Vicki L. Ruiz - Women on the U.S.-Mexico Border: Responses to Change

Series editor: Gilbert W. Merkx, Director, Latin American Institute, University of New Mexico

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF REVOLUTIONARY NICARAGUA
by Rose J. Spalding

WOMEN ON THE U.S.MEXICO BORDER
edited by Vicki L. Ruiz and Susan Tiano

JEWISH PRESENCE IN LATIN AMERICA
edited by Judith L. Elkin and Gilbert W. Merkx

PINOCHET: THE LOGIC OF POWER
by Genaro Arriagada

THE CHILEAN POLITICAL PROCESS
by Manuel Antonio Garreton

LATIN AMERICAN AGRICULTURE AND REFORM
by William C. Thiesenhusen

LATIN AMERICA: ITS CITIES AND IDEAS
by Luis Alberto Romero

LABOR AND POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA
by Edward Epstein

LAND, POWER, AND POVERTY: ROOTS OF CONFLICT IN RURAL CENTRAL AMERICA

by Charles D. Brockett

THE PUERTO RICAN EXPERIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES
by Clara Rodriguez

THE UNITED STATES, HONDURAS, AND THE CRISIS IN CENTRAL AMERICA

by Donald E. Schulz

in preparation.

RESPONSES TO CHANGE

Edited by
Vicki L. Ruiz
Department of History University of California, Davis
and
Susan Tiano
Department of Sociology University of New Mexico

First published 1991 by Westview Press, Inc.

Published 2019 by Routledge
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Copyright 1991 Taylor & Francis

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Women on the U.S.-Mexico border.
(Thematic studies in Latin America)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Mexican American womenSouthwest, New. 2. Southwest, NewSocial conditions. I. Ruz, Vicki. II. Tiano, Susan. III. Series.
F790.M5W66 1986 305.4'886872073 86-22305

ISBN 13: 978-0-813-31270-5 (hbk)

Raquel Rubio Goldsmith , Department of History, Pima Community College, Tucson, Arizona 87502

Devon Pea , Department of Sociology, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80903

Vicki L. Ruiz , Department of History, University of California, Davis, Davis, California 95616

Rosala Solrzano-Torres , Chicano Studies Program, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309

Kathleen Staudt , Department of Political Science, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas 79968

Susan Tiano , Department of Sociology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131

Norma Williams , Department of Sociology, Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas 77843

Gay Young , Department of Sociology, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas 79968

We would like to thank Tey Diana Rebolledo, director of Women Studies, and Gilbert Merkx, director of the Latin American Institute at the University of New Mexico, for their unflagging support of this project. Sarah John, Georgina Rivas, and Anita Burdett, former staff members at the Institute of Oral History, University of Texas, El Paso, deserve mention for their invaluable assistance in the preparation of this manuscript. We also appreciate the speedy and accurate word processing skills of Lynnda Borelli Pries, Senior Word Processing Specialist at the University of California, Davis.

We thank Nicolas Kanellos and Arte Publico Press for permission to reprint Pat Mora's poem Mexican Maid.

To the women who were interviewed during the course of the research presented here, we thank you for sharing your ideas, experiences, and emotions and it is to you that the anthology is offered.

VICKI L. RUIZ
SUSAN TIANO

Vicki L. Ruiz and Susan Tiano

Women have been cast as invisible actors in the social development drama. Their only accredited roles are those of wife and mother, and their only acclaimed performances are shrouded within the realm of domesticity. They tend to be perceived exclusively in terms of their reproductive activities, as childrearers and domestic workers. Although many women venture beyond the household into the wage labor force, their extradomestic roles are typically viewed as temporary aberrations from their true social function. Consequently, the essential productive contributions women regularly make often go unnoticed not only by society by by women themselves. Their performances are similarly unlikely to bring them adequate monetary compensation. While women represent one-third of the world's official wage labor force and perform almost two-thirds of all working hours, they gamer only one-tenth of the global income (United Nations, 1980:7).

This invisibility, nonrecognition, and resultant exclusion from economic opportunities and recompence is especially pronounced for certain categories of women. Working-class women, women of color, ethnic women, and women in Third World nations generally hold more inferior positions than their white middle-class counterparts in industrialized societies. Social class, ethnicity, race, and nationality reinforce gender inequalities. An illustration of how these factors can combine to produce a doubly disadvantaged category can be seen in the situation of Chicanas and Mexicanas in the United States-Mexico border region. Whether they work as domestic servants in El Paso or as assembly workers in Juarez, whether they are Mexican nationals or U.S. citizens, whether they live north or south of the border, they face common circumstances and share similar problems. Yet as the articles in this volume document, they are not merely the passive victims of discrimination. Today, as in the past, they are active agents directing their own destinies and weaving the economic and cultural fabric of the borderlands. The varied roles of Mexican women in an area undergoing rapid social change form the focus of this book.