Articles & Resources on the Lives of Women, Workers and Families at the Industrializing Mexican Border
The Maquiladora
Industry
Q. What is a Maquiladora?
A. Assembly factories that are usually owned by U.S. based multinational corporations (MNCS) to produce and export a variety of household electrical, technological and automotive parts and supplies for export and consumption in the U.S. market and elsewhere. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) foreign investing companies may employ Mexican workers and promise to comply with the host government's relevant labor, health and safety laws under the companion agreement NAALC (North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation). Labor activists sometimes refer to maquiladoras owned and operated at the border by abusive MNCs as sweatshops.
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READINGS
Elvia Arriola,
"Voices
from the Barbed Wires of Despair: Women in the Maquiladoras, Latina
Critical Legal Theory and Gender at the U.S.-Mexico Border",
(pdf) 49 DE PAUL LAW REVIEW 729-815
(2000).
(Summary
of this article)
Elvia Arriola, "Becoming
Leaders: the Women in the Maquiladoras of Piedras Negras, Coahuila,"
reprinted from Frontera Norte-Sur, October 2000 en
español
Elvia Arriola, "Looking
Out from a Cardboard Box: Workers and their families in the Maquiladoras
of Cd. Acuña, Coahuila," reprinted from Frontera Norte-Sur, December
2000
en
español
Elvia Arriola, "Of
Woman Born: Courage and Strength to Survive in the Maquiladoras
of Reynosa and Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas," reprinted from Frontera
Norte-Sur, April 2001 en
español
Raúl Ramírez Baena, "Maquiladora
Workers Can't Meet Basic Needs on Plant Wages,"
reprinted
from
Frontera Norte-Sur, July 6, 2001
Colin
Crawford, "An
Innocent Carrier of Tuberculosis," reprinted
from Border Reflections, Issue 28, January/February 2001
THE CIUDAD JUAREZ MURDERS - VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AS A CONSEQUENCE OF GLOBALIZATION OF THE ECONOMY
"Señorita Extraviada" (2003), Documentary film by Lourdes Portillo about the Juarez Murders
WOB Appendix: The Dead Women (in Microsoft Word) (compiled 2007)
Updated list of women in Juarez (uploaded 2010) In Memoriam: The Pink Crosses Projects (Voces Sin Eco, family based organization began painting pink crosses on black telephone phones in 1998 to draw attention to the unsolved murders of daughters, sister, mothers.) Other artistic remembrances (Diane Kahlo).
The Juarez Project (Women Still Being Murdered) (2008)
Frontera-NorteSur, International Court Holds Mexico Accountable for Femicides (Dec. 2009)
Frontera-NorteSur, Chihuahua Nominee for Mexico's A.G. position has negative record on human rights and femicide investigations (2009)
Kent Paterson, Juarez Mothers Demand Justice for Murdered Daughters (American Program Report, May 2008)
Nadia Sarria, Femicides of Juárez: Violence Against Women in Mexico (August 2009)
Janice Duddy, Is there a connection between NAFTA and the maquila murders? (2002) (reprint of AWID.org)
Elvia R. Arriola, Accountability for Murder in the Maquiladoras (2007)
Kathleen Staudt, Violence and Activism at the Border: Gender, Fear and Everyday Life in Ciudad Juarez (Univ. of Texas Press 2008)
Diana Washington Valdez, The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women (2006)
Harvest of Women: Safari in Mexico (e-book) (2004)
Julia Monarrez Fragoso, "Feminicidio
sexual serial en Ciudad Juárez: 1993-2001" (pdf)
en
español
Debbie Nathan, "Missing the Story," (pdf) (review of Señorita Extraviada) originally published in The Texas Observer, August 30, 2002 ( en español)
Wikipedia sources on Juarez Murders
OTHER RESOURCES
Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa (Our Daughters Returning Home)
nonprofit organization formed by the families of murdered girls and women who continue to demand justice from the Mexican authorities.
