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Mexican Women, Gender, and Labor During the Bracero Program, 1942 University of Texas at El Paso DigitalCommons@UTEP Open Access Theses & Dissertations 2018-01-01 La Pena Negra: Mexican Women, Gender, And Labor During The rB acero Program, 1942-1964 Mayra Lizette Avila University of Texas at El Paso, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd Part of the Labor Economics Commons, Labor History Commons, Latin American History Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Avila, Mayra Lizette, "La Pena Negra: Mexican Women, Gender, And Labor During The rB acero Program, 1942-1964" (2018). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 1400. https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd/1400 This is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UTEP. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LA PENA NEGRA: MEXICAN WOMEN, GENDER, AND LABOR DURING THE BRACERO PROGRAM, 1942-1964 MAYRA LIZETTE AVILA Doctoral Program in Borderlands History APPROVED: Jeffrey P. Shepherd, Ph.D., Chair Larisa L. Veloz, Ph.D., Co. Chair Yolanda Chávez Leyva, Ph.D. Selfa A. Chew, Ph.D. Gilbert G. Gonzalez, Ph.D. Charles Ambler, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School Copyright © by Mayra Lizette Avila 2018 Dedication To the people of La Noria, Jalisco, México who allowed me to share their memories. LA PENA NEGRA: MEXICAN WOMEN, GENDER, AND LABOR DURING THE BRACERO PROGRAM, 1942-1964 by MAYRA LIZETTE AVILA, M.A. DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at El Paso in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO May 2018 Acknowledgements First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor and Chair Dr. Jeffrey Shepherd for the continuous support of my Ph.D. study and related research, for his patience, motivation, and immense knowledge. Additionally, I would like to thank my Co-Chair Dr. Larisa Veloz, whose guidance helped me in research and writing of this dissertation. I could not have imagined having better advisors and mentors during this doctoral venture. Besides my co-chairs, I would like to thank the rest of my thesis committee: Dr. Yolanda Leyva, Dr. Selfa A. Chew and Dr. Gilbert G. Gonzalez, for their insightful comments and encouragement, but also for the hard questions that motivated me to widen my research from various perspectives. Dr. Leyva, I would personally like to thank you for allowing me to participate in the Oral History Institute, as a transcriber. Dr. Selfa A. Chew, thank you for your mentorship and motivation during this process. In particular, I am grateful to Dr. Gonzalez, who provided me an opportunity to participate in the documentary Harvest of Loneliness. Sincerely, thank you to my committee whose individual knowledge and guidance allowed me to grow as a historian. Secondly, I would like to thank the Ronald E. McNair program at California State University Dominguez Hills especially, the Director Dr. Shelley Martinez and Graduate Assistant Dr. Brandelynn Villareal who guided me and prepared me for graduate school. I thank Dr. Laura Talamante who believed in me when I did not. Your kind words and mentorship gave me confidence in completing my graduate degree. I would also like to thank the office staff at in the History Department at the University of Texas El Paso, especially Edith Yanez, for helping me with navigating the paperwork and deadlines over the years. I thank my fellow cohort for the stimulating discussions, for the sleepless nights we were working together before deadlines, and for all the fun we have had in the program. Maria Schrock and Juana Moriel, you two have been my saving grace in this journey. Thank you for always being willing to listen to ideas and brainstorm with me. Scott Comar your positive words always helped to calm me. Also, I thank my friends and colleagues Dr. Jamie Starling and Dr. Bonnie Lucero for helping me set a writing schedule, providing me words of wisdom, and being sincere. Without each one of your individual support it would not be possible to complete the rigorous work of a dissertation. Last but not the least, I would like to thank my family: my parents and to my brothers and sister for supporting me emotionally throughout graduate school, writing this dissertation and my life in general. To Christopher Willyard thank you for being patient and understanding of what writing a dissertation truly entails. To my cousin Sandra Yáñez and aunt Pilar Briseño Herrera for aiding me in my collection of oral histories. To my parents, siblings, and partner you were my rocks and my comedians when I needed to smile. I am truly lucky to have you. v Abstract Most research on México and the Bracero Program has centered on the experiences of men. The scholarship details their decision to leave México, their experiences crossing the border and working in the fields, and their return migration home. “La Pena Negra: Woman, Gender, and Labor, During the Bracero Program, 1942-1964” adds to Bracero scholarship by looking at how the Mexican consulate dealt with Bracero treatment and death. However, the program did not only impact male laborers, but their spouses and family who they left behind in México. Women and families’ survival depended on the female ability to adapt and negotiate the circumstances of uncertainty caused by the male absence. Focusing on the female experience in México provides a unique view of the changes women underwent in the social, political, and private sphere of México and the borderlands during the mid-twentieth century. “La Pena Negra” historicizes the negotiation of empowerment and disempowerment of women in Mexican society during the Bracero Program. Using archival documents and oral histories, this dissertation links and examines the roots and routes of discourses, cultural practices, and political strategies shaping the female experience in México while the male members of their families worked in the United States between 1942 and 1964. This dissertation brings forth the personal, emotional, and social changes women underwent for survival and addresses themes such as family provider, family networks, abandonment, and divorce. This study adds to the literature on women and Mexican history during twentieth century México and the Bracero Program and is unique as it provides an intimately transnational gendered perspective to what has typically been addressed from the lenses of migration, economics, and geo-politics. Most importantly, these personal experiences add to an understanding of the effects a transnational immigrant labor program had on women. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................................v Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix List of Illustrations ...........................................................................................................................x Introduction: Women during the Bracero Program: An Overlooked History .................................1 Historiography ........................................................................................................................5 Methodology .........................................................................................................................18 Migration, a Social Impact on Women’s Role......................................................................20 Chapter 1: Connecting the Borderlands: The Immigrant, The Worker .........................................25 Mexican Labor and Identity ..................................................................................................31 Historical Context .................................................................................................................35 The War and Depression .......................................................................................................41 Creating ANTI-Mexican Xenophobia ..................................................................................56 Chapter 2: The Bracero Program: Foreign Policy and Opportunity ..............................................65 The Inception ........................................................................................................................71 Shifting the Power of Negotiation ........................................................................................89 In Response to Changes ........................................................................................................93 The Reshaping of Immigration and Labor ............................................................................97 The Legacy..........................................................................................................................101 Chapter 3: The Human Dimension of Policy ...............................................................................103 The Male Experience in the Camps ....................................................................................108
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