One morning while in Mexico this past May, I woke up at sunrise with four of my peers to watch four women bake for what seemed like a hot, tiring eternity (but was actually about four hours). They did this as part of a cooperative bakery that they began a few years back in order to start providing for themselves and looking for alternatives to the neoliberal/free trade model of "development."
They worked together with such strength and unity, that watching them in their small kitchen bake reminded me of the inner workings of a machine, quite symbolic for these women who are taking the means of production into their own hands. Inside the kitchen, it was getting increasingly hot and stuffy, but their arms, fingers, and feet kept going until every last roll was baked.
The oldest woman, and a somewhat maternal figure for the other three woman, wore such wisdom in her eyes and power in her arms that watching her put all of her strength into mixing batter and pulling huge pans in and out of the oven was as if I was watching a dancer perform her masterpiece. What made this so beautiful was not the fact that women were working, but the fact that they were working towards better lives for themselves, independent of their male family members in the States, and with an integral sense of community and responsibility for one another.
They explained how the quality of these baked goods is better than what is normally found in stores because of the flour that they use, but because of the economy most people are forced to buy cheaper goods. Because their economy has not been entirely transformed to community co-op work, there is still much dependence on the remittances, but slowly, the women are working more closely and more intensely. There is no way to tell what the future will bring, but they are moving away from male dependency and moving towards self-sustainablity and community cooperation.
These individuals were part of a larger movement originally started by a few women to empower women and encourage them to form cooperative work projects and money saving projects, and to teach them how to turn their homes and gardens into sustainable living environments so that they would not have to buy imported American goods which would hurt them in the long run. When one member of the community is not doing well, the entire community must come together or else the entire community will fall apart. As immigration is on the rise, its effects on the women of Mexico might ultimately be quite emancipatory.
When many Americans think about immigration to the U.S., it is assumed that the immigrant has an incredible desire to be a part of the U.S., and has chosen to move her life here in hopes of something better. What is often not realized is that when most Mexicans migrate to the U.S., it is a direct result of negative consequences of U.S. international economic policy. Not to say that many immigrants do not leave Mexico with romanticized images of the United States, but living beside the richest nation in the world would necessarily result in such visions.
A nation whose land used to be rich with corn now imports most of it from huge U.S. agri-businesses, and the land has been divided into one-crop farm plots. In order to keep relations with its super-militarized, rich, and very close neighbor to the north, the Mexican government has failed to impose tariffs on imported corn from the United States. As designated by NAFTA, up to 2.6 million tons of corn can be imported without tariffs, and after that the corn should be taxed 206%. But it is not, and Mexican businesses buy cheaper, mass produced, genetically engineered corn from the U.S. Meanwhile, Mexican farmers are left with no buyers because they cannot compete with the American government subsidized corn.
And so the economy goes, from corn to coffee, to bread to meat. From the rich American agri-businesses to the rich Mexican companies who buy cheap goods and can sell them for slightly lower prices than Mexican goods. Americans keep their jobs and get lower prices, while Mexicans lose their jobs and barely see a change in price.
Clearly, immigration is so rampant because there is simply no work for so many Mexicans. The jobs that do remain in many parts of Mexico usually do not pay well enough to support an individual, much less a family. It is now customary for boys to turn fifteen and move to the United States, only returning home for December. This is now the month for marriages and celebration, conceiving children and spoiling those that are already born.
In a culture in which men over fifteen do not think twice about risking their lives, crossing the border, and working in the United States because there are no longer viable work options in Mexico, women remain in the communities with their children, dependent on the remittance check from their male family members in the States. When a month, or two, or three, goes by without a check, food is scarce, the children often leave school, and it seems that her husband, son, father, or brother has abandoned the family, Mexican women are left with few choices. But the choice to organize and form self-sustaining communities is becoming more and more viable.
In these migrant communities in Mexico, women, children, and older men have hardly any income except for the remittances sent back from the States. This is slowly changing, and women are refusing to accept the current migration system. Women are beginning to work with one another in support groups, money saving groups, and co-ops to provide for themselves and do something about the failed system of neoliberalism and patriarchy that is bred by the current economy.
Emily LaDue is a Trinity junior. Her column appears every other Wednesday.
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