chad broughton, migration as engendere practice masculinity and mexican migration

8/12/2019 Chad Broughton, Migration as Engendere Practice Masculinity and Mexican Migration

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MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE: Mexican Men, Masculinity, and NorthwardMigrationAuthor(s): Chad BroughtonReviewed work(s):Source: Gender and Society, Vol. 22, No. 5, Gendered Borderlands (October 2008), pp. 568-589Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.

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MIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICEMexican Men, Masculinity, andNorthward Migration

CHAD BROUGHTONUniversity of Chicago

As Mexico endures thefar-reaching economic and social dislocations wrought by neoliberalism, many predominantly rural states in southern Mexico have witnessed an unprecedented northward exodus of working age men and women. This article argues that inresponse to these intense pressures to emigrate, poor men from rural Mexico do more than

make instrumental calculations about migration to the border; theymust negotiate masculine ideals and adopt strategic gendered practices in relation to themigration experienceand the dynamic economic, social and cultural conditions of the border region. This articlefinds thatmen adopt one or a hybrid of threefluid masculine stances?traditionalist, adventurer, and breadwinner?in response tomigration pressures in neoliberal Mexico.

Keywords: masculinity; border; neoliberalism; Mexico; migration; work

AsMexico endures the far-reaching economic and social dislocations

wrought by neoliberalism, many predominantly rural states in southernMexico have witnessed an unprecedented northward exodus of working age men and women. Academic, policy and popular discussions aboutthis kind of labor migration typically assume that economic logic dictates

migrants' decisions and strategies. Neoclassical economics, focusing onan individual's cost-benefit calculation, argues that rational actors willinvest inmigrating if they expect their net returns, typically measured inincome, will be positive (Borjas 1989). Sociologists and other critics ofthis narrow understanding point to additional considerations including (1)household riskmanagement and diversification strategies, (2) disruptionsin sending areas to existing social and economic arrangements brought onby market penetration and expansion, (3) the extent of social capital amigrant can draw upon in receiving areas, (4) the nature of labor marketsegmentation in receiving areas (Massey, Durand, andMalone 2002), and(5) active and passive company recruitment (Cantu 1995, 405).

GENDER & SOCIETY, Vol. 22 No. 5, October 2008 568-589DOI: 10.1177/0891243208321275? 2008 Sociologists forWomen inSociety

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BroughtonMIGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE 569

To understand themassive internal and internationalmigration originatingin ruralMexico, it is essential to examine and measure instrumental motivations and the broader social dimensions ofmigration. What is often leftoutof economic and social demographic studies of migration, however, is ananalysis of how migrants make sense of themigration experience and howtheir strategic responses to economic dislocation are shaped not just byinstrumental calculation but also by a knotty set of gendered cultural considerations: prevailing normative expectations and standards, social roles andobligations, and shared understandings relating to family,work and place. Inexploring the significance of these considerations in this article, I specificallyexamine (1) how low-income Mexican men from rural areas negotiate "hegemonic masculinities" relating to family,work and place in the face of intensepressure tomigrate and (2) the gendered strategies, practices and identitiesthey take up in the process. I find thatmen embrace three masculinestances?"traditionalist," "adventurer," and "breadwinner"?and their associated gendered rationales as they adapt to the political and economic realities of neoliberal Mexico. Furthermore, I argue that these men orientgendered understandings and adopt gendered practices increasingly in relation to the specific material forces accelerated byMexico's neoliberal turn,namely, (1) massive northward migration and (2) the rapid growth and economic, social and cultural opening of the border region.This analysis is notmeant simply to complement more conventional economic and social demographic analyses but to inform them as well. First, Idraw attention to the fact that the entiremigrant experience (i.e., migrationstrategies and decision making, the pathways and flows of migration, theprocess of adapting to social lifewhere a migrant settles) is fundamentallyshaped by gendered cultural considerations. Second, an understanding of thesocial and cultural processes thatundergird this robustmigration adds essential insight to our understanding of gender at the border?an area increasingly composed of and shaped bymigrants from the south. And finally thisarticle contributes empirically to a rich literature thatattempts to link specificgendered practices at theborder tobroader political and economic forces (foran example, see Salzinger 1997).

