Table Of ContentWomen, Migration, and Aging
in the Americas
Women, Migration, and Aging in the Americas analyzes how immigrant women
have coped with life after they settled in the Americas, from the 19th–21st centuries.
It explores their empowerment processes, the type of gender inequalities they
faced, and their destinies as they aged; whether they resided in the destination
country throughout their lives or returned to their home country.
The book shows that many immigrant women were able to secure their well-
being autonomously as they aged, after they retired, and/or when they became
widows. The authors offer new research material on immigrant women’s aging
experiences, their innovative conclusions contrasting with the historiography
that has often argued that aging immigrant women were dependent upon their
husbands and later their children (especially their daughters) for survival. They
consider inter- and intra-continental female migration and compare immigrant
women’s aging experiences, analyzing diverse groups who migrated within
the Americas or from other continents (Europe and Africa in particular) to the
Americas. Each chapter analyzes the issue using different sources, methods, and
approaches to measure the correlation between these women’s geographical,
cultural, ethnic, and social backgrounds and their life experiences as women,
wives, mothers, and aging widows. The authors show that many of the immigrant
women assumed power, responsibilities, autonomy, and perhaps independence
within the household, and therefore could make decisions for themselves and their
families.
This book will be of interest to researchers, scholars, and graduate students of
migration studies, gender studies, women’s studies, care studies, history, sociology,
and social anthropology.
Marie-Pierre Arrizabalaga is Professor of American Studies at the Institute
of International Studies and Modern Languages of CY Cergy Paris Université,
France, and member of AGORA research group.
Gender in a Global/Local World
Series Editors: Jane Parpart, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA,
Marianne H. Marchand, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Mexico,
and Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel, University of Kassel, Germany.
Gender in a Global/Local World critically explores the uneven and often contradic-
tory ways in which global processes and local identities come together. Much has
been and is being written about globalization and responses to it but rarely from
a critical, historical, gendered perspective. Yet, these processes are profoundly
gendered albeit in different ways in particular contexts and times. The changes in
social, cultural, economic and political institutions and practices alter the condi-
tions under which women and men make and remake their lives. New spaces have
been created – economic, political, social – and previously silent voices are being
heard. North-South dichotomies are being undermined as increasing numbers of
people and communities are exposed to international processes through migra-
tion, travel, and communication, even as marginalization and poverty intensify
for many in all parts of the world. The series features monographs and collections
which explore the tensions in a ‘global/local world’, and includes contributions
from all disciplines in recognition that no single approach can capture these com-
plex processes.
Recent titles in the series include:
Violence against Women in and beyond Conflict
The Coloniality of Violence
Julia Carolin Sachseder
The Politics of Trauma and Integrity
Stories of Japanese “Comfort Women”
Sachiyo Tsukamoto
Women, Migration, and Aging in the Americas
Analyzing Dependence and Autonomy in Old Age
Edited by Marie-Pierre Arrizabalaga
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Gender-in-
a-GlobalLocal-World/book-series/GENDERLOCAL
Women, Migration, and
Aging in the Americas
Analyzing Dependence and Autonomy
in Old Age
Edited by
Marie-Pierre Arrizabalaga
First published 2023
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Marie-Pierre Arrizabalaga;
individual chapters, the contributors
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Arrizabalaga, Marie-Pierre, editor.
Title: Women, migration, and aging in the Americas : analyzing
dependence and autonomy in old age / edited by Marie-Pierre
Arrizabalaga.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. |
Series: Gender in a global/local world | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022023909 (print) | LCCN 2022023910 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032211800 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032211817 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003267157 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Women immigrants—America—Social conditions. |
Older women—America—Social conditions. | Aging—Social aspects—
America. | America—Emigration and immigration—Social aspects.
Classification: LCC JV6347 .W673 2023 (print) | LCC JV6347 (ebook) |
DDC 362.83/9812—dc23/eng/20220815
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022023909
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022023910
ISBN: 978-1-032-21180-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-21181-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-26715-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003267157
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
Notes on Contributors vii
Acknowledgments ix
1 I ntroduction 1
MARIE-PIERRE ARRIZABALAGA
PART I
Women, Households, and Aging 21
2 French Immigrant Women and Their Aging Experiences in
California, 1880–1940 23
MARIE-PIERRE ARRIZABALAGA
3 Aging French-Canadian Immigrant Women in the U.S. in
1910: North American Comparative Perspectives 44
DANIELLE GAUVREAU AND MARIE-ÈVE HARTON
4 The Grandmother Exception: The Role of Family
Relationships in the History of U.S. Immigration Policy
and Practice 65
SUZANNE M. SINKE
PART II
Isolated Women and Aging 85
5 Open or Closed Horizons? Personal Accounts on the
Emigration/Transfer of Basque Nuns to the Americas 87
ÓSCAR ÁLVAREZ-GILA
vi Contents
6 Women and War: Aging, Migration, and Violence in
the Mexico–U.S. Borderlands 104
VERÓNICA CASTILLO-MUÑOZ
PART III
Women and Aging as Transnational Experiences 123
7 From Providing Care to Requiring Care: The Impact of
Migration on the Elderly in Paraguay 125
NURIA PENA AND MARCELA CERRUTTI
8 The Importance of Integration in the Life Stories of
Immigrant Women From Piaxtla, Mexico, Who Live
in the United States 145
EMILIO MACEDA
9 Peule Female Migration to the Americas and Their Return
to Guinea in Old Age: Evolution of Gender Relations in the
Mamou Region 166
MAMADOU SOUNOUSSY DIALLO
Index 188
Notes on Contributors
Óscar Álvarez-Gila is Professor at the University of the Basque Country, Spain.
