Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 1
De Little Wan She Lef1: Motherhood, Transnational Migration, and Abandonment
Few mothers are more stigmatized than those living apart from their children.
Diana Gustafson, Unbecoming Mothers2
In this essay, I address the concepts of transnational migration and motherhood,
examining how these terms become synonymous with abandonment when combined. My
discussion focuses on Caribbean mothers who become transnational migrant workers and, in the
process, physically abandon their children in order to financially support them. Three fictional
examples of female transnational migration from the Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean
are used: Patricia Powell‟s Me Dying Trial (2003), Velma Pollard‟s “My Mother” (1989), and
Edwidge Danticat‟s Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994). In each text, the protagonist faces the
economic reality of being a working mother separated from her children for long periods and
over great distances. The stigma associated with working and mother-child separation
demonstrates that Caribbean transnational migrant mothers are ironically accused of child
abandonment although they continue to “mother” their children. Research reveals that mothers in
these special circumstances are held to lofty parenting standards and are ultimately labeled “bad”
mothers for leaving their children. In these situations, little consideration is given to the factors
guiding the mothers‟ migrations.
1
This portion of the title is taken from Pollard‟s “My Mother” (31). See Works Cited for full reference.
“Framing the Discussion.” Unbecoming Mothers: The Social Production of Maternal Absence. New York:
Haworth Press, 2005. 1-22. Print.
2
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 2
Defining motherhood is problematic as this role is not fixed but dependent on social,
cultural, and familial scripts, which fluctuate over time. In response, feminist scholarship on the
subject seeks to recognize motherhood as mutable. While I acknowledge this attempt by second
and third wave feminists, I will also point out that their scholarship often overlooks mothers from
two large groups: the Third World and women of color. Historical attempts at characterizing
motherhood have led to the development of a “good” mother/”bad” mother binary, which serves
as “the benchmark for evaluating mothering performance” and polarizes mothering (Gustafson
25). Social scientist Shari Thurer writes that the current mother ideal is “culture-bound,
historically specific, and hopelessly tied to fashion” (xxv). Because fashions are constantly in a
state of flux, the motherhood model adapts to suit the changing socio-cultural environment.
Although Thurer provides some historical examples of the changing characterization of “good”
mothering, she fails to mention that the existence of this ideal in any postmodern society is as
telling as the idea of “father provider” and “doting mother,” which are Victorian conventions.
Theorist Heather Hewitt writes, the ideal mother—the “good mother”—is rooted in a
“nineteenth-century „cult of domesticity‟” in which the wife-mother strives to create the ideal
domestic situation symbolizing European and American cultures (126). In recent years, “the
„good‟ mother has…morphed into the practice of „intensive mothering‟ among middle- and
upper-middle-class mothers” (126). Intensive mothers, according to Hewitt, are usually overly
attentive to their children‟s needs, believing that these practices are in the best interest of the
children. Regardless of the changes in the characteristics of “good” mothering, this ideal remains
a socio-cultural constant.
Although there have been historical changes in the characteristics comprising a “good”
mother, little has changed in describing a “bad” mother. Simply stated, a bad mother usually
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 3
strays from her prescribed role regardless of the norms she follows. Historians Molly LaddTaylor and Lauri Umansky describe “bad” mothers as women operating outside of “the middleclass family ideal of breadwinning father and stay-at-home mother” (3). Bad mothers are “Wageearning mothers, single mothers, slave mothers—in short, everyone except middle-class whites”
(3). Ladd-Taylor and Umansky‟s “bad” mother is an apt categorization for non-White, working
class, undereducated mothers, who are guilty of leaving their children to work, albeit for short
periods of time. Transnational migrant mothers meet the requirements of the bad mother model
because they live at considerable distances from their children and often do so for long periods of
time. Therefore, the distance between the mother and child imbues transnational migrant mothers
with an almost villainous quality.
I begin this discussion by defining some of the terms that will be used. The first of these
terms is transnational migration, which sociologist Peggy Levitt describes as belonging to “two
or more societies at the same time” (n.pag.). Transnational migrants are workers who leave their
native countries to pursue employment opportunities but maintain close ties to their homes,
including financially supporting their children and families.
