The social reproductive labor of Filipina transmigrant workers in Southern California: Caring for those who provide elderly car

Despite the fact that more than half of recent Philippine (im)migrants to the U.S. are women, most research on Filipina/o Americans thus far has detailed the experiences of men, while paying little attention to the unique migration experiences of women. In part as a response to political-economic conditions facing the Philippines, Filipina, women today work throughout the world as transnational social reproductive laborers. Despite this 'new' age marked by increased transnational flows of both commodities and people, and particularly the independent migration of women, Filipina women maintain their place 'in the home' as social reproductive laborers. Through a focus on the lived experiences of migrant Filipinas employed as live-in home health care workers, I illustrate not only the continuance of women's social reproductive labor across nations, but the continued undervaluing of this labor. This becomes clear through two avenues: first, as underpaid domestic workers (live-in home health caregivers) in Southern California and second, as mothers and wives from afar working to maintain substantive ties to children and family left in the Philippines. Yet importantly, while women's place within the home is maintained, through their very migration these Filipina women are redefining what it means to be mothers and wives in a transnational age.;Through the use of participant-observation, twenty oral histories and in-depth interviews, I explore the living and working conditions of live-in Filipina elderly caregivers as they negotiate their roles as transnational workers, wives, and mothers. Central to the dissertation are the concepts of care and emotional labor and how these are woven into women's work and personal lives (see e.g. Abel and Nelson, 1990; Hochschild, 1983). I examine the complications which arise between employer and employee in domestic work situations, the implications of being paid to care, and the costs of mothering from afar. Through an investigation of Filipina women's daily working lives in the U.S. and the strategies they employ, we can begin to see more clearly the impacts of globalization both here in the U.S. (e.g. healthcare), and in the Philippines (e.g. formations of family and gender roles).