MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE: Mexican Men, Masculinity, and Northward

Migration
Author(s): Chad Broughton
Source: Gender and Society, Vol. 22, No. 5, Gendered Borderlands (October 2008), pp. 568-589
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27821678 .
Accessed: 06/05/2013 18:28

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Gender and
Society.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE
Mexican Men, Masculinity, and
Northward Migration
CHAD BROUGHTON
University of Chicago

As Mexico endures thefar-reaching economic and social dislocations wrought by neoliber

alism, many predominantly rural states in southern Mexico have witnessed an unprece
dented northward
exodus of working age men and women. This article argues that in

response to these
intense pressures to emigrate, poor men from rural Mexico do more than
make instrumental calculations about migration to the border; they must negotiate mascu
line ideals and adopt strategic gendered practices in relation to the migration experience
and the dynamic economic, social and cultural conditions of the border region. This article
finds that men adopt one or a hybrid of three fluid masculine stances?traditionalist, adven
turer, and breadwinner?in response to migration pressures in neoliberal Mexico.

Keywords: masculinity; border; neoliberalism; Mexico; migration; work

Mexico endures
the far-reaching economic and social dislocations

As wrought by neoliberalism, many predominantly rural states in south

ernMexico have witnessed an unprecedented northward exodus of work
ing age men and women. Academic, policy and popular discussions about
this kind of labor migration typically assume that economic logic dictates
migrants' decisions and strategies. Neoclassical economics, focusing on
an individual's cost-benefit
calculation, argues that rational actors will
invest inmigrating if they expect their net returns, typically measured in
income, will be positive (Borjas 1989). Sociologists and other critics of
this narrow understanding point to additional considerations including (1)
household risk management and diversification strategies, (2) disruptions
in sending areas to existing social and economic arrangements brought on
by market penetration and expansion, (3) the extent of social capital a
migrant can draw upon in receiving areas, (4) the nature of labor market
segmentation in receiving areas (Massey, Durand, and Malone 2002), and
(5) active and passive company recruitment (Cantu 1995, 405).

GENDER & SOCIETY, Vol. 22 No. 5, October 2008 568-589

DOI: 10.1177/0891243208321275
? 2008 Sociologists forWomen in Society

568

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Broughton/MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE 569

To understand themassive internal and international migration originating

in ruralMexico, it is essential to examine and measure instrumental motiva
tions and the broader social dimensions of migration. What is often left out
of economic and social demographic studies of migration, however, is an
analysis of how migrants make sense of themigration experience and how
their strategic responses to economic dislocation are shaped not just by
instrumental calculation but also by a knotty set of gendered cultural consid
erations: prevailing normative expectations and standards, social roles and
obligations, and shared understandings relating to family, work and place. In
exploring the significance of these considerations in this article, I specifically
examine (1) how low-income Mexican men from rural areas negotiate "hege
monic masculinities" relating to family,work and place in the face of intense
pressure to migrate and (2) the gendered strategies, practices and identities
they take up in the process. I find that men embrace three masculine
stances?"traditionalist," "adventurer," and "breadwinner"?and their asso
ciated gendered rationales as they adapt to the political and economic reali
ties of neoliberal Mexico. Furthermore, I argue that these men orient
gendered understandings and adopt gendered practices increasingly in rela
tion to the specific material forces accelerated by Mexico's neoliberal turn,

namely, (1) massive northward migration and (2) the rapid growth and eco
nomic, social and cultural opening of the border region.
This analysis is not meant simply to complement more conventional eco
nomic and social demographic analyses but to inform them as well. First, I
draw attention to the fact that the entire migrant experience (i.e., migration
strategies and decision making, the pathways and flows of migration, the
process of adapting to social life where a migrant settles) is fundamentally
an understanding of the
shaped by gendered cultural considerations. Second,
social and cultural processes thatundergird this robust migration adds essen
tial insight to our understanding of gender at the border?an area increas

ingly composed of and shaped by migrants from the south. And finally this
article contributes empirically to a rich literature that attempts to link specific
gendered practices at the border to broader political and economic forces (for
an example, see Salzinger 1997).

NEOLIBERALISM, POOR MEN FROM RURAL MEXICO,

AND THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER

In the past twenty years the population of border cities has exploded
largely as a result of migration from poor, rural areas of Mexico. This

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 570 GENDER & SOCIETY /October 2008

movement has been driven by a number of factors including the 1982 and
1994 peso devaluations, the insatiable U.S. appetite for cheap labor, and
the expansion of neoliberal trade arrangements?most visibly the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA removed many of the
trade barriers that had existed to foreign direct investment at the border by
U.S., European, and Asian firms. In concert with the 1994 devaluation and
a booming U.S. economy in the 1990s, neoliberal policies helped to con
centrate and accelerate foreign investment and manufacturing growth at
the border?in no small part at the expense of the interiors ofMexico and
theUnited States. Employment in the export-oriented maquiladora sector

nearly tripled in the 1990s (Hufbauer and Schott 2005),1 creating a strong
draw for job-hungry, impoverished Mexicans.
Neoliberal agrarian reforms have also accelerated rural-to-urban move
ment inMexico during the past two decades. In 1992 the Salinas government
made changes toArticle 27 of theMexican Constitution thatguaranteed land
distribution to the dispossessed. The changes discharged theMexican gov
ernment of that duty and allowed ejidos (collectively managed small hold

ings) tobe sold toprivatebuyers(Gledhill 1997, 1). In addition,theSalinas

administration eliminated the guaranteed minimum price for basic grains and
severely reduced technical assistance and credit to farmers (Kelly 2001, 90;
de Janvry et al. 1997). The implementation of NAFTA on January 1, 1994,
furtheropened Mexico's protected agricultural sector toU.S. agribusiness by
increasing trade quotas and lowering tariffsfor staple crops like corn.While
subsidies and assistance toMexican farmers were cut, U.S. farms subsidies
remained in place. The predictable result?more imported U.S. corn and
lower prices for corn?hurt small and medium-sized farmers across rural
Mexico and, consequently, squeezed rural economies and intensified existing
push factors out of rural areas.
The demographic and social results of this set of policy changes have
been dramatic. Reynosa, Tamaulipas, the border fieldwork site for this
article, doubled in size from 265,663 in 1990 to 526,888 in 2005 accord
ing to official government statistics (Instituto Nacional de Estad?stica
Geografia e Informatica 2007b; Consejo Nacional de Poblaci?n 2007).
Municipal officials in that city, however, point to other government data
bases that yield population estimates exceeding 1.5 million. (Those offi
cials argue that the federal government purposefully underestimates
border populations to lessen the federal fiscal responsibility for themas
sive infrastructure needs of rapidly growing border cities.) Most of the
growth in Reynosa originates in rural areas in the populous state of
Veracruz, the long, slender state bordering Tamaulipas to the south that