Migration is a term applied to periodic movement. Researcher Rayna Bailey describes
migration as the movement of people from one “location, country, or region to another” who
plan “to remain only temporarily in the destination location” (4). The implication of the term
migration is that the movement is not rigidly set but dependent on different factors. Referencing
the International Organization for Migration‟s 2005 report, Bailey notes that migration is the
result of “push and pull factors,” which influence a country‟s social, economic, political, cultural,
and environmental landscape.
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 4
Push factors are situations that push people to leave their native location,
including food shortages, wars, or natural disasters such as flooding, whereas pull
factors are those that pull people to new places, including better jobs, nicer
weather, or stable governments. (4)
International migration for economic reasons based on push and pull factors are the initial
motivators contributing to the mothers‟ decisions to migrate. The push and pull factors
influencing migration can also involve complicated familial situations, national economic
instability, economic and social advancement, and financial security coupled with the ability to
comfortably support children.
Migration theorists Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Ernestine Avila refer to mothering
from a distance—typically characterized by a national border separation—as transnational
motherhood. They describe this form of motherhood as occurring when “immigrant
women…work and reside in the United States while their children remain in their countries of
origin” (317). Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila write, “Transnational motherhood
contradicts…dominant U.S., White, middle-class models of motherhood” (318). If a woman is
not in the economic or familial position to adhere to an ideal role of mothering, she is
stigmatized for contravening socially-accepted practices of motherhood. As “Women of color
have always worked,” they are excluded from the Euro-American motherhood ideal (319). The
exclusion and contradictory version of mothering enacted by women of color indicate that
“Mothering is not just gendered, but also racialized” (Glenn 7). The racialization of mothering is
particularly applicable to this discussion as the protagonists are all Afro-Caribbean, transnational
migrant mothers.
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 5
For the transnational migrant mother, adhering to a “cult of domesticity” or “intensive
mothering” is virtually impossible as she neither has access to wealth nor social status,
necessitating long-distance employment and protracted separation from her children. “In some
cases, the separations of time and distance are substantial; 10 years may elapse before women are
reunited with their children” (Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila 317). Consequently, transnational
migrant mothers exist outside of the accepted norm of motherhood and are largely excluded from
discourses on positive examples of mothering.
In long-distance mothering situations, children are left in the care of “grandmothers, with
other female kin, with the children‟s fathers, and sometimes with paid caregivers” (317).
Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila refer to these caregivers as “other mothers” (327). The existence of
other mothers suggests a reconfiguration of motherhood and family to accommodate socioeconomic needs and a shift in the perception of mothering. This shift demonstrates HondagneuSotelo and Avila‟s theory that “Motherhood is not biologically predetermined in any fixed way
but is historically and socially constructed” (317). Powell‟s protagonist in Me Dying Trial,
Gwennie Glaspole, imagines a fixed construction of motherhood when she leaves her children to
gain economic independence. She is stigmatized as a woman who abandons her children to
pursue her dreams, and the relationship with her children is permanently damaged. Gwennie is
characterized as the typical “bad” mother, which sociologist Diana Gustafson suggests is an
absent mother. A woman who leaves her children, regardless of the reasons, is simply a bad
mother as absence and lack of parental fitness are closely aligned in society and family
(Gustafson 29).
Me Dying Trial (2003) addresses Caribbean female transnational migration but expands
the discussion into the subject of mothering from a distance. The story focuses on the struggle
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 6
between the female‟s roles as a migrant and a mother in which the transnational migrant role
emerges as dominant. Socially and in her family she is viewed as a woman who places her needs
above those of her children.
The novel takes place in 1970s Jamaica and 1980s Connecticut, centering on Gwennie,
an abused wife and mother of six. Years before migrating, Gwennie visits her parents in the
Jamaican countryside where she has an extramarital affair with her parent‟s boarder, becoming
pregnant with his daughter. Gwennie gives birth to Peppy and makes some difficult decisions to
improve her living situation. She separates from her husband, leaves the older children with her
parents, and sends infant Peppy to live with her aunt as she attends a teacher‟s training college.
