Introduction
Women have been always prone to some discrimination since time in memorial in the environment in which they might find themselves. The fire of discriminations burns more where issues like gender and race come together. Therefore, it is pure misery for women of color who find themselves strangers in a hostile land that thinks very little of them. This is the case especially for Latin-American immigrant women in the US.
These women are mostly very vulnerable to issues like sexual assault and rape, domestic violence and the harsh economic conditions they have to face only makes the situation worse. In most cases, these women are regarded as family bread winners for their respective family units.
Therefore, they have to juggle through different jobs so as to be able to cater for their families in every sense. Women are always inferior to their male counterparts in various aspects; be it political, social, economical, and in the confines of the home (Goodman, para. 8).
This exhibit seeks to bring to light the struggles of Latin-American women go through in the united states in comparison to their male counterparts. Some objects will be incorporated to highlight struggles that these women have to endure daily in foreign lands. This work seeks to explore the plight of Latin American women immigrant through their whole process of migration to foreign destinations and their lives in these destinations.
Pre-Migration
It can be unanimously agreed that women tend to take religion more seriously than their male counterparts. Latin-Americans are religious with most of them professing the Holy Catholic doctrine. Since women are known to be steadfast in their beliefs, the Latin-American women are the epitome of this notion.
The immigrants migrate to more developed countries in search of enhanced lives both for themselves, as well as their families. They may be wary of their destination, but they still go since they have no other option. The following parts of a poem by RubĂ©n DarĂo in 1904 and translated by Bonnie Frederick show just how they view the US in terms of religious values.
Exhibit 1: A Poem Ruben Dario on Fears the Immigrants Face
TO ROOSEVELT
It is with the voice of the Bible, or the verse of Walt Whitman,
that I should come to you, Hunter,
primitive and modern, simple and complicated,
With something of Washington and more of Nimrod.
You are the United States,
you are the future invader
of the naive America that has Indian blood,
that still prays to Jesus Christ and still speaks Spanish
Be careful. Viva Spanish America!
There are a thousand cubs loosed from the Spanish lion.
Roosevelt, one would have to be, through God himself,
the-fearful Rifleman and strong Hunter,
to manage to grab us in your iron claws.
And, although you count on everything, you lack one thing: God!
Adapted from “A Roodevelt by” RubĂ©n DarĂo
Adapted from “A Roodevelt by” RubĂ©n DarĂo
The above poem excerpt depicts the strongly rooted religious beliefs of the Latin-American immigrants who lived in fear. They feared that their beliefs would be washed away in what they believed to be a heathen land. This was in reference to the land to which they were going. Religion tends to offer hope for a better life for such people and an outlet for stress and sufferings of life.
Most of the time, immigrants are usually fleeing countries characterized by poor economies and poor living standards. In such countries, it is the women and children who feel the impact most. Such women are exposed to diseases and high levels of crime like rape, assault, or even death.
Women are believed to be the ones who have a greater chance of landing jobs in the countries after immigrating. This is because there are many household jobs on the other side. The following excerpt shows that Latin American face dangers even in their own countries.
Exibit 2: The Threats Latino Women face in their own countries
Sylvia Gereda explains ‘femicide,’ the murder of women, at the Women in the World Summit. (The Daily Beast, BeastTV/Courtesy)
NEW YORK – Latin American women are some of the most marginalized in the world. Human trafficking, kidnapping and murder are horrific side-effects of the drug war.
But it’s not just the cartels that get away with gruesome crimes against women and girls. Almost no one has gone to trial for forced prostitution or murder, and even fewer have been incarcerated.
At the Women in the World Summit, a panel featuring some of the people working to fix the broken, corrupt legal systems and highlight rights abuses in those countries discussed the issues faced by women in Central and South America.
Mexican Congresswoman Rosi Orozco fights to change laws and shine a light on these problems. Sylvia Gereda investigates and reports on them in the newspapers of Guatemala. And filmmaker, actor and activist Gael Garcia Bernal has made a series of four short films that profile the terrors migrant women face as they travel north to cross the border.
The panel was graphic, and audible gasps were heard from the audience. But it also inspired a lively social media conversation. I made a Storify representation of the discussion that took place – both on stage and on social media.