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Broughton/MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE 571

extends to Chiapas. Indeed, internal migration from Veracruz to border

areas inTamaulipas has, in the past two decades, become one of themajor
migration routes inMexico (U.S. Department of Labor 2005; Vega 2005).
In addition to the pull and push factors dramatically increasing move
ment to the border, several influences, including stagnant wages in the
maquila sector (Hufbauer and Schott 2005, 45), the rising cost of living at
the border (Comit? Fronterizo de Obreras 1999), and growing migrant net
works (Durand, Massey, and Zenteno 2001; Massey et al. 1998) conspire to
attract migrants across the border at unprecedented rates?despite the
increasing costs and risks. On top ofmaterial factors, the allure of a modern,
consumer lifestyle that immigrants imagine to exist in border cities and the
United States has become an increasingly potent pull factor as television's

ubiquity increases inMexico and as diasporic populations circulate between

border cities or the United States and their hometowns and share informa
tion, experiencesand ideas (Smith 2006). In the 1990s therewere 2.8 million
legal immigrants who came to theUnited States fromMexico and 15.8 mil
lion "deportable aliens" (U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2006).2
Using figures from theU.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey,
Hoefer, Rytina, and Campbell (2007) estimate that therewere about 6.5 mil
lion "unauthorized" Mexican immigrants as of January 2006. Although
NAFTA was supposed to help Mexico "export products, not people," it has
in fact encouraged the exportation of both.
The movement to and beyond the border has been shaped dramatically
by gender. Mexican men were contracted to work American farms and
railways in the Bracero Program from 1942 to 1964. While the Border
Industrialization Program was created in 1965 by theMexican govern
ment to stem border unemployment among ex-braceros, maquiladora
operators preferred to employ young women (Iglesias Prieto 1997; Kamel
and Hoffman 1999; Cravey 1998). More recently, maquiladora employ
ment at the border evened between men and women
in 2001, with men
now making up 51 percent of maquila employees. In the lowest ranking
obrero (assembly worker) category, however, women made up 60.7 per
cent in January 1990 and, in December 2006, women still constitute the
majority at 54.7 percent (Instituto Nacional de Estad?stica Geografia e
Informatica 2007a). On the other hand, men have consistently made up
about 75 percent of border crossers from Mexico since 1970 (Durand
et al. 2001). In fieldwork I have found that many migrants living in
Reynosa, especially women, had planned to work on el otro lado (the
other side) but settled at the border to continue to care for family members
or out of fear of the risks associated with crossing without documentation.

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
572 GENDER & SOCIETY /October 2008

With dizzying speed, neoliberal adjustments are reordering social and

economic life at theMexican border and in the countryside, making the
fate ofMexico's economy?and the fate of Mexicans themselves?more
intertwined with itsmuscular northern neighbor. To examine gender and
migration in contemporary Mexico, it is essential to understand the robust
pushes and pulls that emerge from these profound political and economic
forces. In this approach I am following Gutmann (2003, 16, 18), who
advises that when writing about gender identity in Latin America one

ought to examine (1) the ways in which "global influences [are] filtered
through particular, local, Latin American contexts" and (2) "the role of the
United States today and historically in helping to define and circumscribe
'Latin' manliness and its opposite."
For low-income Mexican men in particular, these economic disloca
tions have forced a hurried reinvention of conventional masculine strate

gies, ideals and practices surrounding work, family and place. Here it is
useful to recall Connell's original formation of hegemonic masculinity,
which "embodied the currently most honored way of being a man" but
recognized thatmore than one hegemonic masculinity could exist, thus
allowing for change as "older forms of masculinity might be displaced by
new ones" (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 832, 833). Indeed, mono
lithic generalizations masculinity and machismo have been
about Mexican
shattered in recent years. In place of a simplistic, unitary notion of what it
means to be a man inMexico, many studies have dug beneath widespread

stereotypes to find complexity, ambiguity and contradiction (Gutmann

1996, 2003; Melhuus 1996;Mirand? 1997; Prieur 1998).While these
accounts have uncovered complexities that have always existed beneath
the popular veneer, the recent economic, political and social opening of
Mexico?particularly at the border and in large cities?has further com

plicated fixed understandings of Mexican masculinities. As Gutmann

(1996, 243) contends, "Numerous women and men have become aware
of gender identities as impermanent and changeable"?as "uncertain

qualities"?as a result of this opening.

After explicating the study's methodology, I outline a fluid typology of
stances thatmen as men adopt in relation tomigration and the border: the
"traditionalist," "adventurer," and "breadwinner." By a "fluid" typology I
mean that the three stances are ideal types that do not necessarily neatly
map onto individuals at the exclusion of other stances; they are negotiated,
gendered approaches formeeting instrumental and identity goals related
to work, family and place, and they are often deployed strategically at
different stages in the life course and in hybridized combinations.

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Broughton/MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE 573

Hybridized identities in a constant state of transition, after all, exemplify

the experience of the borderlands, famously described by Gloria Anzald?a
(1987, 3) as "a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional
residue of an unnatural boundary." To further qualify this framework, I do
not claim that these three ideal types encompass the experience of all
Mexican men from rural areas. I only claim that these three types offer
insight into how the border and themigration experience are viewed and
experienced by working-class men in a time and place of profound mate
rial and cultural change?when the U.S.-Mexico border, as Spener and
Staudt (1998, 3) argue, "stands at the center and offers us a front-row view
of history's drama unfolding."

