FEMINIST INTERPRETATIONS OF MIGRATION: A SOUTHERN ARIZONA CASE STUDY

Abstract

There is a tendency in academic literature regarding Mexican migration to the United States, to refer to migrants solely as workers hoping for economic mobility, and denying any other form of subjectivity. Furthermore, scholars who deal with the Mexican diaspora in the United States offer accounts that refer to simplistic one-­‐way processes of assimilation, denying how Mexicans and Mexican-­‐Americans are involved in establishing binational and bicultural spaces of expression and survival. To addresses these limitations, feminist scholars offer powerful analytical tools to explore the ways in which migrant subjects are involved in the management of their identities through the creation of symbolic and material (socio-­‐cultural, political and economic) linkages that transcend national boundaries. This study draws on the theoretical frameworks provided by Patricia Zavella (2011), Gloria Anzaldua (1987) and V. Spike Peterson (2010), to describe the migratory experience of five women who emigrated from Mexico to the United States between the years of 1977 to 2004 and now reside in Southern Arizona. Furthermore, this study links an overall increase in Mexican migration to the United States to the (re)structuring of the global political economy through neoliberal policies.