Title: Transnational Grandparenting. Intergenerational Kinship Support among Ethiopian Migrant Families in Washington, D.C. and Addis Ababa
Name: Aida Kassaye Student number: 5934257
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Mario Rutten Second reader: Dr. Barak Kalir
Master's programme: Research Master Social Sciences E-mail address: aekassaye@gmail.com
Transnational Grandparenting
Intergenerational Kinship Support among Ethiopian Migrant Families
in Washington, D.C. and Addis Ababa
Aida Esther Kassaye
Transnational Grandparenting
Intergenerational Kinship Support Among Ethiopian Migrant
Families in Washington, D.C. and Addis Ababa
Aida Esther Kassaye
Master Thesis
Research Master Social Sciences University of Amsterdam
*
Amsterdam, July 2014 Supervisor: prof. dr. Mario Rutten
Second reader: dr. Barak Kalir
Photograph front-page:
Grandmother in Addis Ababa holding her U.S.-born grandchild. Copyright: Aida Kassaye
Abstract
In this thesis I examine a range of intergenerational caregiving patterns within Ethiopian migrant households in the U.S., described as ‘transnational grandparenting’. It covers both caregiving situations that require Ethiopian grandparents to fly over to the U.S. in order to help with the household and babysitting, and arrangements in which grandparents in Ethiopia care for their – either ‘left-behind’ or U.S.-born – grandchildren. These transnational care arrangements were studied through five months of ethnographic fieldwork among 21 Ethiopian transnational families living in Washington, D.C. and Addis Ababa. In the thesis, I show that a combination of socioeconomic factors and values related to the maintenance of traditions and to childrearing play decisive roles in the formation of transnational care arrangements. While the arrangement is meant to offer relief to the parents and create a natural bond to Ethiopia for the children, I argue that the phenomenon produces various contradictions in terms of familial expectations and obligations, and leads to the need for renegotiating cultural notions of upbringing and family values. Parents and grandparents in Ethiopia and the U.S. experience and reflect upon transnational commitments in different ways, ultimately illustrating the implications of transnationalism on family relationships and family organization. Such family negotiations, I argue, can only be understood by studying both ends of the transnational family.
Acknowledgements
This thesis would not have been made possible without the help of some wonderful people. First and foremost, I want to thank all my family members living in Washington, D.C. and Addis Ababa: Henok, Mimi, Sabree, Lydia, Hussein, Yohanis, Elias and Mulu. Annette: thank you for being my go-to-person, I sincerely miss our late night conversations on your couch! Special thanks in Ethiopia go out to Yonatan: my dear cousin and part-time translator. Without all of you, I would not have spoken to numerous people, and I thank you dearly. Appreciation also goes out to all of those friends at the several organizations and schools I spoke to and worked with: Nina, Ayda, Yewbdar, Yodit, Zenny, Netsanet, Murad and Addisu. You welcomed me with open arms, and helped me along the way with understanding Ethiopia and the Ethiopian diaspora. I also want to thank my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Mario Rutten. I am well aware that a great deal of supervisors do not put in the amount of time and interest that you have shown, and I am grateful. Last, I want to express my gratitude to my parents and sister, who helped me tremendously during their stay in Ethiopia. Who knew that writing a thesis could create such beautiful family memories.
Table of Contents
Abstract ... ii
Acknowledgements ...iv
1. Introduction ... 1
2. Transnational Families, Care and Child Fostering Practices ... 5
2.1 Transnationalism, Families and Care ... 5
2.2 Transnational Actors and Care Work ... 6
2.3 Transnational Grandparenting and Child Fostering ... 9
3. Multi-sited Ethnography and Ethiopian Migrant Families ... 13
3.1 Multi-sited Ethnography ... 13
3.2 Ethiopian Families and the Diaspora ... 17
3.3 The Caregiving Arrangements ... 21
4. Parents and their Transnational Care Arrangements ... 25
4.1 Motivations ... 25
4.2 Hopes ... 31
5. Grandparents and their Caregiving Roles ... 37
5.1 Caregiving in the U.S. ... 37
5.2 Caregiving in Ethiopia ... 42
6. Contradictions within the Care Arrangements ... 47
6.1 Between an Ethiopian and an American Family Life ... 47
6.2 Unforeseen Realities of Transnational Care ... 53
7. Conclusion ... 63 Bibliography ... 69 Appendix I ... 75 Appendix II ... 79 Appendix III ... 81 Appendix IV ... 87 vi
1
Introduction
‘So, will he return to the U.S. when they come?’ I ask 50-year-old Meseret cautiously.
Meseret and I are sitting in her spacious living room filled with large sofas in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The pink walls of the room are decorated with both old and recent pictures of Meseret’s children and grandchildren. While we talk, Meseret is playing with her 1-year-old grandson, who is attempting to take his first steps. Meseret brought the little boy along after her third stay in the U.S., where she looked after him for the first six months after his birth. The grandson has now been in Addis Ababa for over six months.
Meseret has been explaining to me that two of her own children grew up with their grandmother, her mother. Therefore Meseret now feels it is her turn to look after her grandchildren. I ask her about her grandson returning to the U.S. with his parents, however, because Meseret’s daughter and son-in-law in Washington, D.C. recently told me they had plans to pick him up in a few months. But Meseret resolutely responds to my question: ‘No, no. He will go when he is five years old!’1
The story of Meseret’s family is useful to help introduce the focus of this thesis. First, her story is representative of numerous present-day Ethiopian migrant families in the U.S., that turn to extended kin across borders in order to assist with child care. Such intercontinental and intergenerational child care patterns are central to this thesis, summarized as a practice called ‘transnational grandparenting’. Second, in this thesis I will also concentrate on another aspect of what is now briefly illustrated within Meseret’s family history: the negotiations of perspectives between parents and grandparents living within such transnational families. I will show that the practice of ‘transnational grandparenting’ has contradictory implications for those involved in transnational care, leading to unexpected effects on family bonds.
1
Fieldwork notes, Addis Ababa, October 2013
1
Transnational grandparenting
Transnational grandparenting is specific to an era of increasing globalization. Not only do more people now live their lives across borders, improved communication techniques and inexpensive air travel have ensured that family members are able to be involved in each other’s lives from across the globe. In the process of such developments, families experience changes in household structure. It also means that an increasing number of migrants now face situations in which child care can be arranged across borders (Da 2005).
