| Reviews / Comptes Rendus | Labour/Le Travail, 58

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Sheba Marian George, When Women Come First: Gender and Class in Transnational Migration (Berkeley: University of California Press 2005)

BASED ON ethnographic research for Sheba George's PhD dissertation, this book explores a key question in migration literature: What happens when women as labourers migrate first and the men follow later as dependents? The book examines the pattern of female nurses' emigration from Kerala, India, to Central City, a pseudonym for a metropolitan city in the United States, and the consequent implications for gender relations in three different spheres — home, work, and the community. Inspired by feminist literature, George delves into how transnational connections reproduce and transform gender- and class-based power relations among these immigrants. Although drawing from R.W. Connell's work Gender and Power: Society, The Person, and Sexual Politics (Stanford, CA 1987), George, unlike Connell, looks at the larger context where gender relations are transferred across spheres.

This book is the outcome of ethnographic research over three years (1994–1997), focusing on members of the Orthodox Church both in Kerala and in Central City. George interviewed 29 heterosexual couples in Central City, women and men separately. Further, she interviewed priests, bishops, and church leaders whenever she could. In addition to conducting focus-group interviews with nurses, nursing administrators, and teachers in Kerala, George used an innovative method — she interviewed people who were family members of Central City's interviewees, but lived in Kerala. Thus, the ethnography transgressed geographical boundaries.

George clearly followed rigorous research ethics guidelines in laying out her research framework. Being an insider gained her several advantages, including having relatively easy entry into the "Keralite" church-based community in the US as well as in Kerala. At the same time, George's age, marital status (single), and her role as a researcher created tension and posed challenges. George skilfully navigated these challenges within her community. Another challenge George successfully handled was transmitting her findings without reinforcing existing stereotypes about the South Asian community, especially the objectification of "Keralite" Christian social relations. George's lucid language, as well as her candid description of her fears, tensions, and challenges, capture the reader's attention. Students and researchers eager to explore immigrant communities must read this ethnography.

This work effectively illustrates the complex transnational interactions between the sending community and the receiving community that have sustained the stigmatization of nurses' labour in Central City despite the positive evaluation of this labour in the US. Indeed, a transnational institution such as the church provides a space where immigrants re-claim the status they held in their country of origin.

To comprehend the significance of the nurses' labour, George explores not only demand for and supply of nurses in the United States, but also the women's informal network that facilitates the immigration process. By examining the nurses' work experiences, George examines the challenges nurses encounter, including racism when procuring a license and negotiation required in a racialized work environment. Immigration experiences of the nurses sharply contrast with the experiences of their husbands: while the nurses moved upward, their husbands moved downward due to their status as dependents and the non-recognition of their credentials. Providing a historical context, George describes nurses' migration from India since 1914 pointing out that English missionaries portrayed nursing as noble, a Christian service, possibly recruited nurses from the Christian community, especially from less-well-off families in Kerala. However, George reminds readers that nursing actually has a low status in India, where deep-rooted cultural and religious practices identify nurses' labour as "dirty" and "polluted." Although nurses' economic independence empowers them individually, culturally prescribed, gendered, and class-based practices in India overshadow these women's transformations. In contrast, in the US nurses gain autonomy, and consequently challenge gender and class norms both within the family and within society — what George perceives as a "democratization" process.

In George's study, the significant change of gender and class relations due to the nurse's paid labour has far-reaching consequences for gender relations in the household. George explores the household division of labour in three arenas: childcare, housework and cooking, and financial decision-making. Using four sociological categories of households — traditional, forced-participation, partnership, and female-led—George illustrates several variations that developed in the division of household labour. The post-immigration process forced most couples to make some changes in the domestic sphere. Interestingly, all the men were forced to do some household chores and eventually lost their "patriarchal status" in the family and in wider society. The changes in the domestic sphere also expanded male participation in the church and the church-based community.

Immigrant congregations are mostly male-run due to the gendered nature of immigration. The intense demand for male participation ultimately reinforces male privilege. Despite challenges from second-generation women, some priests, and upper-class women, George argues that the church still reproduces traditional female roles. Consequently, men assume power and privileges in this sphere that they have lost at work and at home. Despite nurses' financial autonomy and the professional status that elevates their power at work and at home, these women still uphold the feminine role in the church. George points out that class mobility has taken place in the church, where leadership positions are being held by nurses' husbands displacing men who had higher status in Kerala. In general, transnational connections to Kerala produce a number of advantages, but perpetuate oppressive gender and class relations in a number of ways in this immigrant community.

Despite this book's valuable contribution to the information about transnational migration, it has a few flaws, none of them fatal. First, although George claims a feminist influence, women's voices do not predominate in her analysis; as a result, women's agency is undermined. By using formal names such as Mrs. Matha and Mr. Lakos, George significantly deviates from a feminist principle, that is, using first names. Indeed, by using Mr. and Mrs., George reproduces hierarchical gender relations at work, home, and the community. Second, by focusing on nursing as a profession, George reproduces the same class bias that she criticizes in the Christian community in Kerala. Third, George's overemphasis on individual resistance and self-esteem overshadows the collective resistance of the nurses. Indeed, the author's exploration of "democratization" of gender relations in the household as well as in the wider society defeats the feminist principle of equal, and more specifically, egalitarian relations. Finally, elaboration of concepts such as patriarchy and transnational in the introduction could have helped readers comprehend the book's theoretical underpinnings. The analysis could be further benefited if nurses' labour could be tied to the larger capitalist economy and its accumulation processes.

As an insider, George successfully navigates many rough terrains, including the issue of violence in the immigrant community. Researchers working in areas such as transnational migration, family and gender studies will find the book a useful contribution to their fields.


Habiba Zaman Simon Fraser University

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