NEOLIBERALISM, POOR MEN FROM RURAL MEXICO,AND THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDERIn the past twenty years the population of border cities has exploded

largely as a result of migration from poor, rural areas of Mexico. This



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movement has been driven by a number of factors including the 1982 and1994 peso devaluations, the insatiable U.S. appetite for cheap labor, andthe expansion of neoliberal trade arrangements?most visibly the NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA removed many of thetrade barriers thathad existed to foreign direct investment at the border byU.S., European, and Asian firms. In concert with the 1994 devaluation anda booming U.S. economy in the 1990s, neoliberal policies helped to concentrate and accelerate foreign investment and manufacturing growth atthe border?in no small part at the expense of the interiors ofMexico andtheUnited States. Employment in the export-oriented maquiladora sectornearly tripled in the 1990s (Hufbauer and Schott 2005),1 creating a strongdraw for job-hungry, impoverished Mexicans.Neoliberal agrarian reforms have also accelerated rural-to-urban movement inMexico during thepast two decades. In 1992 the Salinas governmentmade changes toArticle 27 of theMexican Constitution thatguaranteed landdistribution to the dispossessed. The changes discharged theMexican government of thatduty and allowed ejidos (collectively managed small holdings)tobe sold toprivate uyers Gledhill1997, 1). Inaddition, he alinasadministration eliminated theguaranteed minimum price for basic grains andseverely reduced technical assistance and credit to farmers (Kelly 2001, 90;de Janvry et al. 1997). The implementation ofNAFTA on January 1, 1994,furtheropened Mexico's protected agricultural sector toU.S. agribusiness byincreasing trade quotas and lowering tariffsfor staple crops like corn.Whilesubsidies and assistance toMexican farmerswere cut,U.S. farms subsidiesremained in place. The predictable result?more imported U.S. corn andlower prices for corn?hurt small and medium-sized farmers across ruralMexico and, consequently, squeezed rural economies and intensified existingpush factors out of rural areas.The demographic and social results of this set of policy changes havebeen dramatic. Reynosa, Tamaulipas, the border fieldwork site for thisarticle, doubled in size from 265,663 in 1990 to 526,888 in 2005 according to official government statistics (Instituto Nacional de Estad?stica

Geografia e Informatica 2007b; Consejo Nacional de Poblaci?n 2007).Municipal officials in that city, however, point to other government databases that yield population estimates exceeding 1.5 million. (Those officials argue that the federal government purposefully

underestimatesborder populations to lessen the federal fiscal responsibility for themassive infrastructure needs of rapidly growing border cities.) Most of thegrowth in Reynosa originates in rural areas in the populous state ofVeracruz, the long, slender state bordering Tamaulipas to the south that



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Broughton IGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE 571

extends to Chiapas. Indeed, internal migration from Veracruz to borderareas inTamaulipas has, in the past two decades, become one of themajormigration routes inMexico (U.S. Department of Labor 2005; Vega 2005).In addition to the pull and push factors dramatically increasing movement to the border, several influences, including stagnant wages in themaquila sector (Hufbauer and Schott 2005, 45), the rising cost of living atthe border (Comit? Fronterizo de Obreras 1999), and growing migrant networks (Durand, Massey, and Zenteno 2001; Massey et al. 1998) conspire toattract migrants across the border at unprecedented rates?despite theincreasing costs and risks. On top ofmaterial factors, the allure of amodern,consumer lifestyle that immigrants imagine to exist inborder cities and theUnited States has become an increasingly potent pull factor as television'subiquity increases inMexico and as diasporic populations circulate betweenborder cities or theUnited States and their hometowns and share information, experiences and ideas (Smith 2006). In the 1990s therewere 2.8 millionlegal immigrants who came to theUnited States fromMexico and 15.8million "deportable aliens" (U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2006).2

Using figures from theU.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey,Hoefer, Rytina, and Campbell (2007) estimate that therewere about 6.5 million "unauthorized" Mexican immigrants as of January 2006. AlthoughNAFTA was supposed to help Mexico "export products, not people," ithasin fact encouraged the exportation of both.The movement to and beyond the border has been shaped dramaticallyby gender. Mexican men were contracted towork American farms andrailways in the Bracero Program from 1942 to 1964. While the BorderIndustrialization Program was created in 1965 by theMexican government to stem border unemployment among ex-braceros, maquiladoraoperators preferred to employ young women (Iglesias Prieto 1997; Kameland Hoffman 1999; Cravey 1998). More recently, maquiladora employment at the border evened between men and women in 2001, with mennow making up 51 percent of maquila employees. In the lowest rankingobrero (assembly worker) category, however, women made up 60.7 percent in January 1990 and, inDecember 2006, women still constitute themajority at 54.7 percent (Instituto Nacional de Estad?stica Geografia eInformatica 2007a). On the other hand, men have consistently made upabout 75 percent of border crossers fromMexico since 1970 (Durandet al. 2001). In fieldwork I have found thatmany migrants living inReynosa, especially women, had planned to work on el otro lado (theother side) but settled at theborder to continue to care for familymembersor out of fear of the risks associated with crossing without documentation.



