MOTHER'S DAY
A tough decision for mothers
Immigrant women leave their children behind, hoping the money they send home will compensate for the years of separation.
BY ANA VECIANA-SUAREZ
aveciana@herald.com
Noemi Palma will never forget the last day she saw her two children.
They were at a noisy bus depot in Buenos Aires, on a scorching January day in the South American summer. Emmanuel, then 13, and Leila, then 7, looked at her with their brown eyes. But she could not falter.
If she was to give them a better life, she had to come to the United States alone -- and she needed to send her children north to her mother, 28 hours away by bus.
''We had promised not to cry at the station, and that was very hard,'' she recalled. ``We knew none of us could break down, because then that would get all of us going.''
The door of the bus groaned open. She pleaded with the driver to keep an eye out for her babies. She kissed them goodbye, held them for an extra second while convincing herself that the separation was merely a vacation, a short visit to grandma's.
As soon as the bus was out of sight, she wept.
That was four years ago, and Palma, 48, has not seen her children since.
No one ventures a guess at how many women, like Palma, make the sacrifice of leaving children behind to look for a better life in the United States. But experts say this kind of migration -- and angst -- has been going on for decades, with no chance of abating. These mothers come here to clean houses, care for babies, pick vegetables, tend gardens. And their earnings, however meager by U.S. standards, go a long way back home.
Palma lives in a modest house in Miami where the white walls are bare but the tile floor and spare furniture are sparkling clean. Since her arrival, she has worked at different jobs, always sending the bulk of her earnings to her mother for the care of her children.
With what she has sent to Argentina, her children are able to buy school supplies, better clothing and more healthful food. Her daughter can have Arab dance lessons, tooPalma treasures the photos of the children that her own mother recently sent her, the one that shows how Emmanuel's face has become more angular, more masculine and the others that show Leila posing and dancing in her Arab dance costumes. They are her only physical connection to the life that she left behind.
DOUBT AND RESOLVE
SEPARATION IS TORMENT,
BUT BENEFITS ARE REAL
Irma Sierra, who left two sons with her mother in Honduras seven years ago, has also been able to help her family. Because of money she has sent home from working as a nanny and house cleaner, her eldest was able to study accounting and now has a job at a bank. ''Could that have happened if I had stayed?'' she asked rhetorically in Spanish. ``No, probably not.''
Still, it is -- as Palma puts it -- ''a cruel choice'' that no mother should have to make.
''Of course I have my doubts,'' she said. 'I always ask myself: `Am I doing the right thing? Is having a better life worth being separated from them? Will my children understand why I did this?' ''
Despite such doubt, women not only stay here to work but also send word back home that the sacrifice is worth it. Jack Finkelman, an immigration lawyer in Miami, says most people he sees in this situation feel they have no choice. Remaining in their homeland sentences them to an endless cycle of poverty and little hope.
''In all the years I've been doing this, I've learned that one of the most powerful forces is the promise of a better tomorrow,'' he said. ``I can't tell you to what extent they will sacrifice for that better tomorrow. They'll go to tremendous lengths to get that one fair shot, especially if it's for their children.''
It's almost impossible for women without close family in the United States or special job skills to be granted permission to come here and work. Mothers who come to the United States illegally, or who come legally on tourist visas and stay on after the visas expire, can't go home to visit their children because they can't get back into the United States once they leave. Even for those who come legally, or manage to attain legal status later, bringing the children here can be complicated and expensive, when it's possible at all.
No statistics exist on the number of mothers who leave their children behind and come to the United States alone to work. But U.S. census figures show that the number of foreign-born women in the United States began to exceed the number of foreign-born men between 1950 and 1960.
Roni Berger, an immigration researcher and professor at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y., says this ''mother-first'' migration -- as it is referred to in academic literature -- turned sharply upward in the 1960s as the need for domestic workers in the United States increased. Most women come from Latin America and the Caribbean. They are heads of household and often receive little, if any, support from their children's fathers.
PAYING A HIGH TOLL
CHILDREN SPEND YEARS
IN EMOTIONAL LIMBO
Palma's husband, for instance, left Buenos Aires in 1998, when they separated. He did not give her any financial help. The father of Sierra's two oldest children is in Los Angeles but she has not heard from him in years.
The typical separation between mother and children lasts between six and eight years, Berger says. Eventually many do bring their children here, but a good number go back to their homelands to retire. Either way, the emotional toll is high.
''For the women, they are torn because, to give their children a better future, there is the paradox that they must deprive them of their presence,'' said Berger, author of Immigrant Women Tell Their Stories (Haworth Press). ``For the children, some may feel abandoned, especially if the treatment by the relatives is not good. Or they may feel emotionally neglected, no matter how much better their lives are financially.''
Palma's daughter, Leila, especially misses her mother's help with her homework. She recounted this memory in a recent phone conversation, speaking from her grandmother's house in northern Argentina. ''She is very good at drawing,'' she said. ``If I had to draw anything, she would help and it was always very pretty.''
Her mother's job in Miami pays for her Arabic dance lessons and costumes, but ``she's never seen me dance.''