Her education leads to greater employment opportunities but does not improve her home life.
After completing her education, Gwennie returns to her physically and emotionally abusive
relationship, giving birth to two more children by her alcoholic husband, Walter. A few years
later, Gwennie‟s older brother arranges for her to migrate to the U.S. on a short-term,
employment visa. The goal of this migration is for Gwennie to earn enough money to
permanently separate from Walter after a few months of domestic work abroad.
Gwennie‟s departure from her home and family reveals the influence push factors have
on the decision to migrate. According to Bailey, a “cultural landscape” is a possible push factor
influencing migration (4). For Gwennie, Walter‟s abuse and society‟s silent acceptance of his
behavior are direct results of Jamaica‟s cultural landscape, providing the primary push factors
and motivating her migration to the U.S. Gwennie‟s decision to migrate is also based on pull
factors including the possibility of achieving economic stability and independence. Although
Gwennie is a certified teacher in Jamaica and a member of the middle class, working as a
domestic in the U.S. significantly increases her earning potential. Gwennie‟s improved financial
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 7
situation as a First World domestic indicates a shift in the global economy and its impact on
Third World female wage earners. In addition to achieving opportunities through migration,
Gwennie‟s escape from Walter can only be facilitated through economic autonomy and stability.
Gwennie must earn higher wages than she has as a teacher in order to support her children
without additional financial contributions from Walter. As a result, Gwennie clandestinely leaves
her six children in Jamaica “as if she was doing something wrong,” traveling to Connecticut to
work for a summer (Powell 137). Some of Gwennie‟s children are left in Walter‟s “care,” which
is a rather loose description of his parenting style, while the others are parceled out to other
mothers.
After a few months of domestic service, Gwennie finds the idea of returning to Jamaica
impossible as she may be subjected to additional abuse from Walter and she cannot support her
children on her teacher‟s salary. Gwennie makes the painful decision to stay in Connecticut
without her children. Her choice directly impacts her children‟s lives as not all of them remain in
the care of her appointed guardians. Some of the children are essentially left to fend for
themselves without the protection or guidance of their other mothers, who can no longer
shoulder the burden of the childrens‟ day-to-day care. With her initial migration, Gwennie leaves
the responsibility for her infant daughter to her teenage son. Her decision to remain in
Connecticut places her sixteen-year-old child in the position of parenting a baby, keeping his
other siblings in contact with each other, and caring for Walter, with whom he and the baby
reside.
After years of working, Gwennie earns enough money to buy and furnish a house in
Connecticut. She begins bringing her children to live with her incrementally, encouraging them
to make lives for themselves while also attempting to resume her parental rights. Much to her
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 8
disappointment, Gwennie quickly learns that the children she left behind in Jamaica no longer
exist. The strangers who immigrate to the U.S. years later are young adults. Although Gwennie
imagines a situation in which she is a mother with authority, which is where their relationships
stopped abruptly years before, she soon realizes that she cannot exercise any control over her
children as they no longer recognize her as a parent. Gwennie has a difficult time accepting that
her children matured during her prolonged absence.
The novel closes with Gwennie falling very ill; few of her children choose to remain by
her side. As the children have few emotional ties to their mother, they cannot be demonstrative
with her. The mother-child bond was damaged by Gwennie‟s departure from Jamaica and not
even the possibility of her death can evoke the children‟s feelings for their mother.
Gwennie‟s time in the U.S. is essentially a period of exile during which she loses the
ability to mother based on the physical distance and duration of her absence. Hondagneu-Sotelo
and Avila observe that the length of maternal migratory absence can have significant detrimental
effects on mothers and children. In her absence, Gwennie views her mother role idealistically;
she is too far removed from the daily responsibilities of childrearing and coexisting within the
confines of a family for a pragmatic analysis. Despite prior experiences with Walter, Gwennie
convinces herself that the domestic situation is improving in her absence: Walter is not
mistreating her children; the money she sends home is not being squandered; and her children
view her as a loving mother. However, Gwennie‟s attempts at providing her children with some
financial support cannot compensate for her absence from their lives. The children are also
wounded by Gwennie‟s absence, leading to emotional detachment and difficulties maintaining
both familial and romantic relationships. The time Gwennie spends away from her children, the
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 9
distance, and the sporadic contact she maintains with them undermines the mother-child
relationship.
