Twenty-first Century Motherhood

Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency

Andrea O'Reilly

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780231520478
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Études relatives au genre

A pioneer of modern motherhood studies, Andrea O'Reilly explores motherhood's current representation and practice, considering developments that were unimaginable decades ago: the Internet, interracial surrogacy, raising transchildren, male mothering, intensive mothering, queer parenting, the applications of new biotechnologies, and mothering in the post-9/11 era. Her work pulls together a range of disciplines and themes in motherhood studies. She confronts the effects of globalization, HIV/AIDS, welfare reform, politicians as mothers, third wave feminism, and the evolving motherhood movement, and she incorporates Chicana, African-American, Canadian, Muslim, queer, low-income, trans, and lesbian perspectives.

Experience

PART 1

Chicana Mothering in the Twenty-first Century	ONE
Challenging Stereotypes and Transmitting Culture	JESSICA M. VASQUEZ

This chapter examines the experiences of mothering among Mexican American¹ women in the early twenty-first century. Mexican Americans are a large and growing minority group as a result of both immigration and fertility rates. Chicana mothering requires acting as a guardian or mediator between children and racial messages² from the “outside world” (school, media, interracial social networks). Mothers are responsible for overseeing their children’s growth and development; as minorities, this often requires their defusing negative racial messages and replacing them with affirmation.

The family remains a critical site of racial identity development because it is a locale where intergenerational biography-based teaching occurs. Just as racial stereotypes pass from one generation to another, either intentionally or unintentionally (Lieberson 1985), so too do ideologies and resistance strategies.

This project was supported through grants from the University of California at Berkeley, National Science Foundation, UC MEXUS, and the University of Kansas. I thank those who provided assistance on this project: Michael Omi, Ann Swidler, Shirley Hill, Joane Nagel, Joey Sprague and Christopher Wetzel. Direct correspondence to Jessica M. Vasquez, Department of Sociology, Fraser Hall Room 716, 1415 Jay-hawk Blvd., Lawrence, KS, 66045, or to [email protected].

Mothers use their own experience as fodder for the transfer of knowledge and ideologies to their children. Investigating the concrete micro-interactions at home that mothers use to combat racial stereotypes is a necessary and timely subject for inquiry (see Bobo and Fox 2003).

This article considers how contemporary Chicanas engage in mothering in a racially charged and racially hierarchized U.S. society. More specifically, I ask how Chicana mothers resist the racializing images, tropes, and discourses aimed at their children by mainstream society. I find that Chicana mothers engage in three primary and potentially overlapping strategies as they rear their children. Mothers employ two strategies in the public sphere: “gendered encouragement” and “activism,” both of which confront and resist racist and sexist derogatory stereotypes. The third strategy is centered on family life: inside the home, mothers are instructors of both ethnic traditions and gender ideologies.

The mothering strategies described here represent tactical responses to a twenty-first-century system of prejudice and discrimination that is not only interpersonal but also institutional. Over the past couple of decades, racism has become “structured” or “color-blind,” that is, “white privileges . . . [have been] structured into the patterns of interaction in society so deeply that the overt defense of racial privileges became unnecessary” (Barlow 2003:31). While face-to-face, overt expressions of racism have not disappeared, civil rights protections and the ideology of multiculturalism have forced racism to go underground and become embedded in discourse and institutional practices (Bonilla-Silva 2003). Given this shift in racial ideologies and the systems of domination that evolved toward the end of the twentieth century, Chicana mothers have altered their parenting styles to address contemporary concerns. In practice this means that Chicana mothers protect their children by mediating between racializing institutions and their children’s interests. Additionally, many Chicana mothers promulgate racial pride, ethnic traditions, and progressive gender ideologies, all of which elevate their historically subordinated ethnic and gender group’s esteem in the minds of their children. Finally, the second-generation Mexican American mothers in my sample experienced upward mobility relative to their parents, and this gain in class status also informs their mothering styles.

