When women come first [[electronic resource] ] : gender and class in transnational migration / / Sheba Mariam George

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910450080503321
• Autore: George Sheba Mariam <1966->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2005
• ISBN: 9786612357978; 0-520-93835-6; 1-282-35797-2; 1-4175-9329-6; 1-59875-548-X
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (280 p.)
• Disciplina: 305.48/891411073
• Soggetti: Women, East Indian - United States - Social conditions; Women immigrants - United States - Social conditions; Women, East Indian - Employment - United States; Women foreign workers - Social aspects - United States; Nurses - United States - Social conditions; East Indians - United States - Social conditions; Sex role - United States; Man-woman relationships - United States; Man-woman relationships - India; Transnationalism; Electronic books.
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Introduction -- Women as primary immigrants and breadwinners -- Work -- Home -- Community -- Transnational connections -- Conclusion.
• Sommario/riassunto: With a subtle yet penetrating understanding of the intricate interplay of gender, race, and class, Sheba George examines an unusual immigration pattern to analyze what happens when women who migrate before men become the breadwinners in the family. Focusing ; on a group of female nurses who moved from India to the United States before their husbands, she shows that this story of economic mobility and professional achievement conceals underlying conditions of upheaval not only in the families and immigrant community but also in the sending community in India. This richly textured and impeccably researched study deftly illustrates the complex reconfigurations of gender and class relations concealed behind a quintessential American success story. When Women Come First explains how men who lost social status in the immigration process attempted to reclaim ground by creating new roles for themselves in their church. Ironically, they were stigmatized by other upper class immigrants as men who needed to "play in the church" because the "nurses were the bosses" in their homes. At the same time, the nurses were stigmatized as lower class, sexually loose women with too much independence. George's absorbing story of how these women and men negotiate this complicated network provides a groundbreaking perspective on the shifting interactions of two nations and two cultures.