Adapted from “Storify: Machismo and the threat to Latin American Women” by Alex Pearlman
In most instances, the people who cross the border are women leaving behind their families including their male partners. They immigrate to get jobs then maybe later on bring their loved ones to join them once they become stable. Therefore, these women leave the harsh conditions behind and hope to get a better life in their new destinations. They expose their lives to many risks while crossing the borders, sometimes illegally, in order to secure a better future for the loved ones. Usually, their loved ones are left behind as shown in the following excerpt (Estrada, para 5).
Exhibit 3: Why Latino Women Cross the Border
Many Latin American women who decide to seek a new life abroad are fleeing armed conflicts, poverty, environmental degradation or the effects of natural disasters, the CELADE report states. Others were victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse, or culture-specific customs that deprive them of opportunities for growth and personal development.
Many migrants are single mothers who are the main economic providers for their families, sending remittances that alleviate poverty in their countries and communities of origin.
While a large proportion of migrant women do find jobs in their host countries, these are usually in domestic and caregiving work, street vending, or waitressing in bars and restaurants, even if they are qualified teachers, nurses or secretaries.
According to the study, migrant women are vulnerable to racism, xenophobia, physical, psychological and sexual violence, abuse of labor rights, forced labor, sexual exploitation and human trafficking.
The decision to emigrate usually depends upon an arrangement within the family, since women who are mothers must leave their children in the care of a trusted person while they are far away. This task normally falls to grandparents, aunts or sisters.
The Migration Adapted from “Many Women Seek New Life across Borders” by Daniela Estrada
The migration process from their native homes to their supposed greener pastures is usually a major risk. This is because one does not know what danger looms on the way. This is what awaits majority of the immigrants as they are too poor to afford proper migration means. Women mostly face the bigger threats than men.
The men are strong compared to women, and can fight to get their way. Most of the time, the women are victims of rape, sexual assault, theft, kidnapping or even sometimes death. The means of transport to their ultimate destinations is usually through hitched rides on freight trains. Here, the illegal immigrants sit on the axis in between the trains’ coaches and on roofs. Such spots on the trains can be very hazardous for women as they can fall off very easily. The following excerpt gives a recount of such instances.
Exhibit 4: The Hazards on the Way
A Mexican shopkeeper says a lot of migrants go through the station to head north. And it will never stop. “I’ve seen lots of accidents… people who fall off the train and die because the train runs them over. People who get their legs cut off too,” relates the shopkeeper.
“Last March the train went off the track. There were 15 dead, and huge number of injured.”
The migrants take a big risk whenever they climb aboard the moving trains. Some fall and escape unhurt but many suffer injuries and are forced to seek treatment at the town’s clinic.
Rosana is from El Salvador. Both her legs were amputated last month, and she is still convalescing. “I fell off the train. I was travelling sitting on the roof. I fell off when I tried to climb down before a migrant checkpoint. As I was getting down, I slipped,” Rosana recounts her accident.
Adapted from “Across Mexico: Chasing an Impossible Dream” by International Documentary Network
Post Migration
Stories are told of the dangers that immigrants face as they migrate from one country to another. These immigrants risk death by accidents on the freight trains they hitch rides, arrest and deportation by patrol police in the borders, accidents by either drowning in the rivers they swim in, or attack by wild animals in the forests.
The immigrants also face threats of attacks by other immigrants, theft, rape, assault and even death. If fortunately they manage to get to the other side, they face other challenges and risks too.
Male immigrants, once they get to the other side, have fewer challenges than their female counterparts. Immigrant males might be discriminated against because of their race, but the women face a far worse discrimination; racial coupled with gender. This poses a whole new plethora of challenges and risks. Some of these challenges are discussed below.
Language Barrier
Learning the English language is the key step to surviving in the foreign land that the immigrants end up. Although it can be difficult at first, the learning of a new language is very liberating, especially for women. They can learn to communicate and hence look for jobs and earn income for their families back at home. Following is a poem by a Latin-American woman on her experience with the English language.
Exhibit 5: A Poem by Denise Gastaldo on the Experience of Learning a New Language
Good Test
When I’m given a good test,
I’m very happy
When I learn English,
I’m very happy
If I’m learning… learning is good
Then I have a good job
For a better life
Because of this very good country
I can go to school,
I can learn, um, higher school and university…
When I no problem with English
I’m going to learn
Because I’m very like learning and education
The poem defines the initial feelings of the immigrant women once they get to the US. They have the hope that once they learn the foreign language things will begin looking up for them. They will get jobs, and they will start earning income. Very few women achieve this goal in reality.