METHOD

While this article specifically explores the gendered migration strategies

of low-income men inMexico, it is part of a broader longitudinal and multi
sited ethnographic study of economic globalization situated in Galesburg,
Illinois; Reynosa, Mexico; and the Papantla region of the coastal state of
Veracruz in central Mexico. This article draws exclusively from data
obtained inReynosa and Veracruz collected in four fieldwork excursions of
two weeks each beginning in the summer of 2003 and ending in the summer
of 2007. Fieldwork in both Reynosa and Veracruz has involved mixed meth
ods: demographic and economicdata collection from federal, municipal and
nonprofit agencies, 11 group interviews inReynosa with Veracruzanos (pri
marily with male and female maquila workers or with male workers and var
ious family members), and 37 in-depth and tape-recorded individual
interviews with a broad assortment of maquila workers (usually in their
homes), human and workers' rights advocates, government and business offi
cials and journalists inReynosa and Veracruz, and low-income ruralmen and
women. In addition, I have conducted informal interviews with an uncounted
number of men and women while exploring markets, z?calos, and colonias,
in agricultural fields or in the beds of pick-up trucks, and in nonprofit agen
cies and small-town mayors' offices.
While all of these data were collected with specific attention to the
lived experience of work and migration in neoliberal Mexico and have
informed this article in some way, the individual interviews with 16 low
income men have provided the richest source of data. In these largely
open-ended interviews, ranging from two to eight hours in length, I gather
the life histories of each respondent, with an emphasis on migration and
work. These interviews invariably addressed the gendered objectives,

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 574 GENDER & SOCIETY /October 2008

aspirations, strategies and perceived responsibilities of the respondents,

which, while not always explicitly related to their own constructions of
masculinity, spoke to idealizations of work, family and place. The low
income men in this study were between 18 and 42 years of age, and the
vast majority had not graduated from prepa (high school). Unless other
wise noted, the subjects of this study did not possess documentation to
enter theUnited States legally.
With their explicit permission, I have used the actual names of all my
informants with the exception of two pairs?"Rosa" and "Jose" and
"Diego" and "Gris." In both of these cases, the interviewees sensibly
requestedanonymity out of fear of repercussion from their employers.
Although the convention in ethnography is to employ pseudonyms for
names and places, I have elected to use actual names because (1) it is the
distinct preference of nearly all of my respondents and (2) I believe it
strengthens the credibility of the study's data. In taking this path I am
adopting an ethic embraced by journalists and by some social scientists
(for an example and defense of this approach, see Duneier 1999, 348).

MIGRANT MASCULINITIES IN NEOLIBERAL MEXICO

This article argues thatmen

adopt one or a hybrid of three fluid mas
culine stances?traditionalist, adventurer, and breadwinner?in response
tomigration pressures in neoliberal Mexico. The stances described in this
section reveal some of themodal ideas and meanings thatMexican men
emphasize as they adapt strategically to economic and social dislocation
and rework hegemonic masculinities relating to family, work and place.
These fluid stances supply gendered strategies and practices formeeting
instrumental and identity goals and are shaped dynamically by the eco
nomic and social possibilities open to low-income men inMexico.

The Traditionalist: Rejecting theMoral Laxity of theBorder

Many men in ruralMexico?whom I refer to as "traditionalists"?speak

of the call of the border as a siren song, alluring but fraughtwith risk, inse
curity and vice. For others?henceforth referred to as "adventurers"?the
border offers a place not only to earn a better living but also to prove one's
manhood, seek thrills and escape the rigidities of rural life. This extended
fieldnote, detailing an argument between twomiddle-aged brothers from the
small town of Barra de Cazones, Veracruz, illustrates these contested mean
ings associated with venturing to and across the border:

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Broughton/MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE 575

For a good part of the afternoon,while sitting at theLa Palapa de Kime [a

beachfront restaurant] drinkingModelos, Emilio Fuentes, 40, and Ismael
Fuentes, 38, gradually worked theirway into a vociferous debate . . .with
each man defending his position and choices concerning migration.

Ismael [a documented, seasonal agricultural worker]: People do not emigrate

because they're stupid?they want a new life. They're just tired of being
here. They want a change. . . .That's why they go! What is this concern
about people emigrating, Emilio? That's where the future is! People that
leave Mexico, that leave Veracruz, they make progress in their lives.
They're better off.
Emilio [looking at us]: Look, there are two different ambitions. My highest
ambition ismy family.His highest ambition ismoney. But with themoney
he makes, he cannot have the family he wants. . . . If I went to the States
and came back once a year, my children could become drug addicts, or
delinquents. And he [points to his son, Lenny, 18, who had been listening
without comment for hours] wouldn't be talking about going to the univer
sity right now. You can see thatmy house ismore humble than his, but I
have family security and he doesn't. . . .There are two differentkinds of
ambition. Mine is real and his is a fantasy,because theUnited States is not
his country. [Looking at Ismael] I wanted to tell you something: theUnited
States is never going to be your country.
Ismael: Well, of course not, I loveMexico.
Emilio: But what are you doing forMexico?
Ismael: I'm not doing it forMexico; I'm doing it forme. You have to look out
for yourself.What did Mexico do forme? What did the local mayor do for
me? Nothing! I'm the one who built my home.
Emilio: What you're trying to do is a fantasy.You're trying to conquer (con
quistar) the unconquerable. He wants to conquer theUnited States, tomake
theUnited States his own.
Ismael: For God's sakes, if you don't go to the richest country in theworld,
you won't do anything in your life.Don't talk about the people who have
failed, talk about the people who have triumphed! I mean Hollywood is in
California?how come theydidn't put it inGuatemala?
Emilio: Ask him with whom he lives. He lives alone.
Ismael [after initially denying it]:Fine, the truthis I like being alone. I've been
living alone for 10 years and I like it.Gringos and gringas live alone. I like
thatwhat's mine is mine: It's my television, my stereo and my house.
Emilio, you'll never trysomething new.
Emilio: Nor do I want to. . . .For me it's just the unknown, an adventure. It's
a huge land towant to conquer, a land more difficult than your own. With
my family, I have more needs thanhe does, but I have a plan formy life that
I created a long time ago and I like it.Him? He is not from theU.S., and
he's not fromhere. If I fall, at least I know where I've fallen.

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
576 GENDER & SOCIETY /October 2008

In this exchange, Emilio marks clear moral boundaries in his discussion

with Ismael with regard to his ideals about work, family and place. His
traditionalist masculine views prioritize the cohesion of his family, a com
mitment to his hometown and his country, abiding by the law, and sus
taining what he sees as a stable, authentic identity. For Emilio the border
presents grave danger and risk taking not just in itsworkplaces and colo
nias (poor neighborhoods) but, more fundamentally, to one's identity:

Emilio: [Migrants] become impressed with the kind of life that people have
there, and they start comparing their lives to the lifestyles of the people
there, and they start making mistakes. . . .My brother, Ismael, he's
changed a lot.He's estranged from his family.His wife [inTexas] is illegal;
his children are illegal. They've changed, but not for thebetter.Yes, they've
earned some dollars, but they've lost theirorigins, their values, their iden
tityand each other.

