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J e s ú s Á n g e l E n r í q u e z A c o s ta
ing (legally or otherwise) into the United States, and by the access to
relative economic prosperity that those cities offered, including avenues
offered by the burgeoning drug trade. These cities are in many ways as
much or more culturally, socially, and economically articulated with the
United States than with Mexico.
The growth of maquiladora plants drastically altered the border cities’
physiognomy and social dynamics. The industry provided an extreme
shock to the regional (as well as national) economy, producing a huge
boom in spin-off businesses that serve the maquiladoras. Heavy and rapid
population growth brought with it enormous challenges for urban plan-
ning. The pressure on city governments to maintain (much less expand)
basic services, infrastructure, and equipment increased dramatically, while
their capacity remained more or less stagnant. Insecurity and violence
came to characterize large portions of these cities, as so-called irregular
settlements grew seemingly overnight. Competition for urban land grew
fierce, as the real estate market fueling “the city” boomed.
The growth of the maquiladora sector since the implementation of
the 1965 Border Industrialization Program (BIP) thus multiplied border
cities’ attractiveness for internal migration, while also offering a new
type of “urban settlement that did not have to face the contradictions
or obstacles faced elsewhere in Mexico, the old social structures and pre-
modern institutions characteristic of an agricultural and rural society”
(Canales 2003: 163). Mexico’s National Border Program (PRONAF)
was created in 1961 to create the necessary infrastructure to absorb
border-city growth. PRONAF also included a cultural component
that would encourage identity construction amongst the new settlers.
The consequences of maquiladora activity and the related urbanization
processes rendered the border cities extremely fluid environments. By
2000, Baja California contained 85 percent of the population residing
in the border cities; Chihuahua contained 42 percent; while Sonora had
23 percent (SEDESOL 2001).
There are thirty-eight municipalities along the 3,152 kilometers of
the U.S.–Mexico border. Extending the border area 150 kilometers to
the south brings the number of municipalities to eighty. The thirty-eight
municipalities immediately adjacent to the United States represent 8.86
percent of Mexico’s national territory, and 1.56 percent of the nation’s
total number of municipalities. According to the 2000 Mexican census,
those thirty-eight municipalities had a combined population of 5,505,501
inhabitants, or 5.65 percent of the national population.
The border states’ total population for 2000 was 16.6 million people,
compared to only 2.1 million in 1930 (see table 1). Hence over these
seventy years, the region’s population grew sevenfold, much faster than
the national average of fivefold. Baja California’s population grew by
a factor of fifty between 1930 and 2005, from 48,327 inhabitants to
2,844,469. The effects of migration are also seen in the average age of
the population. Fifteen- to sixty-four-year-olds make up 61.7 percent
of the border population, compared to 57.5 percent in the rest of the
country. There are relatively fewer women in the border area: 49.8 percent
compared to 51.2 percent for the rest of the nation. This suggests that
more working-age men than women are settling on the border. Another
demographic statistics that indicates the weight of border-city migration
is that 41.4 percent of the inhabitants were born in another state, which
is twice the overall national average of 20.3 percent.
Table 1. Population growth on the northern Mexican Border
1930 2,054,345
1950 3,762,963
1970 7,848,169
1990 13,246,991
2000 16,642,676
the interior. Part of the border’s dynamism, then, derives from a sense
of hope that life will finally provide concrete opportunities.
As mentioned, the border’s economic growth depends in great measure
on the maquiladora industry. These plants pay low salaries comparative
to the United States. The largest maquiladoras, those with the most
costly products and highest number of employees, are in Tijuana and
Ciudad Juárez (see table 2).
lution. Meanwhile, the assembly plants press for more and more land,
reducing the space available for housing. This, combined with heavy real
estate speculation and the border cities’ generally hilly topographies,
inflates land values.
The inability of local governments to regulate urban development,
along with legal loopholes, weak federal institutions (particularly in
terms of environmental regulation), and maquiladoras’ special federal
dispensations to build new plants all combine to create a deteriorating
urban border environment. Tijuana, Nogales, and Ciudad Juárez, for
example, suffer environmental-quality problems related to the lack of
pavement—50 percent of these cities’ streets aren’t paved (SNIM 2003).
Industrial activity, heavy vehicle traffic, inadequate sanitation services,
and poor sewerage or drainage increase the risk of illnesses and devastat-
ing floods in wide sectors of these cities. Uneven urban topographies,
meanwhile, create ample opportunities for clandestine garbage disposal.
Assembly plants contribute to the contamination problem through
their use of highly toxic chemicals in their operations, with little or no
information available to the public for spill-related emergencies. Indeed,
the information on factories’ overall chemical dynamics is imprecise and
scarce.
Potable water presents additional difficulties. Rapid population growth
combined with water use by the maquiladoras has dramatically increased
domestic and industrial water consumption in these border cities. All face
water shortages. Tijuana is supplied by the Colorado River, two hundred
kilometers to the east. Nogales receives its potable water via a forty-
kilometer pipeline from the Magdalena River basin. Ciudad Juárez derives
its water from wells located in the Río Bravo (Rio Grande) basin.
The border cities face serious challenges in providing buildable space
because of their very hilly topographies, the difficulties of privatizing
federal or ejido lands, and skyrocketing property values. Land is fre-
quently colonized or squatted informally and haphazard development
subsequently legalized. But the fast pace and complex dynamics of this
process strain local governments’ abilities to provide even the most
basic services. The fluidity of the border context works against state
efforts to provide citizens any kind of legal certainty regarding property
ownership, which in turn, renders urban planning a highly volatile field.
This uncertainty, moreover, drives up the price of housing: financial
institutions are cautious in their lending practices, construction costs
are inflated, and most of the easily buildable open spaces are now fully
Source: INEGI Census: 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005
for local government. City planners are forced to negotiate between the
constant land and infrastructure demands of a growing population and of
the maquiladoras. These conditions, moreover, are quite propitious for
land speculators and real estate investors, rendering available residential
land ever scarcer. The real estate market thus becomes constitutive of
both economic and political power. Those who control it often have the
capacity decide when, how, and where the city grows, despite the plans
and programs of city government. Tijuana, for example, has an enormous
problem with irregular landholding. Some estimates suggest that of the
city’s approximately 135,000 lots, around 40 percent lack formal titles
for the land or home (La Frontera 2004).
Here again, the data reveal the importance of migration for the
demographic growth of the city, as well as the pressures it creates for
local government. The annual housing deficit, for instance, is estimated
at around 12,000. The real estate market is simply inadequate to handle
the demand. The problem is exacerbated by the inability of the real state
market to provide affordable housing for workers.
The index of human development gives Ciudad Juárez a decent rank-
ing. Nonetheless, nearly 41 percent of its population lives in cramped
housing (CONAPO 2003). The city’s per-capita GDP is US$12,970,
the highest in the state, with 40 percent of the workforce earning less
than two times the minimum wage. Strikingly, 60 percent of population
receives less than five times the national minimum wage while 11.4 per-
cent receives ten or more times the minimum wage. Ciudad Juárez has a
Gini index of 0.5829, one of the highest among the large border cities.
This figure speaks to the extreme disparities of income distribution. The
city’s social and economic polarization has evident spatial expressions in
Juárez, whose western and southeast sides have high levels of poverty.
Estimates are that 15.3 percent of city inhabitants live in conditions of
extreme poverty. In 13 percent of these homes, kitchens serve as bed-
rooms; 30 percent have but a single bedroom and house at least four
people (SNIM 2003).
Conclusions
will remain attractive for Mexican immigrants for many years to come
because they offer the hope of opportunity. <
Bibliography
Arreola, Daniel, and James Curtis. 1993. The Mexican border cities.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Canales, Alejandro. 2003. “Culturas demográficas y doblamientos
modernos. Perspectivas desde la frontera México–Estados Unidos.”
In Manuel Valenzuela, coord., Por las fronteras del norte. Mexico
City: CNCA.
CONAPO. 2003. La situación demográfica de México. Mexico City:
Author.
INEGI. 2000. “Censo general de población y vivienda.” Mexico City:
Author.
–––––––.2004. “Indicadores de empleo y desempleo”. México City:
Author.
–––––––. 2005a. “Conteo de población y vivienda.” Mexico City:
Author.
–––––––. 2005b. “Estadísticas de la industria maquiladora de export-
ación.” Mexico City: Author.
“Hay 135,000 lotes irregulares en Tijuana.” La Frontera (Tijuana, B.C.)
2004. June 7.
IMPLAN. 2003. “Plan municipal de desarrollo urbano del municipio
de Tijuana.” Tijuana: Author.
SEDESOL. 2001. “Programa de desarrollo regional frontera norte,
2001–2006.” Mexico City: Author.
Sistema Nacional de Información Municipal (SNIM). 2003. INAFED.
México.
B R I S A V I O L E TA C A R R A S C O G A L L E G O S
B R I S A V I O L E TA C A R R A S C O G A L L E G O S S H I L L I N G is a P H .D. candidate in
social sciences at the Universidad de Guadalajara.
between 1990 and 2000 (Instituto Municipal 2003: table 58). This
growth has been stimulated in part by the reorganization of credit and
mortgage schemes for new construction. Large developments of new
housing have thus sprung up since 1990, generating an enormous out-
ward expansion of the urban footprint, towards once-peripheral areas
of the municipality.
The struggle for developable urban space has intensified as “the popu-
lation phenomenon [combined with] industrial and commercial activity
generate a strong demand for lots and infrastructure, causing significant
changes in land use, and [intense] speculation and monopolization”
(Enríquez 2004: 24). Large national and international real estate chains
have located in Tijuana, as the city becomes one of the most profitable
sites in the nation for housing construction. Such companies join a
growing list of local and regional companies.