In this research, I concentrate on the transnational child care arrangements for Ethiopian migrant families living in metropolitan Washington, D.C. Such families maintain strong connections with Ethiopia and their relatives there, with the extended family closely involved in their everyday life. As Ethiopian migrant parents settle into new lives in the U.S., the question of how to arrange their child care assumes salience. In such cases, parents may leave their children behind in Ethiopia, temporarily bring over a grandparent to the host country to help with the household, or decide to send their child to Ethiopia for a number of months or years. Based on five months of ethnographic fieldwork among a total of 21 Ethiopian transnational families living in Washington, D.C. and Addis Ababa, I explore some of the motives behind and results of such transnational care arrangements. The everyday experiences of ‘transnational grandparenting’, I will argue, illustrates the effects that processes of transnationalism have on the ‘micro’ level of the family (Baldassar 2007). By shedding light on the complex ways in which transnational grandparenting is experienced, I thus intend to add to debates on transnational families and to offer an empirical contribution to scholarship on recent Ethiopian migration and familial strategies.
Research questions and structure
The central research question of this study is: ‘What are the effects of transnational grandparenting on Ethiopian migrant families in Washington, D.C. and their relatives in Addis Ababa?’
The first sub question, ‘What are the factors that have led to and shaped the current childcare arrangements?’ serves to bring the focus on the decision-making process behind the transnational care arrangements. I analyze the role grandparents play in these arrangements with the second sub question, ‘How do these transnational families function in their daily lives?’ The last sub question, ‘What are the effects of these arrangements?’ examines how relationships between parents, grandparents and children are affected by their transnational care arrangement.
The thesis is organized as follows. I first situate my research between the interlinked theoretical debates on transnational familyhood, care and child fostering practices. I will show that although recent academic endeavors have made significant contributions to the field by highlighting some of the emotional strains of ‘transnational motherhood’, there are still a number of questions unaddressed in this line of work. The second chapter provides a background on my multi-sited research and on the general characteristics of Ethiopian migrant families. I also discuss what the differences in migration background and socioeconomic class mean for those involved in transnational care arrangements.
In the three chapters that follow, I present and discuss the empirical data gathered for this study. The first of these chapters explores the motives parents have behind the formation of transnational care arrangements. The subsequent chapter discloses the role grandparents play in the arrangement and how they reflect on their caregiving role. The last empirical chapter combines parents’ and grandparents’ different perspectives on the subject of maintaining Ethiopian family roles, and demonstrates how these varying interpretations affect relationships between parents, grandparents and children. In the conclusion I recapture some of the paradoxes found within the workings of Ethiopian transnational families and propose what these findings could mean for further research on transnational care and familyhood.
2
Transnational Families,
Care and Child Fostering Practices
As a study on the impact of transnational care in Ethiopian migrant families, this research is informed by the small but growing body of scholarship that highlights the intersections between transnational familyhood, care and child fostering practices.
2.1 Transnationalism, Families and Care
Ethiopia is currently a country with over 90,000,000 inhabitants and an ever-growing diaspora: the number of Ethiopians living outside Ethiopia is estimated to be between one and two million (UN World Population 2012).2 This means that a growing number of Ethiopian families find themselves maintaining family relations across borders. While the phenomenon of families living far apart is not new, it has taken on a larger role in this day and age (Bryceson and Vuerola 2003; Skrbiš 2008). Continuing globalization, improved communication technologies, and inexpensive air fares, have ensured that today’s families live in a world in which families are able to stay connected and maintain active social lives across borders. Scholarship on migrant transnationalism has paid attention to such processes and, in particular, has looked at the ways in which interconnected social practices shape and influence the migration experience (Basch et al. 1994; Schiller et al. 1992). Glick-Schiller et al. have long argued that kinship networks are fundamental to such multiple networks of interconnection (Glick-Schiller et al. 1995: 54). In this regard, they write that it is vital to understand the implications ‘...of current day transnationalism for kinship relations, family organization, and the form and content of social networks’ (Glick-Schiller et al. 1992: xii).
2
While a source of long-time debate, the term ‘diaspora’ usually refers to ‘a people’ dispersed in a minimum of two destinations, maintaining a strong homeland orientation in relation to a (real or imagined) homeland and preserving a distinctive identity in the host society over multiple generations (Brubaker 2005: 5). Ethiopians in the Washington, D.C. community frequently use the term to denote themselves; in Ethiopia, people refer to ‘diasporas’ when speaking about Ethiopians from outside of Ethiopia.
5
Yet while contemporary migration studies have deepened and enriched the field by turning to the social relations of transnational migrants, certain sets of social relations, such as long-distance family relations, have nonetheless remained understudied (Baldassar 2007: 275; Schmalzbauer 2004: 1318). Mazzucato and Schans found that ‘...methodologically and theoretically, families are still predominantly conceived of as nuclear, living together, and bounded by the nation state.... As a result, family practices across borders are ignored or assumed to be unfeasible’ (Mazzucato and Schans 2011: 704). Most studies of family and care continue to assume close proximity, and generally treat rupture from the nuclear family as harmful (Baldock 2000: 207).
Countering these stances, a small but growing body of research has increasingly begun to take notice of ‘...the micro-politics and the social practices of transnationalism as they are worked out within the realm of the ‘family’ or ‘household’’ (Yeoh et al. 2005: 307). The transnational family is studied as highly ‘flexible’, defined by Bryceson and Vuorela as families ‘...that live some or most of the time separated from each other, yet hold together and create something that can be seen as a feeling of collective welfare and unity, namely ‘familyhood’, even across national borders’ (Bryceson and Vuorela 2002: 3). Transnational families thus oppose conventional theories of ‘households’ and notions of ‘motherhood’, centered on the idea of the nuclear family (Da 2003; Orellana et al. 2001).
The research presented in this thesis adds to these debates, by exploring transnational childcare patterns at the ‘micro’ level of Ethiopian families and households. It discusses processes of ‘transnationalism from below’, which focuses on ‘...the more quotidian and domestic features of transmigrant experience’ (Baldassar 2007: 277). Only at this level does it become clear what impact transnational living has on a daily basis for individual people who make up larger transnational networks (Lamb 2002). Ultimately, ‘transnationalism from below’ analyzes how transnational processes affect social organization at the micro level of the family.
2.2 Transnational Actors and Care work
The phenomenon of ‘transnational grandparenting’ for Ethiopian migrant families can be situated within recent explorations on transnational caregiving. These studies have shown migrants’ social relations from a novel angle, highlighting the ways in which migrants’
physical absence can be supplemented by their virtual social presence and participation (Carling et al. 2012; Orellana et al. 2001; Parreñas 2005b). It means that care can be provided from a distance, with others taking on primary caregiving roles.
The bulk of existing research on transnational care has examined the instances in which young women emigrate and leave their children behind with family members (Parreñas 2005a; Skrbiš 2008). This line of work generally describes the multifaceted ways in which transnational mothers keep in contact with their families, and highlights some of the great sacrifices they endure in order to save up remittances to send to their families. The studies also exemplify the complex decision-making process parents go through: while they worry about the emotional loss the separation might cause for themselves and for their children, they separate from them so that they can provide for better futures in the long run (Foner and Dreby 2011; Orellana et al. 2001; Schmalzbauer 2004; Skrbiš 2008). The emphasis on women within this literature largely stems from the gender-specific ways in which (transnational) parenthood is seen and affected (Carling et al. 2012: 193). Research suggests that women, more than men, are expected to provide emotional care for their children, and when gone, are missed more by their children than are the fathers (Aranda 2003; Orellana et al. 2001). Women are also supposed to suffer more from the separation.