Although Gwennie‟s relationship with her children is damaged, the question of whether
she fits the good or bad mother categorization is difficult to determine. From a middle class,
Euro-American perspective, there is ample evidence to condemn her. If the prevailing definition
is used, Gwennie is a bad mother; however, if the factors guiding the separation of mother and
children as well as her intentions are considered, the good mother/bad mother binary is
inadequate. A good mother cares for her children, which Gwennie does in the form of frequent
remittances and eventually bringing her children to the U.S. to live. A bad mother is not a part of
her children‟s lives, and Gwennie spends years away from her children. However, as a
transnational migrant, Afro-Caribbean mother with multiple children and no support, Gwennie
demonstrates that mothering cannot be defined by physical proximity but should be based on
other factors.
Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila propose that migrant mothers like Gwennie “who leave
their young children „back home‟ and come to the United States in search of employment are in
the process of actively, if not voluntarily, building alternative constructions of motherhood”
(318). An alternative construction of motherhood can be considered a restructuring of middle
class, Euro-American motherhood ideals as women employ the available tools, including other
mothers, to parent their children. Velma Pollard provides an example of an alternative
construction of motherhood designed to accommodate transnational migration and motherhood
in her short story, “My Mother” (1989). The story is a memory set in Jamaica most likely during
the 1940s, which was a period of considerable Caribbean immigration to the U.S. (Bogen 19). In
the text, the adult narrator describes being in the care of an “other mother,” her maternal
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 10
grandmother Miss Angie, as a child while her mother works in the U.S. Miss Angie‟s dilemma is
to make her mother proud by producing a successful adult out of the grandchild left in her care.
However, Miss Angie did “not know what she had to produce from the raw material she was
given if her daughter‟s sacrifice was not to be meaningless” (29). In this passage, the reader is
confronted with the novelty of mothering from a distance and other mothering. The biological
mother is so remote and has been separated from her daughter for so long that she “could only
work and send money; she couldn‟t offer guide-lines either—only vague hints” on parenting her
child (29). These vague hints may indicate that the narrator‟s mother has somehow lost her
personal and cultural identities, disallowing her from being a directive Jamaican mother. Miss
Angie, having reared her own children and unfamiliar with this new version of mothering, is at a
loss and uses the only tools at her disposal to fill the parenting void: guilt and gratitude. After
taking the narrator to collect her monthly remittances3, Miss Angie lectures her on “gratitude”
during the long drive home. The narrator is expected to show gratitude by doing well in school
and writing letters to her mother. For Miss Angie, gratitude is a blanket term conveying the
importance of her daughter‟s sacrifice of home, country, and child in order to properly provide
for that child. Miss Angie‟s method of other mothering suggests a generational approach to good
mothering in which mother-child bonds take priority over any other adult-child relationships
even when the attachments are biological and emotional.
The story concludes with the mother‟s funeral, during which her roles as a migrant and
mother are publically scrutinized and she is labeled a bad mother. During the funeral, female
friends and neighbors look at the child, referring to her as “de little wan she lef wid Miss Angie”
creating “a spectacle” out of the somber event (31). In that instance, the narrator‟s mother is
3
It should be noted that the remittances are sent in money orders made out to the narrator, not Miss Angie. This may
indicate the transnational migrant mother‟s attempt at keeping the parent-child relationship intact.
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 11
reduced to a woman who “lef” her child rather than a woman who migrated to the U.S., literally
working herself to death, to support her child and mother at home. Miss Angie‟s loss, the fact
that the narrator cannot remember her mother, and the finality of her mother‟s death fade in the
funeral‟s pageantry. The narrator is unable to shed a tear for the purple-clad stranger in the silver
casket. It is not until the narrator becomes an adult that the pain of her mother‟s predicament as a
transnational migrant is revealed. As an adult, the narrator finds herself in New York‟s
Fourteenth Street subway station, visiting the country rather than experiencing her own
transnational migration. As she watches the women who could be her mother pass, she is struck
by their familiarity. As the women race to meet their obligations, she sees her “mother for the
first time in all those tense women‟s faces” (28). In that instance, the narrator is closer to her
mother than ever before. In those women‟s faces, she can see the pain of leaving every familiar
person and place behind for economic pursuits and opportunities.