S U B U R B A N I Z AT I O N AND D E N S I F I C AT I O N P R O C E S S E S
IN TIJUANA
C O N C E N T R AT I O N O F G AT E D C O M M U N I T I E S
I N P L AYA S D E T I J U A N A
C O N C E N T R AT I O N O F G AT E D C O M M U N I T I E S
ON THE ROAD TO ROSARITO BEACH
The older city core contains the largest number of gated communities
of the four zones (see figure 6). Unlike in the southern and the eastern
zones, housing in the city center is not characterized by expansive, high-
density developments. Nor is it spatially extensive as in Playas de Tijuana.
Housing in this zone of the city is located in small, interstitial polygons
of urban space that have long been built up.
Land values in the center are also higher than in other areas, and as a
result, most of the housing here is oriented towards the middle and upper
classes. Closely packed housing usually takes the form of condominiums,
a more suitable design for lots smaller than the minimum sizes set forth
in the Regulation for Housing Developments. Housing is appreciating
in this zone, which facilitates the real estate business. Land use in the
center is largely a mix of housing, services, and commercial activities.
Although the cost of land has inflated house prices here, much of this
urban zone is characterized by steep slopes and difficult topographical
conditions, which have deterred developers.
C O N C E N T R AT I O N O F G AT E D C O M M U N I T I E S
IN THE EASTERN ZONE
The eastern part of Tijuana contains more gated communities than any
other area of the city (figure 7). It is one of the most important areas for
our study because of the density of construction, the socioeconomic level
of its population, and the levels of urban growth it has experienced. Most
of Tijuana’s industrial parks are located in areas that were at one time
on the urban periphery. The former periphery has now been overrun by
urban expansion that began as irregular, or shantytown, settlements that
developed around and largely as a result of assembly plants.
the U.S. state of California is useful here, for it is one of the U.S. states
with the highest number of gated communities, in part the result of
high immigration rates. Tijuana has certain similarities with California
cities; namely, a large transient population. Migration along with above-
average land costs are two factors that encourage the gated-community
phenomenon for low-income residents.
Tijuana—with its gated communities for high-, middle-, and low-
income inhabitants—also differs from other major Latin American cit-
ies, such as Santiago, Chile, where most of the urban developments of
this type are for the middle classes Hidalgo, Salazar, and Álvarez 2003).
Likewise M. Svampa (2001: 58) classifies many of Buenos Aires’ pri-
vate neighborhoods (known locally by various names such as countries,
chacras, or mega constructions) are intended for Argentina’s upper and
upper-middle classes.
LOCAL ACTORS
residents pay for urban services. These are problems ideally addressed by
city government. However, in Tijuana government takes a backseat to
the ideal of private enterprise. Authorities play down the inaccessibility
of public spaces (made so by private control over access), arguing that
it is a matter of security. When we questioned an IMPLAN (Instituto
Municipal de Planeación de Tijuana) architect about the presence of
private security officers controlling the access to streets and public facili-
ties within gated communities (and stating our disagreement with the
prohibitions) she answered:
We know that legally it’s not right, but the community also exists
and the community also has needs, and in the end we are also
planning for the community, thus you can’t tell the community,
“Don’t hire a policeman to watch over who enters and exits the
neighborhood.” In a neighborhood I visit frequently, there is
always a policeman who belongs to a particular organization, but
he is always watching who comes in or out, because there have
already been stolen cars, because there have been robbed houses,
because they jumped in from the other popular neighborhood.
Then, how do you tell the community not to protect themselves
from insecurity?
Under the justification of “urban insecurity,” then, officials and busi-
ness sectors encourage the privatization of traditionally public functions,
even when doing so clearly goes against urban regulation by limiting
access to otherwise public goods and services. Another problem presented
by the gated community, this time within the condominium scheme,
is that of private streets, which creates loopholes allowing the building
of units that are much smaller than the legally mandated minimum
house size. In Tijuana, the so-called condominium laws for social inter-
est housing have affected many thousands families who have acquired
this type of housing with less than thirty square meters of surface area.
By adhering to the condominium laws, developers need comply with
only very minimal requirements for homes, a practice that was strongly
criticized by Mexico’s College of Architects in a press statement released
in July 2004:
The social interest houses reduced their spaces from 72 to 27 square
meters in ten years, a smaller space than that recommended by the
United Nations Organization (UNO) for two persons. . . . The
legal specifications for the major builders like Casas Geo, Urbi, Ara,
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blakely, Edward J., and Mary Gail Snyder. 1999. Fortress America. Gated
Communities in the United States. Washington, DC: Brookings
Institution Press.
Borja, Jordi, and Zaida Muxí. 2000. El espacio público: ciudad y ciuda-
danía. Barcelona: Electa Editores.
CONAPO. n.d. Proyecciones de la población de los municipios, edad y
sexo. Retrieved from: www.conapo.gob.mx/micros/proymunloc/
index.htm.
Enríquez, Jesús. 2004. “Reporte sobre Tijuana.” Ph.D. diss., Universidad
Autónoma de México, Political Science Department.
Hidalgo, R., A. Salazar, and L. Álvarez. 2003. “Los condominios y
urbanizaciones cerradas como nuevo modelo de construcción del
espacio residencial en Santiago de Chile (1992–2000).” Scripta
Nova. Revista Electrónica de Geografía y Ciencias Sociales (Uni-
versidad de Barcelona) 7, no. 146 (123), August 1. www.ub.es/
geocrit/sn/sn-146(123).htm.
Hiernaux, Daniel, and Alicia Lindón. 2002. “Modos de vida y utopías
urbanas.” Ciudades (Puebla) 53 (Jan.–Mar.): 26–32.
Instituto Municipal de Planeación de Tijuana. 2003. Plan de desarrollo
urbano centro de población Tijuana, B.C., 2002–2005, Periódico
Oficial, Sept. 13.
Svampa, Maristella. 2001. Los que ganaron: la vida en los countries y
barrios privados. Buenos Aires: Biblos.
Verduzco, Basilio, Nora Bringas, and Basilia Valenzuela. 1995. La ciu-
dad compartida. Desarrollo urbano, comercio y turismo en la región
Tijuana–San Diego. Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara.
Zenteno, René. 1993. Migración hacia la frontera norte de México:
Tijuana, Baja California. Tijuana: El Colegio de la Frontera
Norte.
M e m o r y C i t y /T r a n s i t o r y C i t y
the other side of the world, it was really far away, and everything
was agricultural fields back then, everything. If you see the Mesa
[Otay Mesa], I started to work there as a teacher in ’62. We were
really poor then and we couldn’t afford two bus fares, so on the
way home I would walk with my students until I reached a bus that
would bring me all the way back here to Colonia [Libertad], and
those were all gape fields back then, all of La Mesa de Otay and
the Tijuana river area were agricultural parcels that ended right at
the city’s edge. All of us who didn’t want to live or couldn’t get
by in other areas came here [to Colonia Libertad]. Unfortunately,
Tijuana has had bad luck with we who came from other places,
almost all of us. . . . well, now there are fewer from outside Tijuana,
because many of the current residents were born here. But in the
beginning—what was it, maybe about twenty years ago?—we
were all sitting there in the living room, about seven of us, when
my mother started talking about how she came to Tijuana from
her family’s ranch [in Mazatlán]. Another woman was dreaming
of her former life back on her farm in [the state of] Jalisco; one of
my students was talking about Ensenada, because that’s where she
was born. And so I sat there watching, and said, “Poor Tijuana,
we all live here because we could not make it in other places, we
came out of necessity, they opened their doors to us, and they gave
us careers, something that we could not have had in the south,
because [in the south] if you’re not rich, you’re a pauper, and they
keep dreaming in the south.” (Pers. comm. Mr. Benítez, teacher,
Colonia Libertad, Tijuana, July 1999)
The encounter city is, for Augé (1998), that which is captured in the
senses. It is what the astonished campesino discovers after journeying
from farm country and being quickly overwhelmed by a vast array of
confusing signals. It is also the re-encounter with the city of a person who
returns after an absence and is compelled to reflect on the city through
metonymy, focusing on some rediscovered aspect of personal experience
that is mediated by social life and in this way acquires new meaning. The
imaginary is thus forged in social interaction. To encounter the city is
to find in it another person, an object of the wanderings and properties
of the city’s intricately social world.
The lifestyle here [in Tijuana] is faster paced. Here there’s more
crime. Here you can’t move around in the house without worry,
and there are more robberies of houses. You can’t leave peacefully.
You see, even in the neighborhood shops, at eight or nine o’clock
they put up the bars . . . [they say], “If you want something I can
sell it to you until 9:00 p.m., but only through the iron bars.” In
[my home state of Sinaloa] you just don’t see that. It is really rare
that in Sinaloa a store puts up its iron bars. No, this is life here.
[There] a girl, a young girl, can go out to a dance near home, at
twelve or eleven, go and come, sometimes on foot, and here you
can’t. Why? Because they’ll mug you just around the corner from
your house. You take a walk, and they’ll attack you and take your
purse, or they’ll corner you. This is what happens, and not just in
this area, in many areas. (Pers. comm., female resident of Villa del
Real neighborhood, Tijuana, October 2004)
When you see a lot of housing developments, yes, you see that the
place is pretty, and it’s next to an area that’s, well, really rundown
or poor, well, I used to say, “Wow! how will I sell this place if I
grow out of it . . . ?” When I was first taken to a shopping center
here called Interlomas—it was my sister-in-law who took me—and
when I got there I said, “maybe she made a mistake, because, well,
this doesn’t look like Las Lomas [a wealthy area of Mexico City],
right?” [Then] I saw . . . BMWs, Mercedes Benzes, and these
Porsches going by . . . and then it was, you know, “I think we’re on
the right road.” But the area was really ugly. And suddenly you’d
arrive and say, “Well, oh well, I’m going to have to go through
In the border one can clearly observe the fragmentation of the Latin
American city. The open spaces of developed-world cities are attractive
for the possibilities they offer to revitalize existing areas in ways oriented
toward spectacle. They are a terrain vague, “external and strange places
that remain outside the circuits and structures of production” (Solá-
Morales 2002: 187). They are blemishes on the urban fabric, places to
be recovered by virtue of an alternative vision. These blemishes are the
rule rather than the exception in the border city, where there are an
abundance of irregular, insecure, and unproductive interstices combined
with very large bands of precarious development set against normalized
areas of self-segregation and homogenization that simulate security
Conclusion
The border city is built along opposing axes wherein the urban imaginary
has yet to become completely overwhelmed by images of simulation.
