Characteristics of Women-Mothers-Migrants

The following characteristics are shared by the interviewed women: they come from families under precarious working conditions in Guatemala (agriculture, manufacturing, selling candy) and their education level is null or very low (see Table 2).

Only one of the women interviewed (a temporary documented worker on a coffee farm) relates as her place of residence where she is originally from, her apartment in Retalhuleu, Guatemala, and with that, her wish to return there. The other five women had been for more than a year in the places they worked at and expressed a lack of interest in returning to Guatemala; four of them even considered that such was not even a possibility, as all their family was living in the Mexican side of the border.

[…] I moved with this young man and we had a boy; the boy is 6 years now, […] he is the reason why I don’t feel like going back to my country, because I’m practically alone now; my grandparents I lived with died, so I don’t feel like going back there anymore, I’m more or less settled here, but we always feel unsafe because of migration issues and all that (Sofía, 21 years old, banana production site, personal communication, June 23, 2017).

According to ^{Ayala Carrillo, Lázaro-Castellanos, Zapata-Martelo, Suárez-San Román, and Nazar-Beutelspacher (2013)} and ^{Ramírez Ramos (2013}-²⁰¹⁸⁾, the kind of work these women are employed in (coffee and banana production) can be considered as precarious and even as a form of “labor exploitation,” as they lack any pre-established contract, involves long and strenuous working hours, is performed under extreme weather, risks the health of the laborers, who have limited access to health services due to their migration status, and is related to child labor.

[…] you have to be well behaved, so your boss sees that and they pay you more, because if you are lazy, how can they pay you more? […] they tell you that you’re very slow, that you’re a sloth; I mean, they are offensive like that […] they yell it to you, they’re offensive, that means that you’re very slow, that you’re not worth it […] the only thing you do is looking down and try to perform better so they can pay you more and they don’t offend you like that […] I don’t have an exact time to leave, you have to finish the process before you can leave, so if I don't do it fast, I leave at night […] (Rubí, 34 years old, banana production site, personal communication, May 15, 2017).

[…] I worked two years [when I was 14] packing for a farm […], I started to work with borrowed papers, always in fear because the border patrol would visit the farms all the time, […] I borrowed a Mexican birth certificate and now my name was different, I worked with my cousin’s papers […] (Isaura, 21 years old, banana production site, personal communication, July 4, 2017).

[…] If you have an accident, I mean, I have an accident and go to the Health Center looking for attention, and they tell me “the thing is that you are not from here, go to the General Hospital of your locality,” that’s why I don’t go to the hospital (Sofía, 21 years old, banana production site, personal communication, June 23, 2017).

The situation grows complex for women at coffee farms, particularly when they have children and migrate with them. For these women, migrating to and working at these spaces represents work overloads, impacts on health, and even implies being blamed and blaming themselves for having their children work when they are still underage: “it is parents who demand children to work, to cover their economic needs” (Manager, coffee, personal communication, February 15, 2012).

Blame, pain, and frustration also appear as feelings that cannot be expressed, in order not to affect those around.

God brought me to this world only to suffer, when I was picking coffee on the top of a mountain, I could barely hold my tears and would ask myself why this was happening. I could not cry nor do anything, else I would discourage my children (Luis, 14 years old; Juan, 15 years old), they know that from now on I am their father and mother (Claudia, 33 years old, coffee farm, field diary, February 13, 2012).

Reproduction

The women we interviewed had their first child before turning 20 years old. Three of them became mothers before turning 15 years old (child mothers) (see Table 3).

These results relate to what ^{Nazar Beutelspacher, Zapata-Martelo, Ayala Carrillo, and Suárez-San Román (2014)} reported about Guatemalan migrant women working in the coffee plantations of the Soconusco; 52.8% entered common law union before turning 17 years old, and 31.4% did so before turning 20 years old. The authors describe these characteristics as a pre-transitional stage of fecundity, marked by unwanted pregnancies at early ages and minimal or no use of contraceptive methods.

