Latina/o/x/e families who experience migration-related separation face the heart-wrenching decision to live apart from each other, often to obtain better life opportunities for the entire family. In these situations, children live in a country separate from one or more parents, while a primary caregiver (e.g., the other parent, a grandmother, an aunt) looks after the children. Utilizing semi-structured interview data with 20 family triads (i.e., separated parent, separated child, primary caregiver) and drawing from the long-distance relational maintenance model (LDRMM), this study explores how primary caregivers help or impede separated parents and children’s relational maintenance, while living apart in two different countries. Prospectively, caregivers were usually tasked with the responsibility of informing the child and helping them understand the upcoming family separation. Introspectively, most primary caregivers facilitated relational maintenance by directly connecting the child with the parent, providing the resources for the two parties to communicate (e.g., cellphone, WIFI), and emphasizing the benefits of the separation. Retrospectively, primary caregivers helped the children understand the separated parents’ return; however, this often came at the expense of the primary caregiver feeling forgotten or overlooked by the child.

中文翻译：

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分居的拉丁裔/o/x/e 移民父母及其子女的关系维护：关注主要照顾者作为沟通把关人


经历过与移民相关的分离的拉丁裔/跨性别/跨性别家庭面临着分开居住的令人心碎的决定，通常是为了让整个家庭获得更好的生活机会。在这些情况下，孩子生活在与一个或多个父母分开的国家，而主要照顾者（例如，另一位父母、祖母、阿姨）照顾孩子。本研究利用 20 个家庭三元组（即分居父母、分居儿童、主要照顾者）的半结构化访谈数据，并借鉴远距离关系维护模型 (LDRMM)，探讨主要照顾者如何帮助或阻碍分居父母和儿童的关系维护，同时居住在两个不同的国家。未来，照顾者通常有责任通知孩子并帮助他们了解即将到来的家庭分离。反思一下，大多数主要照顾者通过直接连接孩子和父母、为双方提供沟通资源（例如手机、WIFI）并强调分离的好处来促进关系维护。回顾过去，主要照顾者帮助孩子们了解失散父母的归来；然而，这往往是以主要照顾者感到被孩子遗忘或忽视为代价的。