Ironically, many women land jobs taking care of other people's children -- which, Berger says, can exacerbate the emotional dislocation. Sometimes they are at the mercy of their employers or immigration hucksters.
''They tend to be the weakest and most vulnerable,'' Finkelman said. ``They're preyed upon by men who promise them marriage to get them a green card, by unscrupulous immigration workers who take their money and don't deliver, and by employers who overwork them by threatening to turn them over to the INS.''
ANGUISH OF HOLIDAYS
TIMES OF FAMILY FOCUS
ARE HARDEST TO ENDURE
Although Palma has not worked as a nanny, she says any reminder of the mother-child bond prompts a new wave of anguish. Mother's Day today will be particularly difficult. She will hurt again in October, when Argentines celebrate their country's version of Mother's Day.
''It's a double shot for me, all those advertisements and all those cards and those pictures of mothers with their children,'' she said. ''They stab me in the heart.'' Particularly difficult was her son's 18th birthday last week, when she could barely hold back tears. He has had a harder time with the separation than his younger sister. During one of her many phone calls home last month, Emmanuel told her that if God existed, the two wouldn't be apart.
'I answered him, `You're wrong, son. God has done this to make all three of us stronger. We are stronger because of this,' '' she recounted, but then after a brief, tearful pause added: ``When I talk to them, I'm always happy, always optimistic. But sometimes I can't help it, I cry. I'm so sad.''
Sierra, 50, understands those feelings all too well. Since her departure, one of her sons has married and the other is finishing high school. She feels she has missed many of their milestones.
''It's a drastic change to leave everything behind, but you do it out of necessity,'' she explains. ``Then the years pass and before you know it, they're grown. You can never get those years back and you're not there to see them grow or to help with homework. You are just a voice on the phone. Sometimes I think I should have stayed.''
Yet, she has no plans to return. Improved telephone service to her country -- and phone cards -- have made it easier to bridge the divide. Sierra calls her children at least once a week. Palma also calls weekly, but she calls her children's teachers, too.
But there's no substitute for physical presence. Holidays are the most difficult. ''Christmas is very, very sad for me,'' Sierra said. ``It's a reminder that I don't have them with me.''
Many times life in the United States, although better than their hand-to-mouth existence in their homeland, is not what the women expected it to be. Without command of the language, most feel isolated from the rest of the community. They must also work long hours to make ends meet.
''I don't have much left over at the end of the month,'' Sierra said. ``When you are helping to maintain two households, money doesn't go far.''
The unexpected can have disastrous consequences, too. Palma has been out of work since July, when a driver with an expired license and no insurance ran a stop sign and smashed her scooter.
A tough decision for mothers
Immigrant women leave their children behind, hoping the money they send home will compensate for the years of separation.
BY ANA VECIANA-SUAREZ
aveciana@herald.com
Noemi Palma will never forget the last day she saw her two children.
They were at a noisy bus depot in Buenos Aires, on a scorching January day in the South American summer. Emmanuel, then 13, and Leila, then 7, looked at her with their brown eyes. But she could not falter.
If she was to give them a better life, she had to come to the United States alone -- and she needed to send her children north to her mother, 28 hours away by bus.
''We had promised not to cry at the station, and that was very hard,'' she recalled. ``We knew none of us could break down, because then that would get all of us going.''
The door of the bus groaned open. She pleaded with the driver to keep an eye out for her babies. She kissed them goodbye, held them for an extra second while convincing herself that the separation was merely a vacation, a short visit to grandma's.
As soon as the bus was out of sight, she wept.
That was four years ago, and Palma, 48, has not seen her children since.
No one ventures a guess at how many women, like Palma, make the sacrifice of leaving children behind to look for a better life in the United States. But experts say this kind of migration -- and angst -- has been going on for decades, with no chance of abating. These mothers come here to clean houses, care for babies, pick vegetables, tend gardens. And their earnings, however meager by U.S. standards, go a long way back home.
Palma lives in a modest house in Miami where the white walls are bare but the tile floor and spare furniture are sparkling clean. Since her arrival, she has worked at different jobs, always sending the bulk of her earnings to her mother for the care of her children.
With what she has sent to Argentina, her children are able to buy school supplies, better clothing and more healthful food. Her daughter can have Arab dance lessons, tooPalma treasures the photos of the children that her own mother recently sent her, the one that shows how Emmanuel's face has become more angular, more masculine and the others that show Leila posing and dancing in her Arab dance costumes. They are her only physical connection to the life that she left behind.
DOUBT AND RESOLVE
SEPARATION IS TORMENT,
BUT BENEFITS ARE REAL
Irma Sierra, who left two sons with her mother in Honduras seven years ago, has also been able to help her family. Because of money she has sent home from working as a nanny and house cleaner, her eldest was able to study accounting and now has a job at a bank. ''Could that have happened if I had stayed?'' she asked rhetorically in Spanish. ``No, probably not.''
Still, it is -- as Palma puts it -- ''a cruel choice'' that no mother should have to make.
