Invisible Shackles to Hyper-visible Bodies: How immigration laws coerce care labor among brown migrant mothers

• In Event: Cutting-edge of Race, Gender, Class Scholarship: Open Call Paper Session

Abstract

In our work, we examine how migrant mothers navigate the complexities of migration, laws, and border policies, as well as motherhood and care labor, at the US-Mexico border and within a hostile legal and political context that renders them hyper-visible as threatening bodies (Chavez, 2021). In this proposed article, we take a comparative approach, combining two studies: one with predominantly Mexican migrant care workers (Fesli) and the other with asylum-seeking Central American mothers (Salazar Gonzalez). These seemingly unrelated studies highlight the pervasiveness of the border (both physical and imagined) and immigration law (including visa and asylum legal processes) in shaping how women perform care work. Similarly, we examine how care obligations dictate how brown migrant mothers move about the space and navigate coercive laws that seek to repel their brown bodies while extracting their labor. In doing so, we close a gap by bringing together literature on migration and care labor, as well as on race/ethnicity, gender, motherhood, and borders, into the conversation on how brown migrant mothers navigate care work and life at the US-Mexico border.

Authors

• Carla Salazar Gonzalez, University of California-San Diego

• Gülten Gizem Fesli, University of Bayreuth