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With dizzying speed, neoliberal adjustments are reordering social andeconomic life at theMexican border and in the countryside, making thefate of Mexico's economy?and the fate ofMexicans themselves?moreintertwined with itsmuscular northern neighbor. To examine gender andmigration in contemporary Mexico, it is essential to understand the robustpushes and pulls that emerge from these profound political and economicforces. In this approach I am following Gutmann (2003, 16, 18), whoadvises thatwhen writing about gender identity in Latin America oneought to examine (1) theways inwhich "global influences [are] filteredthrough particular, local, Latin American contexts" and (2) "the role of theUnited States today and historically inhelping to define and circumscribe'Latin' manliness and its opposite."For low-income Mexican men in particular, these economic dislocations have forced a hurried reinvention of conventional masculine strategies, ideals and practices surrounding work, family and place. Here it isuseful to recall Connell's original formation of hegemonic masculinity,which "embodied the currently most honored way of being a man" butrecognized thatmore than one hegemonic masculinity could exist, thusallowing for change as "older forms ofmasculinity might be displaced bynew ones" (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 832, 833). Indeed, monolithic generalizations about Mexican masculinity and machismo have beenshattered in recent years. In place of a simplistic, unitary notion ofwhat itmeans tobe a man inMexico, many studies have dug beneath widespreadstereotypes to find complexity, ambiguity and contradiction (Gutmann1996, 2003; Melhuus 1996;Mirand? 1997; Prieur 1998).While theseaccounts have uncovered complexities that have always existed beneaththe popular veneer, the recent economic, political and social opening of

Mexico?particularly at the border and in large cities?has further complicated fixed understandings of Mexican masculinities. As Gutmann(1996, 243) contends, "Numerous women and men have become awareof gender identities as impermanent and changeable"?as "uncertainqualities"?as a result of this opening.After explicating the study's methodology, I outline a fluid typology ofstances thatmen as men adopt in relation tomigration and the border: the"traditionalist," "adventurer," and "breadwinner." By a "fluid" typology Imean that the three stances are ideal types that do not necessarily neatlymap onto individuals at the exclusion of other stances; they are negotiated,gendered approaches formeeting instrumental and identity goals relatedtowork, family and place, and they are often deployed strategically atdifferent stages in the life course and in hybridized combinations.



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Hybridized identities in a constant state of transition, after all, exemplifythe experience of theborderlands, famously described by Gloria Anzald?a(1987, 3) as "a vague and undetermined place created by the emotionalresidue of an unnatural boundary." To further qualify this framework, I donot claim that these three ideal types encompass the experience of allMexican men from rural areas. I only claim that these three types offerinsight into how the border and themigration experience are viewed andexperienced by working-class men in a time and place of profound material and cultural change?when the U.S.-Mexico border, as Spener andStaudt (1998, 3) argue, "stands at the center and offers us a front-row viewof history's drama unfolding."

METHODWhile this article specifically explores the gendered migration strategiesof low-income men inMexico, it is part of a broader longitudinal and multisited ethnographic study of economic globalization situated inGalesburg,

Illinois; Reynosa, Mexico; and the Papantla region of the coastal state ofVeracruz in central Mexico. This article draws exclusively from dataobtained inReynosa and Veracruz collected in four fieldwork excursions oftwoweeks each beginning in the summer of 2003 and ending in the summerof 2007. Fieldwork in both Reynosa and Veracruz has involved mixed methods: demographic and economic data collection from federal,municipal andnonprofit agencies, 11 group interviews inReynosa with Veracruzanos (primarily with male and female maquila workers orwith male workers and various family members), and 37 in-depth and tape-recorded individualinterviews with a broad assortment of maquila workers (usually in theirhomes), human and workers' rights advocates, government and business officials and journalists inReynosa andVeracruz, and low-income ruralmen andwomen. In addition, I have conducted informal interviews with an uncountednumber ofmen and women while exploring markets, z?calos, and colonias,in agricultural fields or in thebeds of pick-up trucks, and innonprofit agencies and small-town mayors' offices.While all of these data were collected with specific attention to thelived experience of work and migration in neoliberal Mexico and haveinformed this article in some way, the individual interviews with 16 lowincome men have provided the richest source of data. In these largelyopen-ended interviews, ranging from two to eight hours in length, I gatherthe life histories of each respondent, with an emphasis on migration andwork. These interviews invariably addressed the gendered objectives,



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aspirations, strategies and perceived responsibilities of the respondents,which, while not always explicitly related to their own constructions ofmasculinity, spoke to idealizations of work, family and place. The lowincome men in this study were between 18 and 42 years of age, and thevast majority had not graduated fromprepa (high school). Unless otherwise noted, the subjects of this study did not possess documentation toenter the United States legally.With their explicit permission, I have used the actual names of all myinformants with the exception of two pairs?"Rosa" and "Jose" and"Diego" and "Gris." In both of these cases, the interviewees sensiblyrequested anonymity out of fear of repercussion from their employers.Although the convention in ethnography is to employ pseudonyms fornames and places, I have elected to use actual names because (1) it is thedistinct preference of nearly all of my respondents and (2) I believe itstrengthens the credibility of the study's data. In taking this path I amadopting an ethic embraced by journalists and by some social scientists(for an example and defense of this approach, see Duneier 1999, 348).

