Globalization: Women - NAFTA & Life on The Border

Jesus Dionisio Hernandez-Rangel TCP-8921: Newcastle University 1/12/2012

Globalization: Women - NAFTA & Life on The Border

2012

Mexico is home to 8 of the worlds richest men, and home to the richest man of of the world, Slim Helu. (Forbes Staff, 2011). Its not surprising that a Mexico has these super rich men, it is rich in natural resources and a booming economy. Unfortunately it only has one super rich woman valued at 1.2 billion USD (783billion GBP), Mara A. Aramburuzabala; even then it is mostly due to inheritance. Women in Mexico suffer of inequality in the economy, which only exuberates the many social inequalities they contend with. Though, just to the north of Mexico lies the United States of America (USA), a magnet to immigrants around the globe and from Mexico. The draw of the USA is to many immigrants, the economic opportunities; the draw to Mexican women, the safety and opportunity of self determination. Mexico is the drug trafficking corridor for the USA, as one of Forbes richest person is in this industry; which causes a lot of safety concerns for non-involved citizens of Mexico. Joaquin Guzman Loera, heads the major cocaine transport through Mexico using the border cities as grounds for operations. Since 2007, the increase in murders has spike in the border cities, including beyond the actual port entry cities; due to Mexican President Felipe Calderon military action against the drug cartels. The current death toll is tallied at 47, 515 as reported by the federal Mexican government on January 11th 2012. (Cave, 2012) The danger especially bottle necks at the borders to the south and borders to the north, where lawlessness due to a weak local police force creates unsafe conditions for migrant women; but it is the northern border that lures them like mosquitos to lanterns. Globalization is usually portrayed as an issue that is affecting a place that is far away physically from the Global north, but due to the North American Free Trade Agreement
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Globalization: Women - NAFTA & Life on The Border

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(NAFTA) it has moved in next door to the USA. In 1992 the NAFTA was signed, and by 1994 it was ratified by all three North American governments (Mexico, Canada, & USA). The effects of NAFTA were to reduce or eliminate trade barriers/tariffs, allowing free movement of goods between the three countries. The three members have all benefited from the agreement, having traded $17 trillion worth of goods and services; with Mexico becoming the second largest trade partner (behind Canada). (Dukcevich, 2002) (International Trade Administration, 2008) The success of NAFTA on the Mexican side of the agreement is that the U.S. receives 78% percent of the 272 billion USD (176 billion GBP) yearly trade value, making it the 3rd largest exporter of goods to the U.S. (behind Canada and China). The majority of trade being in manufactured goods, which are logistically located in the northern border of Mexico; in the same expanse of desert that drug trafficking cartels conduct business.

Figure 1

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The film Casi Divas (2008) was based on 4 young women attempting to win a contest to win a role in a classic Novela (Spanish - Soap Opera) movie adaptation, one of
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Globalization: Women - NAFTA & Life on The Border

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the four contestants, Catalina, was from a fictional northern border city, she works in a maquiladora (Spanish - a factory in Mexico that makes products cheaply for export to the US) (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and later finds herself in an altercation where she may desaparecer (Spanish - to disappear). (Casi divas, 2008)This character is a portrayal of many young women who take on the journey to find work in the northern border cities until they are able to cross to the USA. The historical inefficiency of local policing has led to a lawlessness in the cities, many of these women disappear into the deserts; with only a few of their bodies ever recovered. This depiction is only a vague view into the grim reality that women face in these border cities, that is not otherwise seen in media. In the film Catalina clearly states, that her reason for winning the contest is so that she could be like Selma Hayek: able to go to the USA without worries.

