Abstract
In this paper, I describe an embodied form of emotional distress expressed by Nicaraguan grandmothers caring for children of migrant mothers, “pensando mucho” (“thinking too much”). I draw on ethnographic fieldwork and semi-structured exploratory interviews about pensando mucho conducted with grandmother heads-of-household to show the cultural significance of this complaint within the context of women’s social roles as caregivers in transnational families. Adopting an interpretive and meaning-centered approach, I analyze the cultural significance of pensando mucho as expressed through women’s narratives about the impacts of mother outmigration on their personal and family lives. I show how women use pensando mucho to express the moral ambivalence of economic remittances and the uncertainty surrounding migration, particularly given cultural values for “unity” and “solidarity” in Nicaraguan family life. I also discuss the relationship between pensando mucho and dolor de cerebro (“brainache”) as a way of documenting the relationship between body/mind, emotional distress, and somatic suffering. The findings presented here suggest that further research on “thinking too much” is needed to assess whether this idiom is used by women of the grandmother generation in other cultural contexts to express embodied distress in relation to broader social transformations.
Resumen en Español
En este ensayo, describo una forma de aflicción corporeal e emocional expresada por las abuelas Nicaragüenses quienes cuidan hijo/as de madres migrantes, “pensando mucho”. Planteo mi analisis sobre datos etnográficos y entrevistas semi-estructuradas y exploratorias enfocadas en pensando mucho llevado a cabo con abuelas jefas de hogar para mostrar el significado cultural de esta queja de aflicción adentro del contexto de los papeles sociales de estas mujeres como cuidadoras en familias transnacionales. Adoptando un enfoque interpretativo y centrando en el significado de las quejas de aflicción expresadas, analizo pensando mucho como es expresado en las historias narrativas de las abuelas-cuidadoras sobre los impactos de la emigración maternal en sus vidas individuales y familares. Demuestro como las abuelas-cuidadoras utilizan pensando mucho para expresar la ambivalencia moral de las remesas económicas y el incertidumbre detrás de la migración, en particular dado los valores culturales para la “unidad” y “solidaridad” en la vida familiar Nicaragüense. Además, describo la relación entre pensando mucho y el dolor de cerebro, como una manera de documentar la relación entre cuerpo/mente, aflicción emocional, y sufrimiento corporal. Los hallazgos aquí presentados llaman la atención a la necesidad por más investigación sobre “pensando mucho” para determinar sí esta aflicción está expresada por mujeres de la tercera edad en otros contextos culturales para indicar su relación con transformaciones sociales.
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Notes
This research was approved by the UCLA Institutional Review Board, IRB# G09-04-043-01.
This does not mean that father migration is insignificant, however, given gender roles in Nicaragua and cultural expectations for mothers, mother migration has particular emotional impacts on children and their caregivers in sending communities.
The cultural ideals of women’s sacrifice for the sake of their families are reflected and reinforced by a general reverence for the Virgin Mary in Nicaragua and witnessed in unique cultural holidays such as “La Gritería,” which celebrate Mary’s role as mother of God and of Nicaragua. During this annual December holiday, people go door-to-door in groups to pay homage to the Virgin Mary through the presentation of ceremonial altars and the distribution of small gifts such as sugarcane and candy. After visiting a house, a group commonly shouts “María de Nicaragua y Nicaragua de María” (Mary of Nicaragua and Nicaragua of Mary).
The modal length of mother migration among families in this study is between 1 and 3 years, with nine migrant mothers having left Nicaragua between 1 and 3 years prior to this research (of course, migration continues past the period of this research and so these figures capture a glimpse of the ongoing duration of migration). Five mothers migrated within 1 year, three mothers had been gone for over 10 years (two for 10 years and one for 12 years), and two mothers had migrated between 5 and 7 years of the study.
For a fuller discussion of the ways children perceive the duration of their mothers’ migration and experience return visits, see Yarris (2014).
Three of the five interviews with migrant mothers were conducted on occasion of their return visits to Nicaragua. I also interviewed two migrant mothers outside of Nicaragua: one interview was conducted via Skype with a mother living in Miami, Florida, and another interview was conducted with a mother migrant who I visited in Panama City, Panamá.
That all the families of migrant mothers in this study send their children to private school is significant, for it reflects the principal aim of mother migration; in the words of migrant mother Azucena, to “give my children opportunities that I myself did not have.” Private grade schools in Nicaragua are often run by church-affiliated groups and are located throughout the poor and working class neighborhoods where families in this study live. Tuition in these schools is reasonable—averaging around $20 (USD) per month per child; however, even this small fee is out of reach for most Nicaraguan families.
In the interview exchanges excerpted here, the symbol = indicates overlapping speech. I have also left certain key phrases in Spanish so as to allow access to their original meaning and make transparent my translations into English.
This negative economic impact is exacerbated in cases when mothers worked and provided significant support to household economies pre-migration; as is the case of Jimena (Olga’s daughter) and other migrant mothers in this study.
Here, Juana uses the phrase, “Entre la espada y la pared”, which literally translates as “Between the sword and the wall” but can be idiomatically translated as “Between a rock and a hard place”.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the organizers and participants of the 2013 Cascadia Seminar in Medical Anthropology for the opportunity to workshop an earlier version of this article in that venue. Special thanks to Ana Paula Pimentel Walker for her helpful comments in the development of this article and to Heather Wolford for her assistance with manuscript preparation. The research upon which this article is based was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Fulbright Institute for International Education. Heartfelt gratitude to all the women and families who participated in the research and to Cándida Gómez Suárez and Karen González for their ongoing compañerismo in Nicaragua.
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Yarris, K.E. “Pensando Mucho” (“Thinking Too Much”): Embodied Distress Among Grandmothers in Nicaraguan Transnational Families. Cult Med Psychiatry 38, 473–498 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-014-9381-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-014-9381-z