Complementing the research on immigrants’ exclusion from most U.S. service institutions as well as their “bureaucratic incorporation,” this study examines how and why immigrants’ negotiations with informal barriers vary across institutional contexts. Drawing on 25 in-depth interviews, I compare low-income, monolingual Mexican immigrant mothers’ caretaking experiences across two settings: at schools and in health care facilities. My analysis suggests that different institutional settings place different demands for cultural capital on these women while offering varying opportunities for their usage of “motherhood capital,” resulting in diverse patterns of institutional negotiations. These mothers’ interactions with school personnel feature the experiences of “emergent alliance.” When advocating for their children at healthcare facilities, they report a mixture of “successful confrontations” and “blocked negotiations.” These findings contribute to discussions of immigrant inclusion/exclusion. More broadly speaking, by developing the concept of motherhood capital, the study dialogues with the literatures on cultural capital and political mothering.
AltschulInna. 2011. “Parental Involvement and the Academic Achievement of Mexican American Youths: What Kinds of Involvement in Youths’ Education Matter Most?”Social Work Research35(3):159–70.
2.
AnspachRenée R.1993. Deciding Who Lives: Fateful Choices in the Intensive-care Nursery. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
3.
BeggsJohn J.1995. “The Institutional Environment: Implications for Race and Gender Inequality in the U.S. Labor Market.” American Sociological Review60(4):612–33.
4.
BitlerMarianneHoynesHilary W.2011. “Immigrants, Welfare Reform, and the U.S. Safety Net.” NBER Working Paper No. 17667 JEL No. I3, I38. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.
5.
BloemraadIrene. 2006. “Becoming a Citizen in the United States and Canada: Structured Mobilization and Immigrant Political Incorporation.” Social Forces85(2):667–95.
6.
BourdieuPierre. 1986. “The Forms of Capital.” Pp. 241–58 in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by RichardsonJohn G.New York: Greenwood.
7.
BourdieuPierre. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
8.
BourdieuPierreWacquantLoic. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
BürknerHans-Joachim. 2012. “Intersectionality: How Gender Studies Might Inspire the Analysis of Social Inequality among Migrants.” Population, Space and Place18(2):181–95.
11.
California Department of Education, Educational Demographics Unit. 2015. “California Public School Enrollment—District Report.” Retrieved June26, 2015 (http://dq.cde.ca.gov).
12.
CarterPrudence L.2003. “‘Black’ Cultural Capital, Status Positioning, and Schooling Conflicts for Low-income African American Youth.” Social Problems50(1):136–55.
13.
CensusScope. 2015. “Social Science Data Analysis Network, University of Michigan.” Retrieved February 2, 2015 (www.ssdan.net).
14.
ClemensElisabeth S.CookJames M.1999. “Politics and Institutionalism: Explaining Durability and Change.” Annual Review of Sociology25:441–66.
15.
CollinsPatricia Hill. 1998. “It’s All in the Family: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Nation.” Hypatia13(3):62–82.
16.
Edmonds-CadyCynthia. 2009. “Mobilizing Motherhood: Race, Class, and the Uses of Maternalism in the Welfare Rights Movement.” Women’s Studies Quarterly37(3/4):206–22.
17.
EpsteinJoyce. 2011. School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Preparing Educators and Improving Schools. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
18.
EricksonBonnie H.1996. “Culture, Class, and Connections.” American Journal of Sociology102(1):217–51.
19.
FixMichael E., ed. 2009. Immigrants and Welfare: The Impact of Welfare Reform on America’s Newcomers. New York: Russell Sage.
20.
FolbreNancy, ed. 2012. For Love and Money: Care Provision in the United States. New York: Russell Sage.
21.
FoxC.2004. “The Changing Color of Welfare? How Whites’ Attitudes toward Latinos Influence Support for Welfare.” American Journal of Sociology110(3):580–625.
22.
FriedlandRogerAlfordRobert R.1993. “Bringing Society Back In: Symbols, Practice, and Institutional Contradictions.” Pp. 232–63 in The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, edited by PowellWalter W.DiMaggioPaul J.Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
23.
FuentesEmma. 2013. “Political Mothering: Latina and African American Mothers in the Struggle for Educational Justice.” Anthropology & Education Quarterly44(3):304–19.
24.
GlaserBarney G.StraussAnselm L.1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
25.
Health Resources and Services Administration. 2008. “The Registered Nurse Population: Findings from the 2008 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses.” Bureau of Health Professions, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved June 26, 2015 (http://bhpr.hrsa.gov/healthworkforce/reports/physwfissues.pdf).
26.
HerreraGioconda. 2013. “Gender and International Migration: Contributions and Cross-fertilizations.” Annual Review of Sociology39:471–89.
27.
HirschPaul M.1997. “Sociology without Social Structure: Neo-institutional Theory Meets Brave New World.” American Journal of Sociology102(6):1702–23.
28.
HortonSarah. 2004. “Different Subjects: The Health Care System’s Participation in the Differential Construction of the Cultural Citizenship of Cuban Refugees and Mexican Immigrants.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly18(4):472–89.
29.
HuppatzKate. 2009. “Reworking Bourdieu’s ‘Capital’: Feminine and Female Capitals in the Field of Paid Caring Work.” Sociology43(1):45–66.
30.