Figure 2 Maquiladora

The film uses a nameless border city, but in reality the border city of Cuidad Juarez is at the center of this topic. Having always been a port city between Mexico and the USA, it

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has also seen the greatest growth due to the increase trade between the two. While no

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official data has been linked to the increase in crime and the NAFTA; a parallel of the growth of economy and femicide is existent. While maquiladoras existed before the NAFTA agreement, the increase of influx young Mexican and Central American women boomed as major American companies began setting up their own maquiladoras luring them with the prospect of financial gain. In, Cuidad Juarez, 1992 there were 267 maquiladoras with a workforce of 128, 901; after NAFTA there was nearly a doubling of the workforce to 249, 509 in 2000, with 308 maquiladoras. (Instituto Nacional De Estadisticas y Geografia, 1980, 1990, 2000) As of 2010 there were 338 maquiladoras, no statistics on workforce were available for 2010. (Aguilar, 2010) Economist have also contested against claims that NAFTA and economic growth has created an environment of femicide, by analyzing recorded data available against cities on both sides of the border; and finding that neither rate was abnormal to either side or gender. (Vemala & Albuquerque, 2008) Though as of 1993 it has been reported that at least 269 womens deaths have been found in the classification of femicide which coincides with the timing of the NAFTA agreement. (Red Cuidadana de No Violencia y Dignidad Humana, 2002)Comparing the prior 3 years before NAFTA to the following three years there was an increase of 600% in recorded homicide rates for women compared to a 300% increase for men. (Howard, et al., 2000) Las Mujeres de Juarezs, as the victims are colloquially known as both on both sides of the border; garner increasing attention from media, but little action from government. Many of the stories have been sensationalized, to implicate the women who desaparecen as accomplices of the drug trade or as prostitutes; but in factuality many women of these women have plain life stories with tragic ends:

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Globalization: Women - NAFTA & Life on The Border

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Rub Marisol Frayre Escobedo, was living in the city of Cuidad Juarez. In August 2008 she went missing it was not until January 2009 that her body was recovered burned and in a trash bin. The mother of Rub, began legal proceeding against her daughters partner Sergio Rafael Barraza Bocanegra claiming he was the murderer. During interviews with police, Bocanegra confessed to the murder and even detailed the account in court. Having felt confident that this would bring justice to her daughters murder, the Judges instead found that due to lack of sufficient evidence declared him innocent and set free. Her mother Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, than began a public campaign to boycott the decision of the judges and raise awareness to the lack of legal protection women are afforded in Mexico and especially in the border cities. Her call to rally against this injustice was centred around the slogan Ni una mas! (Spanish - Not even one more!). On Dec. 16th during her regular protest spot outside the state of Chihuahuas (the state in which Cuidad Juarez is) Supreme Court, she to was murdered; the murder was captured on film and has since sparked further inquest into the proceedings of her both mother and daughters death. (PubliMetro, 2010) (Borunda, 2010)

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Figure 3 Marisela E. Ortiz: Wearing only poster, marching to raise awareness.

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Globalization: Women - NAFTA & Life on The Border

2012

The lack of support from local government to protect the women and even to find justice after the crimes are discovered, has systematically failed. The documentary Senorita Extraviada (2001) portrays a variety of these stories, but also gives an insight into the sociological context in which femicide in Cuidad Juarez is justified. Interviews recorded, included the Governor of the State of Chihuahua (at 9 minutes) addressing the murders by suggesting that the initial spike in femicide was in relation to them being sex workers. (Senorita Extraviada, 2001) He does acknowledge though that the maquiladora workers exit at late hours of the night, which he suggest facilitates their sex work and drug cartel involvement. The late hour departures can be associated to the lack of Mexican governmental enforcement of labor laws. NAFTA does not have provisions within its frame work to actually enforce any labor improvement conditions even though it has provisions for labor violation fines; but only between treaty signers and not actual workers (cite autotrim/custom trim) (Breed, 1996). The lack of legal labor protection provided to maquiladora workers, only marginalizes the disproportionate number of women. This despite their physical distance to the USA, places them in a world that is comparable to other developing countries; because the inability to seek damages or file formal legal cases against the American companies. The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta ( Spanish open wound) where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds... the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country, a border culture." (Anzaldua, 1987) While the quote is truly poetic and in relation to an analysis of Chican@ (American Spanish - person of Mexican descent residing the USA, use of @ to signify gender neutrality) culture; it holds on to the distress