According to ^{Marcús (2006)}, these reproductive characteristics relate to contexts of marginalization, with the search for identity, a life project, and the quest for personal satisfaction; but they also are a strong indicator of economic and social disadvantages, and of a lack of professional and educational opportunities.

I told my mom that I was pregnant and she told me to have an abortion, she doesn't know that still hurts me a lot, but I told her that me and my baby will be fine because I will work so that we have everything we need (Rosa, 14 years old, coffee farm, field diary, March 10 of 2012) .

When I got pregnant [at 18 years old] my mom told “I already had enough children to support another one, you better take care yourself.” When my children were born [she had twins] my mom told me “what are you going to do with two kids?” She told me to call my former bosses for them to take care of one of the babies, but having my baby in front of me, how could anyone believe I would leave him? (Berenice, 22 years old, coffee farm, field diary, March 18, 2012).

Marital Status and Violence

Although the prevailing marital status among these women is common law union, a certain instability in their relationships can be noticed (see Table 4). Only two of them have had a “solid” relationship with only one person. Those who have had two couples also have had a child or children with each one of them.

^{Freyermuth and Manca (2000)} look upon this process as a mechanism that can be employed by some migrant women to find a stable partner, as well as economic and emotional support. However, children cannot guarantee that the couple will stay together. Facing the shortcomings of said mechanism, they find themselves exposed to being victims of abandonment, work overload (since besides assuming full responsibility for the care of their children and homes, they must also provide economically), economic problems, social rejection, sexual harassment, and even violence.

Within this context, the constant search for a couple results from complex circumstances. ^{Lagarde (1997)} pointed out that the meaning of life for women has been socially constructed from taking care of others, who would occupy a higher hierarchical position in the subjectivity of women and without whom women would be in a state of incompleteness.

According to ^{Kabeer (2000)}, a society regulated by gender rules, where there is a clear sexual division of labor, where women are fully responsible for the reproductive work, where land, property, and other resources valuable for living in society are unequally distributed, and where adult males are seen as guardians of the family, mediators of the rights of women and key providers, the loss of male guardianship is associated with economic hardship and greater social vulnerability, and so it will always be better to be under male guardianship than living to live without it.

Nonetheless, this mechanism is very costly for some women, as it implies having to endure situations of violence in exchange for not being “alone” and so “neglecting” their children (as if having a couple would factually guarantee the well-being of children; this subject will be addressed to greater detail in the following section). Such is the case of Berenice:

Upon migrating to the coffee farms with her husband, Berenice began to experience infidelities and aggressions. At the time of this interview, Berenice pointed out that seeing the situation she was under, even her father-in-law would tell her: “well you should leave, you're not ugly and it’s only one boy, you can start again.” She did not leave, though, since she was pregnant again at that moment. Berenice narrated how her husband had hit her on different occasions, and she particularly remembered two of them; the first one is when he made her deaf for a week, and the other is when her husband took a machete and hit her on the nape with the handle. Her young son saw this and would later say “my dad hits my mom with a machete.”

Looking for help on the farm against the violence her husband was inflicting on her was practically impossible for Berenice; her couple was the son of the foreman of the farm they were living in and she did not have any family there, besides that, everyone was the same in the farm, she stated. During our interview, Berenice stated that the people who know her would tell her: “don’t be a fool, don’t leave your husband, be sweet to him, be loving to him so he keeps supporting you, because otherwise what will you do without a man, your children will be left without a father and will suffer alone, imagine how will you make it, if you leave him you would be a fool” (Berenice, 22 years old, coffee farm, field diary, March 18, 2012).

The story of Berenice displays how a separation socially means that women must fully take care of the children and legitimizes that men detach themselves from their responsibilities as parents as if these would end upon the dissolution of their role as husbands or partners.