''Of course I have my doubts,'' she said. 'I always ask myself: `Am I doing the right thing? Is having a better life worth being separated from them? Will my children understand why I did this?' ''
Despite such doubt, women not only stay here to work but also send word back home that the sacrifice is worth it. Jack Finkelman, an immigration lawyer in Miami, says most people he sees in this situation feel they have no choice. Remaining in their homeland sentences them to an endless cycle of poverty and little hope.
''In all the years I've been doing this, I've learned that one of the most powerful forces is the promise of a better tomorrow,'' he said. ``I can't tell you to what extent they will sacrifice for that better tomorrow. They'll go to tremendous lengths to get that one fair shot, especially if it's for their children.''
It's almost impossible for women without close family in the United States or special job skills to be granted permission to come here and work. Mothers who come to the United States illegally, or who come legally on tourist visas and stay on after the visas expire, can't go home to visit their children because they can't get back into the United States once they leave. Even for those who come legally, or manage to attain legal status later, bringing the children here can be complicated and expensive, when it's possible at all.
No statistics exist on the number of mothers who leave their children behind and come to the United States alone to work. But U.S. census figures show that the number of foreign-born women in the United States began to exceed the number of foreign-born men between 1950 and 1960.
Roni Berger, an immigration researcher and professor at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y., says this ''mother-first'' migration -- as it is referred to in academic literature -- turned sharply upward in the 1960s as the need for domestic workers in the United States increased. Most women come from Latin America and the Caribbean. They are heads of household and often receive little, if any, support from their children's fathers.
PAYING A HIGH TOLL
CHILDREN SPEND YEARS
IN EMOTIONAL LIMBO
Palma's husband, for instance, left Buenos Aires in 1998, when they separated. He did not give her any financial help. The father of Sierra's two oldest children is in Los Angeles but she has not heard from him in years.
The typical separation between mother and children lasts between six and eight years, Berger says. Eventually many do bring their children here, but a good number go back to their homelands to retire. Either way, the emotional toll is high.
''For the women, they are torn because, to give their children a better future, there is the paradox that they must deprive them of their presence,'' said Berger, author of Immigrant Women Tell Their Stories (Haworth Press). ``For the children, some may feel abandoned, especially if the treatment by the relatives is not good. Or they may feel emotionally neglected, no matter how much better their lives are financially.''
Palma's daughter, Leila, especially misses her mother's help with her homework. She recounted this memory in a recent phone conversation, speaking from her grandmother's house in northern Argentina. ''She is very good at drawing,'' she said. ``If I had to draw anything, she would help and it was always very pretty.''
Her mother's job in Miami pays for her Arabic dance lessons and costumes, but ``she's never seen me dance.''
Ironically, many women land jobs taking care of other people's children -- which, Berger says, can exacerbate the emotional dislocation. Sometimes they are at the mercy of their employers or immigration hucksters.
''They tend to be the weakest and most vulnerable,'' Finkelman said. ``They're preyed upon by men who promise them marriage to get them a green card, by unscrupulous immigration workers who take their money and don't deliver, and by employers who overwork them by threatening to turn them over to the INS.''
ANGUISH OF HOLIDAYS
TIMES OF FAMILY FOCUS
ARE HARDEST TO ENDURE
Although Palma has not worked as a nanny, she says any reminder of the mother-child bond prompts a new wave of anguish. Mother's Day today will be particularly difficult. She will hurt again in October, when Argentines celebrate their country's version of Mother's Day.
''It's a double shot for me, all those advertisements and all those cards and those pictures of mothers with their children,'' she said. ''They stab me in the heart.'' Particularly difficult was her son's 18th birthday last week, when she could barely hold back tears. He has had a harder time with the separation than his younger sister. During one of her many phone calls home last month, Emmanuel told her that if God existed, the two wouldn't be apart.
'I answered him, `You're wrong, son. God has done this to make all three of us stronger. We are stronger because of this,' '' she recounted, but then after a brief, tearful pause added: ``When I talk to them, I'm always happy, always optimistic. But sometimes I can't help it, I cry. I'm so sad.''
Sierra, 50, understands those feelings all too well. Since her departure, one of her sons has married and the other is finishing high school. She feels she has missed many of their milestones.
''It's a drastic change to leave everything behind, but you do it out of necessity,'' she explains. ``Then the years pass and before you know it, they're grown. You can never get those years back and you're not there to see them grow or to help with homework. You are just a voice on the phone. Sometimes I think I should have stayed.''
Yet, she has no plans to return. Improved telephone service to her country -- and phone cards -- have made it easier to bridge the divide. Sierra calls her children at least once a week. Palma also calls weekly, but she calls her children's teachers, too.
But there's no substitute for physical presence. Holidays are the most difficult. ''Christmas is very, very sad for me,'' Sierra said. ``It's a reminder that I don't have them with me.''
Many times life in the United States, although better than their hand-to-mouth existence in their homeland, is not what the women expected it to be. Without command of the language, most feel isolated from the rest of the community. They must also work long hours to make ends meet.
''I don't have much left over at the end of the month,'' Sierra said. ``When you are helping to maintain two households, money doesn't go far.''
The unexpected can have disastrous consequences, too. Palma has been out of work since July, when a driver with an expired license and no insurance ran a stop sign and smashed her scooter.