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that the women of the border cities live under. The USA cities of San Ysidro, Brownsville, El

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Paso, Nogales, and Calexico exist with little cultural contrast to their border opposite cities of Tijuana, Matamoros, Cuidad Juarez, Nogales, and Mexicali (in respective order). Women on the USA side have comparative safety and greater degree of economic mobility, than their Mexican counterparts. Yet on the USA side, the women who are legal and illegal suffer of a cultural/systematic oppression, an oppression that maintains them within a cycle of domestic violence and lack of self-determination. This place is known as Nepantla (Nahuatl the existence between worlds), for that these women must live between a dominate culture that is not their own, but must function and fulfill roles that are of another place. Culturally Chican@s they are subjugated to second class citizenships, legal and illegal migrants, by institutionalized prejudices in a legal system that aims negatively upon them. SB 1070 a State law in Arizona, requires all law enforcement officers to require proof of citizenship of those they have stopped or arrested; if it is not possible to determine the person in question would be transferred to Immigration authorities. (Senate Bill 1070, 2010) Though the language of the bill does not explicitly target any specific ethnic/racial group, it is being sold politically as a solution to stop Mexican illegal immigrants from living in the country. Governor of Arizona Jan Brewer gave a speech after her signing it stating The bill Im about to sign into law Senate Bill 1070 represents another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix The crisis caused by illegal immigration and Arizonas porous border.

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Globalization: Women - NAFTA & Life on The Border

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Figure 4

SB 1070 harms women in these border cities, because it hinders them from reporting domestic violence, due to fears of deportation because women who entered illegaly are not give protections under Violence Against Women Act (VAWA); because to qualify they must have been inspected at entry. (Violence Against Women Act - Title VIII, 1994) This also creates fears that the aggressor of domestic abuse would be deported, in the case that the victim is legally in the country; causing difficulties for mothers or otherwise isolated women to report such abuse to authorities. In an interview for the Arizona Republic paper Leni Marin, director of Family Violence Prevention Fund, based in San Francisco; explains that illegal immigrant women often experience an increase in domestic violence after coming to this country. The abuse can be triggered or exacerbated by the pressures of living with instability in an unfamiliar country and working in low-wage jobs Many of these women are threaten with

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deportation by their partners if they decide to leave coupled with the lack of legal

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protection, as Ms. Marin notes "The violence may escalate to another level because they are not able to get help early." (Gonzalez, 2005) Two time Ariel Award, Mexican academy of film, recipient Mara Elena Velasco, has been the star of a series of satirical comedy films in Mexico in which she plays a role of peasant women La India Mara. In the film Ni de aqui, Ni de alla (Neither from here, Nore from there)(1998) she leaves her village in rural Mexico, to work in the USA. The experience that many of the women who live in the border cities, between Mexico and the USA, have. One of the scenes she is working as a dishwasher at a Mexican restaurant, ironically called el Coyote (the name given to human traffickers); where the Immigration authorities arrive and try to detain her, even though the scene is filled with slap stick it gives a glimpse in the reality that illegal women in the USA are always on the run from the law. (Ni de aqui, ni de alla, 1988)In reality it is the economic prospects and protection of the law that they are seeking. Unfortunately these women have no legal presence, so they are obligated to take on low wage labor (usually below minimum wage laws) with physically demanding strain; sharing comparable working conditions to the maquiladoras on the Mexican side of the border. Andrew Sum director of the Center for Labor Market Studies rationalized that One of the advantages of hiring, particularly young, undocumented immigrants, is the fact that employers do not have to pay health benefits or basic payroll taxes, quoted in an article for Reuters. (Stoddard, 2011) This being similar rational for the establishment of American maquiladoras in the border cities; cheap labor that is dispensable and without legal recourse.

