Paths to Middle-Class Mobility among Second-Generation Moroccan Immigrant Women in Israel

By Beverly Mizrachi

While first-generation immigrant women often begin their lives at the bottom of their new societies, the fates of their adult daughters can be very different. Still, little research has been done to examine the opportunities or constraints that second-generation women face and the class achievements they make. In this volume, author Beverly Mizrachi presents an in-depth study of 40¬-50-year-old Moroccan women whose parents made up part of the largest ethnic group to enter Israel after its establishment in 1948 and whose mothers began their new lives at the bottom of the economic and social ladder. Through her analysis of the life history narratives of these women, Mizrachi reveals that they used a range and number of sites to achieve an impressive mobility into the low, middle, and high segments of the middle class. Mizrachi's findings have implications for studying the middle-class mobility of second-generation immigrant women from subordinate groups in other Western societies.
This book begins by examining the historical background and culture of Jewish communities in Morocco that affected the mobility resources of the first, immigrant generation of Moroccan women in Israel and those accrued by the second generation. Mizrachi goes on to analyze the life history narratives of a group of six second-generation Moroccan women to show how they used their education, employment, gendered spousal relationships, motherhood, residential mobility, and the body to achieve their middle-class mobility. Ultimately, she finds that these women used their human agency and social structures over these multiple social sites to reach their class goals for themselves and their children while simultaneously constructing new classed and ethnicized feminine identities.
Mizrachi's findings integrate issues of gender, ethnicity, immigration, and class mobility in a single intriguing study.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wayne State University Press
• Release date: May 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780814338582

Beverly Mizrachi

Beverly Mizrachi is a senior lecturer in sociology at Ashkelon Academic College in Ashkelon, Israel. She is a co-author of the book Immigrants in Israel and has published research on gender, immigration and absorption, stratification and class mobility, and the family in professional journals and anthologies.

Book preview

Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology

General Editor

Dan Ben-Amos

University of Pennsylvania

Advisory Editors

Tamar Alexander-Frizer

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Samuel G. Armistead

University of California, Davis

Haya Bar-Itzhak

University of Haifa

Simon J. Bronner

Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg

Harvey E. Goldberg

Hebrew University

Yuval Harari

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Galit Hasan-Rokem

Hebrew University

Rella Kushelevsky

Bar-Ilan University

Eli Yassif

Tel-Aviv University

Paths to Middle-Class Mobility among Second Generation Moroccan Immigrant Women in Israel

Beverly Mizrachi

WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS

DETROIT

© 2013 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced without formal permission.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mizrachi, Beverly.

Paths to middle-class mobility among second-generation Moroccan immigrant women in Israel / Beverly Mizrachi.

pages cm. — (Raphael Patai series in Jewish folklore and anthropology)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8143-3881-0 (cloth. : alk. paper) —

1. Women immigrants—Israel—Social conditions.   2. Moroccans—Israel—History.   3. Immigrants—Israel—History.   4. Social mobility—Israel.   I. Title.

HQ1728.5.M597 2013

305.5’13095694--dc23

2012029605

ISBN 978-0-8143-3858-2 (ebook)

This book is dedicated to my dear friend, Like Roos (1933–2004) who made so many things possible

and

To those women who struggle daily, in myriad ways, to create a life of their own choosing

Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

2. Moroccan Women in Morocco and in Israel

3. Becoming a Semiprofessional

4. Transforming One’s Self and One’s Body

5. Acquiring Educational Credentials

6. A Divorcée Does It on Her Own

7. Comfortable in Her Own Skin

8. Privilege and Its Discontent

9. Discussion: Paths to Middle-Class Mobility

Methodology Appendix: Classifying the Women

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

I am delighted to have this opportunity to thank several people who have helped me in various ways in the writing of this book and to express my appreciation to the institutions that have funded the research and the publication of this work.

I offer my most profound thanks to my friend Christopher Phillips who was willing to immerse himself in the topic of this book and to devote enormous amounts of time to going over the manuscript word by word to make it meet his demanding standards. His friendship knows no bounds nor does my gratitude for it. I would also like to express my appreciation to Dick and Judy Wurtman, friends who offered support and encouragement during the writing of Paths . . . and always made me feel that I was capable of producing good, scholarly work. I am particularly indebted to Judy, who read several chapters of the book and made insightful comments. My thanks to Professor Judith Lorber for her willingness to take time from her own research to read and comment upon some of the early chapters of this book.