When approached without caution and with a sense of adventure and

greed, Emilio believes that the borderlands is a minefield of moral haz
ards. Living in an area without stable employment, and in a very humble
two-room home without running water, a sewage line or electricity,
Emilio iswilling to forsake breadwinning opportunities at the border or in
the United States and endure destitution in order to protect his family of
four from those hazards. In response to a profound pressure to emigrate,
then, Emilio draws on a hegemonic masculinity that embraces masculine

authority, customary family roles, vigilant fathering and social conser

vatism. He strongly embraces breadwinner ideals but, in the face of what
he sees as a stark choice between family and work, he chooses family, a
strategic decision that places the family's future in the hands of their
eldest son, Lenny, whom Emilio is shepherding through adolescence.
Further south in Agua Dulce, Veracruz, another traditionalist, Javier
Gonzalez Rocha, commented more broadly on what he saw as the com
munity-wide destructive social influences of migration out of his small
town. Like Emilio, Javier mourns the influx of television and radio influ
ences from el Norte that he says have increased the consumptive desires
of younger people. As younger people stream north to the border, tradi
tionalists contend, a whole
host of social consequences follow: (1)
Younger people forego educational opportunities, (2) localities lose much
of their young talent, and (3) migrants become detached from the social
mores and life of their home community. Javier seemed most concerned
about a decline in civility that he pins on young migrants who return with
a degraded sense of civil responsibility:

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Broughton/MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE 577

Older people here maintain a way of life that is sociable. Young people have
lost theirmanners: They don't take off their hats when walking into a
house, theydon't greet people. Some don't give up their seat for an old lady
or a mother with a child riding a bus. Here people don't do that anymore.
They bring these customs and manners back from the other side.

While migration can provide substantial remittance flows for struggling

rural towns like Agua Dulce, Javier argues that people send money for
their individual houses but contribute little to the community, as this field
note indicates:

[From his pickup truck Javier pointed to a well-appointed and empty gated
house.] This is one of them! This way of building a house comes from the
U.S. Here the traditional style is with the house?the windows and the
doors, everything?against the street.Here, though, is a house with a gate
and a fence and yard in frontof the home. They are just littleoutposts. They
are well made, but theydon't have life to them.

Traditionalistslike Emilio and Javier seek tomaintain a sense of continuity

and often look nostalgically to the past as a source of resistance against the
change and insecurity characterized by contemporary life in ruralMexico.
Being concerned about eroding social mores, the loss of talented youth,
depopulating and struggling towns, and, undoubtedly, threatened by the ero
sion of male privilege, traditionalists question the viability of labor migration
as a viable survival strategy formen and their families and communities. In

painting the border as an area of vice, laxmoral codes and individualism, the
traditionalist defends his sense ofmasculinity?in spite of political and eco
nomic forces working against themaintenance of such ideals.

The Adventurer: Escaping theRural South

and "Conquering" the Border

Over the past 10 years, Ismael?Emilio's brother?has worked in

tobacco, sweet potato, squash, cucumber, pepper, cabbage and melon
fields in the United States as a documented and contracted seasonal
worker. After the harvest season ends, he often overstays his work visa to
remain with his wife and children and paint houses in Texas. While the
work is arduous and menial,
he takes obvious pride inwhat he has accom
plished as a migrant worker and, more recently, as a member of FLOC, the
Farm Labor Organizing Committee. Having developed a drinking prob
lem early in life, Ismael only completed third grade and was "married"
(not legally but informally) at age 12. Despite a troubled childhood,

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 578 GENDER & SOCIETY /October 2008

Ismael has attained a status in his community that comes from owning a

relatively well appointed home and having ventured successfully beyond

rural Veracruz. The contradictions he embodies are striking: illiterate but
more worldly than his parochial brother, an advocate for the disenfran
chised but also a machista womanizer, and brash and adventurous, yet
seemingly unable to find satisfaction. Like many other Mexican men,
especially those that strike out across the border alone, Ismael, an adven
turer, embraces the rough opportunities and challenges that economic
integration has fostered. To him migration to el Norte presents not only a
chance to earn a higher income and survive dislocation in neoliberal
Mexico but also opportunities to achieve gendered objectives: to elevate
one's social status, to test one's courage and virility, and to escape the
tedium and tightermoral codes of the rural south.
In the debate excerpted above, Ismael said to Emilio, "For God's sakes,
ifyou don't go to the richest country in theworld, you won't do anything
in your life. Don't talk about the people who have failed, talk about the
people who have triumphed!" He later elaborated on what he meant by the
term "triumph" by linking it to consumptive goals:

[To Emilio] Why are you stuck thinking theway you think?You thinkabout
"the zero" when you should be thinking about "the one," and then "the
two," because that's how you get ahead. At first, I didn't have anything, but
then I got to "one"?say, a cell phone. And then to "two"?say, the little
pickup truck that I own. And then tomy home, which is "three." But if I just
get stuck on "the zero," I'd get depressed. Imight startusing drugs. Emilio,
even ifyou don't have a trampoline, you still have to jump.

Here, Ismael embraces an individualist ethos and uses material possessions

as progressive markers of merit and success for themigrant. As he noted in
the debate, "I'm not doing it forMexico, I'm doing it forme. You have to
look out for yourself." And when defending his solitary living conditions he
said, "Gringos and gringas live alone. I like thatwhat's mine ismine." In a
masculine assertion of independence and individual prerogative, Ismael
rejects the traditionalists' claims about themoral pitfalls of northward migra
tion and the border, asserting instead thatmaterial advancement helps one to
avoid depression and substance abuse. What is irresponsible adventurism to
Emilio is brash and pragmatic agency to Ismael.
Conspicuous material advancement also serves a social purpose for the
adventurer. Owning a newer American truck or the latest cell phone, for
instance, is a fairly reliable and visible marker of having made some head
way up north. And homes like Ismael's, built with money from work in the

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Broughton/MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE 579