CASA AMIGA (see Cinco Punto Press's Facebook Note on passing of founder Esther Chavez Cano 1933-2009)
Amigos de Las Mujeres de Juarez
THE GLOBAL ECONOMY: POLICY AND PROTEST
Josefina
Castillo, Globalization: Casino Economy at a Global Scale
Maude Barlow, "What
is the FTAA?," (pdf)
Council
of Canadians, 2000
Maude Barlow, "Summing
Up the Summit in Quebec," (pdf)
April,
2001
REFLECTIONS FROM TRAVELS TO THE BORDER
Brian Jones (October 2008 delegation to Ciudad Juarez)
Judy Rosenberg, CFO Organizing in Nuevo Laredo (2002).
Josefina
Castillo, Program Coordinator, American Friends Service Committee
(AFSC), Impressions...Miami and the FTAA
Josefina
Castillo, Free Trade Reality Tour
"Judy Rosenberg, Doing
Justice Work in Mexico," a
letter written in the form of an essay written
for the benefit of the members of St. Hildegard’s
Church in Austin, Texas, which supported the project to deliver
food and material goods to the fired workers and their families
in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila
following the Christmas fundraiser held in Austin, in Dec.
2001.
Judy Rosenberg, Hoodeet's
Reflections Trip
to Reynosa, Tamaulipas and Visit with the CFO,"
June 6, 2001
Judy (Hoodeet) Rosenberg, Personal
Report of Judy Rosenberg," Post Delegation by Austin
Tan Cerca de la Frontier to Piedras Negras and Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, October
12-14, 2001
OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION ABOUT MAQUILADORA WORKERS' LIVES
|
A
FEW WORKERS' STORIES:
(Some of this material
contains only interviewer's notes; WOB is seeking funding
to be able to translate taped interviews with workers who
agreed to share their experiences in the maquiladoras.)
PIEDRAS NEGRAS, COAHUILA (borders
Eagle Pass, TX)
Amparo
Juan
Pablo
Raquel
Marina
Paty
REYNOSA, TAMAULIPAS (borders McAllen, TX)
Sofía |
DOCUMENTARY WORK ON THE MAQUILADORAS, NAFTA, ETC.
"The
Morristown Project" (Trailer)
Video
Letters/Cartas between American and Mexican workers in the Maquiladoras
by independent filmmaker Anne Lewis
Independent filmmaker
Anne Lewis' Morristown Video Letter/Video Cartas is part
of the Morristown Project, a compilation of personal narratives
about life, work, disappointment and hope.
The video letters are produced in Spanish and English and
present the stories of workers in East Tennessee (Appalachian
and Mexican), the interior of Mexico and in Ciudad Juarez right
across from El Paso, Texas.
The video letters
are intended for use with discussion groups and/or for popular
education and labor organizing on both sides of the Mexican border.
The common threads in the voices of the factory, maquiladora and
farm workers are poverty, migration, landlessness, invisibility,
job insecurity and the need to organize against and critique the
globalized economy.
For information
on obtaining copies contact Anne Lewis at alewis615@earthlink.net.
"CFO Border
Trip" by Heather Courtney
In October 1999, a group
of Austin residents took a trip to Piedras Negras, Coahuila, to
meet a group of women who work in the maquiladoras and who use popular
education techniques to empower each other on how to use Mexican
labor law and survival strategies for confronting abuse, unfair
firings and anti-democratic harassment by corrupt unions.
Other
films by Heather Courtney
Letters
from the Other Side (2006)
Day Labor Movie (article)
Los
Trabajadores/The Workers (2000)
"Maquilas:
A Tale of Two Mexicos" (Saul Landau) (2000) (link to streaming Video of this and other Saul Landau documentaries)
(Review of Maquilas)
"Señorita
Extraviada" (2003) ***
***Trans:
Young Missing Woman (2003). The
filmmaker, Lourdes
Portillo,
is a former resident of Ciudad Juárez whose chilling work
on the murders
exposes governmental incompetence, sexism and corruption surrounding
the investigation in the rising number of murdered girls and women
in one
of Mexico's largest export processing zones.
NOTICE: Women
on the Border is happy to share its documentary work with researchers
and writers as long as you give us credit. Please contact us by
emailing the Executive Director and
identify the material you plan to use. You can send a copy of your
proposed text as an e-mail attachment in Word or by mail to Women
on the Border, PO Box 303338, Austin, TX 78703-0056. You can also leave a voice mail at 512-293-1797.
Thank you. |