They get lucky enough to get jobs working for good and humane masters. Most of these women work for people who view them as substandard human beings. Some even take advantage of them, get hold of their papers and make these women something akin to slaves.Adapted from “I AM not the Woman I Used to be” by Denise Gastaldo
Cruel Employers
Even when they learn English, the immigrant women still have difficulties finding jobs from genuine employers. Most people know that these women are desperate and vulnerable and thus decide to take advantage of them. The following excerpt shoes the experience of one woman.
Exhibit 6: The Lives of Laitin American Women in Foreign Lands
Melania, 36, is one of millions of women who leave their home countries every year to look for work abroad, although their life in a new country may be as or more difficult than the one they left behind.
“I was the first person in my family to travel abroad, and I was afraid that I would miss my parents and sisters very much,” Melania told IPS.
She worked for four years as a live-in maid, with one day off a week. Her salary was large enough for her to send remittances to her family, and this motivated her two sisters to come to Santiago where they also worked in private homes, cooking, cleaning and ironing.
Although Melania, who got married and had a child in Chile, has been fortunate enough not to have personally experienced discrimination or abuses of her labour rights, she has heard of such cases when meeting fellow Peruvians living in Chile, who tell of long working hours, no employment contracts and no access to social benefits.
Melania, in the above excerpt, was among the lucky few who get good employers and thrives in a foreign land to the extent of sending cash home. Most immigrant women work for cruel employers who mistreat them and demean their dignity. The long hours; lack of access to social benefits; and lack of employment contracts are just a tip on the iceberg in respect to what most of these women undergo.Adapted from “Many Women Seek New Life Across Borders” by, Daniela, Estrada
Immigrant women and the Global Economy
A shift in the economies has very adverse effects on immigrant women. This is because most of the time they are the heads of households and breadwinners. The global economy also influences security issues. The native homes of these women usually have very poor economic conditions which contribute largely to the security issues in such countries.
Most of the time, these women do not migrate because they seek cash or wealth. Their children’s future is mostly the key motivator. This is because they are driven by the need for their children to be raised in better conditions and secure their futures with education. The following excerpt supports this notion.
Exhibit 7: Domestic Challenges that Immigrant Women Face
“Women immigrants reveal that they came to America not in search of streets paved with gold –making money was surprisingly low on their list of priorities,” said Close, “but because they saw the U.S. as a place to build better futures for their children, and to make permanent homes for their families.
“At a time when more than one-third of U.S. families are single-parent households, 90 percent of women immigrants are raising children in intact marriages,” she added.
Rep. Mazie K. Hirono (D.-Hawaii), who took part in a panel discussion where the poll results were announced, said the poll reminded her of the challenges her own family faced in arriving in the U.S., according to NAM.
“I found it striking that the data from this historic poll parallels my mother’s own experience in bringing me and my brothers to the United States from Japan in the mid 1950’s — her desire to build better futures for us; her early low-paying, no benefits jobs; her determination to keep the family together as head-of-household,” Hirono said.
She added the poll shows the need for public policy that improves immigrant women’s quality of life.
Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Adapted from “Immigrant Women Have More Power in the Family Face Big Economic Challenges According to New Poll” by Diego Graglia
The immigrant women may escape all the insecurities in their home countries, but sexual violence still follows them in the foreign lands in which they escape to for safety. Many immigrant women get married to US citizens who look down on them as sex slaves. Such women suffer domestic violence and sexual assault. They keep quiet about the violence due to fear of deportation and sometimes because most of the time they face challenges of the language barrier. The following excerpt paints this picture vividly.
Exhibit 8: Abuse and violence against the Latin American Women Immigrants
Violence and Abuse
Abuse of Immigrant Women and Special Protections
For those of us who are immigrants or refugees in the United States, the experience of domestic violence is often made worse by numerous systemic barriers to getting help to end the violence. We face fears of deportation, language barriers, and lack of information about the help that is available for women experiencing domestic violence.
For example, immigrant parents whose partners are abusive generally win child custody awards even when the abuser is a U.S. citizen. When immigrants seek help, though, we often encounter a system that is not knowledgeable about our legal rights, that is insensitive to our needs, and that in the worst cases discriminates against us.
