Valerie Francisco-Menchavez – författare

For generations, migration moved in one direction at a time: migrants to host countries, and money to families left behind. The Labor of Care argues that globalization has changed all that. Valerie Francisco-Menchavez spent five years alongside a group of working migrant mothers. Drawing on interviews and up-close collaboration with these women, Francisco-Menchavez looks at the sacrifices, emotional and material consequences, and recasting of roles that emerge from family separation. She pays particular attention to how technologies like Facebook, Skype, and recorded video open up transformative ways of bridging distances while still supporting traditional family dynamics. As she shows, migrants also build communities of care in their host countries. These chosen families provide an essential form of mutual support. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of today's transnational family—sundered, yet inexorably linked over the distances by timeless emotions and new forms of intimacy.

For generations, migration moved in one direction at a time: migrants to host countries, and money to families left behind. The Labor of Care argues that globalization has changed all that. Valerie Francisco-Menchavez spent five years alongside a group of working migrant mothers. Drawing on interviews and up-close collaboration with these women, Francisco-Menchavez looks at the sacrifices, emotional and material consequences, and recasting of roles that emerge from family separation. She pays particular attention to how technologies like Facebook, Skype, and recorded video open up transformative ways of bridging distances while still supporting traditional family dynamics. As she shows, migrants also build communities of care in their host countries. These chosen families provide an essential form of mutual support. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of today''s transnational family—sundered, yet inexorably linked over the distances by timeless emotions and new forms of intimacy.

For generations, migration moved in one direction at a time: migrants to host countries, and money to families left behind. The Labor of Care argues that globalization has changed all that. Valerie Francisco-Menchavez spent five years alongside a group of working migrant mothers. Drawing on interviews and up-close collaboration with these women, Francisco-Menchavez looks at the sacrifices, emotional and material consequences, and recasting of roles that emerge from family separation. She pays particular attention to how technologies like Facebook, Skype, and recorded video open up transformative ways of bridging distances while still supporting traditional family dynamics. As she shows, migrants also build communities of care in their host countries. These chosen families provide an essential form of mutual support. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of today's transnational family—sundered, yet inexorably linked over the distances by timeless emotions and new forms of intimacy.

A transformative look at the lives of Filipina care workers and their mutual aid practicesMigrant workers have long been called upon to sacrifice their own health to provide care in facilities and private homes throughout the United States. What draws them to such exploitative, low-wage work, and how do they care for themselves? In Caring for Caregivers, Valerie Francisco-Menchavez centers the perspectives of Filipino caregivers in the San Francisco Bay Area from 2013 to 2021, illuminating their transnational experiences and their strategies and practices to help each other navigate the crumbling US health-care system.These caregivers routinely endure arduous labor conditions, exhaustion, depression, anxiety, abuse, chronic injuries, and illness—and the COVID-19 pandemic pushed them further to the frontlines of care and risk. Despite this, they found ways to forge bonds and build networks that provided material and emotional support. Drawing on surveys, individual interviews, and caregivers’ stories as told through kuwentuhan, a Philippine cultural practice of collective storytelling, this book offers an intimate examination of intergenerational care work in the Filipino American community.

A transformative look at the lives of Filipina care workers and their mutual aid practicesMigrant workers have long been called upon to sacrifice their own health to provide care in facilities and private homes throughout the United States. What draws them to such exploitative, low-wage work, and how do they care for themselves? In Caring for Caregivers, Valerie Francisco-Menchavez centers the perspectives of Filipino caregivers in the San Francisco Bay Area from 2013 to 2021, illuminating their transnational experiences and their strategies and practices to help each other navigate the crumbling US health-care system.These caregivers routinely endure arduous labor conditions, exhaustion, depression, anxiety, abuse, chronic injuries, and illness—and the COVID-19 pandemic pushed them further to the frontlines of care and risk. Despite this, they found ways to forge bonds and build networks that provided material and emotional support. Drawing on surveys, individual interviews, and caregivers’ stories as told through kuwentuhan, a Philippine cultural practice of collective storytelling, this book offers an intimate examination of intergenerational care work in the Filipino American community.

This interdisciplinary edited volume for scholars of migration, transnationalism and care provides a unique, praxis-informed perspective on the often-unrecognised labour of care given and received between migrants. Organised under the concept of “Communities of Care in Migration”, this book explores local and transnational relationships and practices of care as collectively produced and enacted in the lives of migrants in diverse contexts, including the USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Asia, Europe, and online. Leading and emerging scholars, community organisers and practitioners in migrant-focused NGOs from across the world draw on a range of methodological techniques, including qualitative interviews, ethnography, policy analysis, participatory action research and content analysis, to offer a fresh look on migration in action.