Care Roles and Motherhood in Forced Migration: Venezuelan Mothers Living in Lima and New York City

Abstract

To the extent that the Venezuelan crisis deepened, more than 5 million Venezuelan citizens had fled the country in May of 2021. This migration has impacted the continent in numerous ways and their receiving countries of the diaspora since it is one of the region's unique and extensive migration phenomena. However, this forced migration due to the country's humanitarian crisis has also impacted the families that migrated outside Venezuela. This research focuses on Venezuelan mothers who migrated to Lima, Peru, and NYC, the US. It analyses how this forced migration has changed these women's care roles and motherhood roles inside their families. To collect the data, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 Venezuelan mothers in each city who migrated and were living in Lima and NYC, correspondingly.

Fiddling suggests that forced migration has generated a more gendered division of labor inside the families of these women, where they are who burden most of these responsibilities. In this way, the care tasks become their responsibilities compared to those they have back in Venezuela, and the lack of support networks exacerbated this work. Moreover, Venezuelan mothers need to adapt to new motherhood roles due to the new living conditions and be in charge of their families' emotional labor. All this generates an extra emotional cost for Venezuelan mothers, added to the uncertainty and mourning that forced migration generates.