Furthermore, few advocates, attorneys, and justice system personnel understand the lethal danger of immigration-related abuse.1 Immigration-related abuse, including threats of deportation against an immigrant spouse or intimate partner, almost always exists only when physical or sexual abuse is also present.2 When immigration-related abuse occurs in relationships that do not yet include physical or sexual abuse, this factor may be a predictor that the lethality of the violence in the relationship is likely to escalate.
Deportation Threats Adapted from “Violence and Abuse: Abuse of Immigrant Women and Special Protections. Our Bodies Ourselves” by Lesyle Orloff
When individuals from poor countries migrate to foreign countries whether legally or not, they have bog dreams and aspirations that they wish to achieve. They see the migration process as a gate pass to a better life for them and their loved ones. The idea of going back home, deportation, does not seat well with them, especially if they have already established their lives in the new country.
They will thus do almost anything to avoid deportation. For women immigrants, this is very dangerous. This is because they fall prey of vultures that know their desperation and take advantage of them. This often results in this women being forced to take part in activities that are demeaning to their dignity and dangerous to their lives such as prostitution, drug trafficking, or even joining gangs.
For immigrants, it takes just a simple crush with law for them to be noticed and deported back to their home countries. The deportation process is another danger zone for women and children. During this time so much can happen to these women and children. Therefore, most cases of rape and assault go unreported.
Exhibit 9: The Threat of Deportation Faced by Immigrant Women
Adapted from “Tougher Rules on Policing Illegal Immigrants” by Anna Gorman
Therefore, the immigrant women have to maintain a very low profile in the foreign lands in which they find themselves. Even when their rights are infringed, they find that they have no place to report since they are illegal immigrants facing an immigrant threat upon discovery.
Thus, migrating to foreign countries is a very scary and risky experience for women. Though they know this fact, most women press on with the process in the hope to acquire a fresh lease of life for their families and themselves too.
The following poem summarizes the challenges faced by immigrant women in their efforts to settle down in foreign countries.
Exhibit 10: A Poem by Carole Fontaine on the dilemma of the Immigrant Woman
THE IMMIGRANT WOMAN
She’s surrounded by people
She can’t understand,
And every signs says
“This is not your land”.
She stands in line after line—
If she’s legal and lucky;
She lies down on bed after bed
If she’s not.
They are the women
Their countries forgot:
the nanny, the maid, the meatpacker,
the prostitute, the sweatshop woman
Starting over again,
Surviving once more.
The Immigrant Woman
Adapted from “The Immigrant Woman” by Carole Fontaine
Conclusion
Immigrant women face many challenges and threats during their migration and settlement in the foreign countries within which they find themselves. Some of these challenges are subtle while others are life threatening. With the recent rise of corporations and organizations established to fight for the rights of immigrant women, there is hope that these challenges will be minimized.
Such organizations seek to reach out to these women and provide the necessary skills in order to make their job seeking efforts more fruitful. Such include language and other technical skills. They also provide support groups for these women especially the ones with children and families with them in the foreign lands.
Works Cited
DarĂo, RubĂ©n. A Roodevelt. 1904. Web. <http://judithpordon.tripod.com/poetry/ruben_dario_a_roosevelt.html>
Estrada, Daniela. Many Women Seek New Life Across Borders. 2006. Web. <http://www.ipsnews.net/2006/03/migration-latin-america-many-women-seek-new-life-across-borders/>
Fontaine, Carole. The Immigrant Woman. 2009. Web.
Gastaldo, Denise. I am not the Woman I Used to be: 30 Poems by Recent Immigrant Women. 2004. Web.
Graglia, Diego. Immigrant Women Have More Power in the Family Face Big Economic Challenges According to New Poll. 2009. Web.
Gorman, Anna. Tougher Rules on Policing Illegal Immigrants. 2009. Web. <https://www.latimes.com/>
Goodman, Donna. The Struggle for Women’s Equality in Latin America. 2009. Web. <https://dissidentvoice.org/2009/03/the-struggle-for-womens-equality-in-latin-america/>
International Documentary Network. Across Mexico: Chasing an Impossible Dream. 2011. Web. <https://documentary.net/video/across-mexico-chasing-an-impossible-dream/>
Orloff, Lesyle. Violence and Abuse: Abuse of Immigrant Women and Special Protections. 2005. Web. <https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book-excerpts/health-topics/violence-abuse/>
Pearlman, Alex. Storify: Machismo and the threat to Latin American Women. 2012. Web. <https://www.pri.org/stories/2012-03-11/storify-machismo-and-threat-latin-american-women>