Entry 3
Meghan Ibañez
CHIC110B
Dr. Alejandra Castañeda
On my last entry, I touched on the fact that by crossing the border illegally to the United States, Mexican women endure sexual violence by the hands of those men who were paid to cross them, they end up getting here completely powerless. Manny Fernandez writes, "[These undocumented women] work in stores, restaurants and factories, most barely making a living. Their English is limited. Many of them have not even told their families what happened." They have to carry that trauma with them just to barely make a living in a new country because they aren't really prepared for what life in the US actually is. These women have an idealization of this country and by the time they get here everything turns as miserable as it was in Mexico, plus the trauma of the abuse they endured.
Migration has been mostly attributed to men since they are the ones to go to the United States so they can provide for their families, sending them money and gifts from the US to their home country. When women migrate, it's assumed that they go to reunite with their husbands and to take care of them while they work. Flippen writes, "For Mexican women, labor force participation is far lower and more variable." As they already count with the support of their working husband.
The article goes on to talk about the positives and negatives of Mexican women working in the United States, some of the good things about it are independence, there's enhanced protection against domestic violence, and the gain of interpersonal power and authority. However, the marginalized position of Latinos in the country means that Mexican women can't negotiate equal gender relations.
However, when they do become important income-generating agents, they develop this independence and confidence, making Mexican women pull away from the traditional idea of womanhood, that is to serve and be a housewife for the men in their lives. Mexican women have to reject their roots to succeed in a new country, while being perceived as a failure to their original country.
There are cases where Mexican women go to the US because their family wants them to, when in reality they don't have the ambition for the "American dream" and they may be less motivated to work outside the home than those who migrated to the US with a plan and had the opportunity to choose to go. Besides, realizing the struggles they have to endure to get there, it's even more discouraging to them, so they rather stay home and let the men work.
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| Sophia Sobrino |
It seems like struggling is part of the female experience of Mexican immigrants, there is violence and abuse attached to the border crossing and citizenship, and hardship attached to the work field and gender inequalities, as well as family expectations to meet while not forgetting tradition and culture. As if being a Mexican woman in the US means failing in one way or another.
RESOURCES
1. 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
2. Flippen. A Tale of Two Contexts: U.S. Migration and the Labor Force Trajectories of Mexican Women. 2015. https://www-jstor-org.libraryaccess.sdcity.edu/stable/24542891?sid=primo&seq=1
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