According to de ^{Alencar-Rodrígues and Espinosa (2014)}, altogether with family stereotypes, romantic love, the ideas of the submission and inferiority of women in relation to men, and the naturalization and justification of violence, the “unsafety” of being a woman “alone with her children” is another factor limiting the development of strategies to escape gender violence in relationships. This way, the idea of unsafety stemming from being “alone with her children” is a powerful resource through which women are tied down in unequal and violent unions, or to the constant search for male guardianship.

The fact that common law unions are the prevailing status also speaks to us about a lack of legal protection; it is from civil marriage that States determine that which can be properly termed a family, as well as the rights and responsibilities of each member (^{Nussbaum, 2002}).⁷

Care of their Children, Complete Responsibility of Women-Mothers-Migrants

To those women we interviewed, the socially constructed idea that having a male couple is a factor ensuring the well-being of children is far from being a reality.

In the testimonies we documented, it can be seen how the women interviewed have experienced abandonment and lack of responsibility from the fathers of their children, even themselves coming from families with absent fathers (see Table 5).

In the face of this, the migrant women we interviewed have undertaken the care of their children as a part of their “what ought to be,” before the lack of options derived from the little commitment and responsibility of their partners. Berenice, upon realizing she was pregnant and abandoned by the father of her children, decided to work to support them; Claudia, after separating from her husband and finding no job, and as he did not assume responsibility as a father, migrated with her children to work at the coffee farms, assuming the role of father and mother for her children from that point on. At the time of the interview, Rosa, faced with the uncertainty of whether or not she would be supported by the father of her child soon to be born, had one single certainty: she had to work so that her baby lacked nothing. Isaura found herself fully responsible for the care of her daughter when, aware of the existence of the child, neither the father nor his family “supported” her; then Rubí worked in banana production so that her teenage children could continue attending school.

And so, for these women taking care of their children is part of their “ought to be” and is socially perceived as something that exists naturally, without acknowledging the disadvantages and vulnerabilities as well as the physical and emotional impacts derived from the role of custom, the law, and institutions (^{Nussbaum, 2002}).

However, the care that migrant women must provide for their children requires that they extend this task to other family members. This is the case of Rubí, who besides keeping with the well-being and good behavior of her children (raising them as good men), must also take care of her husband, an alcoholic man who had not supported her with the family expenses for over two years at the time, representing instead additional costs related to his living expenses and other concerns revolving around his health and well-being.

First I felt a lot of pressure because I thought “this is why I have a husband, for him to support me”; but lately I rather ask God that nothing happens to him in the way, because sometimes he clocks in at 10 or 11 in the morning […] I’m all worried that someone comes to tell me that he got beheaded somewhere, I ask God that my children don’t follow his way, […] that they don’t go astray. I’m with him because I still love him, I really do and I think that he will change for the better, my illusion is that he’ll change for the better, and if someday he says he will not change for the better then he rather pick up and go, then; if not, there’s no other way, I’ll die by his side (Rubí, 34 years old, banana production site, personal communication, May 15, 2017).

The demands derived from the social construction of “love,” not wanting to be “alone,” that of being a “good mother” and a “good woman” have placed Rubí in a sort of lockdown. ^{Lagarde (2011)} calls it captivity, one from which it is difficult to get out, as loyalty, service, sacrifice, acceptance, and selflessness are qualities that are socially desirable and valued as inherent to women. These characteristics represent benefits for the rest of society and so those who do not meet said expectations become socially penalized.

Still, according to ^{Lagarde (2011)}, the penalties imposed are private and operate as social coercion mechanisms that guard, keep, and reproduce the mandates established by the gender order. In this normative context, what is important is having a man around, regardless if he is an alcoholic or violent.

Gossiping as a Mechanism of Social Coercion

According to ^{Chávez Arellano, Vázquez García, and de la Rosa Regalado (2006)}, gossiping can be defined as an act of violence that, devoid of physical aggression, still exerts moral pressure and severely damages the reputation, personal relationships, and self-esteem of those who are subject to it.

