Intersectional recognition: immigrant motherhood in a gentrifying sanctuary city’s schools

Abstract

ABSTRACT Prior research documents the gendered inequalities Latina immigrants confront as they negotiate the realities of life in the United States, a hostile national context for immigrants. In response to these dynamics, this paper examines how Latina immigrant mothers negotiate their intersectional identities as mothers and immigrants within the contexts of a gentrifying sanctuary city and its schools and an anti-immigrant federal environment. Drawing on three years of participant-observation and 87 interviews with 40 Latina immigrant women, I argue that these women use the school district’s programmes as spaces to recognise and affirm their motherhood and immigranthood and mediate the impact of illegality through a process I conceptualise as intersectional recognition. The dynamics of intersectional recognition, and the gendered solidarity and advocacy it produces, are facilitated in part because the city situates itself as a welcoming place. Yet immigrant women abut the limits of this intersectional recognition and solidarity in the face of constrained socio-economic mobility, restrictive immigration policies and rising housing costs. This research sheds new light on how women navigate their intersectional identities as immigrants and mothers and the mechanisms that support and inhibit Latina immigrant women’s inclusion in their communities.