Pollard‟s story takes a different approach to communicating some of the complications
involved in transnational mothering as she offers a construction of motherhood interpreted by a
child. Gustafson writes, “What we learn from popular representations of mothers and maternal
absence tends to be from the perspective of those, particularly children, who are left behind
rather than from the perspective of mothers who leave” (29). In Pollard‟s narrator, the reader
comes face-to-face with the child of a transnational migrant mother; a child who admits to not
remembering her mother because of the time and distance separating them. Pollard‟s
transnational migrant mother, although relevant to the story, is not the story‟s true focus. The
reader can only assume that the mother‟s push and pull factors are economic as the narrator does
not directly address the forces prompting her mother‟s migration. The unnamed narrator who
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 12
tells the story as an adult is at the center, conveying the feelings of a child left behind in the
Caribbean migration.
Throughout the story, the adult narrator presents a sympathetic view of her mother; there
is no bitterness or disappointment in being left, although there is a profound sense of sadness for
her mother. The reader learns from the narrator that children of transnational migrant mothers
may not perceive their mothers as absolutely good or bad. For the narrator, her mother is initially
a stranger and later in life someone she regrets not having the opportunity to know better. The
narrator never intimates that her mother‟s absence is symbolic of bad mothering. Instead, the
narrator addresses the complications of trying to mother a child from a distance.
The children of transnational migrant mothers recognize that the term „mother‟ is fluid;
attachments are not solely based on proximity but are produced by emotional and psychological
bonds. Children of transnational migrant mothers learn early in life that a mother is not
necessarily the woman who gives birth to a child, but the woman who cares for a child. Although
there is a biological attachment between Miss Angie and the narrator, Miss Angie is not
concerned with her role as a grandmother. Her concerns are rooted in the fear of failing her
daughter—she functions as a mother who cannot afford to disappoint her child. Therefore, Miss
Angie instills a sense of duty toward her mother in the narrator. For Miss Angie, part of her role
as an “other” mother is to reinforce the idea that the narrator has a „real‟ mother residing
elsewhere. Miss Angie does not take the mother‟s place, but tries to craft a new, “other” mother
identity suited to their family‟s needs. The grandmother‟s unwillingness to claim her daughter‟s
maternal role helps to maintain the mother-daughter relationship between the narrator and her
transnational migrant mother.
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 13
In Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994), Edwidge Danticat addresses transnational motherhood
from a different perspective—that of the child. This differs from Me Dying Trial, which is told
from the mother‟s perspective. In Danticat‟s novel, the mother‟s transnational migration is a
physical abandonment as well as an act of survival. Breath, Eyes, Memory begins in the early
1980s in Haiti before Mother‟s Day. Twelve-year-old Sophie Caco gives her Tante Atie a
Mother‟s Day card and is startled when the gift is returned with the statement “Not this year…it
is not mine. It is your mother‟s” (Danticat 8). For Sophie, this is the first incident of rejection by
her other mother, Tante Atie, who is preparing Sophie to leave Haiti for New York where Sophie
will live with her absentee mother, Martine. When Sophie arrives in New York, she is greeted by
a woman she cannot recognize from the dated picture by her aunt‟s bed. As Martine fled Haiti
when Sophie was four years old leaving her in the care of Martine‟s sister, Atie, mother and
daughter are strangers. Within twenty-four hours of her arrival, Martine bluntly informs Sophie
that she is the product of Martine‟s rape as a teenager by a member of the tonton macoute, which
was a paramilitary police force created by Haitian president François Duvalier. The rape serves
as the push factor prompting Martine‟s migration. In this brief exchange, Martine intimates that
Sophie is not a child borne of love and that the baby was not wanted. However, Martine and
Sophie‟s reunion implies that Martine will care for her child as social and familial motherhood
scripts dictate, regardless of the circumstances.