MIGRANT MASCULINITIES INNEOLIBERAL MEXICOThis article argues thatmen adopt one or a hybrid of three fluid masculine stances?traditionalist, adventurer, and breadwinner?in responsetomigration pressures in neoliberal Mexico. The stances described in thissection reveal some of themodal ideas and meanings thatMexican men

emphasize as they adapt strategically to economic and social dislocationand rework hegemonic masculinities relating to family, work and place.These fluid stances supply gendered strategies and practices formeetinginstrumental and identity goals and are shaped dynamically by the economic and social possibilities open to low-income men inMexico.The Traditionalist: Rejecting theMoral Laxity of theBorder

Many men in ruralMexico?whom I refer to as "traditionalists"?speakof the call of the border as a siren song, alluring but fraughtwith risk, insecurity and vice. For others?henceforth referred to as "adventurers"?theborder offers a place not only to earn a better living but also to prove one'smanhood, seek thrills and escape therigidities of rural life. This extendedfieldnote, detailing an argument between twomiddle-aged brothers from thesmall town of Barra de Cazones, Veracruz, illustrates these contested meanings associated with venturing to and across the border:



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For a good part of the afternoon,while sittingat theLa Palapa de Kime [abeachfront restaurant] drinkingModelos, Emilio Fuentes, 40, and IsmaelFuentes, 38, gradually worked theirway intoa vociferous debate . . .witheach man defending his position and choices concerning migration.Ismael [a documented, seasonal agriculturalworker]: People do not emigratebecause they're stupid?they want a new life.They're just tired of beinghere. They want a change. . . .That's why theygo What is this concernabout people emigrating, Emilio? That's where the future is People thatleave Mexico, that leave Veracruz, theymake progress in their lives.They're better off.Emilio [looking at us]: Look, there are two differentambitions. My highestambition ismy family.His highest ambition ismoney. But with themoneyhemakes, he cannot have the familyhe wants. . . . If Iwent to theStatesand came back once a year, my children could become drug addicts, or

delinquents. And he [points tohis son,Lenny, 18,who had been listeningwithout comment forhours] wouldn't be talking about going to the university rightnow. You can see thatmy house ismore humble thanhis, but Ihave family security and he doesn't. . . .There are two differentkinds ofambition.Mine is real and his is a fantasy,because theUnited States isnothis country. [Looking at Ismael] I wanted to tellyou something: theUnitedStates is never going tobe your country.Ismael:Well, of course not, I loveMexico.Emilio: But what are you doing forMexico?Ismael: I'm not doing itforMexico; I'm doing it forme. You have to look outforyourself.What did Mexico do forme? What did the localmayor do forme? Nothing I'm theone who builtmy home.Emilio: What you're tryingto do is a fantasy.You're tryingto conquer (conquistar) theunconquerable. He wants to conquer theUnited States, tomaketheUnited States his own.Ismael: For God's sakes, ifyou don't go to the richest country in theworld,you won't do anything inyour life.Don't talk about thepeople who havefailed, talk about thepeople who have triumphed Imean Hollywood is inCalifornia?how come theydidn't put it inGuatemala?Emilio: Ask himwith whom he lives.He lives alone.Ismael [after nitially denying it]:Fine, the truth s I likebeing alone. I've beenliving alone for 10 years and I like it.Gringos and gringas live alone. I likethat what's mine ismine: It's my television, my stereo and my house.Emilio, you'll never trysomething new.

Emilio: Nor do Iwant to. . . .For me it's just the unknown, an adventure. It'sa huge land towant to conquer, a landmore difficult thanyour own.Withmy family, I havemore needs than he does, but I have a plan formy life thatI created a long time ago and I like it.Him? He is not from theU.S., andhe's not fromhere. If I fall, at least I know where I've fallen.



