Women's Studies Professor Publishes Book on Mexican Women and Immigration

Post date

FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE

7/15/2010

CONTACT:

VANCOUVER, Wash.
– Luz María Gordillo, Ph.D., assistant professor of
women's studies at Washington State University Vancouver, has published a book
on immigration, transnational communities and women's studies through the
University of Texas Press. "Mexican Women and the Other Side of
Immigration: Engendering Transnational Ties" weaves personal narratives with history and an analysis of gender
roles of Mexicans in the Midwest.

The book traces
the development of a unique community created as Mexican immigrants moved from
the small western town of San Ignacio Cerro Gordo, Jalisco to Detroit,
Michigan. Starting with the 1942 inception of the Bracero Program, a program
designed for the importation of contract laborers from Mexico to the United
States, Gordillo focuses on the concept of transnational and working-class experiences
as Mexican immigrants recreated and adjusted to their changing environments in
Detroit.

Families were
often separated as Mexican men migrated to work in the United States, leaving
their families behind. Gordillo's findings indicate that while male family
members lived abroad, many female San Ignacians shattered stereotypes and
transgressed traditionally male roles. With the men away, many women were
forced to become the heads of household and earn income for their families in
Mexico. When the San Ignacian women eventually joined their husbands in Detroit,
their experiences in their community of origin facilitated their adaptation.

Placed within the
larger context of globalization, "Mexican Women and the Other Side of
Immigration" is a timely excavation
of oral histories and archival documents.

"My book is
designed as a tool for understanding historical processes of U.S. and Mexican immigration.
It emphasizes important links between our historical past and our current
attitudes toward Mexican immigration to the United States. I hope and expect
our society to come up with a humane solution to the present-day immigration
challenges we're encountering, rather than implementing Draconian policies,
such as the ones recently passed in Arizona," said Gordillo.

Gordillo's book
is part of the University of Texas Chicana
Matters Series, which focuses on documenting the lives, values,
philosophies and artistry of contemporary Chicanas—working-class Latinas from
different walks of life. The books in the series represent the leading
knowledge and scholarship in the growing field of research on the history,
culture, art and activism of Chicanas.

Originally from
Mexico City, Gordillo worked as a full-time professional photographer for
several years in New York City while attending graduate school. Her doctoral
work at Michigan State University focused on immigration and transnational
gender studies. Gordillo lived in Detroit and San Ignacio for several months in
order to conduct interviews, get archival data and take the documentary
photographs that appear in the book and illustrate its cover.

Gordillo is
already working on her second book, "Memoirs de una Wetback." The
book includes a series of short stories focused on the female immigrant
experience juxtaposed with the history and implementation of immigration laws
in the United States. Gordillo has
presented and performed excerpts from the book at Willamette University, the
University of California Davis and at Washington State University Vancouver
through The Center for Social and Environmental Justice.

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