Mexican immigrant men and women’s narratives about dating and marital relationships provide another telling example of the ways in which gender profoundly informs not only migration, but also transnational family negotiations. For example, women’s narratives reveal how gender practices play out through the restriction of female mobility and the surveillance of women’s sexuality, where men are understood as guardians of female virtue, as evidenced in Paulina’s story:
What did my family think of me marrying a Canadian? Ah well [Laughing], it was a big deal! In my town in Mexico it wasn’t common. No way! Actually I was one of the first. But the issue wasn’t that he was Canadian—it was that he wasn’t Mexican. This was the deal, because if Mexicans see someone blond or blue eyed, to them they are American. They don’t think, “Oh he’s Canadian.” I experienced this first
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hand with my cousin too. She married a pilot from the American air force. A lot of American boys they go to Mexico, to have fun and—you know, try to hook up or get with a Mexican girl. So that even our Mexican friends, you know like guy friends, they take special care of the Mexican girls because they know that Americans they just want to go there and have fun and whatever—My cousin, she started dating an American and it was like the end of the world for my whole family! Like my uncle wanted to kill her, he was like “No way!”, because they resent and hate American men for coming and taking advantage of the Mexican girls. It was the same for me—Oh God! It was intense. There was a big meeting, with my mom and the rest of the family because [husband’s name] had invited me to come here [to Canada] to meet his family and so my mom asked the family, “O.K. what do you think?” And, my uncle was like, “Well if you think that you can go to Canada by yourself. Well, let’s say your relationship doesn’t work, now you’re going to be single all of your life because none of the Mexicans guys are going to want you because they know that you have already gone by yourself with your boyfriend and stayed there.” You know because that is BAD for a Mexican girl. So it was a big deal!
Gabriela, who has lived in Canada for six years, revealed a similar patriarchal family dynamic: When my brothers and cousins found out that I was coming to Canada to visit a boy, my boyfriend, well now my husband, they were pissed. They kept saying to me, “Why can’t you find a nice Mexican guy?” You see, there’s this traditional thing down there, the idea that men have to look after female family members—that kind of thing and well me coming to Canada by myself! That was a no, no. My family saw it as rebellious I guess. Travelling by yourself is not what a Mexican girl should be doing, not a nice girl anyway.
Despite the absence of such themes in immigrant men’s narratives, Rodrigo’s (a single man who has lived in Canada for three years) candid discussion about his struggle to meet and date Canadian women is quite revealing:
Women here are especially complex, the opposite of what you find in Mexico—women who are very submissive—who do what their husbands say—this is the kind of women they have in Mexico. There I know how to be a man—I know how to act. Men are meant to be in charge, to take the lead, to protect women—it is the complete opposite here. And, on the one side I think this is good. Women are more in control. But, on the other, women are very dominant in Canada and it is extremely difficult to open them up, to find a way for them to let you in.
Rodrigo’s commentary attests to the fact that masculinity is not monolithic or unproblematic, but rather constantly negotiated and contested (Connell, 2005b; Mac an Ghaill, 1996; van Hoven & Hörschelmann, 2005).
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Discussions of romantic relationships between Mexican and Canadian men and women also shed light on the ways in which relations of gender intersect with class in circuits of mobility. As exemplified in Amelia’s and Ernesto’s discussions:
I really don’t think it’s common for Mexican women to marry Canadians. North Americans women going to Mexico and hooking up with Mexican men, this is quite common. Because North American women are more liberal, so when they travel to Mexico they tend to hook up with guys of lower socio-economic status. One, because they don’t know the difference between a higher-level Mexican and a lower-level Mexican and Mexican women they know, because, well it’s our culture. Two, because they can sleep with them and there’s no sense of obligation. Where it’s harder with a Mexican girl—a Mexican girl has more sense of prudence and modesty and a lot more virginity—that’s huge down there, whereas here [in Canada] it isn’t valued the same. I’m talking about the resorts on vacation, you know, when North American women go to Mexico. Right away guys would be [snapping fingers to suggest the guys are snapping up the women]. Plus, poor Mexican men are looking for a ticket out of Mexico.
I have been always been received well, of course I do believe this has to do with my appearance because it is not the typical stereotype that Canadians have of Mexicans. So for example with my wife [who is Canadian], the first time that she told her friends and family, “I’m dating a Mexican guy”, people were skeptical and shocked, because they expected the stereotype. The idea of Mexican people Canadians have in their minds—you know shorter, darker skin, maybe a little bigger and definitely uneducated and poor. (Ernesto has lived in Canada for ten years)
These extracts speak to the ongoing constitution of gender subjectivities. As Boehm (2008: 20) asserts, ‘[t]he negotiations between individuals and within families and communities that create understandings of gender are fluid, often elusive and immensely powerful.’