The transitory nature of the border imprints on its cities rapid change
and uncertainty that can only become registered in ephemeral refer-
ents. Spaces of passing-through tend to restrict possibilities for friendly
encounters to the realm of selective friendship. The growing apparatus
of urban defense is subsumed in a labyrinth of shimmering self-images
of what constitutes a satisfactory experience. This triple binary dislocates
the city onto two social spheres and two territories of dis-encounter.
Nonetheless, such territories remain rich with opportunity for building
alternative, incomplete urbanisms. <
Notes
1. The borderland is a very singular space that registers the problematic evolu-
tion and varied rhythms of distinct types of cities. The cases under consideration
here illustrate the dynamics of new cities that in Mexico are representative of
the territorial and urban reconfiguration linked to tourism development and, of
course, to the maquiladora industry, as it generated new poles and corridors of
growth (Méndez 2000; Quiróz 2004).
2. This includes, of course, the urban agglomerations of the northern border,
some of whose values and features coincide with those set forth in the “Manifesto
for a New Culture of Territory,” on the website of the Asociación de Geógrafos
Españoles (http://age.ieg.csic.es/).
3. Ironically, our fixation with the past—or with certain understandings of
it—perhaps because of the weight of the ancient European cities, has actually
become a kind of parasite on our thinking that makes possible the constant
devouring of the physical space of historic cities; it has invaded the minds of
intellectuals. Thinking in the past has failed not only to impede the destruction
of the material present, but also the past that is retained in the imaginary.
Bibliography
In Michoacán, chatting with a young boy from Nuevo San Juan Paran-
garacutiro, I asked, “What would you like to be when you grow up?”
To my surprise, he answered, “A doctor or a migrant.”1
Children are constantly being deported from the United States to cit-
ies across northern Mexico. A study by UNICEF-DIF reported that
during 2003, 5,457 minors were deported without the company of an
adult family member. In 2006, estimates were that 3,000 children were
deported unaccompanied to Ciudad Juárez.2 Such complexity, of course,
has deep implications for U.S.–Mexico relations. But, more specifically,
it presents enormous challenges for the institutions accountable for
managing children’s deportation, and in turn, directly impacts families,
as they are divided and their children undergo tremendous stress while
they wait in government shelters for their cases to be resolved. Even
though the present work is based on recent and contemporary research,
the analysis of child deportation is part of longer historical processes of
social inequality that take shape in everyday encounters between children
and institutions. These encounters constitute the process of deportation
enforced by both the United States and Mexico.
Here, I argue that deportation is a process best understood as three
interlinked elements: (1) the event (detention); (2) the sites (multiple
institutions); and (3) institutional practices generated over time. Rather
than describing what seems to be a formal-legal process (matters of
citizenship), and an informal one (migrants’ lack of documents and
networks of support), what I describe and interpret here is how informal
When a minor is detained and interrogated for the first time, he or she
is usually en route from his or her place of residence to the detention
point. On average, deportees will have traveled from one to fifteen days
to the border. There, they reach a threshold where they must decide
when and where to cross, as well as make the first payment to the pol-
lero (slang for one who smuggles people into the United States.) The
balance is paid on the U.S. side.
“I left from Veracruz, in a bus organized only for people from my
town.” (Pablo, 13 years, personal interview, June 2004)
Children have various different reasons for crossing into the United
States. What most caught my attention, however, was that, for many
young people there’s simply nothing to do where they live.
“I don’t do anything, I work all day. I like my work and if I have
time I listen to the radio.” (Ana, 15 years, personal interview, June
2004)
In general terms, the children detained and later deported were often
found in scrubby fields and desolate areas contiguous with the Río Bravo
(Rio Grande). Most were apprehended at night and they rarely recall the
exact names of places on the crossing. But by their descriptions of the
of animals from people. The officer went on to talk about the cultural
aspects of border monitoring, and I was reminded of Clifford Geertz’s
(2000: 30) suggestion that anthropologists not lose sight of concrete
events when studying symbolic forms. The officer explained, “If some-
body does not look at you in the eyes, he or she is not necessarily lying.
In Mexico, the people see authority like that, with fear, hence they turn
their glance to one side.” The practice of identifying, classifying, and,
subsequently, processing, focuses on a person not as an individual, but
rather as someone belonging to a cultural group or ideal type.
have their limits, but even in these places of surveillance and extreme
duress, one observes resistance.
Ciudad Juárez’s Bolivia Street Shelter, run by the DIF, generally admits
children younger than eight years because they are not accepted at other
shelters. This shelter accepts children separated from their relatives for
reasons ranging from deportation to drug use, neglect or abuse. It is
a complex environment. Only a few of the minors I interviewed had
arrived at this shelter first and then been transferred to the Casa YMCA
for migrant children. Most of the minors I interviewed were immedi-
ately referred from the PDM offices to the Casa YMCA. There is a close
relationship between the Bolivia Shelter and Casa YMCA.
3. CPS
3. INS
1. Initial 2. BP 6. DIF
displacement
5. INM
4. MX
Consul
6. CA
7. YMCA
microphysics of power; that is, the social body becomes stressed as power
is exerted over individual wills.
Most children interviewed have family members in both countries, and
some indicated that they had lived for a long time in the United States,
as well as in Mexico. Migration thus begins to look less like a matter of
simple, linear departure from one country (Mexico) for another (United
States), but rather is a circular movement between countries. This, in
turn, connects families and places. It is also important to note that sup-
port networks are often challenged by this circularity. In each network
the movement produces fractures. Azaola and Estes (2003), for example,
write that minors caught up in such a movement are in a clearly delicate
situation, one that shares some similarities to the traffic of minors for
sexual commerce. They note, “Unlike other goods, human beings can
be repeatedly used . . . because it is an activity that does not require of
great investment of capital” (2003: 27).
Final Thoughts
are they told why they were detained. In this first encounter, authori-
ties usually give no clarification of the process. Thus, children will not
request water or aspirin, for instance, even when they are in dire need.
The context of interrogation is just too aggressive and overwhelming.
Meanwhile, in every institution I visited, there are expectations on both
sides: public servants anticipate certain behaviors, while the minors wait
for certain questions to be asked. This is precisely the moment when we
observed true communication. We can thus say that there is a mutual
construction occurring here between “legal” and “illegal,” between the
authority and the detainee, and finally, between the adult and the child.
In such everyday encounters, in places filled with children, migration is
shaping the future of nations. <
Notes
Bibliography
Archives Consulted
Gail Mummert
Ana and her four Eldest sister (Ana) Married, illegal U.S. residents younger siblings
José and María Paternal grandmother Divorced; father’s allegations of mother’s neglect of the children prompted
him to send the children to Mexico to be cared for by his mother
Dalia Unmarried maternal aunt Separated due to father’s ongoing problems with alcoholism Mother
working illegally.
Gabriel and Leonardo Paternal grandmother Married, both parents working in the United States Grandmother cares
for grandchildren along with her own daughter of roughly same age.
Mario and Celia Maternal grandmother Abandoned by her migrant husband, the mother went to the United
States. She later sent her children to Mexico in order to be able to work.
Adrián Maternal grandmother Single mother has made a new life in the United States and partnered
with a man with whom she has two other children. Oldest child refuses
to live with her or to recognize her as his mother.
Damián Maternal aunt and uncle Single mother accepted legal adoption of her son by her sister and
brother-in-law when child was eight. He lives with them and visits his
mother on weekends and vacations.
Julia and her Paternal grandparents Divorced; allegations of child neglect and abuse by mother led to a court
four sisters case in which custody of all five daughters was awarded to the father. The
older girls live with their father in Chicago, while the younger ones visit
there during summer vacations.
Source: 26 interviews with members of eight transnational families in the Ecuandureo Valley, Michoacán, Mexico, 1999, 2005, 2006.
Siblings by Telephone ✜ 505
1/25/10 12:04:25 PM
506 ✜ J ournal of the S outhwest
Siblings of M i x e d L e g a l S tat u s
Amelia is a spinster aunt who has developed a close relationship with her
niece, Dalia, since the girl was born in the Ecuandureo Valley of Micho-
acán in 1994.11 Given that emotional bond, the biological mother chose
her sister Amelia as caregiver for Dalia and a younger infant sister when
she and her husband decided to migrate illegally together to the United
States in 1999. In fact, over time she has come to recognize Amelia as
“Dalia’s real mother.” The maternal grandfather, a remarried widower in
his sixties and seasonal migrant to Chicago, has supported Dalia and Amelia
economically because remittances from the girl’s parents have not been
steady or reliable. The grandfather has openly criticized his daughter and
son-in-law for their irresponsibility as Dalia’s parents. Since the grandfather
is a U.S. legal resident, at one point he explored the possibility of adopting
his granddaughter, a solution that might have led to a reunification of the
girl with her biological parents, but this fell through. (The second daughter
was reunited with the parents through the use of borrowed documents
to cross the border when she was a few years old.)
