Gender and U.S. Immigration: Contemporary Trends

"An important collection of essays that goes beyond the 'immigrant women only' approach to present new perspectives and raise new questions about gender and contemporary U.S. immigration."and#151;Nancy Foner, author of From Ellis Island to JFK: New York's Two Great Waves of Immigration

"At last a book that puts gender front and center in debates about the U.S. immigration experience and provides those new to these discussions with an invaluable introduction to the field. Particularly impressive is the substantive breadth of the contributions in this volume, which range from scholarship on the work, family, and political lives of immigrants from all parts of the globe to studies of ethnic, racial, and generational identity. A much needed and essential addition to the bookshelf of any immigration scholar. "and#151;Peggy Levitt, author of The Transnational Villagers

"This collection of wonderfully innovative and insightful essays by a distinguished group of social scientists demonstrates the definitive and mutually constitutive connections linking immigration and gender in the contemporary United States. The processes and practices of immigration play a central role in shaping a distinctly gendered distribution of opportunity and suffering, while gendered social structures, preferences, practices, and personal networks play a definitive role in shaping the contours of the immigrant experience and its impact on social, cultural, and economic life."and#151;George Lipsitz, author of American Studies in a Moment of Danger

"Hondagneu-Sotelo has assembled some of the foremost scholars in international migration to address the critical yet long-neglected issue of gender. The essays cover topics from employment to motherhood, relate home and host in transnational experiences, and incorporate differences in race, ethnicity, generation, and age in their analyses. A truly remarkable volume."and#151;Lucie Cheng, co-author of Linking Our Lives: Chinese American Women of Los Angeles

"Edited by a leading pioneer of immigration studies, this volume offers some of the latest and most brilliant thinking about what migrant men and women bring to the United States, leave behind and create anew. This is a must read for those interested in immigration, gender, and the many meanings of life."and#151;Arlie Russell Hochschild, co-editor with Barbara Ehrenreich of Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy

Resurgent immigration is one of the most powerful forces disrupting and realigning everyday life in the United States and elsewhere, and gender is one of the fundamental social categories anchoring and shaping immigration patterns. Yet the intersection of gender and immigration has received little attention in contemporary social science literature and immigration research. This book brings together some of the best work in this area, including essays by pioneers who have logged nearly two decades in the field of gender and immigration, and new empirical work by both young scholars and well-established social scientists bringing their substantial talents to this topic for the first time.

Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo is Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigration (California, 1994) and Domand#233;stica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence (California, 2001).

Acknowledgments

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

1. Gender and Immigration: A Retrospective and Introduction Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo

2. Engendering Migration Studies: The Case of New Immigrants in the United States

Patricia R. Pessar

3. Strategic Instantiations of Gendering in the Global Economy

Saskia Sassen

PART TWO: GENDER AND EMPLOYMENT

4. The Global Context of Gendered Labor Migration From the Philippines to the United States

James A. Tyner

5. Gender and Labor in Asian Immigrant Families

Yen Le Espiritu

6. The Intersection of Work and Gender: Central American Immigrant Women and Employment in California

Cecilia Menjand#237;var

7. Israeli and Russian Jews: Gendered Perspectives on Settlement and Return Migration

Steven J. Gold

PART THREE: ENGENDERING RACIAL AND ETHNIC IDENTITIES

8. Gendered Ethnicity: Creating a Hindu Indian Identity in the United States

Prema Kurien

9. Disentangling Race-Gender Work Experiences: Second-Generation Caribbean Young Adults in New York City

Nancy Lopez

10. Gendered Geographies of Home: Mapping Second- and Third-Generation Puerto Ricansand#8217; Sense of Home

Maura I. Toro-Morn and Marixsa Alicea

PART FOUR: GENDER, GENERATION, AND IMMIGRATION

11. De madres a hijas: Gendered Lessons on Virginity Across Generations of Mexican Immigrant Women

Gloria Gonzand#225;lez-Land#243;pez

12. Raising Children, and Growing Up, Across National Borders: Comparative Perspectives on Age, Gender, and Migration

Barrie Thorne, Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, Wan Shun Eva Lam, and Anna Chee

13. "We Donand#8217;t Sleep Around Like White Girls Do": Family, Culture, and Gender in Filipina American Lives.

Yen Le Espiritu

PART FIVE: GENDER, CITIZENSHIP, AND THE TRANSNATIONAL

14. Engendering Transnational Migration: A Case Study of Salvadorans

Sarah J. Mahler

15. "Iand#8217;m Here, but Iand#8217;m There": The Meanings of Latina Transnational Motherhood

Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Ernestine Avila

16. Gender Status and the State in Transnational Spaces: The Gendering of Political Participation and Mexican Hometown Associations

Luin Goldring

17. "The Blue Passport": Gender and the Social Process of Naturalization Among Dominican Immigrants in New York City

Audrey Singer and Greta Gilbertson

Contributors

Index