Several people from my academic world have shared their knowledge with me and offered their significant support. First of all, I would like to thank Professor Moshe Lissak of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Professor Lissak was my PhD adviser and during that time and throughout the writing of this book was always willing to share his vast sociological knowledge with me and to listen patiently and with good humor to my endless dilemmas and questions. Professor Harvey Goldberg of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, was very helpful by graciously devoting time to reading several chapters of this book, commenting on them and contributing his extensive anthropological knowledge about ethnicity in Israel. I would also like to thank Professor Amia Lieblich of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, my other PhD adviser, for making me aware of the power of life history narratives. I feel indebted to Professor Reuven Kahane, also of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, who, unfortunately, is no longer with us, for being my mentor during my student days and during my early academic career.

Helene Hogri’s considerable experience in working with sociological and anthropological texts was evident in her editing of this book and added greatly to its readability. Her input often went beyond her responsibility as editor, and her patience was always appreciated, even when I resisted her wise advice. The professional expertise of the librarians at Ashkelon Academic College and the Bloomfield Library of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, was very useful in helping me find important, relevant sources. The Israel Social Sciences Data Center (ISDC) at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, made the statistical data used in this book available to me.

The following institutions generously offered financial support for the research and publication of this book, and I offer them my sincere gratitude. First and foremost I would like to thank Ashkelon Academic College that funded both the research and various stages in the publication process. I also gratefully acknowledge the grants awarded me by the Hebrew University, Jerusalem; the Israeli Ministry for Education, Culture, and Sports; the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture; and Yad Tabenkin, all of which enabled me to conduct the early stages of the research that informs this work.

Chapter 1

Introduction

It is, I suspect, an experience every field anthropologist has . . . to come upon individuals in the course of research who seem to have been waiting there . . . for someone like you, bright eyed, ignorant, obliging, credulous to happen along, so as to have the chance not just to answer your questions but to instruct you as to which ones to ask: people with a story to tell, a view to unfold, an image to impart, a theory to argue, concerning what it is that they . . . really, genuinely, truly—in fact—are.¹

These words, written by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, expressed exactly what I felt while I was collecting data on the mobility into and within the middle class of a group of second-generation Jewish Moroccan immigrant women in Israel. Although these women belong to a large ethnic group, albeit a subordinate one, in Israeli society little information about them exists. What we know about first-generation Moroccan immigrant women is based on scant statistical facts and on stereotypes that I sensed were founded on partial truths and assumptions, if not inaccuracies. We know even less about second-generation women from this ethnic group, particularly about their middle-class mobility. Therefore, I began this research with many questions. Why did these women want to enter the middle class or to be mobile within it? What issues did their mobility raise? How did they achieve their middle-class goals? I came away from each meeting with the women in my study with more complete and more accurate answers to these questions. I also came away with genuine humility, awe, and respect for the obstacles they had overcome as daughters of immigrants and for the human agency they exhibited in achieving their middle-class mobility for themselves, and, ultimately, for their children.

The subject of second-generation immigrant women’s mobility into and within the middle class has received little research attention not only in Israel, a Western-oriented society, but also in Western societies, such as the United States and Western Europe, which have many immigrants in their midst. By studying this topic, this book aims at achieving a dual goal; it analyzes a subject that has not received in-depth academic analysis in studies on Israeli society, and by using the specific case of Israel it addresses a subject that has global relevance. In this way this book is intended to be a corrective to this overlooked topic.