When Dalia´s parents, who were residing in Chicago, separated in
2005 as a result of the father’s ongoing problems with alcoholism, her
mother invited Amelia to come to live in Chicago with Dalia (then a
preadolescent). There, she said, Amelia could care for the three nieces
(Dalia, her younger reunited sister, and a sister born in the United States
whom Dalia has never met) while the biological mother worked. Amelia
faced a difficult decision: she preferred living in Mexico, but felt torn by
her very close sisterly relationship and desire to come to her sister’s aid
by being nanny to her nieces. Yet, neither she nor Dalia could enter the
United States legally, which would make the journey across the border
a dangerous and costly affair. If, on the other hand (as Amelia suggested
to Dalia), the three sisters were reunited in Mexico and cared for by
their aunt there, the two younger U.S.–raised sisters would miss their
biological mother and their lives in Chicago. Amelia finally declined her
sister’s invitation and continues to care for her niece Dalia in Michoacán,
as if she were her own daughter. Dalia continues to call her aunt by her
first name (rather than using “aunt”), to interact with her sisters and
parents by telephone and through letters, and to dream of being a flight
attendant (ever since the day she saw one in the airport when her baby
sister was sent to the United States).
This transnational family of mixed legal status lives a heart-wrenching
drama in which family reunification looms unattainable, complicated
by the father’s irresponsibility. As the physical separation has become
long-term, the three sisters are moving along life trajectories that differ
greatly in terms of Spanish and English language acquisition, schooling
opportunities, medical attention, government support, and of course,
caregiving arrangements. Dalia’s case starkly illustrates the complexity
of decision-making processes in transnational families in which relatives
criticize or praise loyalties and mobilize resources for their kin in need
of assistance by invoking moral norms. As Dalia’s grandfather explained
his support: “How could I not help my family?”
H a l f -S i b l i n g s and S t e p pa r e n t s
by attending the senior high school located in the county seat several
miles down the highway from her home village. But her fate was changed
when her mother made a pivotal decision to join the migrant father in
Chicago with the goal of building a bigger house for the family of seven.
The mother left with only her youngest son, Roberto (then age seven),
leaving Ana in charge of herself and the other three children (then ages
fourteen, thirteen, and ten)—all of them students. The paternal grand-
mother, who lives next door, had adamantly expressed her disapproval of
her daughter-in-law´s decision to “abandon her offspring” and refused
to take on the responsibility of caring for her grandchildren. Therefore,
an unmarried paternal aunt (living with the grandparents next door) was
designated the children’s tutor, in charge of the remittances and school
matters, while Ana was expected to feed her two younger brothers and
one sister, as well as organize household chores. These responsibilities
precluded school attendance for Ana.
Although Ana recounts that she did not oppose her mother’s decision
because she understood the family’s economic needs, it is clear from her
discourse that she immediately faced enormous challenges as a sister-
mother; in hindsight she views these years as a sacrifice that she made
to the family. In fact, Ana feels that she was subtly forced by her mother
to sacrifice three years of her life to rear her siblings.13 One by one, the
two teenage boys migrated illegally to Chicago, where they live and
work with their parents. When the youngest sister entered senior high
school, Ana did too; both girls completed their twelve years of study and
eventually migrated to the United States to join the family.
During the six years Ana and her sister were separated from their
parents, communication with Roberto, the youngest sibling who from
the viewpoint of the others lived a privileged life in Chicago, became
difficult since he preferred to speak in English: “He hardly speaks like us,
only English,” reports the grandmother. When the parents in Chicago
encouraged Roberto to talk to his siblings in Michoacán, he confessed
that he hardly remembered them. The elder sisters are well aware of the
different lifestyle that Roberto has in comparison to the rest who were
raised in Mexico: while watching a home video of the boy at a soccer
match, they pointed out that he has material possessions and opportu-
nities that they lacked, and most important, their parents´ undivided
attention. In their narratives, one can detect resentment at the parents’
apparent favoritism and a sense of being treated unfairly. These feelings
are clearly expressed by Ana who, ironically, cared for Roberto as an
infant while their mother sold cosmetics door-to-door in the village. The
young Roberto used to call his sister “Mama” and the next-door aunts
liked to tease Ana when she asked them for advice on diapering or milk
formulas: “Why did you go and get married?”
Although Ana benefited from the support of her extended family on
her father’s side (given their residential proximity) to lighten her load,
she and the other children faced their paternal grandmother’s constant
criticism of their biological mother for not loving them. Undeniably,
Ana faced adult family and financial responsibilities at a very early age
and experienced difficult situations (including sexual harassment at high
school) while her parents were far away.
Adoption
lives with his wife and three daughters. Damián entered this household
as a brother to his cousins; he calls his uncle “father,” his aunt “aunt,”
and his biological mother “mother.” He visits his mother, an illegal
immigrant living several hours away in the United States, on weekends
and during summer vacation; she partially supports him. Damián’s
extended family considers this to be a win-win solution since—along with
a new surname—it opened up a pathway of opportunities for Damián:
legal residency in the United States, the chance to learn both English
and Spanish (a future employment asset), and a sense of belonging in
two nuclear families.
Adrián’s case is a long-term informal adoption16 by his maternal
grandparents—a situation accepted by his biological mother since his
birth, but less so by other family members, who continue to take sides in
the protracted matter. Several think that the burden on the grandmother
is too great and that the biological mother should belatedly assume her
responsibilities. One of Adrián’s maternal uncles and his wife (who reside
legally in California) have offered to legally adopt him on one condition:
that neither the grandparents nor the biological mother make any future
claims on the boy. The other aunts and uncles consider this condition
unfair, believing that the grandmother has acquired certain rights through
her many years of caregiving. Although the youngster spent several
months living with this aunt and uncle and attending school in Los
Angeles prior to entering adolescence, he is most accustomed to living
with his grandparents in Mexico and they are very emotionally attached
to him. When asked where he would like to live, Adrián answered: “with
Mama Luisa and Papa Lalo”—the grandparents. Hence, at least during
the grandparents’ lifetime, it would appear that Adrián will remain with
them; alternative options involving a transfer of parental rights have been
put on hold. Yet since both grandparents are in their seventies, Adrián is
well aware that they may die before he reaches the age of eighteen (legal
adulthood in Mexico); imagining that scenario, he adds despondently:
“Then we’ll see who wants me.”
This exploratory study suggests a vast research agenda that will require
the collaboration of experts willing to avail themselves of insights from
a number of fields (such as family history, psychology, anthropology,
demography, family sociology, and law) and to close the gap among
these disciplines. It will also test the theoretical legitimacy and method-
ological creativity of family specialists as they crack open the black box
of interpersonal relationships in transnational families living out their
existence in transnational social fields.
We must better understand the implications of increasing numbers
of mixed-status transnational families for kinship ties and household
dynamics. We need to delve into the particularities and emotional chal-
lenges of relationships between half-siblings and stepparents. We must
reflect upon the considerable hurdles to effective communication and
to the forging of emotional ties between siblings who are separated by
international borders, even as communication technologies multiply.
Attention should be given to the safety net constructed by caregivers as
they specialize in specific child-rearing tasks, e.g., relatives designated
as tutors for children attending school far from their parents. It is also
essential to gauge the potential consequences of children assuming family
responsibilities at an early age, well before their peers do.
It is important to further probe the gendered nature of caregiving in
different cultural contexts. In our study region and in Mexico as a whole,
the physical care and nurturing of human beings in sickness and in health
is normalized as being a traditionally female terrain. Accordingly, substitute
mothers are preferably sought out within the maternal kin group. Yet, as
we have seen in this case study, male figures are not completely absent;
rather they appear as emergency or substitute providers and as candidates
for sharing legal documents, since they (more often than women) have
acquired legal status to live and work in the United States.
Finally, there is a pressing need to conduct comparative historical and
cross-cultural research on long-distance child-rearing arrangements. As
massive migrations mobilize hundreds of millions of persons worldwide,
the phenomenon of parent-child separation is definitely on the rise around
the globe and has only begun to be documented on various continents
and regions as diverse as the Americas, the Caribbean, Asia, and the Mid-
dle East.17 While it may have similar causes rooted in political economy,
its meanings and lived experiences vary in different contexts.
Notes
(see Hernández Sánchez 2007: 1). Using data generated by the Mexican agency
Instituto Nacional de Migración for 2003–2006, García, Molina, and López
(2007: 13) reported that the annual number of child deportation cases reached
the 40,000 to 50,000 range. López and Díaz (2003: 150–52), analyzing data on
return migrants from a national demographic survey (ENADID) conducted in
1992 and again in 1997, reported that the 0–17-year age group was the fastest
growing one. With regard to the second group of youngsters, those left behind
by parents, their teachers and alternate caretakers are the principal informants
interviewed in ethnographic research. See, for example, the methodological dis-
cussion in Mummert (2006) and Triano’s (2006) study of “donut households” in
rural Mexico composed of grandparents and grandchildren while the “missing”
intermediate generation migrated to work elsewhere.
2. Wilson (2000) makes a cogent case for interpreting the current nativist
upsurge in the United States as an attempt to enforce anew a separation of
production and reproduction among Mexican immigrants, leaving the labor
force “unencumbered” by family responsibilities and therefore able to be over-
exploited.
Some researchers have referred to this pattern of family reproduction across
borders as split or divided households (see López 1986; Kanaiaupuni 2000: 1–2),
while others have stressed the importance of women-centered networks in kin-
work and caring work across the transnational social field. (Also see Alicea 1997
for the case of Puerto Rican women moving between the home island and the
continental United States.)
