Domesticity, Motherhood, and Transnational Reproductive Work in Contemporary Latin American Immigration to Spain

Abstract

While marriages between Spaniards and foreigners have generally increased, most of these marriages comprise Spanish men. From these weddings of Spanish men and foreign women, a clear majority chooses Latin American brides. Latin American female immigrants also overwhelmingly choose to marry Spanish men: 68 of Latin American women who married in 2005 married Spanish men. Latin American immigrant women are noticeably taking on reproductive roles in Spain, as domestic workers, sexual partners, mothers, and wives. How do these dynamics of domesticity, sexuality, and transatlantic reproduction play out? This chapter engages some of the films produced in the late 1990s and early 2000s that address twenty-first century female Latin American immigration to Spain and analyses the imaginary structures at play. These films are more expressions of Spaniards' neocolonial anxieties and fantasies than accurate portraits or denunciations of the social realities of Latin American female immigrants' lives. Keywords: domesticity; Latin American female immigrants; neocolonial anxieties; sexuality; Spain; transatlantic reproduction