In starting this research I knew that studying the field of women, immigration, and mobility is important for several reasons. First, women account for a significant number of immigrants worldwide, so that the sheer size of the group justifies research about them. The number of women who leave one country in order to live in another is such that for some time now researchers have referred to the feminization of immigration.² Statistics reveal that women immigrants outnumber men in countries as varied as the United States; Western European countries such as Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom; Eastern European countries such as Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, and Hungary; Mediterranean countries such as Cyprus, Gibraltar, Greece, and Israel; and Australia and New Zealand.³

Women who come to settle in their new societies—the first generation—arrive with great differences in their human capital. Some resemble the traditional immigrants of the past and have little formal qualifications with which to accomplish upward mobility. Others are highly educated professionals who, because their adopted societies do not always recognize their occupational credentials or because they encounter discrimination or negative ethnic stereotyping, experience downward mobility.⁴ It is not surprising, then, that studies on both these groups of immigrant women in Israel, the United States, and Western Europe show that they generally begin their new lives in the working class and lower socioeconomic strata of their new societies and experience little upward mobility.⁵ But what are the prospects of the second generation—of the daughters of this large and diverse group of women—for reaching the middle class or rising within it?

Second, the upward mobility of women who were either immigrants themselves or who were born to immigrant women is important on both the individual and societal levels. On the individual level, mobility gives these immigrants a vision of their life chances,⁶ which includes their opportunities for attaining economic security, access to things, experiences and practices they value, their hierarchical position vis-à-vis others, and their sense of self-worth.⁷ On the societal level, this mobility is important because it affects social cohesion. Immigrants who feel they have opportunities for upward mobility have positive feelings toward their society⁸ and want to be part of it. Conversely, social cohesion is weakened if they sense that their upward mobility is blocked. Under such circumstances, feelings of discrimination, injustice, and alienation can arise that undermine the social fabric. Substantial research exists on the connection between such feelings among first-generation immigrants and social cohesion in the countries in which they have come to reside,⁹ and, perhaps intuitively, we expect immigrant integration and social cohesion to be only a first-generation issue. However, the recent riots and violent protests of second-generation immigrants against obstacles, real or imagined, to their upward mobility in France, Denmark, and Spain and the potential for such eruptions in other Western European countries, such as Italy, Belgium, and Germany, offer ample evidence of the powerful negative emotions and deleterious social consequences of the lack of mobility among this later generation of immigrants. By studying the middle-class mobility of the second-generation Moroccan immigrant women in this research we can understand the issues involved in this process among others like them and we can then use this knowledge to contribute to the lessening of the types of social schisms that thwarted mobility can produce.

Third, immigrant women’s mobility, particularly their middle-class mobility, is important because a combination of cultural norms and economic and social benefits have made the middle class the desired class location for working-class women in Western societies.¹⁰ From the cultural perspective, entering the middle class has become a dominant norm to which working-class women are expected to conform. Elaborating on this line of thought, Steph Lawler pointed out, Middle-classness becomes the norm against which others are measured: it is also the norm to which working-class people are supposed to aspire.¹¹ Wondering why anyone would not strive to enter the middle class, Lawler asked how a person could fail to want what society determines to be "inherently desirable, and inherently normal.¹² From an economic perspective, the neoliberal economy that characterizes Western societies in late modernity has created a demand for female labor and, along with it, opportunities for working-class women to enter the middle class through education and employment that have become the site[s]" where their upward mobility occurs.¹³ If, as noted previously, first-generation immigrant women tend to remain in the working class, those of the second generation may feel more integrated into the cultural milieu of their society and into its educational and occupational frameworks than did the previous generation, and therefore they, like other women from working-class origins, may desire middle-class mobility and may use the same sites to achieve their goal.

As we shall see, mobility into the middle class is a dominant norm in Israeli society as well. Therefore it is not surprising that second-generation Moroccan immigrant women share this cultural and economic/social goal and want to enjoy the benefits of this class position. Sharon, the high-­ranking secretary who we shall meet in chapter 6, and who recently entered the middle class, stressed that she had striven to acquire her education, good income, and occupational position because it would make her feel part of Israeli society.