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In this exchange, Emilio marks clear moral boundaries in his discussionwith Ismael with regard to his ideals about work, family and place. Histraditionalist masculine views prioritize the cohesion of his family, a commitment to his hometown and his country, abiding by the law, and sustaining what he sees as a stable, authentic identity. For Emilio the borderpresents grave danger and risk taking not just in itsworkplaces and colonias (poor neighborhoods) but,more fundamentally, to one's identity:

Emilio: [Migrants] become impressed with the kind of life thatpeople havethere, and they start comparing their lives to the lifestyles of thepeoplethere, and they startmaking mistakes. . . .My brother, Ismael, he'schanged a lot.He's estranged from his family.His wife [inTexas] is illegal;his children are illegal. They've changed, but not for the better. es, they'veearned some dollars, but they've lost theirorigins, theirvalues, their identity nd each other.When approached without caution and with a sense of adventure andgreed, Emilio believes that the borderlands is a minefield of moral hazards. Living in an area without stable employment, and in a very humbletwo-room home without running water, a sewage line or electricity,Emilio iswilling to forsake breadwinning opportunities at the border or inthe United States and endure destitution in order to protect his family offour from those hazards. In response to a profound pressure to emigrate,then, Emilio draws on a hegemonic masculinity that embraces masculineauthority, customary family roles, vigilant fathering and social conservatism. He strongly embraces breadwinner ideals but, in the face of whathe sees as a stark choice between family and work, he chooses family, astrategic decision that places the family's future in the hands of theireldest son, Lenny, whom Emilio is shepherding through adolescence.Further south inAgua Dulce, Veracruz, another traditionalist, JavierGonzalez Rocha, commented more broadly on what he saw as the com

munity-wide destructive social influences of migration out of his smalltown. Like Emilio, Javiermourns the influx of television and radio influences from el Norte that he says have increased the consumptive desiresof younger people. As younger people stream north to the border, traditionalists contend, a whole host of social consequences follow: (1)Younger people forego educational opportunities, (2) localities lose muchof their young talent, and (3) migrants become detached from the socialmores and life of their home community. Javier seemed most concernedabout a decline in civility that he pins on young migrants who returnwitha degraded sense of civil responsibility:



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Older people here maintain away of life that is sociable. Young people havelost theirmanners: They don't take off their hats when walking into ahouse, theydon't greet people. Some don't give up theirseat foran old ladyor a mother with a child riding a bus. Here people don't do thatanymore.They bring these customs andmanners back from the other side.

While migration can provide substantial remittance flows for strugglingrural towns like Agua Dulce, Javier argues that people send money fortheir individual houses but contribute little to the community, as this fieldnote indicates:

[Fromhis pickup truck Javierpointed to awell-appointed and empty gatedhouse.] This is one of them This way of building a house comes from theU.S. Here the traditional style iswith the house?the windows and thedoors, everything?against the street.Here, though, is a house with a gateand a fence and yard in front f thehome. They are just littleoutposts. Theyarewell made, but theydon't have life to them.Traditionalists like Emilio and Javier seek tomaintain a sense of continuityand often look nostalgically to the past as a source of resistance against thechange and insecurity characterized by contemporary life in ruralMexico.Being concerned about eroding social mores, the loss of talented youth,depopulating and struggling towns, and, undoubtedly, threatened by the erosion of male privilege, traditionalists question theviability of labormigrationas a viable survival strategy formen and their families and communities. Inpainting the border as an area of vice, laxmoral codes and individualism, thetraditionalist defends his sense ofmasculinity?in spite of political and economic forces working against themaintenance of such ideals.The Adventurer: Escaping theRural Southand "Conquering" the Border

Over the past 10 years, Ismael?Emilio's brother?has worked intobacco, sweet potato, squash, cucumber, pepper, cabbage and melonfields in the United States as a documented and contracted seasonal

worker. After the harvest season ends, he often overstays his work visa toremain with his wife and children and paint houses inTexas. While thework is arduous and menial, he takes obvious pride inwhat he has accomplished as amigrant worker and, more recently, as amember of FLOC, theFarm Labor Organizing Committee. Having developed a drinking problem early in life, Ismael only completed third grade and was "married"(not legally but informally) at age 12. Despite a troubled childhood,



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Ismael has attained a status in his community that comes from owning arelatively well appointed home and having ventured successfully beyondrural Veracruz. The contradictions he embodies are striking: illiterate butmore worldly than his parochial brother, an advocate for the disenfranchised but also a machista womanizer, and brash and adventurous, yetseemingly unable to find satisfaction. Like many other Mexican men,especially those that strike out across the border alone, Ismael, an adventurer, embraces the rough opportunities and challenges that economicintegration has fostered. To him migration to elNorte presents not only achance to earn a higher income and survive dislocation in neoliberalMexico but also opportunities to achieve gendered objectives: to elevateone's social status, to test one's courage and virility, and to escape thetedium and tightermoral codes of the rural south.In the debate excerpted above, Ismael said toEmilio, "For God's sakes,ifyou don't go to the richest country in theworld, you won't do anythingin your life. Don't talk about the people who have failed, talk about thepeople who have triumphed " He later elaborated on what hemeant by theterm "triumph" by linking it to consumptive goals:

[To Emilio] Why are you stuck thinkingtheway you think? ou think bout"the zero" when you should be thinking about "the one," and then "thetwo,"because that'show you get ahead. At first,I didn't have anything,butthen I got to "one"?say, a cell phone. And then to "two"?say, the littlepickup truck thatI own.And then tomy home, which is "three."But if justget stuckon "the zero," I'd get depressed. Imight startusing drugs. Emilio,even ifyou don't have a trampoline, you still have to jump.

