La Chulla Vida: Gender, Migration, and the Family in Andean Ecuador and New York City

Gender and Globalization

by Jason Pribilsky

Chronicling the experience of young Andean families as their lives extend between Ecuadorian highlands and New York City, this book takes an in-depth look at transnational labor migration and gender identities. Jason Pribilsky offers an engrossing and sensitive account of the ways in which young men and women in these two locales navigate their lives, exploring the impact of gender, generation, and new forms of wealth in a single Andean community. Migration has been a part of the Andes for centuries, yet the effects of transnational labor on the individuals and communities remain largely undocumented. Pribilsky draws upon firsthand observations of everyday lives to explore issues of consumption, transnational marriages, and the evolving roles of men and women. Pribilsky presents a study that is both engaging and challenging, a vital contribution to the fields of Latin American studies and immigration studies.

Genres: Gender, Ethnography, Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2007

Reviews

[Valleri · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am not at all impressed or moved by the ethnography we have been reading this past week and a half. I do not feel sorry one bit for the men who make the decision to leave their families, their wives, their children in order to pursue fortunes in far off New York City. I do feel sorry for these individuals who are abandoned, who may have only the comfort of their intermittent remittances sent home by their wayward male cavaliers as a sad exchange for their conquests and freedom to engage in extramarital affairs at will while their significant others back home raise half-orphans in their absences. The romanticized ethnography from a man who claims to be so adamantly enamored with his wife he met in college (who may or may not have been colleague, classmate or professor) does little to sway my disdain upon reading each page, which I am still begrudgingly trudging through. I understand this may seem like a harsh analysis, but Jason Pribilisky is profiting from his idealized notion in this book of what life is like for the women and children who are afforded no such ability to mobilize without their husband’s say so or financial assistance. Public education is a privilege withheld to females at such high rates that the link below for “top 10 facts about girls’ education in Ecuador highlights the obstacles that stand between Ecuadorian girls and their education in order to contribute to restructuring oppressive legal and cultural systems that have allowed this problem to persist” (Mullery, 2018). Thirty-one percent of young females are unable to graduate, become victims of sexual violence in school, and are married off to much older men at alarmingly high rates while these rates have become the accepted norm in Ecuador (Mullery, 2018). Vulnerable populations are further victimized. The men who may have ensured their daughters’ safety are otherwise engaged elsewhere and were not present to protect the lives they were 50% responsible for making. Even when it is said that “no household should ever be without children” in Ecuador, it is not clear why this is from Pribilsky’s text or if this adage only applies to male children (2007, p. xxi). When 78% of females in Ecuador report domestic abuse as Mullery discloses (2020), it does become clear where most Ecuadorian males place their priority and it is not in a place of noble sacrifice as we have seen in other ethnographies we have read this term where economic disparities force mothers and fathers to migrate in order for their children to survive. I will keep reading, but I am not convinced that my opinion of this ethnography will change.

Sources:

Mullery, S. (2018, December 15). 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in Ecuador. Retrieved November 19, 2020, from https://borgenproject.org/10-facts-ab....

Pribilsky, J. (2007). La Chulla Vida: Gender, Migration, & the Family in Andean Ecuador & New York City. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

[Andrea Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had to read quite a few books for the class I am taking on immigration. This was actually pretty interesting and worth the read.