This line of research has been helpful in addressing some of the consequences of a transnational lifestyle for migrant mothers (Wilding 2006: 129). As in many other places around the world, care work in Ethiopia is also perceived as a ‘woman’s job’, which makes it important to take into account the ways in which mothers adapt to new household formations. Nevertheless, such research does fail to address a number of important questions by leaving out a whole spectrum of noteworthy transnational actors. Mainly dealing with parents who leave their children behind, hardly any attention is paid to the care networks that take over responsibilities in the absence of parents. The nuclear family is still treated as the main unit of analysis, consequently neglecting the actors outside it.
More attention should be paid to the role of so-called ‘other-mothers’: female kin that step in to take charge of the everyday practices and responsibilities (Schmalzbauer 2004: 1320). Such grandmothers, sisters, aunts or daughters – looking after family when ‘blood mothers’ are absent – are vital sources of support within their families and communities (ibid.). In these households, ‘mothering’ is not defined by a biological relationship, but by acts of both physical and emotional care (ibid.). Studies on transnational care indicate that the attainment of care responsibilities also comes with occasional conflict or resentment (Parreñas 2005b; Schmalzbauer 2004). Yet since most ethnographic studies on transnational families leave the
perspectives and sentiments of ‘other-mothers’ out of the picture, research thus far does not adequately show the vital role such actors play in these arrangements, nor how these roles are negotiated.
Studies on transnational care also do not sufficiently explore the range of forms transnational care can take on. Very little transnational research has been done on caregiving across borders by ageing grandparents (for an exception, see Treas and Mazumdar 2004), even as a transnational lifestyle has increasingly become more achievable for all members within immigrant families. Studies show that grandparents holding appropriate visas are able to regularly move between their own and their children’s nations, often dividing their time between these two places (Lamb 2002; Rutten and Patel 2007). In many cases, grandmothers travel these great distances at old age in order to help with the housework and babysitting. Their mobility contrasts the position they hold in studies on intergenerational caregiving, which emphasize the perceived need for elders to age in the comfort of their own home and for adult children to look after their aging parents (Lamb 2002; Treas and Mazumdar 2004). Transnational grandparents helping out with the household’s domestic tasks – in terms of cooking, cleaning, and childcare – moreover goes against the prevailing construction of ‘traditional families’ and reverses the usual course of ‘transactional flows’ by extending their stage of ‘giving’ into old age (Lamb 2002: 314).
Related is also the question of transnational children who move to the ‘homeland’ to be taken care of there. Similar to elderly migrants, children also do not play a significant role in transnational caregiving research. Yet views on children and childhood can strongly inform processes of migration (Orellana et al. 2001; Parreñas 2005b). A small number of studies have investigated the instances in which parents send adolescent children ‘back home’ in order to keep them away from trouble or to be disciplined (Smith 2006; Orellana et al. 2001). Bohr and Tse, discussing child care patterns within Chinese-Canadian transnational families, have written on the practice of sending toddlers to their parent’s country of origin (Bohr and Tse 2009). They found that Chinese-Canadian immigrants use familial modes of support in the face of economic necessity and because they perceive upbringing in the home country to be better for the child (ibid.: 280). Importantly, attention to such ‘reverse migration’ patterns opposes the image of immigrants ‘taking advantage’ of their respective host lands (Orellana et al. 2001: 585). For one reason or another, transnational care is preferred over locally provided care assistance. While the role of institutions is beyond the scope of this thesis, it also needs to be understood why Ethiopian migrant families would send their young children to Ethiopia, instead of making use of local, government-provided care options. Yet Bohr and Tse also
acknowledge that there is little existing research on these practices, let on alone on the potentially problematic consequences of such migration patterns (Bohr and Tse 2009: 280.). As situations in which children are sent back are rarely discussed, there is a need to further include these young actors in the study of transnational families, whose presence is often an initiating factor in transnational arrangements (Parreñas 2005b).
The problems that I have addressed can be partly explained by the way studies on transnational families are commonly conducted. In most cases, studies on transnational care never truly become ‘transnational’ themselves: processes are studied either at the migrants’ end, or examined at the place of origin (Rutten and Patel 2007). There is thus an empirical split between those who have left, and those who have stayed. This means that accounts rarely follow the stream of transnational care, such as by following ‘transnational children’ or by speaking to transnational actors such as grandparents who travel thousands of miles to help with their children’s household. Yet as migration patterns are rarely unidirectional, in this thesis I intend to offer a broader conception of transnational care. By following the practice and idea of ‘family’ as comprising one transnational social field, I turn to the highly interconnected relationships between those who leave and those who stay behind. As this study will show, social ties across borders are not fixed but require active nurturing; often, this is not without frustration and misunderstanding (Parreñas 2005b; Schmalzbauer 2004).
2.3 Transnational Grandparenting and Child Fostering
Extended families looking after children to help a migrant member of the household might not be a new phenomenon. A long range of classical anthropological literature discusses practices of ‘child fostering’ in Sub-Saharan African societies, in which grandparents have been studied as an important group of actors responsible for the wellbeing of their grandchildren (Coe 2011; Verhoef 2005). Child fostering amongst African families is described as an old and culturally sanctioned system, ‘…whereby a non-orphaned child is sent to live temporarily with relatives’ (Serra 2009: 157). During child fostering, biological parents temporarily transfer their parental rights and responsibilities to the foster parent without surrendering these obligations, even if the duration is a rather long period of time (ibid.). In this sense, child fostering distinguishes itself from adoption practices. In many cases, parents leave to work in cities and entrust their children to relatives living in rural villages, or they send off
their child to extended family members in urban settings in the hope of the child accessing better prospects there (Mazzucato and Schans 2011: 708).
In Ethiopia, as in most parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, families are seen as consisting of more than the nuclear family (Abebe and Aase 2007; Verhoef 2005: 369). Children commonly grow up in large extended families, and are at times also sent to live with extended kin (Abebe and Aase 2007). The interesting question that arises in this context is whether ‘transnational grandparenting’ could be seen as a variation of traditional child fostering. Indeed, research suggests that different types of transnational care and child fostering have another underlying commonality; namely, the need to ensure the economic survival of the family as a collective group (Oppong 2006). Moreover, current research on African households suggests that grandmothers are still indispensable caregivers in many internal migration cases (Coe 2011; Oppong 2006).
