their children to school, give them access to quality health care, or, in some cases, just provide them with enough food. While the issue of transnational families has already generated much interest, this book is the first to offer a close look at the lives of the children in these families. Drawing on in-depth interviews with the family members left behind, the author examines two dimensions of the transnational family. First, she looks at the impact of distance on the intergenerational relationships, specifically from the children's perspective. She then analyzes gender norms in these families, both their reifications and transgressions in transnational households. Acknowledging that geographical separation unavoidably strains family intimacy, Parrenas argues that the maintenance of traditional gender ideologies exacerbates and sometimes even creates the tensions that plague many Filipino migrant families.