Gabrielle Oliveira: Motherhood Across Border: Immigrants and Their Children in Mexico and New York

Excerpt

Beginning as early as the 1940’s, Mexicans were brought into the United States as labor workers through programs such as the Bracero program. Since then there has been major migration to and from Mexico and the US. This migration included parents who would leave their home countries to work for a while in an effort to gain money and go back to their home countries. This back and forth migration has been on the decline due to strict enforcement of the border, as well as immigration policies that prohibit this type of movement. In the book Motherhood Across Borders: Immigrants and Their Children in Mexico and New York, Gabrielle Oliveira physically followed mothers who migrated to New York and left their children in their home country. The educational attainment of their children is at the heart of their reason for migrating to the United States. This book examines how these mothers’ parent from across the border and their struggle to financially and emotionally provide for a better future for their children both in Mexico and their new families in the US. …