United States, stand out for their relatively ornate appearance, access to
the basic (running water, indoor plumbing, electricity) and high-end
(cable, Internet) services, and electronic gadgetry. These symbols of hav
ing conquered el Norte confer social standing and serve to set themanly
adventurer apart from ordinary people who have not braved the journey.
Although it is difficult to know the extent to which the young adven
turer engages in sexual philandering as part of his escape to the north, this
was clearly the case for Ismael. In our interview, Ismael told us he had a
wife and two children living without papers in Austin, Texas. The next
day, however, Emilio told us that in addition to his first wife, Ismael has
had, "like 10 wives [all in an informal sense], one after the other. He's not
married according to the law with any of them. He's irresponsible
(ma?oso)!' Removed from a place where individual behavior is con
strained by tighter social controls, the adventurer can engage in a wide
range of behaviors thatwould otherwise come with moral opprobrium and
social sanction. While much of Ismael's adventurism runs counter to the
rural traditionalist's "most honored way of being a man" and dominant
social norms regarding sober masculine responsibility and provision, it
also draws upon a long history of countervailing patriarchal norms that
support male sexual adventurism, agency and privilege. Furthermore,

although Ismael has access to a relatively high income, the very nature of
his itinerant travel and adventurism limits his prospects for having a sta
ble family or acting as a reliable breadwinner for his family.
The adventurer category might also be applied to many high school
graduates (and dropouts as well) in rural Mexico who, having not yet
started a family of their own, head almost by custom now to the border.
These young people cite the lack of economic opportunities in rural
Veracruz and, often, a need to supplement the incomes of their parents
among their primary motivations. Their migration patterns are sometimes
characterized by sojourning, but?unlike Ismael's sort of adventurism?
are more likely to root the young adventurer in his destination (and per

haps later in the life course to entail a shift toward a breadwinner stance).
Aaron Barrera, themayor of Volador, a small, isolated town in northern
Veracruz, said that out-migration of prepa graduates is now an expected
yearly routine in his community. As the following interview excerpt
shows, Aaron has linked the upsurge in northward migration to the

increasingly concentrated land holdings in the area:

About 100 leftjust thismonth after graduation. These are the best-educated
young people we have. The majority goes toReynosa and some go toNew
York City.We try to convince them to stay, but there isn't any work. This

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
580 GENDER & SOCIETY /October 2008

whole area is owned by a very richman who lives inPapantla. He's grabbed
everything.The people around here don't have any land towork. There are
no ejidos here.

For young men from Volador, migration presents the possibility of escape
from sharpening economic inequities and bleak job prospects as well as a
chance to search out unknown territory.
For many it is also an opportunity to meet masculine obligations as
responsible sons. Elba Cortez Rosas, a Volador mother, told me about the

day when her son leftVolador for Reynosa: "About three weeks ago my
youngest left. I miss him. I said to him, 'You're my youngest, you're my
baby; I don't want you to go.' He said, 'Mom, I'm a man now, I want to
meet my responsibilities myself.'" To Elba, the border ismorally perilous
but much preferable toMexico City. "There are a lot of lost youth in
Mexico City, mostly because of drugs. The ones from Reynosa return reg
ularly and are more educated and disciplined because Reynosa is a very
demanding place."
This sort of youthful adventurism is associated with traditionally mascu
line ideals and practices related to self-determination, assertion and inde
pendence. And as research on recentMexican migration patterns has shown,
men tend tomove for employment, whereas women are
generally motivated
by family reasons (Cerrutti and Massey 2001). This same research shows,
however, that the work-related migration patterns of young, single women
closely resemble those of sons and fathers. For instance, Rosa Gonzalez of
Naranjos, Veracruz, left for Reynosa immediately after high school at age
17, having never before lefther home town in her life:

There is no work inNaranjos, only PEMEX [Mexico's state-run oil com

pany]. So I went right after finishingprepa. Itwas difficult adapting to life
here. Imissed my parents and I was very afraid to go out at night.When I
found a job as a cashier I got my own apartment. I felt good about that.
More than anything itwas a sense of independence.

Rosa's brother, Jose, had benefited from the nepotism of his father, a
senior employee at PEMEX inNaranjos, who secured a lucrative job for
him transporting
heavy drilling equipment (which, like otherPEMEX
jobs, is a job traditionally filled by men). Male privilege, therefore,
allowed Jose to stay in Veracruz and compelled Rosa to seek out wage
work at the border. Migration to the border is commonplace for women
given the "greater fluidity in gender employment patterns as a result of
modernization and urbanization" there (Gutmann 2003, 13). Indeed,

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Broughton/MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE 581

Rosa's adventurism contrasts sharply with her brother's traditionalism.

Jose prefers the "peaceful and healthy" life of Veracruz and complains that

people at the border, including his sister, "are more prone to darker
moods," "defensive postures," and "doing foolish things." Rosa, who now
works in a "pressure-filled" job at a bank, says she is proud of what she
has accomplished on her own and, despite missing her mother a great
deal, has no desire to return to the slower life of Veracruz.

Although Mexican men are much more likely to take the adventure
across the border, women leave rural areas for border cities like Reynosa
at comparable and, from some places of origin, greater rates than men
(Fern?ndez-Kelly 2005; Vega 2005). As Rosa's case exemplifies, the
adventurer masculinity is a fluid stance
increasingly open to (and being
reshaped by) young, single women who come to the border on their own.
Here it is important to recall Martin's (1998, 474) contention that since
masculinities and femininities are cultural values and practices, "everyone
can do both." However, despite having access to valorized practices nor

mally associated with men, research has shown thatwomen's migration to

the border or into the United States does little tomodify existing gender

inequalities (Parrado and Flippen 2005).

The Breadwinner: Exigency and Paternal Necessity

As Gutmann (2003, 13) writes, "financially supporting one's family and

work in general are without a doubt central defining features of masculinity
for many men and women in various parts of theAmericas."
Indeed, the
hard working American and European is a familiar
industrial breadwinner
figure in the study of masculinity (Ehrenreich 1984; Gerson 1993; Lamont
2000; Rubin 1994). A Mexican householder working in a border maquila
speaks about his work in a manner similar to industrial workers of the
United States: principally as a sacrifice for his children. In theway that the
traditionalist measures his success in terms of family cohesion and moral
protection and the adventurer in terms of social mobility or material pos
sessions, the breadwinner measures his achievements in educational and
material provision: keeping his children in school through prepa, providing
sustenance, and perhaps upgrading a makeshift house made of corrugated
tin and discarded factory pallets to a rain-tight cinderblock home. In con
trast to the traditionalist or adventurer, the breadwinner speaks about the
border as an utter necessity?often a reluctant (and implicitly selfless)
choice made under desperate circumstances. The breadwinner often recog
nizes themoral pitfalls and social disorganization of border life but, unlike

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 582 GENDER & SOCIETY /October 2008

the traditionalist, he is compelled tofind work, provide and father at the border

despite those perceived hazards.

