The Obligation of Girlhood: Gendered Migration's Influence on Women

The Obligation of Girlhood

Gendered Migration's Influence on Women

Jihoon Kim, Patrick Manning, Marley McDonald, & Sujana Vangala

Introduction

The Boat by Nam Le tells the story of Mai, a woman who has left her home and finds herself migrating to a new home by boat. It is on this boat she meets a young boy named Truong and his mother Quyen, and helps share in the burden of caring for a sick child.

Index

Introduction

Global Context

Local Context

Community & Caregiving Roles

Sacrifice

Conclusion

Inspiration

This story, although fictional, is able to develop a relationship between a woman and a child who is not her own during a migrant journey, as there is no one else steps into this caregiving role.

Motivation

In conditions where people of all ages and walks of life find themselves fleeing conflict in their home countries, women often take care of those in need– whether it be children, the elderly, or the sick. Our project plans to take the stories of these women to prove how deep these matriarchal standards are embedded into our society.

Global Context

UN Women, Care International UK

Background & Statistics

The issue of women refugees and migrants is a pressing global issue with millions of people seeking a better life to flee danger and harm. Women make up about half of the 244 million migrants and 19.6 million refugees worldwide (UN Women).

20%

20

years

Local Context

The UN Refugee Agency

Refugees in Atlanta

There are a significant number of refugees in our community, and as fellow members of the Atlanta community, it is our responsibility to share our neighbors’ stories and draw attention to the continuing struggles of potential future members of our community

These stories of migrant and refugee women are not just those of thousands of miles away, but also those a couple minutes from us.

10% of metro Atlanta’s population have international roots (UNHCR).

63,000 of them are refugees.

Since 1970, the city has also been one of the top ten most welcoming cities to refugees, “resettling approximately 2,500-3,500 refugees each year” (UNHCR).

Community & Caregiving Roles

Fatimah Asghar

This proves that regardless of the circumstances, children need to be taken care of so if and when they survive this, they can then continue the stories of those before them.

"If They Should Come For Us"

If They Should Come For Us by Fatimah Asghar is a poem about the community that comes from a traumatic event such as being a child refugee, which the author is, and the importance of that community to child development.

Read Our Interpretation

Motifs & Ideas

Imagery

Diction

Female Leadership

Examples of the types of people that she has met on the streets, stores, or airports and emphasizes how these people are all similar with their own difficult immigration journeys, which bonds them through their experience (Asghar).

The author continuously references “her people” throughout the text and how they need each other even if they are unaware of this. Her people and everyone’s people are those we interact with on a daily basis.

The importance of mothers and strong female leaders in every community. It also hits on the idea of the challenges these refugee mothers face as taking care of children and figuring out how to live in a new home is not an easy task.

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Sacrifice

Dorothea Lange, Warsan Shire

Migrant Mother

This photograph features a Depression-era young migrant mother who gives up everything in the face of poverty in order to effectively provide for her children, and nurture them in the best way that she can afford to.

Learn About the Photographer

Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange was born in the late 19th century in New Jersey, and from an early age she was faced with both polio and her parents’ divorce. In 1919, Lange moved all around the country and used her photography skills to set up a photo studio. After a failed marriage, Lange remarried and became a government photographer to document the struggles of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl era. As part of this program, she gave a voice to the poor and forgotten, drawing the sympathy of the American public and calling for aid and relief to be provided.

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The narrator explains the arduous journey that migrants undergo in trying to leave their homes– describing the all too familiar boats, trains, and trucks present in other refugee narratives.

"Home"

The poem describes how the speaker’s country is being taken over by bloodthirsty men, and they have no choice but to leave the place they are currently living in. The narrator describes acts of sexual violence enacted upon them by older men and the prison guard. The poem also includes the names that refugees are called because of their condition, though they are just people aiming to find better lives for themselves and their children outside of the realm of violence.

Read Our Interpretation

Motifs & Ideas

Perspective

Desperation

Imagery

It includes imagery of leaving one's home, at the same time as it shows the emotional dilemma of leaving and the struggles that come with it, especially its impacts on mothers,

Seamlessly integrates the sexual violence that women face, acknowledging the increased fear placed on women because of their gender.

The refugees are entirely helpless in this situation, and they would not endure the circumstances of running and leaving were it not the only option available to them.

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"you have to understandthat no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land"

-(Shire 23-25).

Conclusion

Due to the fatal reality of refugee crises, the family structure that has risen from it is not traditional, but it is a means of survival that has kept the bloodlines and heritage of countless families alive through their children. The stories of these women and the children they nurture deserve and must be told so that they are not lost in the sea of devastating refugee stories that are never truly remembered.

Thank you!

Fatimah Asghar

Author Background

The author, Fatimah Asghar, is a thirty-three year old South-Asian American Muslim poet, fiction writer, and filmmaker. She is originally from the United States and now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her mother was from Jammu and Kashmir but fled to Pakistan during Partition related violence. There she met Fatimah's father and they immigrated to the United States and had Fatimah. They had both died when she was five which left her as an orphan.

"On Her Own"

"On Her Own" is a visual report released by the British charity organization Care International and provides an account on Syrian refugee women displaced from the Syrian Civil War, highlighting their increasing role of serving as the heads of households in the absence of their husbands. Find out more by clicking the image.

Warsan Shire

Author Background

Born in 1988 Kenya, Somali-British writer Warsan Shire is known for her poetry and art with themes centering around womanhood and immigration. Her most notable works are Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth (poetry collection) and Her Blue Body (limited-release pamphlet) which were in addition to her work with Beyonce on Lemonade and Black Is King. Shire aims to tell the stories of voices that are not heard often, like those of refugees or marginalized groups of people like people of color, queer people, and women.

"Women Refugees & Migrants"

The article talks of some of the unique risks women take on this journey such as exploitation, family separation, psychosocial stress, and gender-based violence. Find more statistics about gendered migration by clicking on the image.

"Five Things to Know About Refugees in Atlanta"

This website from the UN Refugee Agency investigates the migrant situation in Atlanta and its suburbs and details the history and impact they have made in the Atlanta community. Find more facts and statistics by clicking the image.