VDM Best-Cummings, C: The Long Goodbye

The migration of immigrants is a phenomenon experienced by most industrialized countries and their major cities. Due to changes in the 20th Century United States immigration laws, which allowed for immigration of unskilled and/or skilled workers in occupations where labor is in short supply, an increasingly large number of migrants to New York City have been African-Caribbean females. These women, often mothers, both unheralded and buffeted between the competing demands of their employees, immigration laws and their desire to stay connected to their children, have left their families in their country of origin in order to seek employment and better economic and educational opportunities in the United States. Understanding how these women cope with these competing demands and loyalties, and the impact on children of parental separation and serial migration can tell us much about the phenomenon of transnational parenting across the globe. Dr. Best-Cummings project analyzes transnational parenting within a particular subsection of African-Caribbean women, and pays attention to the structural, cultural and personal impact of this type of immigration.