3. Nina Glick Schiller, one of the pioneer proponents of a transnational
framework for studying contemporary migrants, specifies that this field has
“examined transnational flows of culture, idea, capital and people.” She goes on
to distinguish between globalization and transnational studies: “Transnational
Studies highlight processes and connections across specific state borders. State
actors and institutions are understood to be important participants in shaping
but not limiting the social, cultural, economic, and political linkages of people”
(2005: 439–40).
4. The eight transnational families we followed longitudinally are presented
in table 1. One child with siblings in the United Status was identified at school,
but the others were identified in the course of interviews conducted as part of a
larger study dealing with transformations in rural families in migratory settings.
This study began in 1991 and has involved multi-site fieldwork with Mexican
migrant and nonmigrant families in the Ecuandureo Valley of northwestern
Michoacán, California’s Central Valley, and suburban Chicago by a team of
researchers headed by the primary author. Data were collected by means of
household surveys, archival searches, and hundreds of in-depth and open-ended
interviews with men and women of different generations (see Mummert 1999).
We acknowledge the vital contribution made by the following research assistants
in the interviews, transcriptions of taped interviews and field notes, and data
processing: Alejandra Camarena Ortiz, Alberto Flores Hernández, and Eduardo
Santiago Nabor.
Bibliography
Vidal, Laura, Esperanza Tuñón, Martha Rojas, and Ayús Ramfis. 2002.
“De paraíso a Carolina del Norte. Redes de apoyo y percepciones de
la migración a Estados Unidos de mujeres tabasqueñas despulpadoras
de jaiba.” Migraciones Internacionales 1 (2): 29–61.
Wilson, Tamar Diana. 2000. “Anti-immigrant sentiment and the prob-
lem of reproduction/maintenance in Mexican immigration to the
United States.” Critique of Anthropology 20 (2): 191–213.
Ye, Jingzhong, James Murray, and Wang Yihuan. 2005. Left-behind
children in rural China: impact study of rural labour migration
on left-behind children in mid-west China. Beijing: Social Sciences
Academic Press.
A n n a O c h o a O’L e a r y
There is little doubt that the migration of women out of Latin America
has been steadily increasing since the 1980s. Their increased participation
in the labor market is best understood in the context of global restructur-
ing in what been referred to as the feminization of international migration
(Ramírez, García Domínguez, and Miguez Morais 2005). Yet, little is
known about their actual migration experiences. We know, for example,
that migration for women is becoming increasingly hazardous. Recent
research on human remains recovered in the Tucson sector since 1991
by researchers at the Binational Migration Institute at the University of
Arizona1 has not only determined that migrant deaths due to exposure
have increased since 1994, when harsher measures to enforce the bor-
der between the United States and Mexico border were implemented,
but also that women migrants, when controlling for age (younger than
18 years of age), are 2.70 times more likely to die of exposure than all
other causes when compared to men (Rubio-Goldsmith et al. 2006).
The hazards inherent in the migration process were also brought to
public attention in March 2007 with an outbreak of armed violence
in Arizona, allegedly between rival bands of human smugglers. Five
undocumented immigrants, two of them women, were killed in these
incidents (Quinn and McCombs 2007). Other types of risks including
greater reliance on coyotes (Donato et al. 2008), abandonment in the
desert (O’Leary 2008, 2009a) have also only recently become more
visible. Since 1993 there have been several high-profile cases of sexual
assault against migrant women by Border Patrol agents (Cieslak 2000;
Falcon 2001; Steller 2001; Urquijo-Ruiz 2004). These highly publicized
cases have been instrumental in raising public questions about the risks
migrant women face and how common they are. These issues inspired
the research project “Women at the Intersection: Immigration Enforce-
lassoux 1981), and makes visible the role of essential social processes,
such as women’s roles in the reproduction of the labor force, which
are ignored when only economic and border enforcement policies are
designed (Wilson 2000). A focus on how contradictions are reworked
moves us from looking at the effects of macro-structural processes on
subjects—a growing number of which are women—to an examination
of how subjects impact the macrostructure.
B a c k g r o u n d t o I m m i g r at i o n E n f o r c e m e n t i n
t h e A g e o f I n c r e a s e d B o r d e r (I n )S e c u r i t y
The Research
ily, and the cyclical nature of migration, also increase the chances that
women will experience multiple apprehensions and detentions and will
be victims of violence (Monteverde García 2004).
Methods
Like other migrant shelters that have sprouted up along the U.S.–Mexico
line, Albergue San Juan Bosco aids repatriated migrants who, upon their
release from the custody of U.S. immigration enforcement authorities,
find themselves without a support system in the area. Albergue San Juan
Bosco is a nongovernmental organization that accommodates both male
and female migrants.8 Guests at the shelter typically stay only one to two
days before attempting either to reenter the United States or to return
to their communities of origin.
Because of this, a rapid appraisal (RA) method was chosen for the
research. RA emerged initially from development research (Carruthers
and Chambers 1981), but it has increasingly been used in the design and
assessment of public health interventions.9 Consistent with RA methods,
a topic guide was used to interview migrant women who arrived at the
shelter and to help document more fully the various systems that facilitate
and encourage migration, such as social networks, employer-employee
relationships, and the arrangements for the unauthorized crossing of the
U.S.–Mexico border (O’Leary 2009b). The topic guide was also designed
to investigate the enforcement system and, in particular, the trajectory of
women migrants as it intersects with immigration enforcement systems,
how this experience affected the women, and how it influenced their
decisions either to cross again or return to their communities of origin.
In this way, the decision to migrate and the migration experience were
situated within broader social and economic processes.
Between February 2006 and June 2007, I interviewed one hundred
women at the shelter. The shelter managers, volunteers, and migrants
allowed me to gather data through in-depth interviews (the majority of
which were tape recorded), informal conversations, and other shared
activities such eating or assisting with shelter tasks. Interviewing subjects
was challenging due to the limited time that I had to solicit their vol-
untary cooperation and establish a measure of trust. However, I found
nearly all of the potential respondents willing to talk to me about their
border-crossing experiences. The shelter opens its doors at 7:00 p.m. every
evening, and during a span of about three hours, migrants register, eat,
wash, and bed down for the night. Few stayed beyond one night. A few
respondents were reluctant to be tape-recorded, in which case I wrote
notes during the interviews and attempted to capture as many quota-
tions as possible. Beginning in September of 2006, I visited the shelter
every two weeks, which provided for the systematic data collection that
was a goal of the research. With more visits to the shelter, I fell into the
shelter’s rhythm, and gained rapport with the managers and volunteers.
My being of Mexican heritage, while not a guarantee that I could be
trusted, was, I believe, also helpful in projecting myself as trustworthy
(de confianza) among shelter guests.
M a p p i n g O u t F a m i l y S e pa r at i o n /F a m i l y
R e u n i f i c at i o n
Cunningham and Heyman (2004) argue that national borders are par-
ticularly well suited for empirically examining the diametrically opposed
processes of enclosure and mobility. “Horizontal” processes of enclosure
are better understood by the challenges that impede their implementa-
tion. Conversely, “vertical” processes, understood as the various mobil-
ity systems that facilitate the movement of people, jobs, trade, goods,
information, culture, and language, are better understood in the context
of the barriers that restrict them. I have reworked this framework to help
me map out the intersection of the “horizontal” enforcement mechanisms
that embody U.S. “enclosure” (for example, the Border Patrol, barri-
ers, policing, surveillance), and “vertical” mobility systems (figure 1).
This approach also follows Hannerz’s (1998) suggestion for organizing
transnational research. Instead of the conventional community study of
migrants at the end or beginning of their migration journey, migrants are
viewed as somewhere in between two points: temporarily suspended in an
interstitial space represented by the “O” in figure 1, where systems that
regulate or impede mobility intersect with transnational movements.
Interviews with women at the shelter advance our understanding
of the border as a place where opposite processes converge, not only
theoretically but in concrete terms as well. For example, the processes
by which families are separated, processes that can fall under the broader
immigration enforcement rubric, converge with the process by which its
opposite, family reunification, is realized (Wilson 2009). The salience
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and Azucena’s mother-in-law. They were all part of the larger group of
about sixty migrants who were apprehended by the Border Patrol the
night before I met them at the shelter. Azucena had hoped to reach
Ventura, California, where her husband worked. This was Azucena’s
second trip to the United States. On the first trip north, she had not
encountered any problems.
This time, however, was different. The encounter with immigration
enforcement authorities began shortly after they were detected and
detained by a helicopter that flew down low over their heads and began
shining a light on the group. It was night and they were in a grassy area.
As the helicopter approached, their guide11 shouted for everyone to lie
flat and to pull the grass over themselves and to cover their faces, but this
advice had been nearly impossible to follow. The helicopter thundered
overhead too quickly, shining light, blowing debris, and instructing
them in Spanish over a loudspeaker to come out from hiding. When
the helicopter flew over their heads, it seemed so close that they feared
it would hit them.
When the helicopter descended, everyone fled in a panic. According
to Azucena, the children traveling with the group scattered and were
not found. The uncle of these children disappeared into the night in an
obvious attempt to keep the children from getting lost. When Border
Patrol agents arrived in vehicles and on horseback minutes later, the
children’s mother notified them that her children had scattered into the
desert and asked them for help. The Border Patrol searched the imme-
diate area but did not find anyone. No one knew if the children were
eventually found. In addition, Azucena’s mother-in-law had tripped in
the dark during the scuffle and been injured, quite possibly suffering a
sprain. The Border Patrol might have taken her to a hospital, but at that
time no one knew of her condition or whereabouts.
During the detention phase, Azucena had become separated from
those she knew. She nervously tired to discern where her file was relative
to the others in the stack that was accumulating on the agent’s desk.
She grew nervous as she saw the agents casually sitting around talking
or eating. Another woman in the cell with her protested because her
companion had been released but she had not. Because she complained,
the agent yelled at her and threatened to take longer to process her
release. Azucena did not want her own release delayed, so she did not
protest, even through she felt the same separation anxiety as the other
woman in the cell.
