Migration, ambiguous loss and rituals

Migration is an experience that does not belong solely to those who leave their native country. Among the protagonists affected by the “migratory saga” are those who stay, those who leave and those who come and go. One might also add the relatives who left earlier and who wait in the receiving country; and even the members of the receiving culture, who have to deal with the arrival of migrants. All together they form an interconnected system that looks more and more like a family “at a distance”. A migration narrative must necessarily attend to the complex interplay among all these actors as it unfolds in the present moment, rather than dwell only on who they were when the migrant left home.

For our purposes, the first issue to consider is that of stressful separations and joyful, though also stressful, reunions. They may involve leaving the older generations behind, and separations occurring at the very heart of the nuclear family: for example when the father leaves first and the mother reorganises as a single-parent family, or when it is the mother who leaves and the children remain in the care of substitute mothers, or again when one or more children leave to join their parents. Looking at this moving whole, one sees that it is not simply a single person or a single isolated family that migrates, but rather a large group which, though spread across several countries, maintains a regular and meaningful connection in various ways.

Defining “transnationalism”

Unlike the migrants of other eras, modern migrants can be thought of as “transnational” because they maintain multiple connections with their countries and families of origin, using modern communication technologies: telephone, electronic mail, remittances of money and of other goods.

In the register of human dilemmas and suffering, one sees that the problems or symptoms that follow emigration can appear in any of the family members, in any of the countries; and that they can arise at the moment of departure, later on, or at the moment of reunion between the separated members.

The modalities of migration have changed too. In the past, immigration to the United States in poor migrant families followed this pattern: the man left first and, once established, his wife and children joined him in the new country. This stepwise movement has been modified today, with the increase in work opportunities for women. A great many of them emigrate alone, leaving their children in their country of origin and being reunited with them years later.

If the hallmark of transnationalism is to live in two places and to extend and connect a vast social field, a typical example of transnationalism is the disconnection or connection between countries that is played out in the dyad of mother and separated children. The cost to family life can be very significant, and I shall come back to the risks and the resilience of these relationships at a distance; but it is first necessary to make some general comments on the implications of “transnationalism”, as opposed to the traditional concept of “migration”, for therapeutic work with migrant populations and their descendants.

Acculturation theory started from the assumption of eventual assimilation as the migrant’s goal in a pluralist society. Most therapists have judged the process to be linear. In reality, acculturation today is far more unpredictable.

In the case of those who arrive in the United States, the fact that fewer and fewer of them give up their language means that knowing English is no longer equivalent to becoming North American. “Transnationals” also keep themselves informed of what is happening in their own nations and return there as often as they can. They neither idealise nor disparage their countries as their grandparents did. They also take the United States back to their Latin American countries, importing new ideas and goods, sometimes to the detriment of their own populations (gangs, or maras, are one example).

Belonging to two cultures or being bilingual no longer depends on having lived for long years in a country, since language and values can appear and alternate according to context. There may be changes in the identity of the second generation as well, since generational conflict tends to diminish with the creation of a hybrid home, in which the parents are not defensive about their own culture and in which the children respect their parents’ native culture as it is represented in that family.

Separations

The conflict between the two parts of the family, and the symbolism as to where the child belonged, nationally and emotionally, were exaggerated by the fact that Cuban migrants in Miami cannot return to their country and therefore develop a great continuing pain, which makes them cling to the smallest piece of Cuba they can keep — in this instance a child. This historical and political division between the Little Havana of Miami and the real Havana undoubtedly amplifies this family dispute. Yet similar dilemmas about belonging appear, in less public or less dramatic ways, among the problems clinicians encounter in transnational families that separate and are reunited.

The migrants of former times often cut their family ties and gradually lost their language and their culture in the process of assimilation. Unlike them, the migrants of our time are called new migrants or “transmigrants”, since they are able to hold two languages and two national cultures. Their social and family contacts and their language often remain alive and go on evolving, sometimes for a whole lifetime. Yet transnational families are not identical to those that share their lives in situ. They constitute, in a sense, a new kind of family, one that poses theoretical as well as therapeutic challenges (Falicov, 2007).

The intention of this work is to open the debate on the risks and the capacity for resilience of this kind of relationship at a distance, as well as to suggest ways of conceptualising separations and reunions, particularly between mothers and children, that may be useful for prevention and for interventions. The comments will draw mainly on work with people who have emigrated for economic reasons to the western United States. Some generalisations may nonetheless apply to other contexts. Wherever possible, reference will be made to forced emigration, whether through wars or through political persecution, since these cases too involve the dispersal of families.

Reasons for separation

Let us look for a moment at the reasons why some parents separate from their children…