“Giving Back”: Filipina and Latina Mothers’ Intersecting Burdens in Schools and Community-Based Organizations

Community-based organizations (CBOs) and schools are often key initial institutions encountered by immigrants. Yet little research compares immigrant perceptions of CBOs and schools. The authors use interviews with green card–status Filipina and undocumented Latina mothers at a nonprofit, low-income-serving CBO in San Francisco, California. The authors identify intersecting burdens, or emotional dilemmas associated with school and CBO participation on the basis of interlocking oppressions and marginalized racial, gender, class, and legal statuses. Intensive mothering responsibilities and immigrant backgrounds influenced these mothers’ shared feelings of gratitude for services and opportunities in CBOs and schools. Undocumented Latina mothers felt uniquely obligated to “give back” to display entitlement and maintain children’s opportunities in schools and CBOs but were vulnerable in doing so, indicating unique burdens based on their intersecting statuses. Green card–status Filipina mothers did not widely share the same pressures of obligation to “give back” to schools and CBOs. The authors connect these intersecting burdens to a moral entitlement system wherein Latinas felt uniquely compelled to demonstrate deservingness through involvement in schools and CBOs, despite their formal entitlement to school and CBO support in a sanctuary city. The authors push future research to consider emotional dilemmas and burdens shaping immigrant local participation in schools and CBOs.