FAMILIES AND RACE AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

“Motherhood is a culturally formed structure whose meanings can vary and are subject to change” (Segura 1994:211). Traditional femininity poses that a woman’s fundamental role is to bear children and take primary responsibility for the domestic sphere. Feminist scholars problematize this formulation, arguing instead that the experience of motherhood is highly particular and invariably shaped by one’s race, class, sexuality, and citizenship status (Rubin 1994; Scheper-Hughes 1992; Collins 1994). Despite this feminist critique, popular discourse in the early twenty-first century frames motherhood alternately as a romanticized endeavor (as opposed to effortful work) (Gardner 2008) or as such a fundamental and influential role that all mothers are bound to be critiqued for their shortcomings (Bailey 2006).

Prevalent twenty-first-century rhetoric of motherhood notwithstanding, motherhood must be understood in a context that extends beyond the nuclear family unit to include issues of race and class (Pattillo-McCoy 1999). Annette Lareau (2003) argues that families’ socioeconomic statuses correlate with their “cultural logics of child-rearing.” Different class-based child-rearing practices and philosophies lead to the transmission of advantages or disadvantages to children. While Lareau asserts that class is more powerful than race in shaping family life experiences, I argue that race remains a dominant force in shaping one’s life experiences.

Since “every state institution is a racial institution” (Omi and Winant 1994:83, emphasis in original), examining the interplay between larger social structures and individual and family agency is crucial in examining the development of racial self-understandings. Schools are particularly important in these processes; they are primary sites of socialization outside the family. Much teaching and learning about social life and national culture takes place in schools (Valdes 1996; Tobin, Wu, and Davidson 1989; Davidson 1996). Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron (1977; 1979) argue that the educational system has a chief role in social reproduction and in perpetuation of the extant social hierarchy. Schools legitimate the “cultural capital” of upper-class white students, while simultaneously excluding or marginalizing economically, culturally, and racially disadvantaged groups (Apple 1996; Bourdieu and Passeron 1977, 1979; Cummins 2001; Giroux 1981; Lareau and Horvat 1999). Precisely because schools are strong socializing institutions and educational degrees are positively associated with economic gain, they have also been sites of Mexican American political mobilization (Ochoa 2004).

Yet families also have formative power. Analyzing the practical knowledge, experiential wisdom, and personal perspectives mothers convey to their children is particularly interesting as we attempt to understand how the inner workings of families influence processes of racial identity formation. Families reinforce aspects of identity such as race, religion, or gender (Cohen and Eisen 2000) and mold educational aspirations (Kao 1998; MacLeod 2004). Families and “fictive kin” can also be a wellspring of survival strategies and interdependent support (Stack 1974). Again, this article seeks to understand how Chicana mothers can challenge, reshape, and overturn the racial lessons learned by their children in the dominant society’s social institutions.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND FIELDSITES

This article is part of a larger project on multigenerational Mexican American families in California. California has by far the largest Hispanic population in the United States (12.5 million), 10.4 million of which are of Mexican descent (data source: 2000 Census). I conducted sixty-seven in-depth interviews in twenty-nine three-generation families roughly split between northern and southern California. The bases for the northern and southern California fieldsites were the San Francisco Bay Area and Santa Barbara/Los Angeles counties.

I employed a theoretical sampling strategy, followed by snowball sampling. First I found and contacted families that fit my racial, ethnic, and generational profile by working through Hispanic chambers of commerce, Catholic churches, and high schools in various cities in my two selected fieldsites. Once I made contacts in the community, I proceeded with a snowball sampling strategy. The vast majority of the interviews were conducted in person and one-on-one. All respondents were either first generation (Mexican nationals who immigrated to the United States), second generation (the U.S.-born children of the Mexican immigrants), or third generation (the U.S.-born grandchildren of the Mexican immigrants). The vast majority of my interviewees were middle class. This article focuses on the experiences and parenting strategies of second-generation Chicana mothers (n=14).