Rosita’s reunification with her father and mother was thus indefinitely
postponed. Rosita recounted that on their trip from the detention center
to Nogales there were two young girls on the Department of Homeland
Security bus who could not stop crying because their guide had separated
them from their parents and they did not know where they were. For
Rosita, the trauma of her fellow passengers forced her to consider the
danger of separation from her own child, which in part convinced her
not to reattempt to cross. Her mother-in-law had offered to keep the
baby but Rosita had refused. Her parents had long before left her and her
siblings to go to the United States, and this experience might have had
some bearing on her decision. She said that many others had left their
chiquitos behind, but she could not bring herself to be separated from
her little one. Like the other women, Rosita’s story further illustrates
how the separation/reunification binary might be made less distinct over
the years, leaving in its wake a transnational family form that facilitates
movement between sending and receiving communities.
There are indications that women are assuming the role of primary
providers for their households, resulting in the feminization of migra-
tion (Ramirez, García Domínguez, and Miguez Morais 2005). Araceli
and Yudi Dalia (both eighteen) were cousins on their way to the United
State in October of 2006 with Araceli’s mother (who was not present)
and her maternal aunt, Esperanza (forty-two). All four women had been
apprehended by the Border Patrol but had been released at different
times. They feared that because Araceli’s mother had been apprehended
on a prior occasion, she would have to serve additional detention time
before being released. They hoped that she would show up at the shelter
soon. The four women had come from the state of Guerrero and, like
the majority of the women who came through the shelter, they had left
a primarily agriculturally based community. Consistent with other com-
plaints about the agricultural economy in Mexico, they stated that they
were migrating because there were unable to subsist in that economy.
The work there was seasonal, “por temporada,” and poorly paid. Esper-
anza explained, “Mucha gente pues, se muere de hambre. No hay nada.
No tienen dinero. Allá mucho niño anda descalzo. . . .” (Many people,
well, they die of hunger. There is nothing. They have no money. Over
there, many children go barefoot.) Yudi Dalia added, “Muchos no van
T h e I n t e r s e c t i o n a s S pa c e o f C o n v e r g e n c e
of Oppositional Forces
Notes
B ib l i o g r a p h y
O’Leary, Anna Ochoa, Norma González, and Gloria Ciria Valdez Gardea.
2008. “Latinas’ Practices of Emergence: Between Cultural Narra-
tives and Globalization on the U.S.–Mexico Border.” Journal of
Latinos in Education 7 (3): 206–26.
O’Leary, Anna Ochoa. 2008. “Close Encounters of the Deadly Kind:
Gender, Migration, and Border (In)Security.” Migration Letters
15 (2): 111-122.
_______. 2009a. “In the Footsteps of Spirits: Migrant Women’s Testimo-
nios in a Time of Heightened Border Enforcement.” In Violence,
Security, and Human Rights at the Border, Kathleen Staudt, Tony
Payan, and Z. Anthony Kruszewski (Eds.). Tucson, AZ: University
of Arizona Press, 91-112.
_______. 2009b. “The ABCs of Unauthorized Border Crossing Costs:
Assembling, Bajadores, and Coyotes.” Migration Letters 6 (1)
27-36.
Quinn, Dale, and Brandy McCombs. 2007. “2 of 23 in Truck Killed.”
Arizona Daily Star, March 31, 1
Ramírez, C., M. García Domínguez, and J. Miguez Morais. 2005.
“Crossing Borders: Remittances, Gender and Development: The
Case of Women Migrants from Vincent Noble, Dominican Repub-
lic.” Working Paper, UN-Instraw. Available at www.un-instraw.org/
en/images/stories/remmitances/documents/crossing_borders.
pdf (accessed 6/26/07).
Rubio-Goldsmith, Raquel, M. Melissa McCormick, Daniel Martínez, and
Inez Magdalena Duarte. 2006. “The Funnel Effect and Recovered
Bodies of Unauthorized Migrants Processed by the Pima County
Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990–2005.” Immigration Policy
Center Brief. Available at www.ailf.org/ipc/ipc_index.asp (accessed
2/18/07).
Sadasivam, Bharati. 1997. “The Impact of Structural Adjustment on
Women.” Human Rights Quarterly 19 (3): 630–65.
Steller, Tim. 2001. “Border Unit Fights an Enemy Within.” Arizona
Daily Star, June 16, A-1.
Urquijo-Ruiz, Rita E. 2004. “Police Brutality against an Undocumented
Mexican Woman.” Chicana/Latina Studies 4 (1): 62–84.
Wilson, Tamara. D. 2009. Women Migration Networks in Mexico and
Beyond. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
K at h e r i n e C a r e a g a
K at h e r i n e C a r e a g a bio to come…
the women, but also questions how we relate to them in public health
prevention efforts.
Theoretical Approach
Methodology
P r e l i m i n a r y R e s u lt s
acutely aware of the threat of rape. Some talk about the possibility of rape
by the bajadores who wait in the desert to steal the money and dignity of
the migrants. Some view this threat as more acute at the border or even
in Altar than in other places, while others view it as equally present in
their places of origin or in certain family situations. Some report having
never heard of rapes occurring in Altar or during crossing, knowing of
such cases only in their places of origin. In fact, many arrive knowing
nothing about Altar or the U.S.–Mexico border.
Ironically, a heightened sense of vulnerability to rape and other gen-
dered mistreatment of women migrants leads to what would best be called
a practice of harm reduction, one that is not an expert-recommended or
failsafe prevention technique, but rather, is a folk technique that opts for
what is viewed as the lesser of two evils: the seeking of a male companion
as a “protector.” It is within this relationship, which indeed has a variety
of faces, that some of my interviewees had sexual relations.
Unlike prevention messages about STDs outside of migration, which
are primarily initiated by public health and development efforts, a vul-
nerability discourse about the sexual risks women face during migration
is propagated by other actors in the migration process. Although it is a
lay discourse and does not coincide with that of biomedical experts, this
discourse is also hegemonic in that it represents a patriarchal control of
women’s movement and sexuality. In this sense, hegemonic discourses
about vulnerability coincide with the interests of an elite group in the
migration process: male migrants, “migration-related service-workers”
(e.g., men who work in hotels or as guides and polleros), and others with
access to resources.
Women receive different messages from spouses, parents, other family
members, and friends: “Go but it’s dangerous”; “You need protection,
and I’ll protect you”’ or “You left, you’re tainted, and now you can’t
come back”;5 or “I forbid you to go.”6 Thus, the sexuality associated
with migration represents diverse threats for women, both social and
physical. The discourse of the sexual vulnerability of women to rape is
used to further limit the potential agency that migration represents for
women in terms of economic opportunity.
Some of the women I interviewed commented that their male partners
also expressed concern about STDs, demanding that the women go for
exams before they initiated a sexual relationship or when they suspected
that the woman had been with someone else. They use vulnerability
discourse to control female sexuality and reinforce patriarchal values of
Julia
As she tells the story, it appears that Julia’s “friend” traveled to Chiapas
in search of a woman he could persuade not only to migrate, but also
that, as a migrant, she was so vulnerable that she could not do so with-
out his “protection.” This in turn has resulted in her entering into yet
another womanizing and abusive relationship. However, Julia emphasizes
her agency in both her questioning of patriarchal norms while at the
same time strategically and conscientiously accepting them as temporary
conditions and a means to a more liberated future: “I know that what
he’s doing is not right. I’m putting up with a lot, just to get to ‘the
other side.’ I try to go with the flow. I have to be strong. I know that
he won’t change. He says he wants to have two women. But there I can
do something else: work and leave him.”9 In participating as a migrant,
she is accepting a certain degree of vulnerability and is attempting to
reduce it by having a companion, for the sake of what she believes will
be a more empowered position in the future.
Andrea
Andrea, from a town near the Pacific coast of Chiapas, had left her home-
town as a virgin. She had traveled to Altar with an acquaintance who
had connected them with their guide. In a previous attempt to cross the
border, she had walked through the desert for three days with a group,
but her feet were in such bad shape that when the Border Patrol came,
she could not run like the others and was left behind. Once deported,
she returned to Altar and at the time I interviewed her, she was unac-
companied.
Andrea had returned to the same guesthouse as before and found
another guide who said he would help her cross, but first she had to
wait for her feet to heal (her toenails had fallen off). She was frank and
forthcoming about her sexual experiences, which were fresh on her mind
and a source of some angst. As soon as she was asked about her general
health, she responded:
Andrea: I have problems with my menstrual cycle. Six months
ago I was bleeding a lot, and sometimes I didn’t bleed at all. I
hadn’t had sexual relations, but they gave me the contraceptive pill
and it’s been five months that I haven’t had a period. . . . I don’t
remember, like five or four months.
Interviewer: Have you had [sexual] relations recently?
Andrea: Yes, two times here in Altar, in the guesthouse three days
ago. First with the guide—he says he’s my marido [husband]. He’s
twenty-seven. Then with ‘el chavito’ [the kid] who’s nineteen. He
respects me. I’m a little scared that I might end up pregnant.
Interviewer: Why did you do it with the guide? I mean, was it so
that he would help you?
Andrea: I did it because I wanted to. It was my first time. I didn’t
do it like I would have liked to. He says he didn’t put in his part
like you’re supposed to.
The night watchman also wanted to. We kissed. He wanted sex
but I told him no. Others wanted to but I didn’t like them. One
of them gave me a blanket.10
can take care of myself. In the United States you can leave them if
you want to because you can work.”11
Andrea remained in the guesthouse for weeks. The guide had left his
backpack with her while taking another group across the border, saying
he would come back and pay for her board there. She waited. The last
time I saw her, nearly a month after the interview, she told me that she
had heard a rumor she was going to be raped as compensation for her
time at the guesthouse.