Research has shown that working-class women who have a desire to be upwardly mobile initiate a process that changes their class identity.¹⁴ This change involves not only a shift in class identity but also a change in female gender identity, particularly in feminine gender identity.¹⁵ Femininity is part of gender, but it is not the same. While both are cultural and social constructions, femininity is more specific than gender. It relates to appearance, deportment, achievements, and activities that are respected, valued, and admired by the group to which women belong and to the presentation of these traits in public. Furthermore, femininity can change according to time and place and between groups of women. For instance, it can be constructed differently during various periods in a society’s history, can vary between religious and secular women, between women of different classes, ethnicities, and different age groups. In this study we shall see how these upwardly mobile second-generation Moroccan immigrant women constructed a middle-class-oriented femininity. For instance, Ruth, the kindergarten teacher’s assistant in chapter 4, distinguished between Moroccan working-class women and Moroccan feminine middle-class women and was careful to construct a middle-class persona that would present her as a feminine middle-class woman.

The link between middle-class femininity and mobility led me to think about the connection between ethnic femininity and mobility, for if middle classness requires a particular kind of femininity, so does ethnicity, which also defines what is appropriate or inappropriate for feminine women in an ethnic group.¹⁶ This connection is particularly relevant in light of Herbert Gans’s research that claims that by the third and fourth generations ethnicity wanes as the immigrants’ descendants become mobile; ethnicity once practiced on a daily basis turns into something symbolic that is expressed in various types of ethnic behavior that is determined by the individual.¹⁷ Gans’s theory, and that of others who support his view,¹⁸ raises several questions. For example, what is the association between ethnic feminine identity and mobility among second-generation immigrant women for whom ethnic identity may still be more important and more immediate than it is for later generations? Do expressions of ethnic feminine identity wane with the second generation’s mobility into the middle class? If so, does symbolic ethnicity replace ethnicity lived on a daily basis among this generation, or is this primarily a third- and fourth-generation phenomenon?

Second-generation immigrant women may feel that they want to make changes in their ethnic feminine identity or some of its components—their ethnic behavior—in order to be mobile. After all, ethnic femininity may include a variety of ethnic-based norms and behaviors, such as constructions of wifehood and motherhood, gender relations, preserving customs and ceremonies, forms of dress, and preparing ethnic food. Indeed, these may be components of ethnic femininity within an ethnic group,¹⁹ but other components, such as education and employment, may not be part of this femininity; they may not be part of the ethnic feminine tool kit²⁰ of a particular ethnic group or of a portion of women within a particular ethnic group. Therefore, if study and work are the sites where the mobility of working-class women into the middle class occurs in contemporary societies, then those second-generation immigrant women who want to leave the working class and enter the middle class will initiate changes in their ethnic femininity to include education and employment in order to achieve their goal. Miriam, the kindergarten teacher’s assistant in chapter 3, raised this point when she talked about how both education and work have become part of her life and the lives of mobile second-generation Moroccan immigrant women, a fact that distinguishes them from those second-generation women from her ethnic group who do not study and do not work outside their home and therefore are not mobile.

To be sure, not all second-generation immigrant women see a need to transform their ethnic feminine identity to include education and employment in order to be mobile. For instance, Georgina Tsolidis found that the second-generation Greek high school girls in Australia she studied did not see the need for such a change because Greek ethnic feminine norms legitimized education and employment.²¹ Similarly, researchers who studied second-generation Moroccan-Muslim and Turkish-Muslim women in the Netherlands noted that individualistic ethnic norms in the Moroccan communities allowed women the freedom to choose whether to pursue an education and occupation, and this freedom resulted in some women achieving high levels of education and employment. In contrast, the more collectivistic ethnic norms in the Turkish communities were less supportive of women acquiring an education and being employed, and, indeed, these women achieved less in these spheres than the Moroccan-Muslim women did.²² Furthermore, some women within an ethnic group may want to study and be employed to achieve mobility while others may not. Consequently, there may be in-group differences in mobility and ethnic feminine identities; multiple and simultaneous ethnic feminine identities may coexist composed of those who are mobile and those who are not. Naomi, the high school teacher in chapter 7, exemplified this point when she told me that she had always known she would have a complete education that included university studies and a profession, which meant she would be mobile, while most of the other women I interviewed for this research did not assume that such studies were in their future and, in fact, were less mobile.

