The Labor of Care: Filipina Migrants and Transnational Families in the Digital Age

For generations, migration moved in one direction at a time: migrants to host countries, and money to families left behind. The Labor of Care argues that globalization has changed all that. Valerie Francisco-Menchavez spent five years alongside a group of working migrant mothers. Drawing on interviews and up-close collaboration with these women, Francisco-Menchavez looks at the sacrifices, emotional and material consequences, and recasting of roles that emerge from family separation. She pays particular attention to how technologies like Facebook, Skype, and recorded video open up transformative ways of bridging distances while still supporting traditional family dynamics. As she shows, migrants also build communities of care in their host countries. These chosen families provide an essential form of mutual support. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of today's transnational family—sundered, yet inexorably linked over the distances by timeless emotions and new forms of intimacy.

Table of Contents:
TitleCopyrightContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Filipino Transnational Families and New Caring Strategies1. Multidirectional Care in Transnational Families2. Skype Mothers and Facebook Children3. Communities of Care4. Caring Even if It HurtsConclusion: Producing Transnational Families and Possibilities EmbeddedMethodological AppendixAppendix A: NYC Interview GuideAppendix B: Manila Interview GuideAppendix C: Flyer for Diwang PinayAppendix D: Research Questions and Methods GridAppendix E: Research Methods Triangulation CycleNotesReferencesIndex

About the Author :
Valerie Francisco-Menchavez is an assistant professor of sociology at San Francisco State University.

Review :
"Francisco-Menchavez's deep research provides readers with a finely textured feel for the complex circuits of care within transnational families. Her work, in close collaboration with a Filipino domestic worker support group, is a major contribution to our understanding of Filipina migrant workers in the U.S., the care communities they create in the diaspora, and the relationships they sustain with the family members they have left behind, but who remain present in their emotional and virtual lives."--Ai-jen Poo, Executive Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance "What is unique about Francisco-Menchavez's book is that it injects and offers a sociological perspective--one that is hopeful, uplifting--in the struggles of families to maintain a strengthened intimacy in spite of physical proximity."--Hella Pinay   "The Labor of Care is an excellent book that advances our understanding of migration, transnational families, and care work." --Symbolic Interaction