Jones-CorreaMichael. 2008. “Race to the Top? The Politics of Immigrant Education in Suburbia.” Pp. 308–40 in New Faces in New Places: The Changing Geography of American Immigration, edited by MasseyDouglas S.New York: Russell Sage.
31.
LareauAnnette. 2002. “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families.” American Sociological Review67:747–76.
32.
LareauAnnette. 2011. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
33.
LewisPaul G.RamakrishnanS. Karthick. 2007. “Police Practices in Immigrant-destination Cities: Political Control or Bureaucratic Professionalism?” Urban Affairs Review42(6):874–900.
34.
LipskyMichael. 1980. Street-level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage.
35.
LoMing-Cheng M. 2015. “Conceptualizing ‘Unrecognized Cultural Currency’: Bourdieu and Everyday Resistance among the Dominated.” Theory and Society44(2):125–152.
36.
LoMing-Cheng M.BaharRoxana. 2013. “Resisting the Colonization of the Lifeworld? Immigrant Patients’ Experiences with Co-ethnic Healthcare Workers.” Social Science & Medicine87:68–76.
37.
LoMing-Cheng M.StaceyClare L.2008. “Beyond Cultural Competency: Bourdieu, Patients, and Clinical Encounters.” Sociology of Health and Illness30(5):741–55.
38.
LópezLinda C.SánchezVirginia V.HamiltonMinami. 2000. “Immigrant and Native-born Mexican-American Parents’ Involvement in a Public School: A Preliminary Study.” Psychological Reports86(2):521–5.
39.
LuptonDeborah. 1997. “Consumerism, Reflexivity and the Medical Encounter.” Social Science & Medicine45:373–81.
40.
MarrowHelen B.2009. “Immigrant Bureaucratic Incorporation: The Dual Roles of Professional Missions and Government Policies.” American Sociological Review74(5):756–76.
41.
MarrowHelen B.2011. New Destination Dreaming: Immigration, Race, and Legal Status in the Rural American South. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
42.
MarrowHelen B.2012. “Deserving to a Point: Unauthorized Immigrants in San Francisco’s Universal Access Healthcare Model.” Social Science & Medicine74(6):846–54.
43.
MarshallThomas H.1964. “Citizenship and Social Class.” Pp. 65–122 in Class, Citizenship, and Social Development, edited by MarshallThomas H.Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
44.
MeierKenneth J.JuenkeEric GonzalezWrinkleRobert D.PolinardJ. L.2005. “Structural Choices and Representational Biases: The Post-election Color of Representation.” American Journal of Political Science49(4):758–68.
45.
NaplesNancy A.1998. Grassroots Warriors: Activist Mothering, Community Work, and the War on Poverty. New York: Routledge.
46.
National Center for Education Statistics. 2015. “Number and Percentage of All Schools that Had any Students with an Individual Education Plan (IEP) or Who Were Limited-English Proficient (LEP) and Percentage of Students with an IEP or Who Were LEP, by School Type and Selected School Characteristics: 2007–08.” Retrieved June 26, 2015 (https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass).
47.
OchoaGilda. 2007. Learning from Latino Teachers. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
48.
PardoMary. 1990. “Mexican American Women Grassroots Community Activists: ‘Mothers of East Los Angeles.’”Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies11(1):1–7.
49.
PortesAlejandroFernández-KellyPatriciaHallerWilliam. 2005. “Segmented Assimilation on the Ground: The New Second Generation in Early Adulthood.” Ethnic and Racial Studies28(6):1000–40.
50.
PowellWalter W.DiMaggioPaul J. eds. 1991. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
51.
ReeseEllenRamirezElviaEstrada-CorreaVanesa. 2013. “The Politics of Welfare Inclusion: Explaining State Variation in Legal Immigrants’ Welfare Rights.” Sociological Perspectives56(1):97–130.
52.
RumbautRubén G.CorneliusWayne A.1995. California’s Immigrant Children: Theory, Research, and Implications for Educational Policy. San Diego, CA: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California.
53.
ShimJanet K.2010. “Cultural Health Capital: A Theoretical Approach to Understanding Health Care Interactions and the Dynamics of Unequal Treatment.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior51:1–15.
54.
SkeggsBeverley. 1997. Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable. London, England: Sage Publications.
55.
SmedlyBrian D.StithAdrienne Y.NelsonAlan R.2003. Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
56.
StaceyClare L.2011. The Caring Self: The Work Experiences of Home Care Aides. Ithaca, NY: ILR/Cornell University Press.
57.
TaylorDiana. 1997. Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina’s “Dirty War.”Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
United States Census Bureau’s American Community Survey Office. 2006. American Community Survey. Retrieved February2, 2015 (http://factfinder2.census.gov).
60.
ValdesGuadalupe. 1996. Con Respeto: Bridging the Distances between Culturally Diverse Families and Schools. New York: Teachers College Press.
61.
ValenzuelaAngela. 1999. Subtractive Schooling: U.S. Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring. Albany, NY: State University of New York.
62.
van RynMichelleBurkeJane. 2000. “The Effect of Patient Race and Socio-economic Status on Physicians’ Perceptions of Patients.” Social Science & Medicine50:813–28.
63.
WarnerDavid C.2012. “Access to Health Services for Immigrants in the USA: From the Great Society to the 2010 Health Reform Act and After.” Ethnic and Racial Studies35(1):40–55.
64.
ZuckerLynne G.1987. “Institutional Theories of Organization.” Annual Review of Sociology13:443–64.