CHICANA MOTHERING STRATEGIES

In this section I detail the three main mothering styles I identified through analysis of interview data: two are centered in the public sphere and one is focused on the private sphere. As mentioned at the beginning of this paper, the first parenting style is “gendered encouragement” and the second is “activism,” both of which implicitly, if not explicitly, challenge negative stereotypes. Chicana mothers find it imperative to help their children overturn the negative stereotypes that are pervasive in public discourse and racialized images. The first parenting style, “gendered encouragement,” involves both emotional support and practical advice that Mexican American mothers provide their children that is particularly sensitive to gender issues. Most Chicana mothers are alert and responsive to gendered expectations because in their own youths they suffered gender inequality. Their own parents encouraged opportunities for boys (including education) more than those for girls. As a result, these mothers are especially supportive of their daughters in their educational pursuits. Gender is not only a female issue, of course, and these mothers are simultaneously aware of the negative stereotypes cast on their male children and strive to counteract these prescriptions. The second mothering strategy, “activism,” is called for when mothers observe or fear institutional or interpersonal discrimination against their children. The third mothering style revolves around home life: mothers are “teachers of culture,” in terms of both ethnic traditions and gender ideologies. These mothering tactics are not mutually exclusive; mothers draw on these strategies and use them individually, successively, or in combination with one other.

Before we look at mothering strategies, it is important to note that these Chicana mothers espoused an ardent belief in the “American Dream.” Chicana mothers perceive education as a means to attain the American Dream (namely financial gain, upward mobility, and the marks of overall success). Studies demonstrate a strong correlation between educational attainment, occupational status, and earning potential (Bowles, Gintis, and Groves 2005; Card 2001). These women’s belief in education as a vehicle to attaining the American Dream is well founded; in fact, all of the families interviewed had followed a pathway of upward mobility through the three generations.

Lance Morelos’ mother, like most second-generation Chicana mothers, saw education as offering a ladder for upward mobility. Lance recalls his mother’s words:

My mom, since I was in high school, would say, “I don’t care if you get a degree in underwater basket weaving, get a degree.” So we always lived in a very good area, which was predominantly a white area, in the smallest house, because they had the better schools. And [my parents] knew that. And so there would be nine of us in a three-bedroom house for a lot of years until my dad really started to prosper. The goal was “education, education, education.” We all went to Catholic school. My parents were in debt most of their life because of it. . . . My mother always said, “Location, location, location.” The best schools are the best opportunity.

Here education is touted as instrumental in achieving success, as well as symbolic of past and future accomplishments. As mentioned, the educational attainment in all the families interviewed rose with each succeeding generation. Ruby Castillo captures her family’s three-generation upward educational trajectory:

Education was not a big part of our family. Mom had 3rd-, 4th-grade education and dad had the same. . . . So in the family [education] was never really pushed, stressed, but I felt that I needed to pursue a higher education so I pushed myself. . . . Get an education. I saw that as a pathway to get out of poverty. . . . In my kid’s generation, unfortunately, they don’t know any struggles. I had to struggle if I wanted to get ahead, I had to take it upon myself to get educated and to get out and to work to buy my own clothes, etc. And I say that unfortunately, because I don’t see their inner passion. For example, the son at University of California, Santa Barbara [is] so used to having everything . . . taken care of from food, roof over the head . . . [us] paying for [his] education. . . . When I saw his [application] essay, there was nothing about a struggle. [It was] “I want to be God, I want to be President,” that type of essay.

Ruby had to seek out educational opportunities and funding sources on her own; she “pushed” herself to do so and now, at forty-six years old, she is a self-employed business owner. While part of the impact of her children’s more coddled lifestyle may be the undesirable attribute of entitlement and loss of character-building challenges, her ability to coach her children throughout the college process speaks to the cultural and economic capital that a college degree bestows.

While belief in the American Dream is an ethos rather than a mothering strategy, it does inform how Chicana mothers consider and enact their responsibility as parents. These mothers have seen the American Dream achieved (or at least in progress) in their own families yet they are also wise to racist realities whereby people are differentially rewarded for the same work or are met with differing opportunity structures. It is in part the collision of a tightly held American Dream ideology and racial/ethnic discrimination and stratification that engenders the Chicana mothering strategies depicted here.

Gendered Encouragement

In Mexican immigrant families of the 1970s, male children were often offered opportunities and resources for school or other activities at the expense of female children. As a consequence of having been explicitly discouraged, these second-generation Chicanas developed a strategy of “gendered encouragement” when mothering their own children.

Yolanda Segura ...