Atanacio Martinez, 41, came to the border in his early 20s. Like many
who settle inReynosa, he expected towork in theUnited States. After find
ingwork in a maquiladora assembling wheelchairs and without a work visa,
he decided to stay, squatted on a piece of land and built a home, and eventu
ally brought his wife and children north as finances allowed. Of his initial
migration, Atanacio said he arrived without a plan, asking, "What will I do?
What will happen to us? How will I support my family?" Given his familial

responsibilities, his desperate answer was, "I'll do anything." To support and

supervise their four children inReynosa, where the cost of living and educa
tional expenses are substantially higher than in ruralVeracruz, Atanacio and
his wife, Carmen, both work full time. Atanacio works day shifts and his
wife works in a maquila during nights and weekends.
Atanacio sees their sacrifices almost entirely in terms of the benefits to
their children, two of whom have surpassed his ninth-grade education. "It
gives me great satisfaction to give them their schooling. I had to start

working as a young boy [inVeracruz]. Then I got married and had kids.
Now I'm trying to have them do what singular desire to
I couldn't." A
meet paternal obligations motivated to migrate and,
the initial decision
likewise, his decision to stay. In this way his motivation tomigrate was
distinct from that of adventurers, although there is a parallel sense of
charting a course into the unknown. Since arriving in Reynosa, Atanscio
says he has had to "adapt," most notably by expanding his notion of bread
winning when his wife began working in themaquilas:

It is a difficult life [with twoworking parents], but it's all necessary so that
we can make it as a family. It's for the kids, so they can have a littlemore
than what theywould have if just one worked. So, yes . . . one has to
... If both the husband and wife work, it is to live better. But,
adapt.
really, we are justmaking it.

Atanacio negotiates his role as breadwinner in the face of the exigencies

of border life. As other research (Massey et al. 2002, 21-22) has demon
strated, a provider at the border?in contrast to a rural provider in
Veracruz?is not only expected to provide sustenance and protection but
also access to a decent education, upward mobility, and a greater range of
consumer items. To meet these goals in a higher-cost and low-wage area,
men like Atanacio may elect to forge a "pragmatic egalitarianism"
(Meuser 2003) with their partners.

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Broughton/MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE 583

Another breadwinner, Diego Chavez, also came to Reynosa after having

started a family. Although Diego feels profoundly stuck in his economic
condition after 12 years working in Reynosa's maquiladoras, he insists?
in contrast to Atanacio?that Gris, his wife, cares for their children at
home rather than engage inwage work, an ideal that they have maintained
at considerable economic cost:

In themaquilas where I've worked?Zenith, Converse, GE, Seagate and

now Maytag?the situation hasn't changed. The work atMaytag doesn't
allow me tomeet my obligations as a head of family.My family's economic
situation would never allow me to buy one of the refrigerators Imake.

Diego at once seeks tomaintain a sole breadwinner ideal while recogniz

ing the impossibility of attaining it. Breadwinners working in border

maquilas?unlike American blue-collar workers of industrialism's heyday
in the middle of the twentieth century?simply cannot provide for their
families on their own. While Gris could work in a maquila, Diego?draw
ing upon the same hegemonic masculinities as the traditionalists described

above?explains that family cohesion and care for their children in their
border colonia is his foremost concern:

There's a real problem for the children who aren't well cared for.They may
be badly behaved because both parents are obliged towork because of the
low wages here. There are a lot of broken families and there isn't time to
properly care for the children. It's a real concern forme.

For Diego, even themost onerous material conditions cannot compel him
to give up his sole breadwinner ideal. Diego sees himself providing by

protecting his wife and his children from the social consequences of dual
"
income maquila families inwhich "parents are used up by their jobs He
himself is used up in long work hours and a long bicycle commute, but in
doing this he maintains his wife as the children's caretaker?an essential
and instrumental element of his provision to his children:

I want my children to become professionals. I don't want them to sufferthe

injustices I've suffered in themaquiladoras. I'm doing everything possible
to ensure that they are well educated. ... I want something different for
my children. I'm fighting for that.

The exacting economic pressures and expanded role demands for

providers who come to the border force a stark choice between negotiat
ing a reinvented breadwinner masculinity that embraces a pragmatic

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
584 GENDER & SOCIETY /October 2008

or adhering to an unworkable
egalitarian ethic of dual earning (Atanacio)
sole breadwinner model (Diego).
Beyond contemplating more flexible understandings of their roles as
on
providers, migrant breadwinners at the border face forced adaptation
other fronts as well. While men are drawn north by a sense that they can
earn more for their families at the border, few consider
the rigors of indus
trial factory work and discrimination against rural Veracruzanos [people
from Veracruz]. A former high-level manager at a Black and Decker plant
in Reynosa stated that there was a great deal of frustration on the
American side with Mexicans' approach to time, responsibility and fam
ily. He said, "Punctuality is a problem across the board. The way

[Mexican workers] view time is just different." Before, he says, when the
plant was in Jackson, Tennessee, "there was much more 'ownership' put
into thework, much more loyalty to the company and more responsibility
assumed in a work role." This maquila manager and others note favorably
how "committed to family" Veracruzanos are but, at the same time, com

plain about their lack of an industrial work ethic, extended vacations back
home and frequent requests to attend to family matters. Regarding his first
day seeing a maquiladora, Diego, for instance, said, "I was completely
unaware of what the workplace was like in a maquila inReynosa. When I
went to look for work and I saw the employees leaving second shift, they
were in clean, clean clothes. I thought, 'Wow, they just had a party!'" For
rural migrants who often view work as a means to family maintenance
(rather valuing work for its own sake) or who lack cultural tools of the
dominant culture, it is difficult to adapt to the rigorous physical, time and
cultural demands of maquila work and, consequently, difficult-to-attain
breadwinner goals and adapt a refashioned borderland breadwinner ideal.
Comments critical of migrants are echoed more broadly by natives of
some of whom consider themassive influx of Veracruzanos an
Reynosa,
"invasion" of poor, unwanted migrants (Petros 2006). Although many
praise Veracruzanos for being "good workers," others complain about the
ways they dress, behave and maintain their homes. One native woman
even referred tomigrants from the south as "veracruchangos" [monkeys
from Veracruz]. Such racialized insults indicate that Veracruzanos (who
not just hostility and
typically have darker skin than natives do) face
discrimination but a subordinate position in a more rigid racial hierarchy
at theU.S.-Mexico border. In his study of the "reracialization" ofMexican

migrants in Chicago, De Genova (1998, 105-106) contends that

"Mexico's distinct and relatively fluid racial order may be currently under
going a profound ideological reelaboration that reflects and refracts the

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Broughton/MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE 585

racialized migrant encounter and increasingly shares some of the rigidity

of the dominant racial ideologies of theUnited States." The exigencies of
border life demand strategic adaptation of hegemonic masculine ideals to
the economic demands and dominant cultural precepts of the region: The
breadwinner must consider dual-earning household strategies, adapt to the
time and physical rigors of industrial life, countenance prioritizing work
over family, and negotiate a newly racialized social landscape.

