Abstract

Using in-depth interviews with women in the Puerto Rican community of Chicago, this article explores how migration emerged as a strategy for families across class backgrounds and how gender relations within the family mediate the migration of married working-class and middle-class Puerto Rican women. The women who followed their husbands to Chicago participated in another form of labor migration, since some wives joined their husbands in the paid economy and those who did not contributed with the reproductive work that supported their husbands and families. This article also explores how Puerto Rican women confront the basic duality of reproductive and productive work.