Paper short abstract:

The article investigates the roles of grandparents for second-generation immigrants. It investigates the process of kinning between second-generation Vietnamese and their grandparents in Vietnam, and their Czech nannies-grandmothers in the Czech Republic.

Paper long abstract:

The article investigates the roles of grandparents for second-generation immigrants who live with their parents in a different country than their grandparents. It draws upon in-depth interviews with second-generation Vietnamese people living in the Czech Republic, where they are the largest group of migrant descendants and the children are very often raised by Czech nannies. The nannies and the children are kinned through the process of caregiving and become grandmothers and grandchildren for each other. The analysis focuses on how the interviewees make sense of, interpret, and understand their roles as grandchildren vis-à-vis their Czech grandmothers and Vietnamese grandmothers. It shows how after migration the kinship ties are performed, negotiated, and reproduced on a very micro level of everyday life, with tasks of caring, homeland visits, and transnational/face-to-face intimacy maintenance. The article is innovative in its analysis of grandparenthood from the perspective of grandchildren; it advances the conclusion that the grandparents play an important role in the children's understanding of their belonging both to the kinned trajectory and to the homeland.