Domestic Violence in Immigrant Communities: Often Triggered by Stress and Complicated by Immigrant Status
This is the first in a special two-part series on domestic violence in immigrant communities by Feet in Two Worlds reporters. For part two, click here.
NOVEMBER 11, 2009 —Angela walked into her daughter’s office to find 18-year-old Rocio on the floor, her childlike face swollen beyond recognition. Rocio’s boyfriend was kneeling beside her, the blood dripping from his arms onto her motionless body. The couple’s baby daughter wailed in the corner.
Angela screamed at the top of her lungs, summoning Rocio back to life. “Don’t leave, don’t leave, your daughter needs you!” she yelled. A barely noticeable blink of an eye gave Angela hope that she had come just in time.
On the day that Angela came to see Msgr. James Kelly seeking help for her daughter, the waiting room at St. Brigid’s Church (pictured below) in Brooklyn was packed, mostly with women. Kelly is a priest and an attorney, and his parishioners—many of them immigrants from Latin America—often come to him for legal advice as well as comfort.
He sees about four to five domestic violence related cases every day. While he often tries to refer them to community-based organizations, many of the victims are more comfortable talking about their problems in the church. He often addresses domestic violence in his sermons.
Domestic violence is a sensitive topic in any community, but immigrants face added challenges, say activists who work with these groups.
THE ROLE OF FAITH
Faith can be a challenge but also a great source of strength, says Purvi Shah, the executive director of Sakhi, an organization that works with South Asian women. “For immigrants, faith-based institutions are very important because they can be your link not only to faith but also to the rest of the community,” says Shah. Involving religious leaders is a way to raise support for ending domestic violence.
But shame over what is often seen as “airing the dirty laundry in public” may prevent many women from speaking out, says Indira Kajosevic, the executive officer of Reconciliation and Culture Cooperative Network, or Racoon.
A report published earlier this year by Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF) found that in the context of what could be a hostile and discriminatory environment, there is tremendous pressure to “maintain a positive image of [the] community.” In other words, acknowledging domestic violence can be seen as detrimental to collective survival.
The few statistics available suggest that domestic violence is no more prevalent among immigrants than it is among the non-immigrant population. But foreign-born women are more likely to be victims of homicide related to domestic violence.
A study by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found that 51 percent of domestic violence-related murder victims were foreign-born females, while 45 percent were women born in the United States. The higher numbers point to the “failure and/or inadequate response by existing systems and institutions, such as law enforcement and the courts,” the FVPF report suggests.
IMMIGRATION STATUS CREATES DIFFICULT CHOICES FOR VICTIMS
Immigration status can be an especially difficult challenge for many victims. Approximately one fourth of Raccoon’s cases are undocumented migrants. An abusive husband can often use threats of deportation to keep his spouse in silence.
On the other hand, some women may be reluctant to report their undocumented spouses, fearing that their arrest will lead to deportation. For families that rely on a husband’s income for survival, this can be devastating.
Protections under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) allow some women married to U.S. citizens or permanent residents to self-petition for residency. Others married to undocumented migrants may qualify for a U-visa if they’ve suffered “substantial physical or mental” abuse as a result of a specific form of criminal activity.
Rocio, who was born in Ecuador but has been living in the United States since she was three years old, may qualify for this visa. Her mother Angela, who like her daughter is undocumented, hopes that with legal status Rocio may be able to pursue her dream of becoming a midwife. Her daughter’s freedom from abuse, says Angela, came at great expense, but she needs to use it to build a better life for herself and her small child.
The process of obtaining legal status can be lengthy and complicated. The victims are sometimes stigmatized. “The couple of cases that got VAWA were made as a bad example in the community—these women put their husbands in prison,” says Racoon’s Kajosevic who works with immigrants and refugees from the former Yugoslavia.
“Do you think that goes over well in small communities?” she asks.
While abuse may begin in the home country, immigration is a traumatic event that can trigger violence. “Economic hardship is one of the stress factors,” Kajosevic said. Women are often more resourceful in finding a job. The role reversal can lead men to feeling helpless and trying to reassert their masculinity through violence. In former Yugoslav communities, alcoholism is also a significant, and contributing, problem.
Dr. Percy Andreazi works with men in Massachusetts’ large Brazilian immigrant community who are struggling with the stresses of immigration and may be at risk of committing acts of domestic violence. He started the intervention program after the brutal murder of 37-year-old Carla Souza and her 11-year-old son Caique in 2006. Mother and son were blugeoned to death by Carla’s Brazilian-immigrant husband Jeremias Bins. The double homicide was a wake-up call for many Brazilian immigrants.
“The only good outcome of that is that we started to discuss this issue in the community,” says Andreazi. “We started to discuss the roots of violence and for example how the shock of immigration, the cultural shock and the difference between men and women when they come here,” may contribute to violence.
Andreazi says women are often more adaptable and get involved with their new community soon upon arrival. Men are not as communicative and can find themselves isolated.
Male allies are important to Sakhi’s work as well. Out of 731 new requests for assistance the organization received last year, 13 percent came from men calling for themselves or out of concern for their sisters, daughters or women friends in abusive relationships.
Both Rocio and Angela will need time to overcome their shared fears of shadows. Even though he is in prison, Rocio’s boyfriend is a constant presence in their lives, his image lurking around every corner, in the branches of the tree outside of their house.
Angela knows these are irrational thoughts, and while she tries to reassure Rocio, she herself need reassurance. She is hopeful that one day they will regain their lives. They have to—if for no other reason, then for the sake of her granddaughter. “Mi reina,” my queen, she says, her solemn face brightening as she brandishes a cell phone with the little girl’s photo.
The names have been changed to protect the victims’ privacy.
Feet in Two Worlds’ John Rudolph contributed reporting for this story.