Yet child fostering practices and transnational grandparenting differ in important regards. Importantly, many of the circumstances present during traditional child fostering are absent during transnational caregiving. While traditionally children were looked after in the nearby vicinity, contemporary child care arrangements take place in distinct geographical locations as well as in two different linguistic and cultural worlds (Bohr and Tse 2009). This ‘cultural dimension’ of transnational living, requires ‘... [a] daily living in and negotiating between two cultural worlds’; whereby the two different worlds are often compared and dichotomized (Lamb 2002: 303-304). Moreover, the large geographic distances and costs involved in transnational care affect relationships of trust between parents and caregivers, that are otherwise upheld through regular visits (Mazzucato and Schans 2011: 708). In this regard, Coe found that, in her study on family relations within different types of Ghanaian migrant families, cases of transnational migration differ strongly from those of internal migration (Coe 2011). It are the large physical distances at work in transnational migration, that produce more social distance (ibid.).
However, while we should be aware of the contemporary origin of transnational care arrangements, this is not to say that traditionally sanctioned forms of caregiving should be left out of the analysis. Research on transnational children suggests that socialization norms play a crucial role in parents’ decisions to leave their children behind or send them back to the country of origin (Bohr and Tse 2009: 275; Mazzucato and Schans 2011: 707). It needs to be considered how upbringing norms and perceptions of tradition materialize in the Ethiopian context as a particularly important project, providing a strong motivation for families to arrange their child care transnationally. The Western family paradigm holds that child welfare
is best guaranteed when a child lives with both biological parents (Serra 2009: 158). But as Verhoef reminds us, the extent to which fostering is acceptable or even considered, is related to ‘...culturally shaped views of family, parenthood and child development’ (Verhoef 2005: 369). In making decisions about ‘leaving kids behind’ or sending them ‘back’, parents make informed choices in which they simultaneously aim to ‘develop’ their children in the direction of the cultural and traditional values they hold high for them (Orellana et al. 2001: 587). A case in point is the account by Bledsoe and Pow, who discuss immigrant children living in France and Spain being sent back to West Africa. They found that West African families ‘...see relocation to a different household as normal, or even beneficial, for a child’s progress in life and hence as something in which a child could engage in several times’ (Bledsoe and Sow 2011: 749). In cases such as these, a cultural lens is necessary to fully understand the transnational practice. Likewise, to fully grasp the meanings behind Ethiopian transnational grandparenting, the practice should be situated between both ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ childrearing outlooks and contexts.
Conclusion
The literature review above has pointed to some of the ambiguities of contemporary transnational research on family and care. A major problem continues to be that care practices across borders remain understudied, as family research continues to focus on the nuclear family, living in one location. This thesis on the other hand, will show Ethiopian families not conforming to this model, with extended family members closely involved and participating in family life from multiple locations.
The above review of literature also demonstrated that studies on transnational families are still fairly biased, mainly focusing on migrant women and their absent children. While this line of work has shed light on many important aspects of transnational living for migrant mothers, it has largely overlooked other significant care relations. As a result, we know little about the role elderly caregivers play in the family organization of (African) immigrant families. In addition, most data on transnational families is collected at one end of the spectrum, discussing families’ separation solely on the immigrant side. By taking into account multigenerational actors and drawing on qualitative data from family members in different national settings, this thesis will provide insights into the role Ethiopian transnational grandparents play in the caregiving decisions within their families.
The issue of transnational care will also be treated in light of both ‘modern’ transnational spheres and ‘traditional’ practices of child fostering. By treating transnational care amongst Ethiopian migrant families as a practice both modern and traditional, we can study the extent to which the system is linked to culturally relevant notions of childrearing and family obligations. Setting aside Western models of kinship that treat a child’s separation from its parents as harmful, it is important to consider how relocation is perceived by Ethiopian families.
The multigenerational and multi-sited perspective used in this study will thus serve to analyze processes of transnationalism ‘from below’, at the ‘micro’ level of the family. This perspective ultimately demonstrates how perspectives on caregiving and family vary within Ethiopian transnational households, and explores some of the ambiguities and complex feelings of joy and distress that accompany the practice of transnational grandparenting.
3
Multi-sited Ethnography
and Ethiopian Migrant Families
In order to examine Ethiopian transnational families, I conducted five months of ethnographic fieldwork in Washington, D.C. and Addis Ababa.3 In this chapter I discuss the background related to this inquiry: the methodological aspects of my multi-sited fieldwork; the general characteristics of Ethiopian migrant families living in Washington, D.C.; and the three specific care arrangements that I have focused on.
3.1 Multi-sited Ethnography
The data for this thesis were collected by doing what could be called ‘multi-sited ethnography’ (Marcus 1995). Multi-sited ethnography can be conceived of as ‘following the people’, or tracking the ties and social networks that go beyond national borders. I felt a multi-sited design was useful to discover opposing views on roles and obligations within the family (Rutten and Patel 2007). This dimension of transnational caregiving would not have been captured if only the immigrant’s side was studied.
From Washington, D.C. to Addis Ababa
I started my research in Washington, D.C. As I was already familiar with the Ethiopian community there, I used my personal contacts to get in touch with some parents and grandparents for semi-structured interviews.4 After the first few appointments, snowball sampling was used. Being acquainted with the community paved the way for informal conversations about transnational families and enabled me to observe the Ethiopian community in Washington, D.C. up close. I stayed with an Ethiopian American cousin and attended numerous ‘Ethiopian’ places and events. Most importantly, spending time with my Ethiopian relatives and their friends enabled me to learn more about the way they attempt to
3 I spent two months in Washington, D.C., and three months in Addis Ababa.
4 Before this research I had been to Washington, D.C. five times, in order to visit relatives.
13
adjust to America and keep up Ethiopian culture. I also volunteered twice a week for an Ethiopian community center in Washington, D.C. This improved my understanding of the community’s general issues tremendously.5
In Ethiopia, I was able to stay several weeks in a household in which grandparents were looking after their U.S.-born grandchild. There, I was able to observe their daily lives and the family’s transnational interaction, and learned that the level of transnational contact is strongly related to the families’ socioeconomic position. In Addis Ababa I also contacted relatives of my respondents in the U.S. to hold semi-structured interviews with them. Through them and through others, I then found additional interviewees.
Initially, I did not realize that it would be challenging to find respondents in Ethiopia. Yet along the way it was revealed to me that due to a restricted political climate, people have become very sensitive about what they tell others about their personal lives. Overall, it thus became vital to make sure potential respondents were not intimidated by my research. During several interviews in Ethiopia I therefore left my tape recorder out, and relied on extensive note-taking during and after the interview instead. Moreover, as grandparents in Ethiopia were quite reluctant to the idea of being interviewed, I tried to have as many informal conversations about migration, the diaspora and transnational caregiving as possible. I also started visiting both private and public schools, and began working at a small NGO.6 Using such an ‘informal strategy’ significantly improved my understanding of grandparents’ roles and perceptions of the overall care arrangement. It also provided me with a better comprehension of the way people raise children in Ethiopia, and thus what kinds of childrearing practices immigrant parents have to get used to in America.
