Across Generations: Immigrant Families in America

6. Caregiving across Generations: Aging, State Assistance, and Multigenerational Ties among Immigrants from the Dominican Republic

135 6 Caregiving across Generations Aging, State Assistance, and Multigenerational Ties among Immigrants from the Dominican Republic Greta Gilbertson In this chapter I explore the nature of multigenerational relations among a group of Dominican immigrants in New York City. I examine some of the ways that multigenerational relationships are manifested in transnational contexts and how they change over the life course. In the analysis, I focus on “young old”1 grandparents’ relations with their foreign-born and U.S.born children and grandchildren over a period of more than ten years. A focus on aging immigrants is important because multigenerational bonds form a vital part of the immigrant’s social world. Most extant literature highlights the relationship between parents and children but ignores the important role played by grandparents, particularly grandmothers, in immigrant families. Some studies do address this issue: Wei Wei Da,2 for example, describes grandparents’ role in providing child care—in both home and host societies—among contemporary Chinese immigrants in Australia. Robert Smith3 argues that grandparents continue to play an important role in the transnational socialization of first and second generation Mexican children. Loretta Baldassar4 finds that the elderly are active members in transnational family networks. Even if grandparents are no longer key figures in the lives of their grandchildren—Dwaine Plaza,5 for example, argues that grandparents in Caribbean-origin families (from Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados) no longer 136 Greta Gilbertson play a central role in the lives of their British-born and -raised grandchildren due to the “enculturation to certain ‘British’ norms and values for the third generation of Caribbeans”—they often serve as a “latent network .” Latent networks provide support and well-being for younger family members.6 Dominican families are an ideal source for the study of intergenerational relations. Family and kinship ties are the most important basis of support and organization among Dominicans, both abroad and in the Dominican Republic. Grandparents are significant socializing agents in Dominican families. Moreover, grandparents may be an especially critical resource for the large and growing number of Dominicans in singleparent families in the United States.7 The study of the family life of low-skilled Dominican immigrants brings out how it has been structured by state policies, including those related to immigration and to social provisioning. A focus on aging immigrants is important because the elderly are more likely than those in other age groups to depend on the state and its institutions for services and sustenance.8 At the same time, aging immigrants may return to their origin societies, creating shifts in family and household arrangements and the authority structures and social practices of family life. Increasingly expensive housing and a rising cost of living may encourage return migration. Moreover, because many immigrants see their migration as centered on work, the transition away from or out of paid employment heightens questions of belonging and membership. Indeed, return migration resonates with dominant constructions of aging, that is, as a process characterized by economic, social, and physical decline9 and informed by discourses of “home” and the dangers of urban life linked to old age.10 The analysis of multigenerational relations in this chapter is framed by a transnational perspective. Dominican immigration is highly transnational , and the transnational nature of migration is reflected in accounts11 that document how families “operate across borders, through the regular circulation of goods, resources, individuals and information.”12 Indeed, as Baldassar points out, “family identities and kin relations can be maintained across time and distance and are not necessarily or completely determined by particular localities or by state borders.”13 This chapter also approaches multigenerational relations with attention to unpaid, informal caregiving. Caregiving is an important component of multigenerational relations; it often entails the care of a spouse, child, Caregiving across Generations 137 parent, or grandchild and refers to different forms of support, including emotional, companionship, and instrumental. In transnational families, relations are spread across space and caregiving takes place in multiple contexts. Caregiving is relevant when exploring the realm of grandparents , particularly grandmothers, because social and familial expectations construct it as women’s work.14 However, the nature and construction of caregiving is contested; multigenerational relations in a transnational context provide a fertile context to explore this dynamic. In the pages that follow, I draw upon long-term observation and interviews with more than sixty Dominican immigrant residents who are part of an extended family. Members of the Castillo (pseudonym...