Discussion
In both Mexico and the United States, STD prevention has been in some
ways reduced to a discussion of personal choices in terms of condom use
and monogamy. Medical anthropologists suggest that an understanding
of relationship ideals is of utmost importance in explaining acceptance
of and resistance to both strategies (Hirsch 2003; Hirsch et al. 2002).
The authors do this by researching married Mexican migrant women.
Their findings include that in both Mexico and the United States, these
women have more egalitarian expectations of their marital relationships,
which Hirsch terms “companionate marriage,” than previous generations
did, but that this ironically makes condom use unthinkable in marriage,
as monogamy is required of both spouses.
Like Hirsch and others, I believe that in order to understand Mexi-
can women migrants’ vulnerability to STDs, an exploration of their
changing relationship ideals is essential. However, in research design
it is important to recognize, as her own interviewees indicate, that the
modern Mexican migrant woman is more likely than previous genera-
tions were to avoid or exit a marital relationship that does not meet her
ideals before, during, or after migration. Therefore, it is also important
to understand the symbolic significance of their sexual encounters, not
only within marriage, but also outside of it.
I would argue that the “changes” in ideals that Hirsch documents
are not necessarily qualitative, but rather are in the degree of idealism
towards marriage, which actually results in the rejection of the reali-
ties of marriage. In order to understand the mechanisms behind these
cultural changes, it is important to take a critical look at two forces that
are molding contemporary Mexican society: the hegemonic discourse
of women’s rights and empowerment generated by international and
Conclusions and R e c o mm e n d at i o n s
ment observed between Mexican women living in the United States and
in Mexico (Salgado de Snyder 1998; Hirsch 2003) do not necessarily
reflect an acculturation process that occurs after migration,13 but rather
reflect a trajectory of cultural change, fueled in part by public health
and development discourses, that includes migration as an outcome and
agential strategy. Therefore, empowerment efforts in Mexico must over-
come paternalistic tendencies14 and transcend ideological discourses, in
order to create real conditions that support women’s efforts to empower
themselves.
Through their migration from Mexico to the United States, these
women are speaking out. They are seeking increased economic oppor-
tunities so that they can support their families. They are seeking an
environment where public insecurity and gender attitudes do not force
them into relationships with men in order to avoid being victims of crime.
They are seeking better access to medical services.15
Although this is not a formalized political movement like feminist
struggles we have seen in the past, the increasing migration of Mexican
women seeking greater independence in the United States (regardless
of whether or not they find it), is what I consider a collective resistance
that has significant political, economic, and cultural implications for
both countries. In this sense, women’s migration is not only an act
of individual agency in which each woman makes decisions about her
own destiny within a set of options, exchanging one structural context
for another; it also a transformative agency that impacts schema and
structures. This agency will not be determined solely by the hegemonic
discourse of their vulnerability and empowerment, although it is a factor.
And although empowerment does change the nature of their “vulner-
ability,” achieving empowerment is not a guarantee of protection from
STDs or of quantifiable public health outcomes. It is time to divorce
empowerment from the public health agenda and support it for what it
is: the moral imperative of social justice. <
Notes
1. The threat of rape is even publicized by the rapists themselves, in the form
of the “árbol de los calzones,” a tree where rapists hang the underwear of their
victims as trophies. See Marroni and Meneses (2006).
2. It is important to note that no one living in or visiting Altar is untouched
by the pronounced flow of undocumented workers from Mexico and other parts
con el guía—dice que es mi marido. El tiene 27. Luego con el “chavito” que
tiene 19. El me respeta. Estoy con un poco de miedo que vaya a quedarme
embarazada.”
“¿Con el guía por qué lo hiciste? ¿Digo, es para que te ayude?”
“Lo hice por gusto. Fue mi primera vez. No lo hice como yo lo quisiera
hacerlo.” (Expresa dudas sobre si realmente era ”sexo” porque el dice que no
metió “su parte” así como se debe.)
“El velador también quería. Nos dimos besitos. El quería sexo pero le dije que
no. Otros querían pero no me gustaban. Uno que me regaló una cobija.”
11. “En Chiapas se atiende a un hombre y las mantiene. No sabes trabajar.
Pero contacto con mi papá casi no hemos tenido. Yo no necesito de un hombre.
Me puedo mantener yo sola. En Estados Unidos, si quieres los dejas porque
puedes trabajar.”
12. Back translated from Denman’s translation: “Como son fuerzas activas,
tanto el poder, como la agencia deben ‘buscarse en el cuerpo activo, un cuerpo
que vive en el tiempo y se mueve en el espacio (Comaroff y Comaroff 1992:
77).’”
13. The concept of acculturation as an explanatory mechanism for cultural
change has been highly criticized and basically discounted by medical anthro-
pologists (see Hunt, Schneider, and Comer 2004).
14. In the interviews, some women commented that they refused to participate
in Oportunidades due to the fact that they had to work or simply because they
were required to attend pláticas. One website documents a collective resistance
to Oportunidades by women in Chiapas, who argue that the program came into
being at the cost of collectivized landownership and by taking time away from
efforts they had initiated to form women’s cooperatives (www.laneta.apc.org/
ciepac/boletines/chiapas_en.php?id=444).
15. Interviewees who had previously lived in the United States reported receiv-
ing more detailed information about STDs there than in Mexico, as well as better
access to reproductive health care despite policies that discourage such access.
Bibliography
G L O R I A C I R I A V A L D E Z -G A R D E A
CURRENT TRENDS IN M E X I C A N M I G R AT I O N
towards Arizona (Escobar 2005: 37) and turning the state of Sonora
into the main crossing point for international migration. A report
drafted by Sonora’s State Commission for Migrant Assistance—based
on information provided by the National Institute of Migration’s Sonora
office—about ninety thousand migrants arrive in the state each month,
traveling mainly through the communities of Altar and Sasabe. Sasabe
alone receives about 1,500 migrants a day, all of whom line up to cross
into U.S. territory. Reports from the National Institute of Immigration’s
Sonora office show that these numbers increase dramatically during April
and May, when migrants return to the United States after spending the
winter holidays with their families in Mexico and the daily crossing rate
reaches seven thousand people (Flores López 2004).
The second prominent trend in immigration is the incorporation of
nontraditional sending states, such as Veracruz. Current dynamics call
into question researchers’ earlier efforts to analyze the geography of
migratory flows (Bustamante 1997; Durand 1998; Lozano 2001). For
example, the regionalization suggested by Durand (1998)5 ignores these
new sending states, such as south and central Veracruz,6 that since the
mid-1990s have become major contributors to undocumented migra-
tion to both traditional and new destinations in the United States (Pérez
2001; Anguiano 2005). This flow has grown substantially in recent years
because of the abrupt downturn in the sugarcane and coffee sectors.
The participation of regions considered nontraditional in the migra-
tory phenomenon and the heterogeneity of the migratory flows have
increased since the early eighties, as Cornelius (1990: 123) points out,
“the erosion of the stereotype that we had of migration has intensified
as a result of economic crises and the implementation of United States
laws that regulate [migratory] flows.”7
The emergence of new sending regions, whether rural or urban,
therefore, “compel[s] us modify the stereotype of the migrant from tra-
ditional regions” (Goldring 1992: 318). Consequently, Lozano (2001)
presented a new regionalization of the migratory phenomenon, dividing
the nation into the following two major regions characterized by dif-
ferent levels of out-migration. The traditional region includes the states
of Aguascalientes, Colima, Durango, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacán,
Nayarit, San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas. The remaining twenty-two states
constitute the nontraditional region. Remarkably, in 2004, in Lozano’s
nontraditional region, the states with the largest out-migrations were
Tabasco with 36.1 percent; Campeche 32.5 percent; Coahuila 32.0
percent; and Chiapas, Durango, and Sonora, with 26.6 percent. These
data from the nontraditional region provide a general idea of other
states’ contributions and, indeed, of the difficulties involved in making
general statements about Mexican immigration. We must, therefore, be
specific when describing these newly emergent sending states. As Pérez
(2001: 142) points out, they are the result of “flows from areas that had
previously not been a part of long-distance, extended-stay migration.
Emerging migrations refer to the maturation of this [relatively new]
phenomenon over short periods of time, to the processes of mobility
that form and reflect the existence of short- and medium-distance local
and regional migratory patterns that have preceded demographic shifts
of an international nature and that now are so prolific.”
The third significant element in current trends is the feminization of
Mexican migratory flows, reflecting an increase in the participation of
women from rural and urban areas alike.8 Women’s migration has, of
course, always been critically important; but it was not until the 1980s
(specifically, the passage of U.S. immigration legislation such as the
Simpson-Rodino Act, which prompted entire families to move to the
United States) that we began to see serious research on female migration.
These early studies revealed an immigrant woman tied to her husband
and children, working for the family often at her own expense; that is,
most of these studies focused largely on men’s economic activities in
receiving communities. More recent empirical evidence, however, shows
that female migration is now more independent of family and of men’s
economic activities. Single women’s migration is increasing relative to
the total female out-migration from Mexico and Central America. Single
women leave their countries with several objectives in mind and under
vastly different social and economic conditions than in previous genera-
tions. They have higher levels of education, come from many different
nations, and are from varied socioeconomic strata (Smith and Tarallo
1993; Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994, 2001; Hondagneu-Sotelo and Ávila
1997a, 1997b; Bustamante 2004; O’Leary, Valdez-Gardea, and González
2005; Valdez-Gardea 2006). Studies also suggest that the proportion of
migrating women relative to the whole migratory group is rising (Castles
and Miller 1993; Ibarra 2001; Marcelli and Cornelius 2001). Neverthe-
less, several scholars share the opinion that the data are still quite poor and
that study results remain contradictory (Álvarez 2004; González 2004;
Velasco 2004). For instance, INEGI data on female migration show little
Such shortcomings drive home the tremendous need for studies that
are flexible enough to capture the dynamism of Mexican migration,
and more important, for information that informs the construction of
sensible public policy. The problem here is that not only are we forced
to make decisions with enormous gaps in our data, but the information
we do have is often vague and therefore of little use.