According to ^{Vázquez and Chávez (2008)}, the central subjects under which gossiping revolves around are sexuality and the body. Through it, gender roles are meant to be transmitted and reproduced, and so gossiping operates as a form of control over those who do not live by this gender order.

As an example, there was a gossip about Rosa doing the rounds, that sexually linked her to her step-father and other men; the dissemination of this gossip, besides questioning the exercise of her sexuality, socially allowed for and justified the abandonment of her partner and future father of her child, legitimizing his neglect in relation to the child Rosa was expecting at the time of the interview.

I am three months pregnant and I got mad at my boyfriend. They told him I was going out with another guy and that I had sex with my stepfather, so I got mad and slapped him, and now I’m very scared because he won’t talk to me anymore and I don’t know if he’ll be back with me (Rosa, 14 years old, coffee farm, field diary, March 10, 2012) .

As for Isaura, being a young girl next to her partner (a man five years older than her) and the gossiping about her being that she was cheating on him, caused her partner to be violent against her. Isaura was aware of the abuse, however, she stated staying under those circumstances because of her children. These elements contributed to intensifying her vulnerability, limiting and worsening the options available to her.

[…] He liked to go out with different girls and I was a young girl, he used to say I was his daughter. Now they gossip about me and they told him that I have someone else, and I tell him that if I had someone else how would they know, he has treated me as bad as he wanted, and I took it because of my children, they are still young (Isaura, 21 years old, banana production site, personal communication, July 4, 2017).

Thus, it can be noticed how gossiping also operates as a mechanism that divides, creates distrust and even blocks the organization capacity among women themselves; the following testimony shows this.

[…] you can’t even trust your own shadow, sometimes your girlfriends stab you in the back, they talk nicely to you but then talk bad about you; I’m the kind of person who pays no attention, I’m aside of all that, and I hear they are talking bad about me I just say “May God forgive them, who knows why they’re talking bad about me,” it’s happened in the packing plant, sometimes because they say your boss is interested in you and it’s because you follow orders, you work hard, you keep yourself active; but they say it must be that your boss is interested in you […] (Rubí, 34 years old, banana production plant, personal communication, May 15, 2017).

Discrimination and Motherhood

Discrimination (against themselves and their children) is another condition faced by the women-mothers-migrants interviewed; even if their children have been born in Mexican territory and are Mexican, they (women) remain undocumented, and prejudices and stereotypes are assigned to and reproduced about them, in relation to their condition as migrants.

^{Ramírez López (2011)} points out that 56.2% of the native population (in a community in the state of Tapachula, a context similar to that of the areas we studied) considers that migrant women have no right to participate in the community, 78.3% believes that the children of these women have no right to the same medical care as their children (of the natives), and 77.8% that the children of migrant women have no right to the same education as the children of the native population, even if they are Mexican under the law.

These data contrasts with the idea posited by ^{Bledsoe (2004)}, at least when it comes to south-south migrations, who points out that the reproduction of immigrant women in their destinations is a “strategic” action by which they aim at obtaining the benefits of citizenship for their children.

In contexts of overall precarity, looking upon the biological reproduction of immigrant women merely as a utilitarian action leaves aside the implications of migration policies and the normative and social restrictions faced by women-mothers-migrants, which prevent them from obtaining the benefits of citizenship for their children (as nothing guarantees that the children will access those benefits). According to ^{Lerma Rodríguez (2016)}, more than actual benefits, the differentiated exercise of citizenship among the members of one same family may derive from greater poverty and inequality.

The following testimony shows how for Sofía being a migrant woman represents a boundary to her chances of accessing health services, which makes it impossible for her to give birth in Mexico (even if the father of the baby is Mexican), even if it were an emergency. This places her in an institutional void space that represents costs and great vulnerability.

[…] the first baby from him died, it was a girl, she died in the womb three days before being born, the doctor told me that she was strangled with the umbilical cord. This one [baby about to be born] we are very cautious because if there’s any emergency or whatever, I have no access to the hospital here, I have to go to Guatemala, I would like my son to be born here but it can’t be […] if I had any emergency, the ambulance would take me by the river; but everything costs money, I have to exchange Mexican pesos to quetzals, and it’s very expensive (Sofia, 21 years old, interview, banana production site, personal communication, June 23, 2017).

