Patricia Zavella, professor of Latin American and Latino studies, has coedited the new book Women and Migration in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: A Reader.
Nearly as many women as men are migrating within Mexico and from Mexico to the United States, according to Zavella, who coedited the book with Denise A. Segura, a professor of sociology at UC Santa Barbara.
The reader features 23 essays by scholars from diverse disciplines, including Zavella and her UCSC colleagues Rosa-Linda Fregoso, professor of Latin American and Latino studies, and anthropology professor Olga Nájera-Ramírez. The authors explore the socioeconomic and cultural factors that propel Mexican women to migrate and the factors that shape their employment options, as well as the cultural shifts that accompany migration. Contributors also address the changes that migrating women are making in homes, families, and communities in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
One author critiques the portrayal of Chicana and Mexican women's fertility rates as "out of control," while another explores the interplay of sexual violence and women's migration from rural areas to urban centers within Mexico. Other topics include evolving notions of citizenship, young Latinas' commemoration of the late internationally renowned singer Selena, workplace intimidation and violence, harassment and rape by U.S. border patrol agents and maquiladora managers, sexual violence, and the murders of nearly 200 young women near Ciudad Juárez.
Reviewer Ruth Behar, author of Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza's Story, called the collection "a timely and courageous book that speaks to the major issue of our time--the search for home across and between and despite borders."
