“Me Cuesta Mucho”: Latina immigrant mothers navigating remote learning and caregiving during COVID-19

Abstract

Before the pandemic, immigrant mothers from Latin America in the United States typically shouldered the weight of caregiving for children, maintained jobs, and managed transnational care responsibilities. But as COVID-19 erupted across the globe, the combination of gendered roles and a collapsing economy ruptured the already fragile arrangement of childcare and paid labor for Latina immigrant mothers. In this article, I examine how school closures intersected with Latina women's identities and social positions as immigrant mothers who suddenly confronted job loss, illness, and increased familial responsibilities. I show how Latina immigrant women renegotiated relationships to schooling, becoming teachers overnight in an unfamiliar system. Mothers shifted educational aspirations for their children to prioritize safety, as they managed increased stress and conflict while schools remained remote. I demonstrate how the breakdowns in care infrastructure forced mothers to rethink the elusive balance between paid labor and childcare, especially for those who were undocumented. Throughout, I explore how immigrant women's intersecting identities left them vulnerable to structural racism and exclusionary immigration policies. Despite the multiple layers of struggle, women continued to support their children's education and socio-emotional well-being, even in the face of multiple levels of gendered, racialized inequalities.