Friday, January 8, 2010: 3:10 PM
Manchester Ballroom E (Hyatt)
Veronica Castillo-Munoz
,
University of California, San Diego
“
Mujeres Trabajadoras: Gender, Migration and Labor in Northern Mexico, 1940-1952”
This paper examines how women fulfilled the demand for labor in the picking of cotton and tobacco created by the bracero program that attracted mostly male workers to the United States in the 1940s. My research shows that many women worked in the cultivation of tobacco in Nayarit and picking cotton in Mexicali during the 1940s. Some families, from central and western Mexico moved to Mexicali to work for U.S. and Mexican agribusiness[1]. In addition, President’s Miguel Aleman’s amendment to “Article 27” of the Constitution approved the privatization of future land grants and the reduction of government aid to communal land in the 1940s. An in depth analysis on the impact of the amendment to this article is necessary in the historiography of agrarian reform to help us understand how the redefinition of the agrarian reform among more capitalist lines emerged in different regions. In the case of Nayarit and Mexicali, both states experienced the growth of agribusiness that provided more opportunity for women to work as wage laborers. This paper examines to what extend the growth of agribusiness in Northern Mexico benefited or prevented women opportunities in the countryside. Finally, this paper brings new historical interpretation to how families dealt with the drastic reduction of credits for cultivation, less access to communal land and the increase of government repression in the countryside
[1] Anguiano María Eugenia. Agricultura y Migración en el Valle de Mexicali pg.130
