Abstract
While many Mexican undocumented immigrant families have become increasingly committed to building family and community life in the United States, the ways people make settlement happen has not received much attention in the literature. Based on ethnographic research conducted in a Mexican immigrant settlement community in California, this article looks at settlement processes by bringing women to the foreground. Putting women and their activities at the center of analysis highlights their contributions in three arenas that are key to settlement: creating patterns of permanent, year-round employment; provisioning resources for daily family maintenance and reproduction; and building community life.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Blauner, R. 1972.Racial Oppression in America. New York: Harper and Row.
Browning, H. L. and N. Rodriguez. 1985. “The Migration of Mexican Indocumentados as a Settlement Process: Implications for Work.” In G. J. Borjas and M. Tienda (Eds.),Hispanics in the U.S. Economy (pp. 277–297). Institute for Research on Poverty Monograph Series, Academic Press.
Burawoy, M. 1976. “The Functions and Reproduction of Migrant Labor Comparative Material from Southern Africa and the United States.”American Journal of Sociology, 81: 1050–1087.
Chavez, L. 1988. “Settlers and Sojourners: The Case of Mexicans in California.”Human Organization, 47: 95–108.
Chavez, L. R., W. A. Cornelius, and O. W. Jones. 1986. “Utilization of Health Services by Mexican Immigrant Women in San Diego.”Women and Health, 11: 3–20.
Chavez, L. R., Flores, E. T., and Lopez-Garza, M. 1989. “Migrants and Settlers: A Comparison of Undocumented Mexicans and Central Americans in the United States.”Frontera Norte, 1: 49–75.
Chavira, A. 1988. “Tienes Que Ser Valiente: Mexican Migrants in a Midwestern Farm Labor Camp.” In M. B. Melville (Ed.),Mexicanas at Work in the United States. Mexican American Studies Monograph, No. 5., University of Houston.
Cornelius, W. A. 1989. “The U.S. Demand for Mexican Labor.” In W. A. Cornelius and J. A. Bustamante (Eds.),Mexican Migration to the United States. La Jolla, CA: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.
1992. “From Sojourners to Settlers: The Changing Profile of Mexican Immigration to the United States.” In J. A. Bustamante, C. W. Reynolds, and R. A. Hinojosa Ojeda (Eds.),U.S.-Mexico Relations: Labor Market Interdependence. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Cornelius, W. A., Chavez, L. R., and Jones, O. W. 1982.Mexican Immigrants and Southern California: A Summary of Current Knowledge. La Jolla, CA: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.
di Leonardo, M. 1987. “The Female World of Cards and Holidays: Women, Families, and the Work of Kinship.”Signs, 12: 440–453.
Dill, B. T. 1988. “Our Mothers' Grief: Racial-Ethnic Women and the Maintenance of Families,”Journal of Family History, 13: 415–431.
Glenn, E. N. 1983. “Split Household, Small Producer, and Dual Earner: An Analysis of Chinese-American Family Strategies,”Journal of Marriage and the Family, 45: 35–46.
Goldring, L. forthcoming. “Gendered Memory: Reconstruction of Rurality among Mexican Transnational Migrants.” In Melanie Du Puis and Peter Vandergeest (Eds.),Nature, Rurality and Culture: The Social Construction of Rural Development and Environmental Conservation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Hardy-Fanta, Carol. 1993.Latina Politics. Latino Politics: Gender, Culture and Political Participation in Boston. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. 1992. “Overcoming Patriarchal Constraints: The Reconstruction of Gender Relations Among Mexican Immigrant Women and Men,”Gender & Society, 6: 393–415.
Logan, K. 1990. “Women's Participation in Urban Protest,” Pp. 150–159 in J. Foweraker and A. L. Craig (Eds.),Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico (pp. 150–159). Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Massey, D. S. 1986. “The Settlement Process Among Mexican Migrants to the United States.”American Sociological Review, 51: 670–685.
Massey, D., Alarcon, R., Durand, J., and Gonzalez, H. 1987.Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration from Western Mexico. University of California Press.
O'Conner, M. I. 1990. “Women's Networks and the Social Needs of Mexican Immigrants.”Urban Anthropology, 19: 81–98.
Pardo, Mary. 1990. “Mexican American Women Grassroots Community Activists: ‘Mothers of East Los Angeles.’”Frontiers, 11: 1–7.
Pessar, Patricia. 1986. “The Role of Gender in Dominican Settlement in the United States.” In June Nash and Helen Safa (Eds.),Women and Change in Latin America (pp. 273–294). Mass.: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc.
Piore, M. J. 1979.Birds of Passage: Migrant Labor and Industrial Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rollins, J. 1985.Between Women: Domestics and Their Employers. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Romero, M. 1988. “Chicanas Modernize Domestic Service.”Qualitative Sociology, 11: 319–334.
1992.Maid in the U.S.A. New York and London: Routledge.
Rouse, R. 1992. “Making Sense of Settlement: Class Transformations, Cultural Struggle, and Transnationalism among Mexican Migrants in the United States.” In N. G. Schiller, L. Basch and C. Blanc-Szanton (Eds.),Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 654: 25–51.
Rumbaut, R. G., Chavez, L. R., Moser, R. J., Pickwell, S. M., and Wishik, S. W. 1988. “The Politics of Migrant Health Care: A Comparative Study of Mexican Immigrants and Indochinese Refugees.”Research in the Sociology of Health Care, 7: 143–202.
Salzinger, L. 1991. “A Maid by Any Other Name: The Transformation of ‘Dirty Work’ by Central American Immigrants.” In M. Burawoyet al. (Eds.),Ethnography Unbound: Power and Resistance in the Modern Metropolis (pp. 139–160). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sassen-Koob, S. 1984. “The New Labor Demand in Global Cities.” In M. P. Smith (Ed.),Cities in Transformation (pp. 139–171). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
Villar, M. de L. 1990. “Rethinking Settlement Processes: The Experience of Mexican Undocumented Migrants in Chicago.”Urban Anthropology, 19: 63–79.
Zinn, M. B. 1994. “Feminist Rethinking from Racial-Ethnic Families.” In M. B. Zinn and B. T. Dill (Eds.),Women of Color in U.S. Society (pp.303–314). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington D.C. April 1991, and at the Perspectives on Migration: North America After NAFTA conference, University of California, Berkeley, February 1994. The research and writing were partially supported by the Business and Professional Women's Association and by the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at U.C. San Diego. I am very thankful for the help of all the study participants, and for the feedback I received from Michael A. Messner, the anonymous reviewers forQualitative Sociology, and especially Barrie Thorne, who saved me from the seductions of functionalism.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. Beyond “the longer they stay” (and say they will stay): Women and Mexican immigrant settlement. Qual Sociol 18, 21–43 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02393194
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02393194