The majority of my interviews were recorded, after which they were transcribed. As English is generally not spoken frequently or well among the older generation and I do not speak Amharic, the Ethiopian national language, for some of the interviews in Ethiopia I had to rely on a translator. Having to rely on a translator made interviews challenging at times, and I always had to guard myself for translator bias. During my interviews, I tried to address this issue by asking people for as many examples as possible. This helped their point become better comprehensible and sometimes previously ‘hidden’ information would also come to light. At times, I tried to supplement grandparents’ stories by chatting with other relatives after the interview. Most interviews, however, were conducted by me in English.
5 This community center provides ‘English-as-a-Second-Language’ classes, computer training, immigration and
health care services, personal and career counseling and summer camps for children 5-15.
6 The small, Dutch-funded, NGO that I volunteered for provides health care lessons at public schools. I worked
as an assistant during English lessons to twelve female employees between the ages of 19-30. 14
Research population
The research in this thesis is based on 21 family cases. For each family case, I conducted a number of open-ended semi-structured interviews with different family members.7 In the United States, the research includes interviews with 16 migrant parents and 5 grandparents. I also interviewed 4 professionals working in Ethiopian community centers and spoke to 3 children that were part of a transnational household.8 In addition, 17 people helped me on an almost daily basis, from whom I got a lot of useful information. In Ethiopia, I conducted interviews with 17 grandparents. In addition, I held semi-structured interviews with 5 teachers working in public and private schools, and I informally spoke to 9 children who had at least one parent living abroad. In Ethiopia, I was assisted by 13 individuals on a regular basis.9
The migrant parents in Washington, D.C held a couple of commonalities. They had between one and three children, none of which were older than twelve. All parents had a high school diploma and all but one had obtained legal status in the United States. Parents’ ages ranged from twenty-nine to forty-five. Grandparents on the other hand came from a mixed socioeconomic group. For instance, those that were looking after U.S.-born children were considerably better off than those looking after children that were left behind. Grandparents’ ages ranged from fifty to seventy-two. Both parents and grandparents came from large families, often with at least five or six siblings. Most informants turned out to be Orthodox Christians, overwhelmingly from the Amhara and Oromo tribes.10
Although not intentionally, during the research I was referred to more women than men, as caregiving continues to be seen as women’s work. About 24 per cent of my interviews were with men, and 76 per cent with women. Apart from interviews, however, I had a large mixed-gender group of informants.11 Through their help and from the interviews, I found that men were often quite involved in the caregiving arrangement. For those reasons, I do not confine myself to speaking solely about mothers and grandmothers in this thesis.
7 The semi-structured interviews attempted to gain insights into the respondents’ motivations and perspectives
behind the transnational care arrangement, the attitudes of families (such as beliefs on childrearing), their perspectives and hopes for the future, and the current transnational contact between family members. I also asked parents and grandparents about how they felt the transnational arrangement would or had affected their child(ren). For more information on the semi-structured interviews, see the topic lists in appendix III.
8 Children were not directly sought out during the research. Instead, during interviews with caregivers, I asked
them to evaluate how the transnational arrangement might have affected the children’s well-being. However, I did come in contact with a number of ‘transnational children’ and in Addis Ababa I also held one group discussion with six children aged nine to eleven years, whose parents were living abroad. Informally speaking to these children helped me evaluate ‒ and contrast ‒ some of the content of what their caregivers and others had said about them.
9 In order to guarantee privacy, all names of individuals and organizations have been changed in this thesis. 10 More background information on the interviewees can be found in appendix IV.
11 Of the 30 people that assisted me in Washington, D.C. and Addis Ababa combined, 44 per cent were male and
56 per cent female.
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Importantly, in Addis Ababa I was able to get in touch with five families of parents I had already interviewed in the United States. I was welcomed into their houses and was able to speak to grandparents and other people in their families, such as brothers, sisters, aunts and grandchildren. Some family members later introduced me to other potential interviewees, and I was able to meet two families on a number of different occasions. Following up on these families over time proved to be very insightful. It enabled me to learn about the variety of perspectives on the overall caregiving situation and about people’s thoughts regarding the future. At times, I also found, different family members presented conflicting pictures of the situation or portrayed themselves as more or less central in the story, in contrast with what other family members had previously said about them.
Own position in the research
Speaking about ‘native anthropologists’, Narayan has argued that ‘We must all take responsibility for how our personal locations feed not just into our fieldwork interactions, but also our scholarly texts’ (Narayan 1993: 681).
My father is Ethiopian and my mother is Dutch, so I could be considered a ‘halfie’ researcher: something that was known to all the participants throughout the research. During my stay, I was never regarded as a legitimate insider, due to my lack of language skills or participation in the community. However, being a ‘half-outsider/half-insider’ turned out to have its benefits. Importantly, it enabled me to gain easy access to the close-knit community in Washington, D.C. I also found that people trusted me sooner knowing that I was a relative of ‘so-and-so’; in Ethiopia, being introduced through a mutual acquaintance was often the only way to get to talk to a potential interviewee. My proximity to transnational households was thus extremely valuable during my stay.
Relying on family and personal networks does make it important to guard for biased representation. As my family is part of a particular dominant ethnic group and a well-educated class, I am aware that the groups of participants I contacted through them have similar backgrounds for the most part. Nevertheless, I also spoke to many others through additional channels, and the demographics of my group of respondents correspond to the general demographics of the Ethiopian community in Washington, D.C. Using personal networks moreover facilitated more in-depth interviews as it was easier to understand and relate to the respondent’s story. Thus, I believe that finding respondents through my personal network worked well, despite a few drawbacks.
3.2 Ethiopian Families and the Diaspora
In the preceding sections I have said little about the larger social, cultural, political and economic webs Ethiopian transnational families are embedded in. However, in order to fully grasp Ethiopian transnational family practices, it is necessary to situate their arrangements within the context of customary family structures in Ethiopia and Ethiopian dispersal to Washington, D.C.
Ethiopian families: structure, gender and child fostering
While the bulk of my respondents in the U.S. did not have more than three children, all of them came from large families in Ethiopia. This corresponds to the majority of Ethiopians, who are raised in large households that generally hold three to four generations. Such households include extended family and many children. This is related to the fact that social norms dictate that children are required to take care of their parents. Children are considered important in the process of social reproduction since they inherit land and carry on the family name (Tilson and Larsen 2000: 358). Moreover, Abebe and Aase observe that in Ethiopia ‘...childbearing and raising are considered to be an investment, not only by the biological parents but also by the community as a whole’ (Abebe and Aase 2007: 2065). That community remains to be an important factor of Ethiopian family life was echoed throughout this study: a frequently heard comment was about how children in Ethiopia are also raised by extended family and community.