His research focuses on international migration (19th–20th centuries), espe-
cially from the Basque Country to Latin America, and on the links between
religion and emigration, the institutionalization of migrant communities, and
the construction of identities in diaspora communities.
Marie-Pierre Arrizabalaga is Professor of American Studies at the Institute of
International Studies and Modern Languages of CY Cergy Paris Université,
France, and member of AGORA research group. She specializes in French
immigration to the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries from a gender
perspective.
Verónica Castillo-Muñoz is Associate Professor in the Department of History at
the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. She is an interdisciplinary
scholar with training in gender history, Latin America, and U.S. history. She
has written widely on the intersections between gender, family migration, and
the U.S.–Mexico borderlands.
Marcela Cerrutti is Research Member of the National Council for Scientific and
Technical Research at the Center for Population Studies (CENEP), Argentina,
and Full Professor in the Sociology Department at the National University of
San Martín, Argentina. She specializes in demography.
Mamadou Sounoussy Diallo is Assistant Professor in Sociology at the Univer-
sity of N’Zérékoré, Guinea, and a Ph.D. Student at the University of Felix
Houphouet-Boigny, Abidjan, Ivory Coast. He specializes in educational qual-
ity research, international migration to the Americas in particular and its gen-
der impact, and in African ADLaM languages.
Danielle Gauvreau is Demographer and Professor in the Department of Soci-
ology and Anthropology at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. She is
also a member of the Centre interuniversitaire d’études québécoises (CIEQ).
Her publications include numerous articles and books about the history of the
Quebec population.
Marie-Ève Harton is Professor in the Department of Humanities at Université
du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Canada, and Chairholder of the Canada Research
viii Notes on Contributors
Chair in the History of Population Dynamics in Quebec (19th and 20th cen-
turies). Her work focuses on demographic transformations in the context of
urbanization and industrialization.
Emilio Maceda teaches at the Faculty of Sciences for Human Development of
the Autonomous University of Tlaxcala, Mexico, and is a member of the Aca-
demic Body “Vulnerability, Human Development and Public Policies, UATX-
CA-225.” His expertise is in transnational migration.
Nuria Pena is Professor for SIT-World Learning graduate and postgraduate pro-
grams and carries out consultancy work for not-for-profit international agen-
cies. Her academic and international professional work has mainly evolved
around development aid, gender, and migration.
Suzanne M. Sinke is Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor in the
Department of History at Florida State University, USA. In addition, she serves
as editor (since 2018) for the Journal of American Ethnic History. Her research
links migration and gender studies in the U.S. context.
Acknowledgments
This volume originates from a personal research interest on the destinies of French
immigrants to the United States, especially those of women. While the French
women who immigrated to the United States after World War Two and who are
now aging currently benefit from health coverage (Medicare and Medicaid) and
retirement (Social Security), those who settled in the United States around the turn
of the 20th century and who became old and/or widows before World War Two
needed to find resources to support themselves through old age. The question that
has long intrigued me is the following: “How did these migrant women survive
in old age?”
Aging is the last stage of a person’s life course. And the study of a person’s
aging conditions necessitates the study of his or her life-long experiences. Lit-
tle is known about migrant women’s aging conditions in the past and today in
the Americas, either because it was taken for granted that, in the past, they were
supported by their husbands and then their children or because, today, it is taken
for granted that they benefit from Social Security/retirement. The study of aging
migrant women’s living conditions in the Americas in the past, as well as today,
permits us to reconstruct their experiences, their life events, and their empower-
ment process and understand how they live(d) through old age.
In order to assess these conditions, an international conference was organized
on 26–27 September 2019. It was entitled “Women, Migration, and Ageing in
the Americas, 19th–21st Centuries: A Multidisciplinary and Comparative Analy-
sis of Dependence or Autonomy Through Old Age” and took place at CY Cergy
Paris Université, France (formerly Université de Cergy-Pontoise). The volume
here presented is the product of this event and could not have reached publication
without the support of a number of persons and institutions.
First, this collective publication could not have come about without the partici-
pation of researchers from different continents (Europe, the Americas, and Africa)
and from different backgrounds (historians, historical demographers, sociologists,
ethnographers) who study inter- (between Europe/Africa and the Americas) and
intra-continental migration processes (between Canada/Mexico and the U.S. and
between Paraguay and Argentina). During the conference, all addressed the study
of migrant women’s life experiences and aging conditions, often contradicting
past conclusions on women’s aging dependence strategies. The contributors here
