In search of legal stability: predicaments of asylum-seeking mothers in Berlin

COVID-19 and decreased asylum access: mother work, precarity and preocupación among Central American asylum-seekers in Los Angeles

“…In line with the argument made by Suerbaum ( Forthcoming ), the intersectional precarities that Central American asylum-seeking mothers like Karla and Maria Jesus were navigating created situations in which their children became aware of their mothers’ preocupación, which subsequently led to the children displaying fear, worry, and concern for their mothers. As noted by Ayón et al ( 2018 ), the impact that restrictive U.S. policies and racialized discrimination have on migrant mothers directly impacts their children by “trickling down” through their hindered capacity to parent or be emotionally available to their children ( 2018 , 880, 886), and putting the children’s wellbeing at risk by introducing fear into their lives (Philbin and Ayon 2016 ).…”

“…Their desire to hide their preocupación from their children appeared to be a means in which to limit the burdens they felt their children faced as asylum-seeking migrants, and a way to hide the unpredictable impact that their legal precarity had on aspects of their everyday lives: their health, income, and future capacity to become documented. While this type of asylum-seeker mother work has been discussed by Philbin and Ayon ( 2016 ) and Suerbaum ( Forthcoming ), I would argue that this effort to protect their children was even more emotionally difficult for Central American asylum-seeking mothers in Los Angeles during the pandemic because of the heightened intersectional precarities caused by COVID-19, structural racism and their legal precarity, which together made hiding their preocupación from their children almost impossible.…”

“…As noted by Ayón et al ( 2018 ), the impact that restrictive U.S. policies and racialized discrimination have on migrant mothers directly impacts their children by “trickling down” through their hindered capacity to parent or be emotionally available to their children ( 2018 , 880, 886), and putting the children’s wellbeing at risk by introducing fear into their lives (Philbin and Ayon 2016 ). This has been shown to specifically impact refugee and asylee families by creating a feedback loop of emotional responsibility between mothers and children, which causes further distress for mothers as they see their children struggle under the burden of legal precarity (Suerbaum Forthcoming ).…”

Geschlecht als Erfahrung

“…Her fieldwork spanned her pregnancy, was on hold during her parental leave, and was resumed when her daughter, who occasionally accompanied her to fieldwork meetings, was ten months old. Magdalena's transition into motherhood sensitized her for various new research topics, such as the embodied experience of legal precarity (Suerbaum 2023a) or the challenges of mothering during displacement (Suerbaum 2023b(Suerbaum , 2022. Furthermore, being an (expectant) mother while conducting ethnographic research significantly affected Magdalena's encounters with her interlocutors.…”