Family roles in Ethiopia were traditionally sharply defined by gender and patriarchal structures (Fenster 1998: 182). As was noticeable among the grandmothers I spoke to, marriage generally occurred around the age of fifteen. Women would then move to their husband’s family. Typically, it was the mother’s primary task to care for the children as part of her domestic duties, with patriarchal extended family responsible for the overall wellbeing of children. Nonetheless, Gibson and Mace’s research suggests that maternal grandmothers also play an important role in Ethiopian families. They found that grandmothers would often visit their daughters rather than their sons, and that ‘Maternal relatives, particularly maternal grandmothers, are an important determinant of child well-being’ (Gibson and Mace 2005: 477).
In this regard, it is also vital to understand the socio-cultural tradition of child fostering in Ethiopia. Child fostering is a kinship support system whereby a non-orphaned child comes to
live temporarily with relatives (Serra 2009: 157). It is a strongly gendered family practice in which grandmothers have traditionally played an important part. The system supports young mothers in rearing their infants, and is still practiced widely in large parts of Africa (Oppong 2006: 655). During my research, it was also apparent that many families were acquainted with the practice of kinship support: I spoke to several grandparents and one parent who had been raised by their grandparents; a grandparent who had ‘given’ two of her children to her own mother; and a grandmother responsible for raising both her grand- and great-grandchildren.
With the advent of urban living, however, many of these traditional patterns have started to change. In Ethiopian cities adult children often live far from their families and have a much harder time supporting their parents. As increasingly more women work nowadays, many middle-class mothers hire nannies in addition to having servants in the house.12 As such, Mekonnen found that in urban areas ‘...the extended family system has been gradually changing towards a nuclear family system’ (Mekonnen 2011: 22). The transformation in marriage and fertility patterns in urban areas is confirmed by the numbers; the total fertility rate in Addis Ababa dropped by 39 percent between 1990 and 2000, from 3.1 to 1.9 births per woman (Sibanda et al. 2003). Thus, Ethiopian migrant families do not conform to a more nuclear family model only after migration; family patterns are also changing for young urban families in Ethiopia.
Changing family patterns notwithstanding, Abebe and Aase found that kinship support continues to be valued as the culturally appropriate form of family life in Ethiopia. They write that due to a weak state, ‘...extended family networks in Ethiopia continue to function as a social security system by helping relatives during times of illness, famine and war’ (Abebe and Aase 2007: 2059). Moreover, it is generally believed that children benefit ‘...socially and psychologically from the availability of extended relatives, particularly during periods of economic difficulty’ (ibid: 2060). Their research suggests that while in other societies, rapid urbanization and economic restructuring have been seen to weaken traditional social ties and obligations; the traditional system of kinship support remains strong in Ethiopia and among Ethiopian families.
12 Most middle-class families in Ethiopia employ house servants who are responsible for cooking, cleaning and
assisting with the children. Many are very young and come from rural areas. 18
Ethiopians migrants in Washington, D.C.
The largest Ethiopian community outside Ethiopia currently resides in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area. The characteristics of this community are important to understand in order to comprehend the ongoing transnational links between Ethiopians in the U.S. and Ethiopia.
The beginning of Ethiopian migration to the West can be traced to the year 1974, during which a political revolution in Ethiopia caused thousands to flee. Over the subsequent few decades (1980s and 1990s), Ethiopia experienced a ruthless Marxist government, as well as drought and famine, the Eritrean civil war and conflicts between Ethiopia and Somalia. All these events induced thousands of more Ethiopians to flee. Many migrated to neighboring countries or to countries in the West, and the United States quickly became a popular destination. Family reunification programs and increased migration patterns have meant that the Ethiopian immigrant stream to the U.S. rose from a few hundred per year in the (early) 1970s, to 4,000-5,000 per year in the 1990s (Levine 2004: 637).
The Ethiopian community in metropolitan Washington, D.C slowly grew to be the largest Ethiopian community in the U.S. The precise number of Ethiopians living in the area is not known. According to the 2008 U.S. census, there were approximately 30,000 Ethiopians living in Washington, D.C. – 20 per cent of the total estimated Ethiopian migrant population in the U.S. (Habecker 2012). However, others maintain that the numbers are much higher. The Ethiopian Embassy claims there are at least 200,000 Ethiopians living in the Washington, D.C. area (Nicholls 2005). Moreover, Ethiopians represent the largest African immigrant population in Washington, D.C., where, as indicated by U.S. Census survey, one in every five black African immigrants is an Ethiopian (Lee 2011). Thus, in spite of discrepancies in estimates, it is clear that Ethiopians are a significant immigrant group in metropolitan Washington, D.C.
Since their arrival, Ethiopian migrants in the United States have represented a rather small part of Ethiopian society, being relatively well-educated and from urban areas (McSpadden and Moussa 1993: 799). Moreover, although nearly half of Ethiopia’s population is Muslim, Ethiopians living in the United States are predominantly Orthodox Christians, ethnically Amharic speaking, and classify themselves as ‘Habesha’ ‒ a cultural group linked to the ethnic groups from the Northern regions of Ethiopia, the Tigray and Amhara (Chacko 2003a;
Habecker 2012).13 Broadly speaking, the term ‘Habesha’ refers to these two ethnic groups whose cultural, linguistic, and ancestral origins are perceived to trace back to the Axumite
Empire.14In addition, the Amhara and Tigray have remained the political and cultural elite in Ethiopia.
In the Washington, D.C. region, most Ethiopians do not reside in a single residential area, but are widely dispersed across a number of neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. and nearby municipalities in Maryland and Virginia.15 Although the neighborhood Adams Morgan designates the unofficial ‘Little Ethiopia’ is within Washington, D.C., large concentrations of Ethiopian restaurants, bars and stores are also found in the Silver Spring area of Maryland, and in Alexandria, Virginia (Habecker 2012). These areas are also referred to together as the ‘DMV’ area - Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. The community, Lyons found, also has ‘...a wide range of organizations and newspapers, maintains dozens of web sites, e-mail lists and influential blogs, and broadcasts a number of weekly radio and cable television shows for members of the Ethiopian community’ (Lyons 2007: 536). In addition to these and other media, there are numerous community associations that assist new and long-term immigrants by providing health and immigration services, and offering language courses for young and older generations (Levine 2004: 637). In all accounts it is clear that Ethiopian migrants in Washington, D.C. continue to have strong ties to Ethiopia. Migrants often send packages and monetary gifts, and facilitated by the access to easier transportation in current decades, they frequently go ‘home’ for holidays, weddings, and ordinary visits (ibid.: 640). Ethiopian holidays in Washington, D.C. are celebrated in traditional style; meticulous attention is paid to performing rites and rituals as they would have been carried out ‘back home’. The Orthodox Church also continues to play an important role in these migrants’ lives: all over the DMV area there are Orthodox churches to be found that, from the inside, look almost identical to churches in Ethiopia. They are packed every Sunday. Tsehay’s narrative explains the role the church has in the coherence of the community:
13 While some authors use the spelling ‘Habasha’ I prefer the spelling ‘Habesha’, as I feel this corresponds more
to how Ethiopians in Washington, D.C. pronounced and used the word.