If second-generation immigrant women from different ethnic groups are found in the same society, then their presence raises the issue of a hierarchal relationship between those in the hegemonic group and those in the subordinate one²³ or between those ethnic feminine identities that are considered superior or inferior. A woman’s position in this hierarchical order may become another source of her identity in addition to those of feminine gender, class, and ethnicity. These hegemonic and subordinate relationships, along with the probability that socioeconomic disparities accompany these different locations in the hierarchy, place the two groups of women in different structural positions in which those from the hegemonic group, in all likelihood, have preferential access to mobility resources. Under such circumstances, ethnicity matters, perhaps more to the women in the subordinate group than to those in the dominant one who, because of their privileged position, may have the luxury of being oblivious to this aspect of the social order. This idea parallels Beverley Skeggs’s claim that class is not a problem for those who have the privilege to ignore it.²⁴ Carolyn Kay Steedman supported this line of thought when she urged that it is important to examine the stories of women whose lives are not central to the dominant culture.²⁵ In the context of my study, this suggests that the paths to mobility into and within the middle class of second-generation Moroccan immigrant women will undoubtedly be different from those of women in the hegemonic group, women of European/American origin. For example, in chapter 8 we meet Colette, a high school teacher who felt that her path to upward mobility has been blocked despite her two academic degrees (a BA and an MA) because she is Moroccan, while European women do not incur such obstacles.

I decided to study the middle-class mobility of second-generation Moroccan immigrant women at midlife (forty to fifty years old) because this stage of their lives probably shows their ultimate class attainments. In this my research differs from many of the existing studies on both the United States and Western Europe that concentrated on the educational and occupational attainments of second-generation immigrants as adolescents or young adults²⁶ and their mobility accomplishments in their later years. More specific research on second-generation girls and adolescents stressed a connection between parental and/or ethnic group socialization toward academic achievement and mobility in adulthood.²⁷ However, I contend that all of this research that focuses on young people is not as deterministic as it would lead us to believe. It is particularly problematic in regard to girls and women in subordinate racial, ethnic, and class categories who, perhaps to help support parents and siblings, may have interrupted their studies in their youth but have returned to continue their education later in life.²⁸ In addition, the need or desire to work in order to contribute to their own family’s income and to improve the life chances of their children may also motivate these women to pursue an education and work in adulthood, and therefore to be mobile. Likewise, changing opportunity structures—more varied educational frameworks or the restructuring of the labor market—may induce women to study and to be employed. Cultural factors, such as exposure to class and ethnic feminine identities in the wider society, which may be different from those to which young girls were socialized by their immigrant mothers, may also alter life plans. Sara, the high-ranking secretary in chapter 5, demonstrated my contention. She dropped out of high school to help support her parents, then married early and had children in quick succession in order to conform with Moroccan feminine gender norms, a decision that further interrupted her education. It was only in her mature years, after she had been exposed to the norm of upward mobility that existed outside her ethnic group, that she completed the education that enabled her to enter the position that placed her in the middle class. Finally, adult life experiences, such as changes in marital status, whether through death or divorce, may cause women to adopt different goals than those they espoused in their earlier years.²⁹ Sharon, the divorcée, and the high-ranking secretary in chapter 6, brought up this point when she told me that her mobility and class awareness had become important to her after she separated from her husband in her mid-thirties and had to provide for herself and her children. Had I interviewed these women in their earlier years, I would have reached different conclusions about their mobility attainments.

In concluding my discussion of my reasons for studying the mobility of second-generation Moroccan immigrant women into and within the middle class in Israel and the issues it has raised, it is important to add that carrying out this study in this society presented the advantage of adding a comparative perspective to research on the topic. Since the few studies that do address this subject have concentrated on Western Europe or the United States, they have a decidedly Euro-American slant. Thus focusing on Israel expands our knowledge on the topic and provides a wider perspective. While no social contexts are entirely similar, and therefore it is difficult to present grand theories that would include and be accurate for all second-generation immigrant women in subordinate groups in all societies, a comparative approach that includes Israel can add a new dimension to a topic that has global importance.

.   .   .

When I began the study, I did not know any second-generation Moroccan immigrant women who were in the middle class. So in order to meet some who could participate in this research, I put up a notice in neighborhood centers in Jerusalem asking Moroccan women, who were born in Israel to two Moroccan parents and who were between forty and fifty years old, to contact me. I chose