Maternal Dispossession

Finally, what has been termed “maternal dispossession” was noted as a social coercion mechanism linked to gender and motherhood; this was conceptualized by ^{Drouilleau (2011)} as a way of taking away from women (above all women living in poverty) the possibility of taking care of and raising their children. This is done by arguing the supposed “disability” of these women to create conditions of well-being and quality of life without considering the requirement of preexisting structural conditions for this to take place.

Table 6 displays some of the characteristics of the interviewed women at the time when they experienced maternal dispossession. It can be noted that an unequal exercise of power was present in three of the cases, wherein women were positioned in a subordinate position before older men and other women (mothers or mothers-in-law). In this unequal exercise of power, age, economic inequalities, and migratory status (documented or undocumented), nationality and nationality of the father of the children, as well as the absence of support networks, were determining social categories that limited the possibility of women to defend their right to exercise their motherhood.

After a fight with her first couple (a Mexican four years older than her), the child of Sofía was taken away to live in Guadalajara (another state) by her mother-in-law. Unable to travel due to her undocumented status, and in fear of being deported, Sofía could not follow them and although she asked the municipal agent for help, she received no support. She was alone in the town she lived in at the time of the interview, as her entire family had migrated to the state of Colima (Mexico) and her only hope of getting her son back was that the boy “decided” to be with her.

She practically ran away because when they took the boy from me […] they said that I was drunk, that I was in drugs and I was unable to take care of him […]; but […] things where not like that, as I told the municipal officer […], now that the boy is six years old, […] he is looking for me and they can’t oppose that because he is grown now, he knows what he wants now (Sofia, 21 years old, banana production site, personal communication, May 24 of 2017).

^{Nazar Beutelspacher and Zapata-Martelo (2001)} reported this practice as the strategy of some middle-aged (30 to 49 years) rural women who “abduct” their first grand-son/daughter from their daughters as a way of dealing with depression and loneliness. The authors point out that this is exclusively practiced with the grand-sons/daughters of their daughters and not of their sons, evidencing the power of mothers over their daughters. However, what we see in this case is something else from what the authors described, as the power is exerted by the mother-in-law over Sofía, a young undocumented migrant woman without support networks.

In the case of Berenice and Isaura, maternal dispossession appears with a variant, a seemingly “voluntary consent”; yet this consent should be closely looked at since in both cases lack of protection and fear intervene in the decision of these women to delegate the exercise of motherhood to other women (mother-in-law and mother, respectively). What other option did Berenice have, not living in her place of origin, without support networks, in union with the violent son of the foreman of the farm she works at? Or, what else could Isaura do, a migrant 13-year-old girl, pregnant by a Mexican man older than her, whose parents did not allow to be in union with her as they never accepted her? According to ^{Barry (1998)}, the assessment of any action as voluntary depends on the quality of the options available, and in the cases presented here, the options are limited.

My daughter is not living with me, she lives in Guatemala with my husband’s family, they took her since she was very young. I do miss her, but it’s better like that because they really take care of her over there and the girl is no longer comfortable here with me; I can’t do anything anymore (Berenice, 22 years old, coffee farm, field diary, March 18, 2012).

[…] my in-laws didn’t like me because I was just a girl [she was 13 when she got pregnant, and her in-laws did not allow the common law relationship with the father]. He left for the United States, […] my in-laws said that I still didn’t have my mind together, that I was still playing with dolls. I was already pregnant. I told my mom that I was having the baby and I did; she is 9 years old now and lives with my mom […] He didn't give a single peso, I still get nothing, he has never supported me, he knows I have the girl; but neither him nor his family has supported me. […] they are selfish, they want everything for themselves and not the girl. […] (Isaura, 21 years old, banana production site, personal communication, July 4, 2017).