Here, Ismael embraces an individualist ethos and uses material possessionsas progressive markers of merit and success for themigrant. As he noted inthe debate, "I'm not doing it forMexico, I'm doing it forme. You have tolook out foryourself." And when defending his solitary living conditions hesaid, "Gringos and gringas live alone. I like thatwhat's mine ismine." In amasculine assertion of independence and individual prerogative, Ismaelrejects the traditionalists' claims about themoral pitfalls of northwardmigration and theborder, asserting instead thatmaterial advancement helps one toavoid depression and substance abuse. What is irresponsible adventurism toEmilio is brash and pragmatic agency to Ismael.

Conspicuous material advancement also serves a social purpose for theadventurer. Owning a newer American truck or the latest cell phone, forinstance, is a fairly reliable and visible marker of having made some head

way up north. And homes like Ismael's, built with money fromwork in the



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United States, stand out for their relatively ornate appearance, access tothe basic (running water, indoor plumbing, electricity) and high-end(cable, Internet) services, and electronic gadgetry. These symbols of having conquered el Norte confer social standing and serve to set themanlyadventurer apart from ordinary people who have not braved the journey.

Although it is difficult to know the extent towhich the young adventurerengages in sexual philandering as part of his escape to the north, thiswas clearly the case for Ismael. In our interview, Ismael told us he had awife and two children living without papers inAustin, Texas. The nextday, however, Emilio told us that in addition to his firstwife, Ismael hashad, "like 10wives [all in an informal sense], one after the other. He's notmarried according to the law with any of them. He's irresponsible(ma?oso) ' Removed from a place where individual behavior is constrained by tighter social controls, the adventurer can engage in a widerange of behaviors thatwould otherwise come with moral opprobrium andsocial sanction. While much of Ismael's adventurism runs counter to therural traditionalist's "most honored way of being a man" and dominantsocial norms regarding sober masculine responsibility and provision, italso draws upon a long history of countervailing patriarchal norms thatsupport male sexual adventurism, agency and privilege. Furthermore,although Ismael has access to a relatively high income, the very nature ofhis itinerant travel and adventurism limits his prospects for having a stable family or acting as a reliable breadwinner for his family.The adventurer category might also be applied tomany high schoolgraduates (and dropouts as well) in ruralMexico who, having not yetstarted a family of their own, head almost by custom now to the border.These young people cite the lack of economic opportunities in ruralVeracruz and, often, a need to supplement the incomes of their parentsamong theirprimary motivations. Their migration patterns are sometimescharacterized by sojourning, but?unlike Ismael's sort of adventurism?are more likely to root the young adventurer in his destination (and perhaps later in the life course to entail a shift toward a breadwinner stance).Aaron Barrera, themayor ofVolador, a small, isolated town innorthernVeracruz, said that out-migration of prepa graduates is now an expectedyearly routine in his community. As the following interview excerptshows, Aaron has linked the upsurge in northward migration

to theincreasingly concentrated land holdings in the area:

About 100 leftjust thismonth aftergraduation. These are the best-educatedyoung people we have. The majority goes toReynosa and some go toNewYork City.We tryto convince them to stay,but there isn't any work. This



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the traditionalist,he is compelled tofindwork, provide and fatherat the borderdespite those perceived hazards.Atanacio Martinez, 41, came to the border in his early 20s. Like manywho settle inReynosa, he expected towork in theUnited States. After findingwork in amaquiladora assembling wheelchairs and without a work visa,he decided to stay, squatted on a piece of land and built a home, and eventually brought his wife and children north as finances allowed. Of his initialmigration, Atanacio said he arrived without a plan, asking, "What will I do?What will happen to us? How will I supportmy family?" Given his familialresponsibilities, his desperate answer was, "I'll do anything." To support andsupervise their four children inReynosa, where the cost of living and educational expenses are substantially higher than in ruralVeracruz, Atanacio andhis wife, Carmen, both work full time.Atanacio works day shifts and hiswife works in a maquila during nights and weekends.Atanacio sees their sacrifices almost entirely in terms of the benefits totheir children, two of whom have surpassed his ninth-grade education. "Itgives me great satisfaction to give them their schooling. I had to startworking as a young boy [in Veracruz]. Then I got married and had kids.Now I'm trying to have them do what I couldn't." A singular desire tomeet paternal obligations motivated the initial decision tomigrate and,likewise, his decision to stay. In thisway his motivation tomigrate wasdistinct from that of adventurers, although there is a parallel sense ofcharting a course into the unknown. Since arriving inReynosa, Atansciosays he has had to "adapt," most notably by expanding his notion of breadwinning when his wife began working in themaquilas:

It is a difficult life [with twoworking parents], but it's all necessary so thatwe can make itas a family. It's for thekids, so theycan have a littlemorethan what theywould have if just one worked. So, yes . . . one has toadapt. ... If both the husband and wife work, it is to live better.But,really,we are just making it.

