ETHNICITY ON THE LINE: THE CASE OF MIXTECO WORKERS IN TIJUANA'S LABOUR MARKET by ALBERTO MENDEZ B.A., Universidad de las Americas-Puebla, 1983 Diploma, The University of Manchester, 1986 M.A., Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, 1988 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Interdisciplinary Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA December 2005 © Alberto Mendez, 2005 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the changing social identity of a Mexican indigenous immigrant community in Tijuana, Mexico, against the backdrop of rapid export-oriented industrialization along Mexico's northern border. The group of indigenous immigrants in question are the Mixtecos from southern Mexico, who began to settle in Tijuana in the early 1960s. Living for the most part in impoverished urban settlements or colonias, Tijuana's Mixteco community has been undergoing a process of change associated with the functional role Mexico's northern border is playing within the global economy. In recent years, this community has gained access to employment within Tijuana's maquiladora industry, the driving force behind the local labour markets. This study explores how Mixtecos' involvement in this labour market is having an impact on their ethnic identity. Based on qualitative research and fieldwork conducted in Tijuana, this dissertation finds that, while members of Tijuana's Mixteco community have been gradually drawn into to the maquiladora labour market, they have, in fact, been reconstructing their ethnic identity. Because of the demands of the industry and of Tijuana's socio-cultural milieu, Mixtecos who have gained access to maquiladora employment have been concealing their ethnicity, while adopting non-indigenous mestizo traits and assuming class rather than ethnic positions. Throughout this process, Mixteco factory workers have been retreating from their ethnic community to focus on individual and family affairs. These findings thus depart from the well-established scholarly literature dealing with Mixteco out-migration which argues that, in the displaced context outside the Mixteca heartland, Mixteco immigrants in northern Mexico and the U.S. have acquired an ethnic-based identity, forged on shared culture and on common negative experiences. Throughout this dissertation, ethnicity is viewed in line with the constructivist paradigm that conceives ethnicity as a dynamic form of social identity arising from particular structural circumstances and specific contexts. The examination has thus required attention on different levels of analysis, from a macro perspective dealing with the structural conditions explaining the expansion of capitalism in Mexico, the Mixteco out- migration, and the disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples in Mexican society, to a micro inspection of the everyday social interactions of Mixteco women and men in specific settings (i.e. the factories). This dissertation therefore expands the literature on the Mexican maquiladoras, which has given only slight attention to matters of ethnicity. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION 1 Organization of the study 7 2. HISTORICAL AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 13 Introduction 13 Nation-building and Mexico's ethnic question 14 Liberalism and capitalist expansion 16 The State and post-revolutionary indigenismo 23 Industrialization, the agricultural sector, and the ethnic question 28 Internal colonialism 33 Class and ethnicity in Mexico 36 Ethnicity as social construction 44 Migration, urbanization, and the internationalization of production ... 51 Poverty and agency 56 3. M1XTECOS 60 Introduction 60 The Mixteca region and the Nuu Savi 61 The Mixteca region and the social organization of Mixtecos 63 The geography of Mixteco migration 66 Structure and agency in Mixteco migration 69 iii Chapter Page The capitalist connection and vulnerability 71 Migration and ethnic identity 75 Transnational indigenous communities 81 Mixteco women: migration, agency and patriarchy 84 Conclusions 86 4. TIJUANA 95 Introduction 95 Tijuana 96 The border economy and urban change 98 The border and the origins of the local economy 99 The allure of the border and population growth 101 The urban space: the profit-generating zones and Tijuana's colonias . 103 The profit-generating zones 140 Tijuana's colonias 109 Immigrant communities: Tijuana's Mixtecos 112 Tijuana and the maquiladora industrialization 118 Concluding remarks 121 5. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON MEXICO'S MAQUILADORA INDUSTRY: AN OVERVIEW 123 Introduction 123 The internationalisation of manufacturing production 125 Labour representation and the maquiladora industry 127 Female labour 129 Migration and the maquiladoras 133 Ethnic and class identities in the maquiladoras 135 Maquiladora modernization 137 Concluding remarks 141 iv Chapter Page 6. FROM EXCLUSION TO INCLUSION: INDIGENOUS WORKERS, TIJUANA'S LABOUR MARKET, AND THE MAQUILADORA INDUSTRY 143 Introduction 143 Mixteco immigrants and Tijuana's labour markets 144 The maquiladora industry and Mixteco employment patterns 147 Mixteco employment 149 Generational employment differences among Mixtecos 150 Ethnic exclusion in Tijuana's maquiladora labour market 151 Mixteco workers and labour market exclusion 154 Disenfranchisement 155 Ideology 156 The maquiladora labour market 157 Concluding remarks 163 7. MIXTECO VOICES FROM THE MAQUILADORAS 164 Introduction 164 The way north 167 The long route: along the capitalist circuit 170 Non-stop to Tijuana 173 Tijuana grown Mixtecos 175 The U.S. option 177 Looking for factory work in Tijuana 181 The maquiladora flood 182 The limits of ethnic identity 185 Ethnic stratification 186 The maquiladora order and the social structure 189 The individual 199 The community 202 Conclusion 205 v Chapter Page 8. CONCLUDING DISCUSSION 208 Appendix 1. METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH 232 REFERENCE LIST 239 vi LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Mexican population, indigenous peoples, 1990-2000 14 2. Population, Mexico and Northern Border Region, 1930-2000 102 3. Housing Characteristics in Irregular Settlements in Tijuana, 2000 ... Ill 4. Maquiladora employment, number of workers, 1990-2003 204 5. Informants by group, number of interviews, time, and locations 236 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. The Geography of Mixteco Migration, Mexico and the Mixteca region . 67 2. Tijuana and U.S.-Mexico border 97 viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation could not have been written without the continuing encouragement and support of Dr. Patricia Marchak who served as my supervisor. I am thankful for her commitment and friendship. I also want to thank Dr. Terry McGee, Dr. Trevor Barnes, and Dr. Michael Leaf for agreeing to be part of my supervisory committee. I have truly appreciated their advice and guidance while preparing this document. The University of British Columbia and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada provided valuable financial assistance through their doctoral fellowship awards programmes. Fieldwork for this dissertation was conducted with a research award from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada. On the field, I also received the important support of El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Tijuana) where I was invited to be part of the scholarly community. I wish to express to all these institutions my sincere appreciation for their support. In different capacities, many other people assisted me throughout the process of completing this dissertation and I am thankful to all. I would especially like to mention Laurie Aikman, Magdalena Barros, Jorge Carrillo, Alfredo Hualde, Thomas Kemple, Kathryn Kopinak, Sarah Martinez, Gonzalo Montiel, Rosa Laura Perez, Tiburcio Perez Castro, Jose Antonio Rangel, Anthony Story, and Laura Velasco for their valued assistance and friendship. I am also grateful to the Department of Anthropology and Sociology (University of British Columbia) for kindly hosting me during my doctoral program. ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The first exploratory ideas leading to the design of this study concentrated on assessing whether social networks were playing any role in supporting the expansion of maquiladora industrialization in northern Mexico. The main focus was on social networks organized on the basis of kinship, ethnicity or regional affiliation in order to assess whether the maquiladora industry has relied on them to raise local capital or draw labour. With those general ideas in mind an exploratory visit to Tijuana, the large maquiladora centre adjacent to the U.S. border, exposed me to an urban environment fitting, at least at first sight, with what Louis Wirth's described in terms of 'urbanism as a way of life.'1 Tijuana's large size, its rapid pace of life, along with its high population density, fragmented urban form, and social and cultural heterogeneity created an initial ambiance of sheer anonymity characterized by fleeting, impersonal interactions. With an apparent absence of personal acquaintanceships among its residents, Tijuana seemed to be the wrong place to look for social ties of any sort. Nevertheless, with the critique to Wirth's thesis in mind,2 which instead of anomie stresses the vitality of primary group affiliations, and the significant role social ties play in organizing urban life, I decided to 1 Wirth contended that social interactions in the city are based on departmentalized, fragmented roles leading to impersonal,