14 The Axumite Empire, located between Northern Ethiopia and what is now Eritrea, was one of the mightiest
trading nations in Africa from approximately 100 B.C. – 700 A.D. According to Habecker: ‘Ethnic Amharas and Tigrinyans, who were Orthodox Christians that monopolized state power... gradually began to use the term Habasha to distinguish themselves from other peoples of Ethiopia, particularly pagans and Muslims’ (Habecker 2012: 1204).
15
For an impression on Ethiopian migrant concentration in Washington, D.C., see appendix II. 20
I go to church… We have, like, a lot of things. Especially in this area, we have a lot of Ethiopians. And for weddings, graduation… For everything we contact each other. We come together.
Ethiopians in the DMV area thus mainly form strong social networks with co-ethnics. As a significant African population in the area, Habecker observed that they actively differentiate themselves from other African-Americans, ‘...through pursuing transnational connections, producing Habasha spaces, displaying the attributes of a “model minority” and preserving Habasha beauty through endogamy’ (Habecker 2012: 1200). First and second generation Ethiopians living in Washington, D.C., thus find themselves in a powerful ‘ethnic enclave’ (Chacko 2003a). According to Chacko, this is caused by their recent arrival to the United States, the proximity of the areas they live in, and the rarity of interethnic marriages among Ethiopians (Chacko 2003b: 501.). Moreover, all the participants in Chacko’s study were shown to have a strong sense of ‘ethnic pride’: they proudly portrayed Ethiopia as an ancient civilization and as a modern African nation that was never colonized by the West. According to Chacko, this strong connection to Ethiopia by second generation Ethiopians is the result of active cultural childrearing: such children grow up in households in which parents ‘...try to be active agents in reinforcing the traditional culture of the home country among their children’ (ibid.).
Taking off from Chacko’s research, which suggests that the transferring of ethnic identity to second and subsequent generations is seen as important, in this thesis I also investigate the way Ethiopian parents and grandparents attempt to pass on ‘Ethiopian identity’ through transnational caregiving. But before moving to the analysis of ‘transnational grandparenting’, I will now summarize some of the key dimensions across the three types of transnational care I found there to be.
3.3 The Caregiving Arrangements
While there are various care arrangements used by Ethiopian families living in metropolitan Washington, D.C., there are three most commonly found transnationally. These are: 1) children who are left behind to live with grandparents in Ethiopia (in this thesis, 6 family cases); 2) grandparents flying over to the U.S. to help with the household (9 family cases); and 3) U.S.-born children who are sent to Ethiopia to live with grandparents there (6 family
cases). To introduce the arrangements, I provide several brief characteristics in order to clarify the distinctiveness of each care arrangement. Important to bear in mind, however, is that migrants often made use of these several different care arrangements in different stages of their lives.
Leaving the children behind
Migrant parents in the first arrangement left their children with grandparents in Ethiopia. These parents mostly hailed from low-income families, and were frequently the first migrant member of their families. ‘Stay-behind’ children tended to reside within large families, often with three and sometimes four generations living in the same household. All the grandmothers I met were housewives; while some grandfathers were retired, others were unemployed. None of the grandparents within this arrangement had been able to visit their children in the U.S.
Many parents had migrated by using the ‘Diversity Lottery Program’ (also known as the DV lottery) that the U.S. grants to people from countries with low levels of immigration to the United States (Wasem and Ester 2001: 1).16 Migrants who have been accepted as DV recipients are able to bring their spouses and children along to the U.S. only if they were listed on the initial application form. This means that some migrants might choose to leave their children behind, while others are not allowed to bring their children.
Grandparents in the U.S.
In the second type of care arrangement, grandparents came to the U.S. to visit and help take care of the grandchildren. During their stay they resided in the houses of their adult children, helping with everyday household chores. Their adult children were often considerably successful and seemed to have more economic stability than the parents in the other two arrangements.
The birth of a grandchild often motivated grandparents to go to the U.S., as it is tradition for women to help their daughters for forty days after childbirth. However, the majority of grandparents in this arrangement stayed longer than forty days and had been in the U.S. several times. Many of them came to the U.S. via a two-year visa invitation. Others had been
16 Diversity Lottery visas are only available for people with a high school education or the equivalent, or those
who hold two years of experience in a profession which requires at least two years of training (Wasem and Ester 2004). Winners chosen randomly by a computer are granted visas to enter the United States, after which they can eventually qualify for naturalization (Law 2002). It is believed that approximately 4,000 Ethiopians enter the U.S. through the Diversity Visa Program each year.
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able to acquire a green card or even citizenship, which they used to move back and forth between Ethiopia and the United States.
U.S.-born children in Ethiopia
In the third arrangement parents had either sent their children to live with grandparents in Ethiopia, or grandparents had taken their grandchildren to Ethiopia after a stay in the U.S. While not always the case, mothers were frequently divorced or single.17 In contrast, most of the migrants in the two other arrangements were married.
Grandparents often had multiple family members living abroad, residing in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere in the Western world. They belonged to the higher classes of Ethiopian society, possessing luxury items such as laptops or iPhones, and living in spacious houses that displayed flat screen TVs and expensive furniture. Thus, while parents who left the children behind sent grandparents money in order to cover any expenses, in this arrangement expenses were frequently covered by the grandparents themselves.
Commonalities within practices of transnational grandparenting
The characteristics of each transnational care arrangement listed above shows that the migration history and socioeconomic location of migrant parents as well as that of their families’ in Ethiopia, influence the type of transnational care families can engage in. The three care arrangements also share a number of commonalities. The similarities justify my use of the term ‘transnational grandparenting’ to refer to all these diverse types together in this study. Some of the key similarities are as follows.
First, women take on a key function in most, if not all, care arrangements. Caregiving in Ethiopia, as in the rest of the world, is traditionally regarded as ‘women’s work’. This is also true for Ethiopian migrant families in the U.S., even if gender relations are changing. The continued gendered division of work means that whether in Ethiopia or the U.S., grandmothers (often maternal) bear most of the responsibility for their grandchildren.
Second, although the form of transnational contact sometimes differed, levels of transnational contact did not appear to vary much between the three arrangements. Even if only families with the financial means could afford to Skype, migrant parents in all arrangements were in frequent touch with their families in Ethiopia. They spoke to family
17 Though divorce is not uncommon among Ethiopian families, several people at different community centers in
Washington, D.C. told me that the divorce rate in Ethiopian immigrant families is quite high. They believed this trend had to do with the faster integration and emancipation amongst immigrant women.