Atanacio negotiates his role as breadwinner in the face of the exigenciesof border life.As other research (Massey et al. 2002, 21-22) has demonstrated, a provider at the border?in contrast to a rural provider inVeracruz?is not only expected to provide sustenance and protection butalso access to a decent education, upward mobility, and a greater range ofconsumer items. To meet these goals in a higher-cost and low-wage area,men like Atanacio may elect to forge a "pragmatic egalitarianism"(Meuser 2003) with theirpartners.



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Broughton IGRATION AS ENGENDERED PRACTICE 583

Another breadwinner, Diego Chavez, also came toReynosa afterhavingstarted a family. Although Diego feels profoundly stuck in his economiccondition after 12 years working inReynosa's maquiladoras, he insists?in contrast toAtanacio?that Gris, his wife, cares for their children athome rather than engage inwage work, an ideal that theyhave maintainedat considerable economic cost:In themaquilas where I've worked?Zenith, Converse, GE, Seagate andnowMaytag?the situation hasn't changed. The work atMaytag doesn'tallow me tomeet my obligations as a head of family.My family's economicsituationwould never allow me tobuy one of the refrigerators make.

Diego at once seeks tomaintain a sole breadwinner ideal while recognizing the impossibility of attaining it. Breadwinners working in border

maquilas?unlike American blue-collar workers of industrialism's heydayin themiddle of the twentieth century?simply cannot provide for theirfamilies on theirown.While Gris could work in amaquila, Diego?drawing upon the same hegemonic masculinities as the traditionalists describedabove?explains that family cohesion and care for their children in theirborder colonia is his foremost concern:

There's a real problem for thechildrenwho aren'twell cared for.They maybe badly behaved because both parents are obliged towork because of thelowwages here. There are a lot of broken families and there isn't time toproperly care for the children. It's a real concern forme.

For Diego, even themost onerous material conditions cannot compel himto give up his sole breadwinner ideal. Diego sees himself providing byprotecting his wife and his children from the social consequences of dualincome maquila families in which "parents are used up by their jobs " Hehimself is used up in long work hours and a long bicycle commute, but indoing this he maintains his wife as the children's caretaker?an essentialand instrumental element of his provision to his children:

I wantmy children tobecome professionals. I don't want them to suffertheinjustices I've suffered in themaquiladoras. I'm doing everything possibleto ensure that theyare well educated. ... Iwant something differentformy children. I'm fighting for that.The exacting economic pressures and expanded role demands forproviders who come to the border force a stark choice between negotiating a reinvented breadwinner masculinity that embraces a pragmatic



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egalitarian ethic of dual earning (Atanacio) or adhering to an unworkablesole breadwinner model (Diego).Beyond contemplating more flexible understandings of their roles as

providers, migrant breadwinners at the border face forced adaptation onother fronts as well. While men are drawn north by a sense that they canearnmore for their families at theborder, few consider therigors of industrial factory work and discrimination against rural Veracruzanos [peoplefromVeracruz]. A former high-level manager at a Black and Decker plantin Reynosa stated that there was a great deal of frustration on theAmerican side with Mexicans' approach to time, responsibility and family. He said, "Punctuality is a problem across the board. The way[Mexican workers] view time is just different." Before, he says, when theplant was in Jackson, Tennessee, "there was much more 'ownership' putinto thework, much more loyalty to the company and more responsibilityassumed in a work role." This maquila manager and others note favorablyhow "committed to family" Veracruzanos are but, at the same time, complain about their lack of an industrial work ethic, extended vacations backhome and frequent requests to attend to familymatters. Regarding his firstday seeing a maquiladora, Diego, for instance, said, "I was completelyunaware ofwhat theworkplace was like in amaquila inReynosa. When Iwent to look for work and I saw the employees leaving second shift, theywere in clean, clean clothes. I thought, 'Wow, they just had a party '" Forruralmigrants who often view work as a means to family maintenance(rather valuing work for its own sake) or who lack cultural tools of thedominant culture, it is difficult to adapt to the rigorous physical, time andcultural demands of maquila work and, consequently, difficult-to-attainbreadwinner goals and adapt a refashioned borderland breadwinner ideal.Comments critical ofmigrants are echoed more broadly by natives ofReynosa, some of whom consider themassive influx of Veracruzanos an"invasion" of poor, unwanted migrants (Petros 2006). Although manypraise Veracruzanos for being "good workers," others complain about theways they dress, behave and maintain their homes. One native womaneven referred tomigrants from the south as "veracruchangos" [monkeysfromVeracruz]. Such racialized insults indicate that Veracruzanos (whotypically have darker skin than natives do) face not just hostility anddiscrimination but a subordinate position in a more rigid racial hierarchyat theU.S.-Mexico border. In his study of the "reracialization" ofMexicanmigrants in Chicago, De Genova (1998, 105-106) contends that"Mexico's distinct and relatively fluid racial ordermay be currently undergoing a profound ideological reelaboration that reflects and refracts the



