Mothering in a Foreign Land - Springer Link

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 64, No. 2, June 2004 ( 2004)

MOTHERING IN A FOREIGN LAND Pratyusha Tummala-Narra

Abstract: The process of becoming a mother in an adopted land presents unique challenges in identity formation of immigrant mothers. The bidirectional influence of the mother’s own transformation and that of the larger family system has significant implications for child development. This article addresses the ways in which cultural displacement has an impact on the dilemmas of motherhood, as evident in adaptation to the immigration process, changing conceptions of gender roles and attachment, bicultural conflicts, and changing family structure and social network. Mothers’ attempts to integrate the old and the new cultural frameworks are explored, particularly in the context of psychotherapy. Clinical cases are discussed to illustrate the intrapsychic and interpersonal conflicts faced by immigrant mothers. KEY WORDS: mothers; immigration; identity; cultural displacement; psychoanalysis.

Mothering across cultures poses important questions concerning life transitions and identity development for many women and their children. Although the psychoanalytic literature has emphasized the role of mothers in child development, particularly in early childhood, the exploration of mothers’ intrapsychic world as impacted by sociocultural context has been limited. In particular, the area of maternal depression and psychopathology and its impact on child development has received more attention than the nonpathological aspects of mothers’ development (Fonagy, 2001). This article addresses, from the perspective of an immigrant mother and psychotherapist, the interaction of intrapsychic and sociocultural issues pertinent to the lives of immigrant and first- and second-generation mothers living in the United States. I use both my clinical observations with patients and my informal discussions with immigrant and second-generation mothers to illustrate some of the unique aspects of their mothering experiences. The process of becoming a mother in an adopted land presents specific challenges in identity formation of immigrant mothers. The bidirectional influence of the mother’s own transformation and that of the larger family system has significant implications for child development. Cultural displacement has an impact on the dilemmas of motherhood, as evident in Address correspondence to Pratyusha Tummala-Narra, Ph.D., Georgetown University Hospital, 5th Floor Kober-Cogan Building, 3800 Reservoir Road, NW, Washington, DC 20007; email: [email protected]. 167 0002-9548/04/0600-0167/1  2004 Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis

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MOTHERING IN A FOREIGN LAND

adaptation to the immigration process, changing conceptions of gender roles and attachment, bicultural conflicts, and changing family structure and social network. EXPERIENCE OF MIGRATION

The actual process of migrating to a new country has profound effects on individual psychology and family structure and dynamics. Akhtar (1999) described the various psychosocial factors involved in the experience of the immigrant, including the motivation and circumstances for immigrating, access to refueling within the personal ethnic context, age at migration, preimmigration character organization, nature of the country left behind, the magnitude of cultural differences that exist between country of origin and host country, the reception by the host population, experiences of efficacy in the new country, and the birth of children. These variables bear unique meaning in the lives of women who migrate as mothers or those who become mothers in a new country. Preimmigration Fantasies

One of the most powerful elements of immigrant women’s adaptation involves the images and fantasies of the new country prior to leaving the country of origin. Many women are told by relatives and friends in their native countries that they will carry the burden of caring for their husbands and children. Some other women fantasize about the opportunity to leave their families of origin and embark on a new life that will allow increased personal freedom and choice. In addition, women who are professionals in their native countries typically have the advantage of pursuing their professional interests when they migrate to the United States. The images of the West held by immigrant women are related to their history of socioeconomic circumstance, interpersonal and political violence, and family relationships. Some women migrate from urban professional environments, and others come from traditional, rural environments in which individuals have less experience with pervasive social change (Espin, 1999). Other immigrant women who have fled from war-torn countries or who are survivors of political violence may come to see the new country both as a haven and as a place of transition. Despite the variation in preimmigration circumstance, women are expected to be carriers of cultural traditions for their children in the new country. Women also tend to define themselves as relational, which can help facilitate their adaptation to a new cultural environment (Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, Stiver, and Surrey, 1991). Immigrant women are typically

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responsible for raising their children to adjust to both cultures. One of my patients, Rana, an Iranian American mother of 2 children stated, “When I was in Iran, I assumed that my kids would know what it means to be Iranian. I didn’t know how much I have to teach them for them to understand it. I can teach them, but I don’t know how much they listen.” This patient’s anxiety about her ability to pass on her cultural identifications to her children is complicated by the incongruence between her preimmigration fantasy of parenting in a new country and her postimmigration experience. Separation From the Mother Country and Mother Tongue

The discrepancies of preimmigration fantasies and the actual adaptation to the new country are reflective of the process of mourning the loss of the mother country. Immigrants’ struggles with coexisting emotions of sadness, guilt, and anxiety in coping with divergent cultural contexts activate shifts in cultural identifications (Grinberg and Grinberg, 1989). One specific area of separation that becomes salient for many immigrants is the loss of native language usage and the adaptation to a new language and style of emotional expression. Many first- and second-generation mothers are expected to teach their children to be proficient in English and to retain the native language. The mother tongue is thought to be a basic defining element of cultural identity. Clinical and research literature has underscored the significance of language as a powerful organizer of cognitive and affective experience that is used to express, repress, and disconnect from emotionally painful content (Amati-Mehler, Argentieri, and Canestri, 1993; Perez Foster, 1996). Furthermore, an individual’s level of proficiency in the mother tongue is sometimes equated with the degree of his or her authenticity as a member of his or her ethnic group (i.e., maternal ego ideal). For instance, in the case of Asian Indian college students, immigrant students who speak English with an Indian accent are often labeled as “off the boat,” and the firstgeneration students who speak with a North American accent are labeled as “American-born confused Desis.” Both groups of individuals simultaneously devalue and envy the “other’s” qualities as they struggle with their ambivalence of being of Asian Indian descent and living in a different country. Impact of Trauma on Mothering

The experience of pre- and postimmigration interpersonal violence plays a critical role in maternal identity formation for many immigrant women. Violence against women, such as domestic violence and rape, has reached

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“epidemic proportions” worldwide, and it persists across cultural and socioeconomic contexts (Desjarlais, Eisenberg, Good, and Kleinman, 1995). Reports of domestic violence and rape within ethnic minority communities in the United States have risen considerably in the past 20 years (Du and Lu, 1997; Root, 1996). The quality of women’s and children’s lives is intricately connected to the experience of interpersonal trauma. Immigration, in some cases, can provide the opportunity for immigrant mothers who are coping with past and/or current violence to access resources, such as medical and mental health care, that may not have been available to them in their countries of origin. In other cases, the stress of immigration on the family unit can exacerbate any risk of violence against mothers and children. The sociopolitical realities of the host society pose other challenges to immigrant mothers. For example, inherent in the gender and racial hierarchies of our society, women of color often are the least valued and hold the least amount of social and economic power. Even for middle-class women of color, social and institutional barriers reinforce the marginalization of these women (Root, 1996). The vulnerability for these women becoming receptacles of rage and violence by individuals within and outside their ethnic groups is considerable. CHANGING CONCEPTIONS OF GENDER ROLES

The formation of gender role identity is closely linked with changing cultural identifications in the lives of immigrant women. Although girls and boys internalize aspects of both parents, girls tend to remain less separated from the actual mother or mothering figure (Meyers, 2001). Physical and psychological separation from one’s mother is intensified both for immigrant and second-generation women in their own formation of maternal identity. This is particularly true when the immigrant mother does not have regular communication with her own maternal figures. Chodorow (2000) suggested that mothering involves a double identification for women, as both the mother and the child. Becoming a mother in a new country implicates the resurgence of memories of and associations with one’s own maternal figures and of the parenting values and traditions embedded in one’s cultural roots. For instance, many first-generation mothers hold the wish to reconnect with cultural traditions in the hope of reconnecting with their nurturing, idealized images of parental figures and of their ethnic heritage. The attempts to retain cultural values and traditions can be experienced as unexpected by first- and second-generation mothers when their desire to reconnect with their cultural roots had been suppressed prior to having children. They may choose to expose their children to classes on religion

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and/or language or to other children and families of the same ethnic background. These attempts of reconnection with the culture of origin can serve an adaptive function of refueling, which is necessary to cope with losses incurred in immigration (Akhtar, 1999). However, there are instances when attempts to reconnect with the country of origin overtake the mother’s and the child’s engagement with the new cultural context. The effectiveness of immigrant mothers’ attempts to raise children to function effectively in two different cultures heavily relies on the mother’s ability to negotiate her identity in these two contexts. The following clinical vignette illustrates an Asian Indian mother’s efforts both to expose her adolescent daughter to mainstream North American culture and to protect her from becoming “too American.” Mira is a 41-year-old woman of Asian Indian descent who immigrated with her husband at the age of 25 years. Mira and her husband were educated in India and the United States and hold professional positions. Mira sought psychotherapy with her 15-year-old daughter, Leela, after feeling desperate about their escalating verbal conflicts with each other. Mira expressed her frustration with her daughter’s dating behavior. Mira expressed in session that she viewed herself as a “progressive” parent who does not typically value traditional gender roles. She had been encouraged by her parents in India to pursue her professional goals, and she encouraged her daughter to focus on her academic work and not on boys. Mira ascribed her daughter’s refusal to listen to her opinions about dating and premarital sex to the influence of American culture. Mira further questioned her daughter directly by asking her, “What makes you a respectable Indian girl if you carry on with this behavior?” Leela responded, “Why can’t I be both, Indian and American? You only want to be Indian, and I want to be both. Maybe I’m not perfect, like you.” During these critical interactions, both mother and daughter turned to me, their Indian American therapist, to settle their dispute and to provide a definitive path to resolving their conflict. My responses involved some reflection of my experience of being an Indian American mother born and raised partly in India and primarily in the United States. At the same time, I was aware of the ways in which my own bicultural identity development could have an impact on the direction of Mira’s and Leela’s bicultural identifications. Mira and Leela struggled with the intricate connection between gender and cultural identities. During the course of their work in psychotherapy, they began to reveal more explicitly their wish to be like the other. Leela expressed a wish to be as “competent and self-sacrificing” as her mother, and Mira expressed a wish to be as “free and daring” as her daughter. Their interactions embody some more universal aspects of mother–daughter relationship, including the internalization of gender role socialization. Mira’s

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and Leela’s relationship also indicates the powerful bidirectional influence of parents and children in the adaptation to a new country and the transformation of bicultural development for both parents and children. Mira’s conflicted feelings about adapting to the Western context are conveyed to her daughter in her contradictory expectations of Leela to value the Indian ideal of sexual modesty and the North American ideal of freedom of choice and expression among women. This type of gender and cultural identity struggle is typical of many immigrant mother–daughter relationships, in which mothers and daughters bear mutual influence in their cultural adaptation (Espin, 1999). Mira’s disclosure of her wish to accept certain aspects of mainstream U.S. culture (i.e., increased sexual freedom for women) may reflect her earlier preimmigration fantasies and her excitement of leaving her parents. Her attempts to contain her daughter’s Americanization relate to her own sense of loss of her parents and cultural environment. At the same time, her daughter Leela tests the limits of her desire to adapt to a new country and simultaneously identifies with more traditional gender role expectations embodied in her image of her mother. It is worth noting that Mira’s and Leela’s conceptions of the roles of Indian women were less influenced by the fluid nature of gender roles in contemporary Indian society than by images of Indian women prevalent during the time of Mira’s migration to the United States. This cultural lag can heighten the intensity of intergenerational conflicts, which are typical of parent–child relationships across cultures. IMMIGRATION AND THE MOTHER–CHILD RELATIONSHIP

The nature and quality of the mother–child relationship has received vast attention in the psychological literature (Ainsworth, 1989; Bowlby, 1969; Lyons-Ruth, 1991; Stern, 1994; Winnicott, 1956). Attachment theory and psychoanalytic theory in particular describe maternal sensitivity either in the realm of the mother’s or caregiver’s behavioral and/or personality characteristics or in terms of its impact on the child’s development (Fonagy, 2001). Western-based psychological theories place significant value on the mother’s effectiveness in helping her child to achieve a strong sense of autonomy and independence. Conceptions of the psychologically healthy mother–child relationship are challenged in the case of immigration, in which the mother typically struggles with culturally divergent values of parenting and with her disconnection to either her parental figures or cultural representations. Winnicott’s notion of “good enough” parenting (1962) requires an understanding of broader cultural parameters of mothering that

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have not been considered in most traditional Western psychological formulations of the mother–child relationship. Divergent Conceptions of Attachment

The area of cultural differences in defining healthy attachment between parents and their children has been largely ignored in the psychiatric and psychological literature. Ohye (2001) suggested that the image of the independent child is the “gold standard, the litmus test” (p. 149) of whether a child is well adjusted and whether the mother is a good enough mother (Winnicott, 1962) in many Euro-American cultures. Many immigrant and second-generation mothers in the United States face the challenge of raising their children to retain their sense of interdependence on the mother and the larger family system in a society that values independence. In many cultures, children are taught to value their ability to function primarily in a collective unit (Roland, 1996). For instance, in traditional Japanese society, infants are thought to be born in a state of disconnection, and one of the primary tasks of mothering involves transforming this disconnection into a deep, enduring attachment to his or her mother and family unit (Ohye, 2001). This conceptualization of infancy, which in many ways contradicts Western psychological understanding of infant development, sets the stage for a highly interdependent mother–child relationship. Cross-cultural differences in conceptualizations of attachment are evident in every stage of the child’s development. Several Indian American mothers with whom I spoke brought forth their dilemmas about developmental milestones of their infants and toddlers. For instance, several mothers reported that they feel apprehensive about disclosing to their pediatricians and their non-Asian peers that their infants and toddlers sleep with them at night. On one hand, they feel pressured to teach their child to experience himself or herself as a separate individual. On the other hand, they are anxious about not being able to form as intimate a bond with their children as perhaps they experienced with their own parents. Frequent and consistent contact with children is an expectation of many immigrant mothers. This expectation holds true for adult children who live outside their parents’ homes. First- and second-generation college students tend to maintain more frequent contact with their parents, as compared with their white American counterparts, despite the level of family conflict. Their attempts to maintain their sense of interdependence on the family unit is often misinterpreted as pathological dependence on their parents or failure to separate and individuate from their families (Durvasula and Mylvaganam, 1994).

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Role of Extended Family in Child Rearing

Immigrant mothers cope in different ways with the shift of emphasis on the child’s exposure to multiple adult models with greater infant indulgence and the child’s conformity to traditional family hierarchy to an emphasis on the more permissive socialization and the child’s autonomy and separation (D’Cruz and Bharat, 2001). Some mothers, often because of economic strain, leave children in their countries of origin to be raised by grandparents and other family members. Others with more financial resources choose to sponsor their relatives to live with them and help with child care. In both circumstances, parents hope to be in a more advantageous position to help their children retain their cultural values and traditions and native language. A different set of dynamics arises in the case of mothers who are raised in the United States and have access to their parents. These mothers tend to struggle with establishing a personal sense of authority in parenting when her parents and in-laws attempt to exercise their role in teaching traditional customs and traditions. For instance, Eva, a Mexican American mother of a 5-year-old daughter, stated in her psychotherapy session, “I want my parents to treat me like I’m a grown up, and I know what I’m doing with my daughter. They want her to go to church twice a week, and I don’t see any need for that. I don’t know how to tell them without hurting their feelings.” Eva also stated that if she had been raised in Mexico, she may not have questioned her parents’ authority, even in their role as grandparents. Eva’s reluctance to transform her idealized image of her parents contribute to her difficulty in expressing her sense of self and subsequently mirror her parents’ disrupted mourning of the immigration process (Masur, 2001; Meyers, 2001). Furthermore, Eva’s dilemma is commonly experienced by many first- and second-generation mothers as they continue to care for their parents and other parental figures (i.e., in-laws, aunts, uncles) throughout their adulthood. Most children of immigrants, such as Eva, attempt to guide their parents with their adaptation to the new country, largely because of their necessary participation in mainstream culture via school and other social venues (Roland, 1996). MOTHERING AND THE FORMATION OF NEW CULTURAL IDENTIFICATIONS

The formation of new cultural identifications is related to the process of mourning distance from culture of origin. Akhtar (1999) described the immigrant’s fantasy of returning to the home country, which can emerge as a result of his or her anxiety of having gone “too far” from his mother country (p. 85). The negotiation of distance from the mother country is

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illustrated in Lahiri’s (1999) short story, ?The Third and Final Continent,? from the Interpreter of Maladies, through an Asian Indian father’s struggle with and acceptance of his distance from his native Calcutta: Though we visit Calcutta every few years, and bring back more drawstring pajamas and Darjeeling tea, we have decided to grow old here. . . . Mala no longer drapes the end of her sari over her head, or weeps at night for her parents, but occasionally she weeps for our son. So we drive to Cambridge to visit him, or bring him home for a weekend, so that he can eat rice with us with his hands, and speak Bengali, things we sometimes worry he will no longer do after we die.? (p. 197)

The mourning of distance from one’s homeland requires the integration of the old and the new self-representations, refueling through one’s ethnic community and/or connection to one’s country of origin and the acceptance of the child’s mixed loyalties to the old and the new cultures (Akhtar, 1999). This process is critical for immigrant mothers not only in negotiating their own losses, but also in their ability to engage in enjoyable, creative experience with their children in which they can facilitate an integration of two different cultural contexts. I had the opportunity to meet informally with a group of 12 Asian Indian mothers who left India at anywhere from 17 to 25 years of age; we discussed their experiences of mothering in a foreign land. When asked what they would envision for their children growing up in the United States, most of these women stated that they hoped for increased financial independence for their daughters and an egalitarian relationship in their children’s’ marital relationships. They also disclosed that they felt anxious about their children potentially choosing marital partners outside their ethnic group. One mother’s comments exemplify the struggle of many immigrant mothers in coming to terms with this last issue of marriage: ?I know that this sounds contradictory. Why can’t we just accept that our kids will marry whoever they want? I think we don’t know how to bridge these two different worlds in our own minds. We still want to preserve ourselves and our culture somehow.? In grappling with these contradictions, immigrant mothers are in a position of both reproducing their connection to their cultures of origin and redefining their roles in the family system and their formulations of their social context, all of which have significant influence in the lives of their children. The Ethnic Community as “Extended Family”

As a result of relocation and cultural change, the experiences of immigrant mothers vary considerably in the degree of disruption within their

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family units. Family dynamics in the new country are influenced by the relationship with the partner/spouse, preimmigration history, extended family living in the new country, political and interpersonal trauma, and economic circumstances. In some cases, immigration can reinforce rigidity in the roles of women in an attempt to protect the immigrant’s sense of psychological safety (Espin, 1999). In other cases, the increasing involvement of fathers in raising children has played a critical role in redefining mothering in a new country (Williams and Carmichael, 1985). Although many immigrant mothers receive support from family members in the new country, the nature of this support is often complicated by the family members’ own cultural conflicts. Despite their reluctance to disclose personal conflicts with individuals outside the family, both first- and second-generation mothers tend to rely more heavily on their friends within their ethnic communities. The immigrant mother’s access to emotional refueling through her contact with members of a similar ethnic group and with friends and colleagues outside her ethnic group can be a critical source of support in her development as a bicultural mother (Akhtar, 1999). Research indicates that immigrant women who are isolated, economically disadvantaged, and/or experience cultural conflicts within their families are at risk for developing a range of social and psychological problems, including depression, psychosomatic disorders, and sometimes psychosis (Fraktman, 1998; Hattar-Pollara and Meleis, 1995; Williams and Carmichael, 1985). These findings have important implications for potential impediments to immigrant children’s emotional and behavioral development. One of the ways in which some immigrant women have addressed their sense of isolation in a new country has entailed the creation of women’s social groups within their ethnic communities. These social groups vary with respect to their focus and membership, with some groups involving immigrant mothers who discuss parenting in a new culture and ways to care for their older parents who live in their native countries, and other groups involving first- and second-generation mothers who focus on issues of bicultural identity, interpersonal violence, and racism. Addressing Racism and Prejudice

The formation of new cultural identifications requires that immigrant mothers attend to the sociopolitical realities of their ethnic minority status within mainstream U.S. culture. In particular, an understanding of maternal identity in immigrant women should incorporate the effects of racism. The experience of racism is highly prevalent among most immigrants in both their work and their social environments. Internalized ethnic and racial ste-

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reotypes operate to restrict the ability to immerse in a new country, which receives immigrants with ambivalence and/or hostility (Akhtar, 1999; BarYosef, 2001). It is often the case that immigrant parents either implicitly or explicitly discourage their children from forming intimate relationships with children outside their ethnic group in an attempt to protect their children from racist remarks and harassment. One of the more notable ways in which many immigrant parents have coped with historical and ongoing experiences of racism is evident in their choice of a name for their child. For instance, many Chinese Americans choose a Chinese name and a Euro-American name for their children as a way to bring together their different cultural identifications and to diminish their children’s vulnerability for being harassed or inappropriately discriminated. Similarly, many immigrant parents make conscious efforts to choose names for their children that can be easily pronounced by individuals outside their ethnic groups. A related challenge for immigrant parents involves attending to racism and other forms of discrimination (i.e., homophobia) within their ethnic groups of belonging. Many first- and second-generation mothers feel conflicted about their ability to protect their children from discrimination by their same ethnic peers. For instance, in Indian society, physical beauty, particularly for women, is often defined in terms of lighter or “fair” skin color (Mehta, 1998). Indian American mothers who have not been able to rectify the meaning of skin color in defining their self-esteem may have difficulty in protecting their children from developing feelings of selfdiminution. As a result, children may receive contradictory messages about developing a sense of ethnic pride and devaluing a critical aspect of being South Asian (i.e., brown skinned). Addressing homophobia within one’s ethnic group can present similar problems for immigrant mothers with gay, lesbian, or bisexual children. PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC IMPLICATIONS IN THE CREATION OF MATERNAL/BICULTURAL IDENTITY

Psychodynamic approaches to psychotherapy with immigrant populations have received increased attention in the past several years (Akhtar, 1999; Perez Foster, 1996; Roland, 1996). Some specific guidelines in working with immigrants in psychotherapy include the following: assessment of acculturation processes, accommodation of the therapeutic frame to cultural differences, attending to the interaction of cultural and intrapsychic conflicts, validation of feelings of dislocation and facilitation of mourning, consideration of the possibility of including family members in treatment,

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attending to language, and maintaining cultural neutrality (Akhtar, 1999; Perez Foster, 1996; Tummala-Narra, 2001). Psychotherapy with immigrant mothers requires the therapist to assume the specific task of helping the patient work to integrate her multiple identifications, which encompass personal, professional, social contexts. Many immigrants are reluctant to seek traditional psychotherapy, which emphasizes separation from one’s family unit. However, culturally sensitive therapeutic approaches can be of enormous benefit to the immigrant mother’s mourning process and related identity development. The areas discussed next are particularly salient for working with immigrant mothers. Exploring the Relationship With Maternal Figures and Creating New Traditions

