Waiting On Washington: Central American Workers in the Nation's Capital

8. Conclusion

Eight Conclusion Somehow within a single generation, Washington, D.C., managed to attract entire villages, households, and extended families from EI Salvador and other Central American countries, to the point that it could claim the second largest Salvadoran community and the third largest settlement of Central Americans in the United States. In many ways this migration constitutes a departure from the labor migrations of other Latin Americans to the United State, and the Central American immigrants who chose to settle in Washington may be embraced as "new immigrants." 1 Their settlement patterns were profoundly influenced by the fact that women predominated in the initial phase of the migration, by the distinctive gender differences that emerged in labor force participation patterns, and through the assumption of transformed gender roles. A historical-structural framework was employed here to explain the origins and directionality of this Central American migration , along with certain facets of the labor market experiences of men and women. Labor recruitment theory also contributed to an understanding of the timing and composition of the migration . But since gendered labor recruitment was primarily responsible for determining the peculiar direction and gender composition of this particular migration, a focus on gender is essential in any analysis of the migration, settlement, and labor 178 Chapter Eight force participation patterns of recent Central American immigrants in the United States. Gender Factors in the Migration Process EI Salvador serves as a prime example of a country where the forces that propel or cause migrations cannot be separated and neatly compartmentalized as political or economic in nature. The most densely populated mainland country in the Western Hemisphere , EI Salvador was a battleground for access to land throughout the twentieth century as more and more land became concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer families. Earlier studies demonstrated that three-fourths of all emigrants from EI Salvador in the 1950s and 1960s came from the excluded population of landless or land-poor peoples, but no studies underlined the gender composition of these movements. To a large extent politicaleconomic transformations-for example, the concentration of land in the hands of wealthy families and the increasing polarization , political repression, and violence in the societies-were occurring simultaneously in Guatemala, in Nicaragua, and (to a lesser extent) in Honduras. In all of these Central American countries , people migrated in response to economic dislocations and changes in the world economy and as a result of war and political persecution. Women have predominated in migrations from rural to urban areas throughout most of Latin America for a number of years. But beginning in the 1960s Central American women pioneered and dominated the early labor migration to a distant city in the United States-that is, to Washington, D.C. Structural links between the United States and the Central American countries had expanded rapidly since the early 1960s on account of U.S. business , government, and cultural influences. Potential emigrants in Central American countries increasingly were made aware of conditions in the United States through burgeoning communica- Conclusion 179 tion links (e.g., through radio and television, through consumer goods, and through the medium of social networks). When landless and land-poor peasants who were leaving El Salvador (and other Central American countries) were joined by students and teachers, by workers without jobs, by individuals who were persecuted or targeted for assassination, and by apolitical people who were caught between warring factions, many already had information about or close ties with cities in the United States because of the women who had migrated earlier for work. The structural conditions that generate emigration from certain countries tend to be gender-specific, especially when linked with cultural norms and ideologies in both sending and receiving countries. In the case of El Salvador, these gender-based structural conditions had a profound impact on women: the nonexistence of paid work for women in rural areas; family traditions of encouraging daughters to depart; low marriage rates along with high rates of female-headed households; the not uncommon pattern where men may have multiple partners and may be linked loosely to several households; and the availability of domestic-service jobs in cities that attracted women with few employment opportunities in rural areas. Similarly, characteristics of labor markets in certain receiving cities may hold more allure for women than for men among those who wish to emigrate. Cultural norms also determine whether women or men are preferred...