CONCLUSION

As Canclini (2003) advises, there is not one Mexican vision of the bor
der. This article has explored some of these visions from the perspective
of Mexican men as they talk and think about the border region and the
migration experience as men. The traditionalist, adventurer, and bread
winner stances to low-income Mexican men are gendered routes to real
izing both instrumental and identity goals in a time of rapid and
wrenching change. The traditionalist responds by adopting a hegemonic
masculinity that prioritizes family and community ties, traditional gen
dered roles, and watchful fathering. He constructs his identity in contrast
to individualistic and anomic migrants and an unfavorable caricature of
the border region. By contrast themale adventurer sees el Norte as a place
to escape the more regimented and articulated social order of the rural
south. He undertakes the journey north with only a vague sense about
what he will find, where he will work, where and if he will settle?or
whether he will succeed. Adventurers are indeed labor migrants (Portes
and Rumbaut 1996), but they look at the border as more than a place to
find work. It is also as a place to satisfy gendered aims including attain

ing independence, a sense of individual achievement and material and

social advancement, and a new and exciting life away from the limitations
of a neglected and declining rural Mexico. While the adventurer leaves
relatively unencumbered by the obligation to provide for dependents, the
breadwinner is forced out of circumstance to migrate northward to pro
vide for his family and, once there, endures material and symbolic indig
nities with the hope that his provision will, in the subsequent generation,
foster mobility. The breadwinner knowingly puts his ability to achieve
some traditionalist goals (e.g., raising children away from urban vice and
disorder) in jeopardy by embracing work at (or beyond) the border as an
inescapable duty to fulfill so their children can "have something better."

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 586 GENDER & SOCIETY /October 2008

These fluid masculinities illustrate some of the gendered responses of

low-income Mexican men to the economic and social dislocations of
neoliberal Mexico and allow a deep examination of the goals, motivations,
aspirations and rationales of men who migrate northward. Such an analy
sis both complements and informs more conventional economic and
social demographic studies of migration that focus on instrumental calcu
lation and household- and community-level factors in explaining migrant
decision making, their strategies and pathways, and the process of adapt
ing to social life where themigrant settles. The dynamic process of gen
dered identity negotiation and decision making apparent in these fluid
types demonstrates how low-income Mexican men do much more than
make instrumental calculations as theymake sense of themigration expe
rience as men and arrive at specific and adaptive gendered strategies and
decisions regarding northward migration.
In exploring how men negotiate hegemonic masculinities related to
family, work and place, it is important to attend to the political and eco
nomic variables in ruralMexico and in the border region structuring these
gendered strategies, practices and identities. As Sadowski-Smith (2002, 4
9) warns, we must not focus on "border porosity" and "cultural fusion"
without attention to the recent political, economic and social changes that
have "strengthened structural inequalities" and "rigidified economic,
social, and political boundaries" between the United States and Mexico.
For this reason this article emphasized the link between the specific gen
dered practices of low-income men in ruralMexico and at the border and
the political and economic forces that shape them. It ismy hope that this
article escapes categorization as "a-literalist" or "literalist" (Vila 2003;
x)?that it has not only shed light on the ways men negotiate masculinity
in a manner sensitive to the voices and lived reality of men but also to the
social and economic conditions that constrain and influence those voices,
experiences, and gendered identities and strategies.

NOTES

1. Employment in themaquiladora sector increased from 446,400 in 1990 to

1,291,200 in 2000, a 189% increase.
2. Of those classified as "deportable aliens," the vast majority are from
Mexico. In fiscal year 2005, about 85 percent of apprehensions were of
Mexicans. "Deportable aliens located," however, counts apprehensions, not the

number of unique individuals deported.

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Broughton/MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE 587

REFERENCES

Gloria. 1987. Borderlands: The new Mestiza = La Frontera. San

Anzald?a,
Francisco: Aunt Lute.

Borjas, George J. 1989. Economic theory and international migration.

International Migration Review 23:457-85.
Canclini, N?stor Garcia. 2003. Rewriting cultural studies in theBorderlands. In
Postborder city: Cultural spaces of Bajalta California, edited by M. D. a. G.
Ledere. New York: Routledge.
Cant?, Lionel. 1995. The peripheralization of rural America: A case study of
Latino migrants in America's heartland. Sociological Perspectives
38:399-414.
Cerrutti, Marcela, and Douglas S. Massey. 2001. On the auspices of female
migration fromMexico to theUnited States. Demography 38:187-200.
Connell, R. W., and JamesW. Messerschmidt. 2005. Hegemonic masculinity:
Rethinking the concept. Gender & Society 19:829-859.
Comit? Fronterizo de Obreras. 1999. Six years of NAFTA: A view from inside the
maquiladoras. Philadelphia: CFO in cooperation with theMexico-U.S. Border
Program of theAmerican Friends Service Committee, Piedras Negras, Coahuila.
Consejo Nacional de Poblaci?n. 2007. Distribuci?n Territorial. Sistema Urbano
Nacional, 2000. Consejo Nacional de Poblaci?n, http://www.conapo.gob.mx/
distribucion_tp/01 .htm (accessed October 20, 2007).
Cravey, Altha J. 1998. Women and work inMexico's maquiladoras. Lanham:
Rowman & Littlefield.
De Genova, Nicholas. 1998. Race, space, and the reinvention of Latin America in
Mexican Chicago. Latin American Perspectives 25 (5): 87-116.
de Janvry,Alain, Gustavo Gordillo, Elisabeth Sadoulet, and Ejido Reform
Research Project. 1997. Mexico's second agrarian reform:Household and
community responses, 1990-1994. La Jolla, CA: Center for U.S.-Mexican
Studies, University of California-San Diego.
Duneier, Mitchell. 1999. Sidewalk. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Durand, Jorge,Douglas S. Massey, and Rene M. Zenteno. 2001. Mexican immi
gration to the United States: Continuities and changes. Latin American
Research Review 36:107-27.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. 1984. The hearts of men: American dreams and theflight
from commitment.Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Fern?ndez-Kelly, Patricia. 2005. Reforming gender: The effects of economic
change on masculinity and femininity inMexico and theU.S. Women's Studies
Review (fall): 69-101.
Gerson, Kathleen. 1993. No man's land:Men's changing commitments to family
and work. New York: Basic Books.
Gledhill, John. 1997. Fantasy and reality in restructuringMexico's land reform.
Paper presented at Society forLatin American Studies Meeting, St. Andrews
University.