First- and second-generation mothers rely heavily on internalized images of their pre- and postimmigration maternal figures, which include mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and other relatives, as they develop their own maternal identity (Chodorow, 2000; Espin, 1999). It is critical for the therapist to explore past and present significance of each of these women in the patient’s life. Psychotherapy can help immigrant mothers mourn their separation from their maternal figures and create new cultural identifications. The following case vignette illustrates the type of exploration with a Bangladeshi American patient. Seema is a 37-year-old Muslim Bangladeshi American mother of 2 sons who immigrated as an adolescent to the United States. She has 7 older siblings; most participated in her upbringing. When her mother died of an illness when Seema was 35 years old, Seema struggled with her grief and her confusion about how she would raise her sons. She had emulated her mother in raising her own children. Our work in psychotherapy involved an exploration of her connection with her mother. Seema eventually revealed her connection to other maternal figures, including her grandmother and sister in Bangladesh, who were involved with her upbringing during her early childhood. The exploration of the various ways in which she was influenced by these women in her life led to an increased understanding of her attempts to help her sons value their cultural roots. Seema was also better able to identify with her mother’s relocation from her own parents in Bangladesh and began to take more risks by creating her own bicultural traditions. For instance, although her parents celebrated Ramadan privately in their home, Seema decided to talk with her son’s teacher about the significance of celebrating Ramadan as a way to help her son integrate his two separate worlds.

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Negotiating Divergent Conceptions of Attachment

The negotiation of divergent values concerning attachment, independence, and interdependence is a critical component of psychotherapy with immigrant mothers. The therapist should address the patient’s full range of feelings about her connection with individuals from her ethnic community and with those outside her ethnic group. The patient’s experience of separation anxiety from her cultural origin may be reflected in her transference reactions in psychotherapy as she may fluctuate between attempts of closeness and distance from the therapist. Immigrant mothers can benefit from support in coping with contradictory messages about separation and interdependence that they receive from their own parents and from their peers outside their communities. There is great potential for the misuse of the therapist’s countertransference in exploring value differences related to child rearing. The therapist has the responsibility of cultivating a culturally neutral position through his or her professional development (Akhtar, 1999). Therapists who are familiar only with Euro-American models of child development need to challenge the cultural bias of these models in their clinical formulations and interventions (Sue and Sue, 1999). In negotiating separation and interdependence, the therapist can potentially help the patient to achieve an “autonomousrelational self,” which involves the development of a consolidated individual identity within an interdependent family structure (Allen, Hauser, Bell, and Thomas, 1994; Kagitcibasi, 1996). Validating the Challenge of Raising Children in a Different Culture

The validation of the arduous nature of navigating not only one’s own adjustment to a new country, but also one’s mothering in a foreign land is one of the most important aspects of psychotherapy with immigrant mothers. Psychotherapy itself can be experienced as a cultural adjustment, particularly when the patient has had little exposure to Western notions of psychological healing. The process of acculturation is one that is lifelong and continually transforms one’s cultural identity as the individual adapts to increasingly unfamiliar cultural change. For instance, an immigrant parent who harbors negative feelings about his or her child marrying someone outside his or her ethnic group may experience increased openness to this possibility as he or she becomes more familiar with individuals of different cultural backgrounds. These affective shifts may facilitate changes in the parent’s feelings and perceptions of his or her own marital relationship. Many immigrant parents experience

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a parallel process of cultural adaptation that they share with their children. The engagement of immigrant patients in psychotherapy can follow a similar parallel process by which the adjustment to an unfamiliar context of healing changes considerably with time and with the therapist’s sensitivity.

CONCLUSION

Mothering in a foreign land involves the transformation of one’s cultural and maternal identifications. Preimmigration fantasies, the actual migration to a new country, and postimmigration experiences shape the formation of the immigrant mother’s sense of identity and competence in raising children to adapt to two or more cultures. Inherent in this process of adjustment are women’s separation from their own maternal figures and their motherlands. The renegotiation of gender roles is a necessary component of the immigrant mother’s identity formation. Mothering in a new culture requires the mother to rely on an interdependent system of support, which may include spouses/partners, parents, relatives, friends, and mental health professionals. Psychotherapy, which addresses the interplay of intrapsychic and social factors in the mother’s experience, can play a significant role in shaping the mother’s psychological adjustment and the family’s general functioning.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to thank my mother, Sabita Tummala, and my son, Keshav, who have provided me with inspiration for this article. I also want to convey my sincere thanks to the women who shared with me their experiences of immigration and mothering.

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