As the story progresses, the mother-daughter relationship becomes more strained. When
she discovers Sophie‟s romantic attachment to an older male neighbor, Martine subjects her to
“testing” or monthly vaginal examinations to ensure that Sophie remains a virgin. Martine, who
also experienced “testing” at the hands of her mother, dismisses the humiliation and
psychological damage caused by the monthly invasions as insignificant in comparison to her
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 14
love for Sophie. After each examination, Martine tells Sophie that the inspections symbolize
motherly devotion, stating “The love between a mother and a daughter is deeper than the sea”
(Danticat 85). Sophie‟s quiet resignation and withdrawal from Martine after the onset of the
testing prompts Martine to tell Sophie, “You and I we could be like Marassas” (Danticat 85).
African studies scholar Carole Boyce Davies defines marassas as a Haitian Creole word similar
to the English term “twinship” (654). However, Boyce Davies also states that the term‟s
etymological origin is Kikongo, from mabassa, meaning “those who come divided” (654). The
division Boyce Davies describes mirrors Martine and Sophie‟s relationship as the origins of
Sophie‟s conception and Martine‟s absence maintain their separation.
Gustafson writes,
The discourse of becoming a mother includes stories of joy, wonderment, and
idyllic mother-child bonding. Although these descriptors are true for many,
becoming a mother can also provoke feelings of shock, fear, ambivalence, and
confusion. (31)
Martine‟s humiliation, sexually violation, and psychological wounding from the testing and rape
taint the idea of becoming a mother and the act of mothering. As a result of her painful
experiences, Martine abandons her child out of a series of emotions including all of the feelings
Gustafson describes. Because Sophie‟s existence evokes painful memories, Martine cannot bond
with Sophie until much later. However, this can hardly be categorized as the actions of a bad
mother, but the conduct of a damaged woman.
In examining Martine‟s physical abandonment of Sophie, it is easy to cast her into
Gustafson‟s bad mother category. Despite this assessment, motherhood is not binary and cannot
be simply reduced to good or bad. Rather, it exists on a very complicated continuum as Martine‟s
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 15
attempts at mothering indicate. Although she cannot face her pregnancy or her child postpartum,
Martine still maintains financial responsibility for Sophie and reconstructs the concept and
conditions of mothering to accommodate her needs. Thurer observes, “The current ideology of
good mothering… is oblivious of a mother‟s desires, limitation, and context” (xii). Thurer‟s
observation, which accurately addresses the points made by Gustafson, is particularly applicable
to Martine. Martine‟s actions, such as birthing a child of rape, giving that child up, financially
supporting that child, and reclaiming the child, deconstruct any popular conceptions of
motherhood. Martine‟s complex mothering performance suggests that motherhood can be
reconstructed using multiple methods to ensure the mother‟s and child‟s wellbeing. A woman
who mothers from a distance cannot be defined as merely good or bad, but as someone working
to meet many obligations while trying to navigate the space created by her roles as a mother and
a migrant worker.
I began this essay in response to the observation that Anglophone and Francophone AfroCaribbean female migrants, who comprise a significant portion of the immigrant population
traveling to the U.S., Canada, and Europe, are not adequately represented in migration studies.
As a result, novels about this particular group are examined as individual works of literature
without additional reference to their collective role as migratory texts. While the texts do deserve
independent consideration, the common threads of the female protagonist‟s circumstances as
transnational migrant mothers warrant closer attention. Disregarding or minimizing the sociocultural and familial mandates these women face significantly limits the scope of Caribbean,
diasporic, gender, and motherhood studies.
In researching transnational migratory motherhood, I found that the children of these
women must also make allowances to their unique situations. The children are expected to
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 16
separate from their mothers and adapt to living with a new adult caregiver. In some situations,
they may care for themselves, having only a place to live. These children also have to shoulder
adult responsibilities, the implication of which is that forced maturity may be an outcome of
long-distance mothering excluded from previous scholarship. All of the children mentioned in
this discussion are expected to project an adult demeanor, accepting as children what many
adults could not. They learn to cope with maternal absence while trying to navigate childhood
experiences.
