Alienated Outcasts: Nullified Motherhood, Uncertain Citizenship and Family Separation at the US–Canadian Borderlands in the 1930s

Abstract

This article uses deportation case files of the so-called ‘immoral classes’ from 1936 to 1944 to consider the ways that the deportation process was structured around the gendered and ritualised management of emotions. Every deportation hinged on proving that the women were not US citizens; consequently, these cases demonstrate the ongoing gendered nature of women's citizenship. Rejecting women's derivative citizenship and eliciting self-incriminating statements formed the emotional labour of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service agents committed to the operation of the deportation machine. Alienation required nullifying deportees’ motherhood and resulted in separating them from the children.