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Figure 5

In search of educational self-determination, Chican@ women suffer disproportionately because if they are illegal, government financial support structure for post-secondary education does not exists. Due to cultural pre-conceive notions within Latino culture, womens are discouraged to seek post-secondary education; and should

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focus on traditional role of supporting wives and good mothers. Whereas if these young

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women, illegal, were to be in Mexico they would be able to receive full educational benefits. Juxtapositionaly the legal Chican@ woman has a higher ambivalence to maintain themselves in a traditional roles; to retain cultural ties which they feel are essential to pass on to their children. (Segura, 1991)

Figure 6 A contemporary portrayal of motherhood, by Chican@ artist Yerina D. Cervantez

Unlike Miss. Aramburuzabala, the women who are in the border cities do not come

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from the same socio-economic background regardless of which side of the border they are on, it is as if these women were in a third world. A Mexican saying; credited to former
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Mexican president Porforio Diaz Pobre Mxico! Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos! (Poor Mexico! So far from god and so close to the United States!), expresses the view that many migrants see the border, a tempting green pasture. NAFTA wasnt the beginning of Globalization, globalization has been existent for millennia; NAFTA brought two worlds the first and developing to create a third. In this third world, disparity exists not only between races, ethnic groups or socio-economic classes but also by gender. Drug trafficking, maquiladoras, sexual violence, domestic violence, labor abuse, scapegoating by government, and injustice are what women face in these cities. Survivalist is what these women are, navigating through the jungles of globalization and finding themselves isolated in deserts among millions. The intangible line and even the tangible wall that separates two countries cannot fully stop the adversities that women in border cities of Mexico and USA face, for the risk and gains are choices that women in these border cities must make to survive.

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Globalization: Women - NAFTA & Life on The Border Works Cited

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Aguilar, J., 2010. Profit Outweighs Risk in Juarez Factories. The New York Times - Texas Tribune, 11 12, p. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/us/12tttecma.html. Anzaldua, G., 1987. The New Mestiza. In: Borderlands/La Frontera. San Francisco: Spinster/Aunt Lute Press. Borunda, D., 2010. Woman activist slain in Chihuahua: Quest to find daughter's killer drove self made investigator. El Paso Times, 18 12, p. http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_16889727. Breed, E. o. A. T. -., 1996. U.S. NAO Public Submission 2000-01 (Section V). Washington D.C., USA: Department of Labor. Cambridge University Press, 2011. Cambridge Buisness English Dictionary. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Casi divas. 2008. [Film] Directed by Issa Lopez. Mexico/USA: Sony Entertainment. Cave, D., 2012. Mexico Updates Death Toll in Drug War to 47,515 but Critics Dispute Data. New York Times, 11 1. Dukcevich, D., 2002. Canadian And Mexican NAFTA Plays. Forbes, 10 10. Forbes Staff, 2011. The Ultimate Scorecard of Wealth. Forbes, 21 9. Gonzalez, D., 2005. Domestic abuse rises among illegal immigrants. USA Today - The Arizona Republic, 1 3, pp. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-03-01-abuse_x.htm. Howard, C. A., Martinez, G. & Mendez, Z. Y., 2000. Women, Violence and Politics: Presentation to the LASA. Azusa, California, USA, s.n. Instituto Nacional De Estadisticas y Geografia, 1980, 1990, 2000. Instituto Nacional De Estadisticas y Geografia. [Online] Available at: http://www.inegi.org.mx/est/contenidos/proyectos/ccpv/default.aspx [Accessed 1 1 2012]. International Trade Administration, 2008. Top U.S. Export Markets - Free Trade Agreement and Country Fact Sheets, Washington D.C. USA: U.S. Department of Commerce -. Ni de aqui, ni de alla. 1988. [Film] Directed by Maria Elena Velasco. Mexico/USA: s.n. PubliMetro, 2010. Caso Rubi Marisol: los jueces que absolvieron a su asesino. Publimetro, 17 12, pp. http://www.publimetro.com.mx/noticias/caso-rubi-marisol-los-jueces-que-absolvieron-a-suasesino/mjlq!S5GK7kVd1jUuk/. Red Cuidadana de No Violencia y Dignidad Humana, 2002. Reporte Cuidadano sobre el femenicidio en Juarez. 6 3, p. 4.

