ALGUNOS CASOS CONFORME A LAS HIPÓTESIS.

Migration from low-income areas of Mexico to the US is often characterised in the literature as a household survival strategy used to overcome chronic poverty (Brambila, 1985; Dinerman, 1978,1982; Massey et a i, 1987; Selby and Murphy, 1980; Wood, 1981,1982), or as a household coping mechanism to offset acute poverty such as that experienced during a national economic crisis (Escobar et a i, 1987; Gonzalez de la Rocha, 1991,1993). Alternatively, migration is depicted as a household strategy used to maximise household earning potential through the rational deployment of specific household members in the US labour market, as a substitute for, or complement to, those working in Mexico (Delechat, 1993; Malina, 1980). In this case, who migrates is determined by the demands of the US labour market and prospective migrants’ ability to fulfil them, but also by the household division of labour, which means that some members may be more easily released than others, and by the prevailing ideology of the household, which may constrain the mobility of some members more than others {cf. Chant, 1992^,19926; Chant and Radcliffe, 1992; Harbison, 1981; Pryer, 1992; Radcliffe, 1992). Moreover, the demands of the Mexican labour market at the time of the potential migration, and the financial return which this labour receives, relative to that obtainable in the US, are also influential in the migration decision (Arroyo, 1993).

The term ‘household strategy’ has two implications which may be contested. The first, which I will take up in the following section, is that it is the household as a whole which gains from the instrumentation of the strategy. This involves notions of the ‘collective

good’, which in fact may reflect particular interests that are not necessarily those of all household members (Wolf, 1990). The second is that a conscious decision has been taken by ‘the household’, or by its individual members acting collectively in the pursuit of common interests. Undeniably, household members do have some common interests (Jelin, 1991b). As I discussed in Chapter Two however, viewing the household as a monolithic unit ignores the individual interests and concerns of its constituent members. It also neglects power structures, both within the household and in society as a whole, which give some household members a greater capacity to act in their own interests and more authority over the actions of others (e.g. Thorne, 1982; Tilly and Scott, 1978). In this section I attempt to portray some of the influences on the household decision-making process, concentrating on gender and generation, and in doing so, demonstrate that the concept of a household strategy is too simplistic to encompass the complexity involved.

In much of the migration literature, men are seen as migrants and women as non-migrants (Buijs, 1993; Harbison, 1981; Melville, 1978; Pedraza, 1991; Recchini de Lattes, 1988). Reflecting this outlook, many studies have depicted Mexican migration as a common household strategy which relies on the seasonal migration of men to work in the US whilst their wives and children remain in Mexico (e.g. Baca and Bryan, 1985; Cardenas, nd; Lopez, 1986). Patriarchal gender relations embedded in normative practices are claimed to allow men and deny women the authority and resources to migrate independently. Men are traditionally expected to be financial providers, and one way of achieving this is through labour migration. Married women must accept their husbands’s migration decision, remain chaste, and stay behind to care for the children and carry out the daily activities of the domestic sphere (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1992). This ‘typical’ pattern of independent male migration was indeed found within the study communities: 72 per cent of male migrants who were married at the time of their migration went to the US alone, at least initially. There was also a widespread perception that this situation was the norm, echoing the traditional view of male and female roles as breadwinner and wife/mother respectively.

More men go [to the US], in fact the majority are men and the women stay here. The men go to earn money, the women stay to look after the house and the family.

(Francisco, a 73 year old gardener with seven children. He lived in Los Angeles fo r a year 25 years ago, working in agriculture and carpentry.

One o f his sons is in California, and he has a brother living in Los Angeles.)

In the ‘classic’ patriarchal Mexican family, the male household head is the ultimate source of authority (Bridges, 1980; Cubitt, 1988; Diaz-Guerrero, 1990; LeVine, 1993), and this male dominance can be reflected in the migration decision.

When he [respondent’s husband] first decided to go, and told me about it, I didn’t want him to go but I thought he knew best.

(Rosita, a 34 year old mother o f three, who works in a café. Her husband lived in Los Angeles and worked in agriculture in California fo r three years.)

Where the male household head’s decision is paramount, he is able to control female movement as well as to make his own migration decisions independently. José is a recurrent migrant whose wife indicated that she would have liked to have gone to the US to see it for herself, but complained that José never took her. He explained that;

I like going there to work but not to live. I’ve seen cases of families who go together and the wife and the children end up not wanting to come back to Mexico, and I wouldn’t want my children growing up there. (José, 40 year-old father o f three, who runs his own key-cutting business, and also does small electrical repair jobs. He has migrated to California several times, the last time two years ago and has always worked in seasonal agricultural jobs while in the US.)

Thus José unilaterally made the decision that his wife and family should not accompany him on his migrations, despite his wife’s wish to visit the US. She, in turn, although not happy with his decision, accepted it, deferring to his position as the male head of household. At the same time, it is interesting to note that José’s decision was conditioned by apprehensions about the possibility of losing his influence in the household if the family migrated to the US together. He was not prepared to take the chance that exposure to US life-styles would erode the current structures of power in his household, and so used his privileged place in the hierarchy of decision-making to prevent the migration of other household members and therefore foreclose the possibility of any such change. In other words, while at the moment José lays claim to absolute authority in his family, he recognises its potential fluidity in the face of external change. This indicates that

patriarchal power is not a fixed and unnegotiable given, but something which is contingent on both place and circumstance and recognised as such by those involved.

The two experiences outlined above are in line with the conventional portrayal of an active male migrant with a relatively passive, accepting wife who stays or migrates according to his wishes, but in other cases reality did not correspond to the stereotype. Even where the household patterns of authority were such that women were deprived of any real role in the migration decision, this did not mean that male domination was uncontested.

I didn’t want him to go. I preferred living in my puebloK I didn’t want to move to Guadalajara. I had lots of arguments with my husband about this, but he won out - he wanted me to live with his mother while he went to the US.

(Alicia, a 27 year old housewife and mother o f three, whose husband has migrated to the US several times.)

Although Alicia did eventually comply with her husband’s demands, she made her resistance known. It seems that the meek wife who goes along with her husband’s wishes unquestioningly is less common today (if indeed she ever were prevalent), and the more assertive woman who demands more say in the decision-making process, or who at least voices her opinion, is becoming more usual (or at least more often recognised). As a result of this, women may be seen to have an active role in both encouraging and resisting migration (Chaney, 1982).

He [respondent’s husband] sometimes suggests going back to work there, but I have always been against it. If he goes, we all go, because we can’t split up the family. And I don’t want to go.

(Marisol, a 45 year old mother o f five.)

Here, the tradition of male dominance is breached in order to maintain another cultural ideal - that of the close and united family. The importance of keeping the family together was emphasised by several people. Marisol’s husband apparently accepts that he does not have sole authority over his family, implying that the belief in family togetherness takes precedence over the ideology of male dominance. In this case however, the household heads’ belief in respecting the opinions and wishes of all household members has resulted in their household being divided through the migration of one of their daughters, who has recently married an American and moved to Michigan to live with her husband. Although Marisol says that she and her husband eventually gave their permission, this was