For Battered Latina Immigrants: Dwindling Resources but also Hope
This is the second in a special two-part series on domestic violence in immigrant communities by Feet in Two Worlds reporters. For part one, click here.
PHOENIX, AZ —The back of Milagros’ head hit the steps. Her three-year-old daughter stood by the door as her husband dragged Milagros up the stairs. Milagros, 41 (pictured below), had endured a decade of abuse by her husband. But when her daughter witnessed it, she knew it had to end.
She was almost homeless for three years until she found De Colores, a domestic violence shelter in Phoenix that specializes in helping undocumented Spanish-speaking migrant women like her.
“If I had had the information before, I would have left him earlier,” she said.
De Colores, the only bilingual and bi-cultural shelter for battered immigrant women and their children in Maricopa County, has 58 emergency beds. Given the need -about 500,000 undocumented immigrants live in Arizona, most in the Phoenix metropolitan area- there’s a drastic shortage of bilingual domestic violence shelters.
“We’re always full. When women are calling us we have to deny services because of lack of space,” said Maribel Castro, clinical supervisor for the shelter. This year they had to refer 1,096 women fleeing abusers to other shelters.
The problem: many of those shelters don’t have Spanish-speaking caseworkers available all the time, who are culturally sensitive to the needs of migrant women.
“We have heard that shelters are struggling with providing bilingual advocates and struggling with taking in monolingual women,” said Allie Bones, director of the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence,an organization that lobbies for domestic violence funding in the state legislature.
De Colores is unique in serving migrant women, many of whom speak only Spanish. About 60 percent of its clients are Mexican immigrants, like Milagros, and overall 95 percent are Latinas.
Since last fiscal year, demand for legal advice and other services has doubled at De Colores, which also has the highest occupancy rate—98 percent—of all shelters in the state. During fiscal year 2008-2009, De Colores received 2,147 calls requesting shelter, legal aid and other types of domestic violence related services.
But funding is running dry due to the state’s ongoing $2 billion budget deficit. Domestic violence shelters in Arizona have seen state support cut by an average of 18 percent. De Colores has not received any help from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which includes funds for domestic violence programs to offset state cuts during the recession.
“If we cannot replace the funding, we’ll have to eliminate some of the services,” said Dottie O’Connell, director of residential services at Chicanos por la Causa, the local nonprofit that runs De Colores. “The women will receive the bed and the food, but then their children won’t receive vital services that protect them.”
Domestic violence affects all segments of the population and it isn’t more prevalent among migrant women, several studies have shown.
But battered migrant and refugee women are murdered at higher rates than their counterparts. A recent review of literature nationwide by the Family Violence Prevention Fund found that while non-fatal intimate partner violence may be lower for Latinas, they’re at a higher risk of homicide than U.S.-born women. The report suggests this higher rate may shed light on the inadequate response by institutions to this population.
De Colores’s Castro said that due to cultural reasons in their country of origin, some women are reluctant to go to shelters because they associate it with the idea of hiding and being isolated from their community. She added that the culture of “machismo” in Latin countries and generational gaps often send the message to women that they need to endure the abuse from their husbands or partners.
“I never had support from anyone in my family,” said Milagros. “I was always told I had to put up with anything from my husband: beatings, humiliations.”
[Click here to listen to Milagros tell her story, in Spanish.]
“My mother used to say, and even now she says it: ‘Today they get to yell at once and they’re getting a divorce.’ But we’re not masochistic, we’re human beings. We have dignity and respect. We’re not supposed to be mistreated by anyone, no one has the right to touch us and much less our daughters.”
The current crackdown on illegal immigration by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has also increased fear among undocumented women about contacting the police to report crimes, according to shelter officials.
While De Colores doesn’t have statistics to prove it, they say from the phone calls they receive they can tell that the fear of deportation has increased. There have been instances where police have arrested a victim when she’s trying to defend herself. Undocumented women face a good chance of deportation once they enter one of the county jails that currently operate under an immigration enforcement agreement with federal authorities.
Kathy Gómez, a legal counselor for De Colores has received letters from victims in the county jails who are asking for help after their arrest.
[Click here to listen to Kathy Gómez.]
“It’s very difficult. One of the biggest things is the fear. The fear of getting deported, that police won’t pay attention. There’s been a number of occasions, -I know that it might sound bad from what I’m saying, but we’ve seen it- in which they come and instead of arresting the abuser, they arrest the victim or they arrest both. And they end up being deported. Why? Because the question is: Do you have an ID from Arizona? If the answer is no, they get arrested. So there’s a bigger fear to call, or if they call, the abuser and themselves gets deported. Therefore, we’re seeing an increase on those types of phone calls (to the shelter).”
Luis Samudio, a spokesperson for the Phoenix Police Department said his agency has a policy to not ask about victims’ immigration status. But the situation may differ among different agencies.
Gómez said most women don’t know there are federal laws that protect them even if they’re illegally in the country. Some abusers threaten to turn their victims over to immigration authorities if they report them to the police.
The federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) includes provisions that grant battered undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents the right to apply for legal residency on their own. A type of visa known as “U VISA” also offers protection to victims in cases where the abusive husband is an undocumented immigrant.
Milagros arrived at De Colores with just a suitcase and her two daughters. But she’ll be leaving with the opportunity to re-start her life in a new apartment and the legal help to adjust her immigration status. While she didn’t qualify for VAWA or a U Visa, the staff at De Colores will be helping her to re-open a pending petition she had with immigration authorities under the 1986 amnesty program.
“Here they teach you that if you fall, you get back up and move on. It’s as if I had been spinning inside a little cube and couldn’t get out. But I have the intelligence to jump up and here I am on my way out. But I’m proud. And I’m grateful to all the people here. This place is sacred for me because it’s as if I were born here.”