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Segura, D. A., 1991. Ambivalence or Continuity?: Motherhood and Employment among Chicanas and Mexican Immigrant Women Workers. AZTLAN, 20(1 & 2), pp. 119-150. TCP-8921: Newcastle University 110533238 - Jesus D Hernandez-Rangel

Globalization: Women - NAFTA & Life on The Border

Senate Bill 1070 (2010) Sate of Arizona. Senorita Extraviada. 2001. [Film] Directed by Lourdes Portillo. Mexico: s.n. Stoddard, E., 2011. Over a million immigrants land U.S. jobs in 2008-10. Reuters, 20 1, pp. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/20/us-usa-immigrants-employmentexclusiveidUSTRE70J37P20110120.

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Vemala, P. R. & Albuquerque, P. H., 2008. A Statistical Evaluation of Femicide Rates in Mexican Cities Along the US-Mexico Border. Toronto, Canadian Law and Economics Association. Violence Against Women Act - Title VIII (1994) One Hundred Ninth Congress of the United States of America.

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Globalization: Women - NAFTA & Life on The Border Bibliography:

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Arriola, Elvia (2006-2007) Accountability for Murder in the Maquiladoras: Linking Corporate Indifference to Gender Violence at the U.S.-Mexico Border Seattle Journal for Social Justice 5 Seattle J. Soc. Just. pg603 Contreras Montellano, Oscar F.; Rodrguez Gutirrez, Jos In: Contreras Montellano, Oscar F. and Carrillo V., Jorge (Carrillo Viveros), eds. (2003) HECHO EN NORTEAMRICA: CINCO ESTUDIOS SOBRE LA INTEGRACIN INDUSTRIAL DE MXICO EN AMRICA DEL NORTE: La conexin del desierto: industria electrnica y proveedores globales en Sonora . El Colegio de Sonora, p. [137]-163 Loke, Tien-Li (1996-97) Trapped in Domestic Violence: The Impact of United States Immigration Laws on Battered Immigrant Women Boston University Public Interest Law Journal 6 B.U. Pub. Int. pg 589 Maier, Elizabeth In: Mattingly, Doreen J. and Hansen, Ellen R., eds. (2006) WOMEN AND CHANGE AT THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER: MOBILITY, LABOR, AND ACTIVISM: The unsettling, gendered consequences of migration for Mexican indigenous women. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pg19-35 Pisarz-Ramrez, Gabriele (2007) From Nepantla to Amerindia: transnationality in Mexican American literature and art IBEROAMERICANA (MADRID, SPAIN) v7 n25 (March) pg155-172

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Globalization: Women - NAFTA & Life on The Border Image Sources:

Cover Image : Unknown, KOMONEWS, Retrived: 10/01/2012

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http://media.komonews.com/images/100314_ciudad_juarez.jpg
Figure 1: International Trade Administration, 2008. Top U.S. Export Markets - Free Trade Agreement and Country Fact Sheets, Washington D.C. USA: U.S. Department of Commerce Pg 98 Figure 2: Cuatroscuro, Competitividad. Retrived: 10/01/2012 http://mexico.cnn.com/nacional/2011/11/11/competitividad Figure 3:Unknown, A un ao del asesinato de Marisela Escobedo Tribunal de Conciencia juzga al Estado. Retrived: 10/01/2012 http://movimientoporlapaz.mx/wpcontent/uploads/2011/08/marisela-escobedo.jpg Figure 4: David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star. Retrived: 10/01/2012 http://www.caglecartoons.com/viewimage.asp?ID={9EC4DD6C-0A2F-4BAD-B96E-1C7ACF48DCD3} Figure 5: Unknown, Ni de aqui, ni de alla. Retrived: 11/01/2012 http://www.metroflog.com/mexicanmovie79/20090525/1 Figure 6: Untitled Painting, Yreina D. Cervantez. Retrived: 11/01/2012 http://yreinacervantez.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=68782161

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