Movies, folk ballads, and tales based on traditional migratory dynamics
convey an image of the migrant as a poor campesino with little educa-
tion, a man with calloused hands and few skills outside of farming. The
contemporary profile, however, is about greater numbers of women from
rural and urban areas, from different social strata and schooling levels,
who migrate with different objectives and under different conditions
(Castells and Millas 1993; Smith and Tarallo 1993; Hondagneu-Sotelo
1994, 2001; Hondagneu-Sotelo and Ávila 1997a, 1997b; Durand
1998; Bustamante 2004; Santibañez 2004; O’Leary, Valdez-Gardea,
and González 2005; Valdez-Gardea 2006).
The shift in flows towards Sonora’s border communities has pushed
migrants into dangerous desert areas such as those around Altar and
Sasabe. Thousands of Mexicans have perished in those deserts,12 while
many others have been robbed and beaten, assaulted and raped. Some
authors suggest that risks to migrants have increased (Monteverde 2004),
as they constantly face the threat of death, assault, and other abuses by
polleros (human smugglers), the dragnets of the U.S. Border Patrol, and
traps set by border vigilantes like the self-styled Minuteman. Research-
ers concerned with migrants’ rights, such as the Colegio de Sonora’s
Leopoldo Santos (2004), have thus begun to highlight the fourth cur-
rent trend in northward migration: the increasing inability on the part
of the Mexican government to safeguard the migrants’ basic human
rights. As U.S. policy grows more absurd and, indeed, dangerous for
border crossers—e.g., the so-called border wall—the Mexican govern-
ment has done very little to address its immigration problems. There
have been some efforts, such as the government’s Beta Group and the
Paisano (countrymen/women) and Voluntary Repatriation programs.
Some social linking mechanisms have been developed between the two
nations, such as the Institute of Mexicans Abroad. Politicians have also
taken positions on immigration in highly visible national debates; but
they have had little success in putting this issue on the national policy
agenda (Santibañez 2005: 67).
Domestic and international migration are certainly some of the most dis-
turbing consequences of economic policies implemented by the Mexican
government, policies that have produced enormous social and economic
disparities, job insecurity, and generally increased social vulnerability.
Mexico’s erratic economic policies in the context of globalization have
pushed people to seek out cities where there is more hope,13 such as
those on the northern border. Such cities have, for several decades now,
represented a viable alternative for migrants.
A primary feature of contemporary northwest Mexico is the constant
flow of migrants who move to the region permanently or move through
it en route to the United States (and, more recently, during seasonal
return visits to Mexico). The constant movement of people in this part
of Mexico has become a critical part of the region’s overall demographic
picture. Likewise, it is a dynamic that economic and urban planning
ignores at the region’s peril (Rubio 2005). This explosive growth brings
with it a number of serious problems in terms of lack of infrastructure
in the new urban centers, shortages of potable water, a lack of quality
housing, inadequate garbage disposal services, air and water pollution,
and numerous other environmental impacts (Canales 1999: 1).
Demographic growth in the northwestern border cities (Tijuana,
Mexicali, Ciudad Juárez, Nogales, etc.) has historically been rooted
largely in migration. The overall dynamics of Mexico’s labor markets
has, for the past thirty years, combined with the border’s maquiladora
industry as primary triggers of growth. Workers from economically
depressed regions of the country continue to meet the maquiladora
industry’s demands for low-cost labor (Rubio 2005). All of this migra-
tion has brought to northern Mexico the cultural beliefs and practices
of the nation’s diverse regions. Several studies have examined the estab-
lishment of so-called twin, or satellite, communities, wherein migrants
transform their neighborhoods in the newly adopted host cities into
microcosms of their former communities. Tijuana, for example, has a
Colonia Mixteca, where Mixtec Indians from Oaxaca state have settled.
Nogales, likewise, has a Colonia Oaxaca. The agricultural areas of Baja
California, such as San Quintín, and the town of Miguel Alemán in
Sonora are made up primarily of indigenous groups from Oaxaca and
Chiapas, among other states.
T H E A R I Z O N A -S O N O R A B O R D E R Z O N E
The border between Sonora and Arizona covers 550 kilometers. Arizona
has the sixth largest Hispanic population in the United States, after Cali-
fornia, New York, Texas, Florida, and Illinois. Approximately one million
people from Mexico reside in the state, representing more than 20 percent
of the total population (Voluntary Repatriation Program 2004).
As I mentioned previously, one of the major features of Mexican
migration is the growing importance of medium- and small-size cities as
major destinations. This, again, has much to do with U.S. immigration
policy since the late 1990s, which has exerted tighter federal control over
the Mexican Army, and the Federal Agency of Investigation (AFI). This
heavy law-enforcement presence speaks volumes about the social climate
that prevails in this region. Thirty-three-year-old Mario, also from Ixtapan
de la Sal, in Mexico state, summed up the situation:
Things are really tough here when you’re trying to get across [the
border]. They spot you right away, the bajadores [crooks and petty
conmen], and immediately try to get your money. We want these
bajadores to stop. They’re just a bunch of fuckin’ pot-smokers
[pinches mariguanos], waiting around to shake us down in the
desert.
FINAL REFLECTIONS
NOTES
1. This program was initiated in the summer of 2004 and is carried out
in association with Mexican authorities. It consists of the voluntary return of
undocumented migrants; the U.S. government pays transportation costs. At the
time of this study, Aeromexico was charging slightly less than $1,000 for airfare
from Tucson, Arizona, to Mexico City.
2. According to INEGI (National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Data
Processing), during the first quarter of 2005 almost 515,000 people joined the
ranks of the unemployed. This represents a 171 percent increase in the unem-
ployment rate from the year 2000.
Over the last few years the number of professionals educated in Mexican
universities and holding master’s or doctoral degrees who migrate to the United
States has steadily grown. Simultaneously, because of the lackluster labor market,
many Mexican students receiving Mexican government funds for postgraduate
study abroad have opted not to return. This drain of valuable human capital
represents a great loss for Mexico and has forced institutions such as the National
Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) to carry out repatriation
programs whereby student debt is cancelled and students are invited to return
to Mexico through retention programs implemented by higher education
institutions.
3. The National Confederation of Agricultural Corn Producers recently con-
firmed that in the last two years almost half a million hectares went unplanted, and
400,000 farmers stopped cultivating basic grains (La Jornada, June 6, 2005).
4. Information on the Altar–El Sasabe corridor cited here comes from site
visits in 2005 and 2006; conversations with migrants; the review of more than
three hundred newspaper articles on migration collected in September–December
2005; and data taken from official organizations, such as INEGI and the Sonoran
State Commission for Migrant Assistance.
5. Durand (1998: 106–9) suggested dividing Mexico into three migratory
regions: (1) the historic region (western and central plateau): Jalisco, Michoacán,
Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Durango, Nayarit, San Luis Potosí, and two states mak-
ing smaller contributions: Colima and Aguascalientes; (2) the border region:
Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Chihuahua, Sonora, and Baja California, as
well as Baja California Sur and Sinaloa, which despite not being border states,
are tied to the border region in terms of migration and social geography; (3)
new regions and migratory destinations: the Federal District, Querétaro, Puebla,
Tlaxcala, Hidalgo, México, Guerrero, Morelos, and Oaxaca.
6. According to the 2000 census, of a total two million households containing
migrants, almost ninety thousand are in the state of Veracruz. This is equivalent
to around 381,000 people who receive money from or have an immediate rela-
tive residing in the United States (INEGI 2000).
7. The Immigration Reform and Control Act (1986) and the Illegal Immi-
gration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (1996).
8. A recent study by the Urban Institute’s Immigration Studies Program
showed that undocumented women living in the United States represent 41
percent of the migrant population. There are about 4.5 million men and 3.2
million women over the age of eighteen without legal documentation.
9. The EMIF is a survey carried out since 1993 in coordination with the
National Population Council (CONAPO), the Ministry of Work and Social
Welfare (STPS), and the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, in the main border
cities of Tijuana, Mexicali, Nogales, Ciudad Juárez, Piedras Negras, Nuevo
Laredo, Reynosa, and Matamoros. EMIF groups together four questionnaires
that characterize four types of migratory flow according to place of origin: the
south, the northern border cities, the United States, and migrants deported by
the U.S. Border Patrol.
10. On a recent, hour-long trip from Altar to Sasabe, we counted twenty-one
vans, all of them nearly full with fifteen to eighteen passengers, including a few
children. All, of course, were en route to Sasabe.
11. Valdez-Gardea’s 2004 interviews in San Diego showed that people such
as Central Americans, with even more precarious status often seek out riskier
crossing points, putting them at greater risk of being assaulted or abused.
12. Mexico’s Ministry of External Relations (SRE) reported that sixty-three
migrants had died trying to cross into the United States within the Altar-Sasabe
corridor during the first quarter of 2005.
13. Juan Carrasco refers to the population that looks for exact forms to be
absorbed by and consumed in the city.
14. According to the statistical annexes of the third government report,
between 2000 and 2003 the maquiladora export industry lost 205,000 jobs.
The report points out that this decrease has continued since the beginning of the
Calderón administration in 2007. Mexico has therefore lost significant dynamism
in this sectors (La Jornada, August, 7, 2005).
BIBLIOGRAPHY