Caribbean transnational migrant mothers are not given the same opportunities to tell their
stories as other migratory groups. For example, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Ernestine Avila,
and other scholars focus their research on migrant mothers from Mexico, South and Central
America. With an increase in immigration to the U.S. from Spanish-speaking countries in the
West, research on these groups is critical. In literature, Caribbean migratory texts have
traditionally been the arena of male writers including, but not limited to, V.S. Naipaul and
George Lamming. Their protagonists are predominantly male, Indo-Caribbean or AfroCaribbean, unmarried, and childless. The absence of Caribbean transnational migrant mothers in
migration research and literary studies signifies a silencing of this group.
The silencing of Caribbean transnational migrant mothers leads to ready characterizations
that they are powerless to dispel and reflects Diana Gustafson‟s observation that “minoritized
groups typically have less power and opportunity to disseminate images that may counter
dominant views or contribute to a more integrated understanding of reality” (25). The silencing
and misreading of these women implies that their stories are considered somewhat less
significant to migration or motherhood studies. In addition to their lack of priority in these fields,
they suffer the criticism and accusations of abandonment as long-distance mothers. Transnational
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 17
migrant mothers are held to the good mother standard, which is arguably a classist, First World
stereotype that does not consider the plight of the Third World, working class mother of color.
Because of the subject matter, Powell‟s Me Dying Trial, Pollard‟s “My Mother,” and
Danticat‟s Breath, Eyes, Memory function not only as fictional texts but as responses to the lack
of information available on Caribbean female migration and transnational mothering. Perhaps in
creating this unique construction of motherhood, transnational migrant mothers actively
challenge fixed motherhood binaries and resist attempts at dichotomization. The implication of
transnational migrant motherhood may be that motherhood, like mothers themselves, can adapt
to meet the needs of children and their mothers.
Works Cited
Bailey, Rayna. Immigration and Migration. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2008. Print.
Bogen, Elizabeth. Immigration in New York. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1987. Print.
Boyce Davies, Carole (ed). “Marassa.” Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora: Origins,
Experiences and Culture, Vol. 1. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2008. Google Book Search.
Web. 1 June 2011.
Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York: Vintage, 1994. Print.
Glenn, Evelyn Nakano. “Social Constructions of Mothering: A Thematic Overview.” Mothering:
Ideology, Experience, and Agency. Ed. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Grace Chang, and Linda
Rennie Forcey. New York: Routledge, 1994. 1-32. Print.
Gustafson, Diana (ed). “Framing the Discussion.” Unbecoming Mothers: The Social Production
of Maternal Absence. New York: Haworth P., 2005. 1-22. Print.
Trans-Portal: The Hub of Trans-formation Studies (Summer 2011)
Camille Alexander 18
---. “The Social Construction of Maternal Absence.” Gustafson 23-50.
Hewitt, Heather. “Mothering across Borders: Narratives of Imigrant [sic] Mothers in the United
States.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 37.3-4 (2009): 121-139. Project Muse. Web. 6 June
2010.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette and Ernestine Avila. “I‟m Here, but I‟m There: The Meanings of
Latina Transnational Motherhood.” Gender and U.S. Immigration: Contemporary
Trends. Ed. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo. Berkeley: U of California P, 2003. 317-340.
Print.
Levitt, Peggy. “Transnational Migrants: When „Home‟ Means More Than One Country.”
Migration Policy Institute. Oct 2004. Web. 18 January 2010.
<http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?id=261>.
Ladd-Taylor, Molly and Lauri Umansky (eds). “Introduction.” “Bad” Mothers: The Politics of
Blame in Twentieth-Century America. New York: New York UP, 1998. 1-28. Print.
Pollard, Velma. “My Mother.” Considering Woman. London: The Women‟s P, Ltd., 1989. 2733. Print.
Powell, Patricia. Me Dying Trial. 1993. Boston: Beacon P, 2003. Print.
Thurer, Shari L. “Introduction.” The Myths of Motherhood: How Culture Reinvents the Good
Mother. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994. xi-xxvii. Print.