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 588 GENDER & SOCIETY /October 2008

Gutmann, Matthew C. 1996. The meanings of macho: Being a man inMexico

City. Berkeley: University of California Press.
-. 2003. Introduction: Discarding manly dichotomies inLatin America. In
Changing men and masculinities inLatin America, edited byM. C. Gutmann.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Hoefer, Michael, Nancy Rytina, and Christopher Campbell. 2007. Estimates of
the unauthorized immigrantpopulation residing in theUnited States: January
2006. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration
Statistics,Washington, DC.
Hufbauer, Gary Clyde, and Jeffrey J. Schott. 2005. NAFTA revisited:
Achievements and challenges. Washington, DC: Institute for International
Economics.

Iglesias Prieto, Norma. 1997. Beautifulflowers of themaquiladora: Life histories of

women workers inTijuana (M. Stone, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
Instituto Nacional de Estad?stica Geograf?a e Informatica. 2007a. Banco de
Informaci?n Economica, http://dgcnesyp.inegi.gob.mx/cgi-win/bdieintsi.exe
(accessed October 20, 2007).
-. 2007b. Conteo de Poblaci?n yVivienda 2005. Principales resultados por
localidad 2005 (ITER), http://www.inegi.gob.mx/est/contenidos/espanol/sis
temas/conte02005/localidad/iter/default.asp (accessed October 20, 2007).
Kamel, Rachel, and Anya Hoffman. 1999. The maquiladora reader: Cross-border
organizing since NAFTA. Philadelphia: Mexico-U.S. Border Program.
Kelly, Thomas J. 2001. Neoliberal reforms and rural poverty. Latin American
Perspectives 28 (3): 84-103.
Lamont, Michele. 2000. The dignity of working men: Morality and the bound
aries of race, class, and immigration.New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Martin, Patricia Yancey. 1998. Why can't a man be more like a woman?
Reflections on Connell's Masculinities. Review of Masculinities by R. W.
Connell. Gender & Society 12:472-474.
Massey, Douglas S., Joaqu?n Arango, Graeme Hugo, Ali Kourouci, Adela
Pellegrino, and J. Edward Taylor. 1998. Worlds in motion: Understanding
international migration at the end of themillennium. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press.
Massey, Douglas S., Jorge Durand, and Nolan J.Malone. 2002. Beyond smoke
and mirrors: Mexican immigration in an era of economic integration. New

York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Melhuus, Marit. 1996. Power, value and the ambiguous meanings of gender. In
Machos, mistresses, madonnas: Contesting the power of Latin American gen
der imagery, edited byMarit Melhuus and Kristi Anne St0len. London: Verso.
Meuser, Michael. 2003. Modernized masculinities? Continuities, challenges and
changes inmen's. In Among men: Moulding masculinities, edited by Soren
Erv0 and Thomas Johannson. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
Mirand?, Alfredo. 1997. Hombres y machos: Masculinity and Latino culture.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Broughton/MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE 589

Parrado, Emilio A., and Chenoa A. Flippen. 2005. Migration and gender among
Mexican women. American Sociological Review 70:606-632.
Petros, Kristen. 2006. Motherhood, mobility and the maquiladora inMexico:
Women's migration from Veracruz to Reynosa. Summer research report,
Center for Latin American Social Policy, Lozano Long Institute of Latin
American Studies, University of Texas-Austin.
Portes, Alejandro, and Rub?n G. Rumbaut. 1996. ImmigrantAmerica: A portrait.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Prieur, Annick. 1998. Mema's house, Mexico City: On tranvestites, queens, and
machos. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rubin, Lillian B. 1994. Families on thefault line: America's working class speaks
about thefamily, the economy, race and ethnicity.New York: Harper Collins.
Sadowski-Smith, Claudia. 2002. Introduction: Border studies, diaspora, and the
ories of globalization. In Globalization on the line: Culture, capital, and citi
zenship at U.S. borders, edited by C. Sadowski-Smith. New York: Palgrave.
Salzinger, Leslie. 1997. From high heels to swathed bodies: Gendered meanings
under production inMexico's export-processing industry.Feminist Studies
23:549-574.
Smith, Robert. 2006. Mexican New York: Transnational lives of new immigrants.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Spener, David, and Kathleen Staudt. 1998. The view from the frontier:
Theoretical perspectives undisciplined. In The U.S.-Mexico border:
Transcending divisions, contesting identities, edited by David Spener and
Kathleen Staudt. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 2006. Yearbook of immigration statis
tics: 2005. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration
Statistics,Washington, DC.
U.S. Department of Labor. 2005. Findings from the National Agricultural
Workers Survey (NAWS) 2001-2002: A demographic and employment profile
of United States farmworkers. Research Report No. 9.Washington, DC.
Vega, Daniel. 2005. Migraci?n interna:Dimension, alcances y desaf?os. Jornada
Nacional de Migraci?n Interna y G?nero: Origen, Tr?nsito y Destino.
Direcci?n General de Estudios
Sociodemogr?ficos y Prospectiva. Consejo Nacional de Poblaci?n.
Vila, Pablo. 2003. Introduction:Border ethnographies. In Ethnography at the bor
der, vol. 13: Cultural Studies of theAmericas, edited by P. Vila. Minneapolis:
University ofMinnesota Press.

Chad Broughton is a senior lecturer in thePublic Policy Studies Program at

theUniversity of Chicago. He is currently in thefifthyear of a longitudinal
and multisited ethnographic study of economic globalization situated in
Galesburg, Illinois; Reynosa, Mexico; and thePapantla region of Veracruz,
Mexico (www.naftastories.org). He is a sociologist who writes on labor

issues, gender, poverty, and welfare policy in theUnited States and Mexico.

This content downloaded from 128.111.133.39 on Mon, 6 May 2013 18:28:29 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions