"I get married and i leave!": Female transnational migrations from the hispanic caribbean to Italy

Abstract

This article opens a space for analysis and reflection, from a gender perspective, on the relationship that the marriage-migration binomial has on the dynamics of reconstruction of identity and integration in the context of destiny. Through an autoethnographic technique, through my perspective of an afro-descendant woman from the Hispanic Caribbean who married an Italian and who migrated to Italy, I also relate my experience with the one of three other women in similar conditions to mine. The results show that we share some ideological beliefs in the concept of marriage and that it is not a reason to leave the countries where we were born. However, it emerges that we have all lived, from different perspectives, the power structure based on the transnational heteropatriarchy which, in a certain way, conditioned us in the decision to migrate. Finally, identity fluency has faced, on the one hand, our African roots, made invisible by each one of us according to different stages and circumstances; on the other hand, because it is the fruit of the colonial world that still keeps its mark with its paradigms of hegemonic-racial domination. The phenomenon of integration instead of destination is also linked to this logic, implying, in some cases, an approach to the Italian context from a position of subordination, mainly social, cultural and economic.