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racialized migrant encounter and increasingly shares some of the rigidityof the dominant racial ideologies of theUnited States." The exigencies ofborder life demand strategic adaptation of hegemonic masculine ideals tothe economic demands and dominant cultural precepts of the region: Thebreadwinner must consider dual-earning household strategies, adapt to thetime and physical rigors of industrial life, countenance prioritizing workover family, and negotiate a newly racialized social landscape.

CONCLUSIONAs Canclini (2003) advises, there is not one Mexican vision of the border. This article has explored some of these visions from the perspectiveof Mexican men as they talk and think about the border region and the

migration experience as men. The traditionalist, adventurer, and breadwinner stances to low-income Mexican men are gendered routes to realizing both instrumental and identity goals in a time of rapid and

wrenching change. The traditionalist responds by adopting a hegemonicmasculinity that prioritizes family and community ties, traditional gendered roles, and watchful fathering. He constructs his identity in contrastto individualistic and anomic migrants and an unfavorable caricature ofthe border region. By contrast themale adventurer sees elNorte as a placeto escape themore regimented and articulated social order of the ruralsouth. He undertakes the journey north with only a vague sense aboutwhat he will find, where he will work, where and if he will settle?orwhether he will succeed. Adventurers are indeed labor migrants (Portesand Rumbaut 1996), but they look at the border as more than a place tofind work. It is also as a place to satisfy gendered aims including attaining independence, a sense of individual achievement and material andsocial advancement, and a new and exciting life away from the limitationsof a neglected and declining ruralMexico. While the adventurer leavesrelatively unencumbered by the obligation to provide for dependents, thebreadwinner is forced out of circumstance tomigrate northward to provide for his family and, once there, endures material and symbolic indignities with the hope that his provision will, in the subsequent generation,foster mobility. The breadwinner knowingly puts his ability to achievesome traditionalist goals (e.g., raising children away from urban vice anddisorder) in jeopardy by embracing work at (or beyond) the border as aninescapable duty to fulfill so their children can "have something better."



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These fluid masculinities illustrate some of the gendered responses oflow-income Mexican men to the economic and social dislocations ofneoliberal Mexico and allow a deep examination of the goals, motivations,aspirations and rationales ofmen who migrate northward. Such an analysis both complements and informs more conventional economic andsocial demographic studies ofmigration that focus on instrumental calculation and household- and community-level factors in explaining migrantdecision making, their strategies and pathways, and the process of adapting to social lifewhere themigrant settles. The dynamic process of gendered identity negotiation and decision making apparent in these fluidtypes demonstrates how low-income Mexican men do much more thanmake instrumental calculations as theymake sense of themigration experience as men and arrive at specific and adaptive gendered strategies anddecisions regarding northward migration.In exploring how men negotiate hegemonic masculinities related tofamily, work and place, it is important to attend to the political and economic variables in ruralMexico and in the border region structuring thesegendered strategies, practices and identities. As Sadowski-Smith (2002, 49) warns, we must not focus on "border porosity" and "cultural fusion"without attention to the recent political, economic and social changes thathave "strengthened structural inequalities" and "rigidified economic,social, and political boundaries" between theUnited States and Mexico.For this reason this article emphasized the link between the specific gendered practices of low-income men in ruralMexico and at the border andthe political and economic forces that shape them. It ismy hope that thisarticle escapes categorization as "a-literalist" or "literalist" (Vila 2003;x)?that it has not only shed light

on theways men negotiate masculinityin a manner sensitive to the voices and lived reality ofmen but also to thesocial and economic conditions that constrain and influence those voices,experiences, and gendered identities and strategies.

NOTES1.Employment in themaquiladora sector increased from446,400 in 1990 to1,291,200 in2000, a 189% increase.2. Of those classified as "deportable aliens," the vast majority are fromMexico. In fiscal year 2005, about 85 percent of apprehensions were of

Mexicans. "Deportable aliens located," however, counts apprehensions, not thenumber of unique individuals deported.



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chad broughton, migration as engendere practice masculinity and mexican migration

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