Life history research: A contribution to processes of adult learning ...

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the context. The search has taken the shape of friendships, romantic relationships and, more recently, job searches. These experiments gave way to lifestyle changes and a different sense of self. The changes result, in varying degrees, in a reconstruction of self: old understandings of who I was had to give way to new ones in order to settle in this new cultural context in a fulfilling way. At the core of this process is a re-negotiation of the way I saw myself and the way I am seen by others (Woodward, 1999). An immigrant’s place in society can offer an interesting view of both one’s society of origin and the new country. Gloria Anzaldua explains that living between cultures results in seeing double, which renders both cultures transparent. My awareness of gender-related power structures and cultural beliefs in Mexico and Canada has become more refined as a result of immigration. Papalotl and Adela spoke clearly about issues of discrimination in both contexts; both of them were aware of social injustice in Mexico as well, however, in Canada things are more difficult, because it takes a long time for an immigrant to acquire full participation in her host society. In this sense, we became “outsiders within” (Collins, 1998), that is, we gained knowledge but not necessarily a proportionate level of social power to act on the knowledge we acquired. In a positive light, knowledge separated from power can be a trigger for increased social awareness and motivate social change. However, the other side of this increase in awareness is a stifling situation where immigrants lack voice in their new country. From the perspective of adult education and—more specifically—citizenship education for new comers, an increased awareness of issues of lack of voice among immigrants could result in a more effective way to integrate immigrants successfully into the new society. Colonialism: Its Trace in Individual Lives It is only after reflecting on my experience of life in Toronto, almost seven years after relocating, that I realized the significance of this move for a person born in the developing world. Carmen Boullosa explains the dichotomy between “two worlds” and its implications for the colonized understanding of power relationships in her novel Sleeping Beauty: The world is divided in two. The Old and the New. Light and Darkness. Silence and Noise. White and Black. Water and Land. Good and Evil. Men and Women. Europeans and those of other races. No one becomes aware of this last division who never leaves her own land. (Cited in Buyze, 2005, p. 60) From a postcolonial perspective, crossing from Mexico into Canada is a symbolic crossing from one side of the world to another; it means stepping over the line that divides the world by color and culture; the line that determines labels like developed and developing, the west and the rest (Rosaldo & Flores, 1997). For immigrants, the recreation of the self is presided by the challenge of understanding the nature of the colonized world and their place in it. Postcolonial feminism describes oppression as a consequence of this system that minimizes the colonized through categorizations based on gender, class, ethnicity, race, and sexual preference. (Guruge & Collins, 2008). Different combinations of these elements generate a variety of experiences for women. The participants shared how people label them as exotic Latinas based on their skin and hair color. Certain combinations of class and gender can prove advantageous for immigrant women. This was the case with Erica—an upper-middle class woman married to a successful Mexican professional—who was able to take advantage of her ethnicity in order to advance professionally. Crossing the line is not easy. Mexicans, like other immigrants, are rarely aware of all the implications of crossing the multiple dimensions of this boundary until they actually cross it. For Third World women that cross the border into the developed world, increasing awareness and knowledge is a liberatory practice (Guruge & Collins, 2008); it is a way of understanding that limiting individual living conditions, such as poverty or lack of opportunity, oftentimes cannot be blamed on the individual, but should be understood in the context of the systemic conditions that permeate their lives by
placing them in intersections of factors like class, race and gender that translate into disadvantage in their daily lives. Telling the stories of immigrant women is a way of educating women—and immigrants in general—about the place where the system locates them and the effects those locations have in their lives. Initially a number of newcomers may not think about their race or ethnicity. However, immigrants need to learn how to classify themselves as a part of the process of “becoming Canadian” (Rong & Brown, 2001). Women and Gender: Parallels between Two Societies and Cultures In social gatherings with the people I met at The University in Toronto women did not automatically take charge of serving or picking up leftovers and dishes, as I had seen and done in Mexico countless times. Although I do not have outstanding culinary knowledge—a typically expected ability for women in traditional contexts—it was easier for me to join other women in the kitchen during a social gathering, do simple support tasks like chopping or cleaning, and fit into my role as a woman in that way. When I came to Toronto I realized that this behavior was not expected among the women I did my graduate studies with. By looking around me I gradually realized that women lived gender roles differently in my new context. When I first arrived in Toronto, I sensed that the gender socialization I had in Mexico resulted in limiting behaviors in social interactions; there were too many parameters or models to follow. In Toronto, I had the painful realization that, although I intellectually believed in gender equity, I was not emotionally ready to live it. I craved acceptance so strongly that I did not dare to act in ways other than the traditional gender expectations I was familiar with, hoping this would give me a much desired sense of adequacy and belonging. The transition from deeply embedded notions of being the woman my society of origin wanted me to be to a woman in tune with a more open society in Canada was a significant accomplishment during my first years in Canada. In conversational exchanges with other Mexican heterosexual females living in Toronto I gradually realized that the boundaries of acceptability for women in the city were much broader than what I was used to in Mexico. As single or newly married women we spoke about how our gender socialization affected our romantic relationships with men. In our Mexican, middle-class context, common-law relationships were taboo because they endangered the respectability of the woman and the family. In Toronto things were different, first, because our extended families were not present to make judgments about our lives, and second, because mainstream Canadian society in general does not judge common-law unions in the same manner. Perhaps this is due to the individualism prevailing in the culture, and to the distance many Canadian-born people in the younger generations have taken from religion (Milan, 2003). Educational programs for immigrant women should include material on the gender-related aspects of the host society. It is a matter of choice whether immigrant women will adopt new values or to what extent; yet, an acknowledgement and explanation of the differences is equivalent to offering them a map that will allow them to walk the territory with ease. Gender-based oppression has affected women in Canada as in Mexico; yet cultural values around family, as opposed to individuality, along with the strong influence of the Catholic Church in Mexican society may be some of the causes for the prevalence of restraining expectations for Mexican women at a cultural level. Canada is a country where the women’s movement reached broader sectors of the population, as well as the policy level, since the 1970s and 1980s. A good example is the abolition of the abortion law in 1988. Another example is the access to help and resources to prevent and/or remedy violence against women, which is more readily available in Canada than in Mexico, due to historical and social processes in both countries that I will not describe here in detail. In the face of such different notions about gender, I as an immigrant and a single woman, felt the need to (re) construct parts of my identity in order to be part of my new Canadian context. During this process, my view of self and my experience of gender changed in important ways. After exploration came the need to articulate my new insights and experience; this amounted to a constant translation of self in order to communicate my identity in the new context. While talking to the four participants, I repeatedly heard stories of the translation of self—both for others and
Page 1 and 2: Life history research: A contributi
Page 3 and 4: Life history methodology was organi
Page 5 and 6: motivations that led them to immigr
Page 7: to gender. Adela, Papalotl, Gloria
Page 11 and 12: eing women, and in Canada for being
Page 13: Parrado, E. (2005a). Immigration an

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