This case study of Central American migration to Washington, DC closely examines how gender is related to the decision to migrate, as well as the choice of destination. The study investigates the social and economic conditions in sending Central American countries as well as those in a receiving city in the United States to determine why women predominate in certain labor migrations. A macrostructural analysis accounts for the conditions that delimit the flow of international migrants, but a concept termed gendered labor recruitment provides the link between macro- and microlevels of analysis. Results of the research indicate that approximately seventy percent of the initial Central American migrants to the nation's capital in the 1960s and 1970s were women and that their migration may be attributed partly to informal labor recruitment. Over the years, Washington's government, diplomatic and professional workforce “recruited,” made arrangements for, or returned to the nation's capital with foreign workers who could provide basic services, primarily as domestics and child-care providers.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Bonacich, Edna.1976. Advanced capitalism and Black/white relations: A split labor market interpretation.American Sociological Review41:34-51.
2.
Cohen, Lucy.
1980. Stress and coping among Latin American women immigrants. In Uprooting and development: Dilemmas of coping with modernization, edited by C. Coelho and P. Ahmed. New York: Plenum.
3.
Cornelius, Wayne.
1982. Interviewing undocumented migrants: Methodological reflections based on fieldwork in Mexico and the United States.UCSD Program for U.S.-Mexican Studies, San Diego.
4.
Cornelius, Wayne.
1988. Los migrantes de la crisis: The changing profile of Mexican labor migration to California in the 1980s. Paper presented at the Conference (1988) on “Population and Work in Regional Settings,”El Colegio de Michoacan, Zamora, Michoacan.
5.
Diner, Hasia.
1983. Erin's daughters in America: Irish women in the nineteenth century.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University.
6.
Donato, Katharine.
1992. Understanding U.S. immigration: Why some countries send women and others send men. In Seeking common ground: Multidisciplinary studies of immigrant women in the United States, edited by Donna Gabaccia. Westport, CT: Praeger.
7.
Fernandez-Kelly, M. Patricia.
1983. Mexican border industrialization, female labor force participation and migration. In Women, men and the international division of labor, edited by J. Nash and M. P. Fernandez-Kelly. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
8.
Fernandez-Kelly, M. Patricia.
1988. Invisible amidst the glitter: Hispanic women in the Southern California electronic industry. In the Warth of Women's Work, edited by Anne Statham, Eleanor Miller and Hans Mauksch. Albany, NY: SUNY.
9.
Foner, Nancy.
1986. Sex roles and sensibilities: Jamaican women in New York and London. In International migration: The female experience, edited by R. Simon and C. Brettell. New Jersey: Rowman and Allanheld.
10.
Gladwell, Malcolm.1988. Shortage of employees hampers area firms.The Washington Post, Business-1, 15August, p. 1.
11.
Glenn, Evelyn.
1988. A belated industry revised: Domestic service among Japanese-American women. In The worth of women's work, edited by Anne Statham, Eleanor Miller, and Hans Mauksch. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
12.
Grasmuck, Sherri
, and Patricia Pessar. 1991. Between two islands: Dominican international migration.Berkeley: University of California Press.
13.
Grier, George.
1988. Special report: Greater Washington's labor shortage.Washington, DC: Greater Washington Research Center.
14.
Hamilton, Nora
, and Norma Chinchilla.1991. Central American migration: A framework for analysis.Latin American Research Review26:75-110.
15.
Hondagneu Sotelo, Pierrette.1992. Overcoming patriarchal constraints: The reconstruction of gender relations among Mexican immigrant women and men.Gender & Society6:393-415.
16.
Houstoun, Marion
, Roger Kramer, and Joan Barrett.1984. Female predominance of immigration to the United States since 1930: A first look.International Migration Review18:908-63.
17.
Kessner, Thomas.
1977. The golden door: Italian and Jewish immigrant mobility in New York City, 1880-1915.New York: Oxford University Press.
18.
Knight, Athelia.1988. DC on way to full employment.The Washington Post, 30July, p. A-1.
19.
Massey, Douglas
, R. Alarcon, J. Durand, and H. Gonzalez. 1987. Return to Aztlan: The social process of international migration from western Mexico.Berkeley: University of California Press.
20.
Neives, Isabel.1979. Household arrangements and multiple jobs in San Salvador.Signs5:134-42.
21.
Pedraza, Silvia.1991. Women and migration: The social consequences of gender.Annual Review of Sociology17:303-25.
22.
Piore, Michael.
1979. Birds of passage: Migrant labor and industrial societies.Boston: Cambridge University Press.
23.
Portes, Alejandro
, and Robert L. Bach. 1985. Latin journey: Cuban and Mexican immigrants in the United States.Berkeley: University of California Press.
24.
Power, Marilyn.
1990. Occupational mobility of Black and white women service workers. Paper presented at the second annual Women's Policy Research Conference, Washington, DC: Institute for Women's Policy Research.
25.
Pressley, Sue Ann.1987. Area melting pot getting fuller.The Washington Post, 13December, p. A1.
26.
Repak, Terry.
1988. They came on behalf of their children: Central American Migrants in Washington, DC.U.S. Department of Labor Working Paper no. 3. Washington, DC.
27.
Repak, Terry.
Forthcoming. Waiting on Washington: Central American Workers in the Nation's Capital.Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
28.
Rodriguez, Nestor.1987. Undocumented Central Americans in Houston: Diverse populations.International Migration Review21:4-25.
29.
Romero, Mary.
1988. Day work in the suburbs: The work experience of Chicana private housekeepers. In The worth of women's work, edited by Anne Statham, Eleanor Miller, and Hans Mauksch. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
30.
Sassen-Koob, Saskia.1986. New York City: Economic restructuring and immigration.Development and Change17:85-119.
31.
Thomson, Marilyn.
1986. Women of El Salvador: The price of freedom.Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.
32.
Wallace, Steven.1986. Central American and Mexican immigrant characteristics and economic incorporation in California.International Migration Review20:657-71.
33.
Webre, Stephen.
1986. The ideology of Salvadoran Christian democracy. In El Salvador: Central American in the new cold war, edited by Marvin Gettleman, Patrick Lacefield, Louis Menashe, and David Mermelstein. New York: Grove Press.
34.
The Washington Post. 1987. Washington area is leading the nation in income and education, 26 July, p. A-1.