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members back in Ethiopia quite regularly through telephone calls and frequently exchanged goods. They sent their families remittances and luxury items such as clothes, soaps, and shampoos; in return, they received spices, food ware, and traditional clothing. Across arrangements, migrant parents had visited Ethiopia at least once since their departure, and tried to go see their relatives in Ethiopia as often as possible. This shows that Ethiopian migrant parents in all three arrangements uphold strong transnational contact.
Last, the everyday acts of caregiving by grandparents did not differ much between the three arrangements. In both locations grandparents made sure their grandchildren get to school, feed them, clothe them, and look after their well being in general. In Ethiopia, both ‘left-behind’ and ‘sent’ children tended to stay in the house looked after by both the grandparents and servants. Children of school-going age all went to private schools.18 Thus, while the families in the different care arrangements do show strong differences in class background, the transnational contact has ensured a more or less equal lifestyle for the children.
These nuances provide an understanding of the specificities of the three arrangements as well as the commonalities between them. These commonalities allow for a broad definition of transnational care, which includes the caregiving instances that require temporary migration by family members. The fact that the three transnational care arrangements differ in important regards but are very similar in other areas, moreover illustrates the complexity of ‘transnational grandparenting’. The next three empirical chapters will help throw some light on this complexity by presenting my empirical work along broad themes. As there are more commonalities than differences between the three care arrangements, I will only highlight the specificities of a transnational care arrangement when applicable.
18 While there are many children in public schools whose parents live abroad, the majority of those parents stay
in nearby Arabcountries (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Dubai) as low-skilled workers. There was a general consensus that Ethiopian migrants from the U.S. and from Arabcountries differed in wealth and in status. As one woman explained: ‘If you have an education, you go to America. If you don’t, you can go to Arab countries.’
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4
Parents and their
Transnational Care Arrangements
Ethiopian American parents frequently portray themselves to be the decision-makers behind transnational care arrangements common in contemporary America. In this chapter I look at the prevalent motivations and hopes that are usually behind the decision to opt for different kinds of child care arrangements.
4.1 Motivations
Leaving children behind
Parents who had migrated to the U.S., especially those who had done so through the DV lottery, often reiterated how hard it was to move to a new country without any help. This assertion was also made by Getachew (34) and his wife Tsion (28), both hailing from Akaki, a low-income neighborhood on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. Getachew and Tsion got married in 2007, after which they set up their own small business. Life was tough with not much income coming in. By the time they were finally able to migrate to America through the DV lottery, Tsion was pregnant with twins. They did not know anybody in the U.S. then, so after deliberating for a while, Getachew and Tsion decided to leave the newborn babies with Tsion’s parents. Getachew explained how they had come to the decision:
Whenever you think of America, in the first place you think of like a big change in your life. So… You’ll throw [away] anything in your life to come here. Like you take it as the best chance ever. That’s why we sacrifice all those things. Like leave the kids, and the system already built up... You leave that, because you think that this is the best opportunity that came to your life.
Tsion and Getachew left when the twins were fifty days old, right after they were baptized. But the couple weren’t the only ones to feel that due to their lack of a social network and their unfamiliarity with the U.S. it would be better to bring the children a few years later.
year-old Solomon, who ‘got the DV’ in 2003, shared a similar story with me. As a bachelor, Solomon lived with roommates, sending all the money he could back home to his family. He met his wife Eden on a visit to Ethiopia. After Eden became pregnant, the couple considered the possibility of bringing Eden and the baby to the U.S. But they had no family in America to help them out, so they decided that it would be best to leave the little girl in Ethiopia until the school-going age of five. Solomon recalled:
The way I see [it], living in the U.S., especially at that time, was so difficult. Especially if there is nobody, to help you out. To show a way. Everything is on your own.
Solomon and Eden thus felt that there were too many issues to deal with. Eden coming to America meant finding a new place to stay – a costly investment. Moreover, living in America, both of them would have to work. Eden felt she did not want to migrate just to sit at home for the first few years, as she would have done in Ethiopia. She wanted to work and to contribute to the family, which would have been harder with a newborn at home.
The accounts above draw attention to the challenging transition phase migrants find themselves in right after they initially migrate. For some of the DV recipients hailing from large households, migrating ‘alone’ was quite intimidating. In addition to not having a lot of money available after they arrived, coming to the U.S. on their own meant a radical break from the way their way of life in Ethiopia, living as they did there with extended kin and within large communities. In light of such changes, migrants felt they simply not make it ‘on their own’, and believed it to be better to not bring their children until they had everything sorted out.
Bringing over the grandparents
It was not uncommon for Ethiopian parents in the U.S. to explain that they had migrated in order to seek a better life for themselves and for their children. Yet in order to afford life in America and to send their children to school, parents have to work very hard to make ends meet. A professional at the Ethiopian Development Center explained:
The parents came here to seek opportunities for their children, so they give priority to work hard, to save for college. Everybody works. So these people, they have to find a way, they have to pay someone to take care of their children.
In order to do so, many Ethiopian American families use day cares or hire so-called ‘live-in’ nannies: Ethiopian, often elderly nannies that live in the house for five days of the week and return home on the weekends. Others made use of an after-school nanny. Since live-in nannies can be expensive (around $1000 a month for one child), many working parents prefer to bring over the grandparents. The parents often argued that this arrangement not only helped them out tremendously in terms of finances, but that there were additional benefits to it as well.
Several parents, particularly mothers, expressed their gratitude when their parents arrived for their willingness to offer their ‘expertise’. Salome, whose parents came over for the birth of her first child, explained what she appreciated the most:
Because they already know it. They are more experienced. So it’s more comfortable for me to live with them, than for me raising him by myself.
Most other parents similarly emphasized their mothers’ ability to provide them with emotional support. Forty-five-year-old Zenaye, whose mother came over to assist her several times, argued that there was a big difference between having a nanny and having your mother around:
A nanny can help in the work a lot. You hire them; that’s their job. [But] with my mother… When I was pregnant, it was very scary, we had no experience. Back at that time, I needed my mother. Not anything else. You know the support, the advice… all that. She was like a rock for me, at that time.
When asked about the benefits of having your mother to help out instead of a nanny, Abaynesh, mother of three, replied in a similar vein:
First of all, your mother is your mother. She’s taking care of your children like her own. And for me, when your mom is home, it’s like… A very, very different thing. I’m fully happy, when I come home; I don’t worry about anything. I don’t have [to] come early, because she’s making a dinner, she gives it to them. It’s a different story, when you have a nanny and a mom… Because the nanny, she doesn’t do any extra [for the family].
For such mothers, having the grandparents ‒ and in particular the grandmothers ‒ around, thus assures them they don’t have to worry about anything in the house. It is a cheaper option than finding a nanny; as most grandmothers do not only assist with babysitting but help out with
