A First Reflection

Meghan Ibañez

CHIC 110B

Dr. Alejandra Castañeda

A First Reflection

We can't completely focus on immigrant Mexican women's issues without talking about the issues they face because of their ethnicity and race as well. Since forever, immigrant people have been fed the idea that going to the United States and starting a life there with financial stability is an achievable and the biggest dream. However, it's expensive and a lot of investment goes into completing that goal that takes years to start, then when Mexican people get into the country, there's more paperwork and more money and time that they need to actually be considered a citizen. As Ramírez states; "US immigration and citizenship laws are designed to maintain the “undesired” races as well as working class people as ineligible for inclusion, and while men have been prioritized, women have historically been excluded from citizenship." Letting us know that even when all their paperwork is correct and all the fees have been paid, the way you look can affect the result of your citizenship.

While having enough money to finance your papers, it isn't enough if you encounter racist Americans who would rather keep you as an immigrant because they prefer to call you Mexican than actually consider you're worthy of the same rights as them. Ramírez explains; "By excluding women from US citizenship based on racial standards, the union was controlling birthright citizenship and maintaining a white national makeup." Is easier for men to get citizenship because women have the ability to give birth, and if a Mexican woman gives birth to a Mexican child in the United States, it means that the kid it's going to be American, and if that kid isn't white, it's not meeting the standard of the country.

FitzGerald also mentions; "Though children born in the U.S. are entitled by law to American citizenship regardless of their parents’ immigration status, hundreds of undocumented Mexican women in Texas have been denied birth certificates for their U.S.-born children since 2013." accepting that a child being born in the US is entitled to a birth certificate, but since their mother isn't a citizen, they don't deserve this right when these people don't have the authority to choose who deserves to be called an American.

Knowing that entering the US legally doesn't guarantee you citizenship, many Mexican women decide to invest their money into getting someone to cross them illegally, but the same way it saves you time, it can cause great pain. Fernandez mentions; "For weeks in that locked room, the men she had paid to get her safely to the United States drugged her with pills and cocaine, refusing to let her out even to bathe." Sharing the experience of a woman who went through hell and back because she wanted that American dream. Basically, it's like paying someone to abuse and use you as they please.

Debanhi Romero

A woman has to come to terms that by crossing the border illegally she will be abused in some way or another. Just like Fernandez says, "sexual violence has become an inescapable part of the collective migrant journey." An abuse most men don't have to go through because men protect each other and have that privilege, even when they are undocumented.

While both Mexican men and women go through racial profiling and discrimination, women have to face objectification and sexual violence when trying to achieve the same things men want, leaving them more vulnerable and unprotected in a country that doesn't want anything to do with them.

RESOURCES

1.  Alcalde. Violence across borders: Familism, hegemonic masculinity, and self-sacrificing femininity in the lives of Mexican and Peruvian migrants. 2010. https://www.proquest.com/docview/222640662?OpenUrlRefId=info:xri/sid:primo&accountid=38960
2. Fernandez. ‘You Have to Pay With Your Body’: The Hidden Nightmare of Sexual Violence on the Border. 2019 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/03/us/border-rapes-migrant-women.html
3. FitzGerald. Mexicans in US routinely confront legal abuse, racial profiling, ICE targeting and other civil rights violations. 2019. https://theconversation.com/mexicans-in-us-routinely-confront-legal-abuse-racial-profiling-ice-targeting-and-other-civil-rights-violations-114479
4. Ramírez. The Making of Mexican Illegality: Immigration Exclusions Based on Race, Class Status, and Gender. 2018 http://libraryaccess.sdcity.edu/login?url=https://search-ebscohost-com.libraryaccess.sdcity.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=129549051&site=ehost-live