Immigrant women sambaing into the US labor force
By: Karin A. C. Johnson and Magali N. Alloatti
Women in classic samba costuming and male in malandro style suit.Creative Commons Public Domain photo by Norton do Carmo (11 January 2018)
Interest in women, their status as an immigrant and work type, has revealed women immigrants’ gendered work experiences in various countries such as the “maid trade,” sex work and exotic dance. To provide a more comprehensive portrayal of women immigrants’ labor force participation and work experiences in the US, we looked at samba dance, an activity historically oriented toward gender segregated jobs in the lower echelons of the host labor market. From fieldwork in Los Angeles, California—a dense entertainment scene and rich cultural market for samba shows and lessons—we interviewed 29 women and 11 men about their work experience as immigrants employed in the samba business. Women’s work in gendered economic niches is shaped by leverages, stigmas and (re)negotiations of gendered power relations.
Migrant women insert themselves into the niche of samba shows which privilege women-only performances. Samba shows in LA are prolific, with the most demanded product being the Rio Style Samba Show, which consists of female dancers wearing bikinis, feathered crowns and dancing impromptu emulating the Carnival from Rio de Janeiro. Both female and male participants told us dancing is the most common first job for immigrant women in samba, since it does not require higher educational attainment, English proficiency or regular migratory status. Over the years, some women became producers and others founded their own companies as entrepreneurs.
Negotiating Work Relations Stigmatization
While it may have appeared that entering into samba was privileged by gender and nationality, we encountered women from other countries working and occupying this niche. Conforming to the expected mixed-race body type, the mulata, allowed gaining leverage to enter the niche by complying with expected imaginaries. Due to the audience’s expectations, women face racial and physical stereotypes and deploy strategies to change their aesthetics (dying their hair and tanning their skin) to acquire working opportunities.
Three women samba dancers dressed in colorful headdress and bikinis. Creative Commons Public Domain photo by Norton do Carmo (13 January 2018)
Stigmatization and backlash from co-ethnics are germane to these women’s experiences derived from the exposure of the body, prostitution and perceptions that samba workers earn their money in an “easy way.” Professionalism is key in neutralizing stigmas and countering negative experiences. To do so, these women formalize business contracts protecting dancers from unwanted touching and abuse from male clientele and establish rules regarding dancers’ behaviors in and out their shifts. The sense of professionalism also relates to earning awards and performing in notable events (e.g., a Grammys after party).
(Re)Negotiating Gendered Power Relations
Despite reporting some negative experiences at work and in daily life, all women interviewed claim to be successfully integrated into American society. Their criteria are based on economic success, regular migratory status and cultural integration into the host society. The ultimate expression of these feelings is their self-definition of professionalism. Within a highly rich and competitive cultural market in LA, samba workers have considerable liberty to choose the type of contract and events they deem profitable and appropriate. Gendered experiences such as pregnancy renders loosing working opportunities due to their appearance, and motherhood less time available for gigs. Yet, some women kept dancing and organizing events even into an advanced stage of their pregnancy. Moreover, the flexibility of their job allowed them to go back to work gradually after having their baby, loosing pregnancy weight and staying fit. Power over deciding to work and how (schedule, occasions and type of job) makes immigrant women feel economically independent and socially autonomous. Working within Brazilian culture was prompted by ethnic advantages, it meant staying in touch with their roots through activities meaningful to them and having an occupation outside the home.
Changes in Gendered Power Relations through Work
Immigrant women who entered the cultural market of samba voluntarily, and especially those who achieved success, convey a high satisfaction in their work stressing the importance of their personal and artistic criteria. We observed that positive feelings were born out of choices made to build upon downward social mobility—a process of resignification of power to doagainst a migration background. Despite assumptions around women in feminized jobs, in our case a flexible working regime improve women’s work options, offering balance to negative aspects such racialization, ethnicization and a sex- segregated labor market.
These women’s work granted power overre/productive choices and the resistance needed to (re)define practices by challenging and conforming to social gender, work norms and imaginaries. Although framed by the particular context of samba business in LA, an understanding of immigrant women’s experiences adds to a broader feminist dialogue about work and labor expectations that can benefit women and men’s work life.
Read the article here: ‘Entrance into and negotiation of the US labor force by immigrant women workers: a case study of samba in Los Angeles‘
Karin A. C. Johnsonis a doctoral candidate at the University of California Riverside, Department of Sociology. She is a political economist specializing in international migration, higher education, and policy. Karin’s prior scholarship on how political-economic stimuli has affected migrants (“9/11 and International Student Visa Issuance”) is published in the Journal of Studies in International Education, the official journal for the Association for Studies in International Education. Her co-authored work also appears in peer-reviewed interdisciplinary academic journals, edited book volumes, and periodicals.
Magali N. Alloatt iis a CAPES DAAD postdoctoral fellow at the Education Faculty in Hamburg University, working in collaboration with the State University in Santa Catarina, Brazil. She specializes in international migration, gender, intersectionality and ethnic economy, and her research interests include female entrepreneurship, women’s economic empowerment (WEE), race and ethnicity. Her current research concentrates on migration, gender, education, intersectionality, female entrepreneurship and WEE. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals and as book chapters.
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