Teorías de la Acción

In much of the migration literature, men are seen as migrants and women as non-migrants (Buijs, 1993; Melville, 1978; Pedraza, 1991; Recchini de Lattes, 1988). As I observed in Chapter Five, this opinion was also shared by some of the people who participated in the household survey, reflecting the traditional view of male and female roles.

Men go, and leave their wives here to look after the children.

(Serena, a 27 year-old single woman whose father was a recurrent migrant to California fo r 10 years, first working on farm s and later in a restaurant kitchen.)

Many of the migrants identified in the study communities however were in fact women. As can be seen from Table 6.1, this applied to all categories of migrants. In migrant households, more than a third of migrants in the US at the time of the survey, ie. current migrants, and almost half of those who had returned, were women. Similarly, amongst the children of respondent household heads who had experience of US migration, 38 per cent were female, and of the household heads who themselves had migrated to the US at some time in their lives, the same proportion, 38 per cent, were women.

Table 6.1 Sex of migrants

Sex Current migrants

(%) Return migrants (%) Migrant children (%) Migrant household heads (%) Female 34 44 38 38 Male 66 56 62 62 Total 100 100 100 100 n=35 n=43 n=95 n=47

Other recent work also indicates that women may be increasingly involved in the Mexican migration flow to the US (Carrillo and Hernandez, 1988; Cornelius, 1990a, 1991; Donato, 1993; Durand and Arias, 1993; Simon and DeLey, 1984; Vernez and Ronfeldt, 1991). Recognising women as migrants where they were previously invisible is important (Morokvasic, 1984; Pedraza, 1991). This does not necessarily mean that women’s participation in migration streams is new. In the Mexican context, women have a long tradition of migration to the US. For instance, the mass deportations from the US which took place during the Great Depression of the 1930s drew attention to the large numbers of female migrants (Durand and Massey, 1992). Another common view in the migration

literature is of men as the pioneering, leading migrants, and women as passive, dependent, following migrants (Buijs, 1993; Kossoudji and Ranney, 1984; Recchini de Lattes, 1988; Solarzano-Torres, 1987). It is argued here that this is an oversimplification. From this perspective, men are seen as economic labour migrants, while women are viewed as family migrants whose migrations are contingent on the movement of men. Again, this is an opinion with some currency in the study sites.

Men are more adventurous, and the women who go have the support of the men who go first.

(Elsa, a 48 year-old mother o f four, with three nephews living in the US.)

International migrations are thus frequently characterised as flows of male labour migrants, which may then generate a secondary flow of family migrants, largely women and children, who migrate for the purpose of family reunification (Bohning, 1974; Houston et a l, 1984). Motivations are therefore generally seen as either economic or familial (Skeldon, 1990). Assigning motivations to migration is inherently problematic. Firstly, many studies are based on aggregate data which does not contain information on individual migrants, and which equates conditions at the migrant destination (e.g. level of income) with the reason for migration (e.g. economic improvement) (Winchie and Garment, 1989). Secondly, motivations are often multiple, so that categorisation on the basis of ju st one reason can be reductive, and interpretations of priorities have to be made by both the respondent and the researcher in making these categorisations. Thirdly, there is the problem of post-rationalisation; return migrants, for instance, may be more likely to classify their response in terms of what occurred, rather than what initially motivated the migration. It is widely acknowledged that migrant behaviour does not always equate perfectly with intent (e.g. Bean et al., 19906). Categorisations of motivations thus:

represent the post hoc reflections of migrants about their prior behaviour. The methodological inadequacies of this approach for inferring pre-move decision-making are obvious. ‘Reasons for moving’ statements may reflect pre-move motives, but may also be rationalised proxy, as known and verbalised by the respondents, for the multiple motives that underlie migration decisions.

(De Jong and Fawcett, 1981:35-35)

Fourthly, further difficulties arise when respondents are not themselves migrants. This is particularly pertinent here, as current migrants were by definition in the US at the time of the survey in the Mexican study communities and hence information about them was collected from other members of the sending household. This further complicates the matter of classification by imposing yet another layer of interpretation and possible

misrepresentation. Moreover, the migrant may not have communicated all or even any of their intentions to the respondent, so that the respondent’s assessment of the motivation may be an interpretation not of what was said to them but of what they observed and deduced, which may have been still further removed from the real reason for the migration.

Taking into account these drawbacks, it may be argued that labelling migrants on the basis of their motivations is an unproductive exercise which obscures as much as it reveals. On the other hand, most migration studies do consider motivations, and since most are conducted in the host society, there is a case for contrasting the results of such research with findings from sending communities. Bearing in mind the reservations discussed above. Table 6.2 shows the motivations assigned to migrations from the study communities. The classification of motivations was based on answers to the open question, ‘Why did you (or s/he where the respondent was providing information about someone else) go to the US?’. The categories work, family and adventure were decided upon on the basis of these answers, although of course not all replies were clear-cut and some judgements had to be made on my part.

Table 6.2 Reasons for the migration of migrants aged 16+

Reason for migration Migrants (%)

Work 42 Family 28 Adventure 28 Other 2 Total 100 n=53

The predominance of work as a motive is clear, as is the subsidiary importance of family reasons. The latter were taken to include both migrating to Join family members and migrating to accompany family members. Such a sharp polarisation of the underlying reasons for migration overlooks a third cause of movement to the US. As can be seen from Table 6.2, ‘adventure’ accounts for 28 per cent of the migrations. By ‘adventure’ I refer to migrations initiated out of a desire to experience a different country, culture, and way of life, or out of a wish to do something new and adventurous.

When I went it was just for the adventure, and I liked some parts of it, but I missed my country, especially the food!

(Pedro, see page 135)

I do not wish to imply here that these migrants do not take up work - 85 per cent of the migrants whose motivation was classified as adventure were later employed in the US. Images of the US are a strong presence in Mexico, not least because of the media, and working in the US may in fact constitute the adventure itself. Target migration is generally assumed to consist of short-term migration to fulfil a specific economic goal, for example house or land purchase, but it has also been suggested that the ‘target’ or goal of such migration is not necessarily economic, but can be, for example, the experience of living abroad and seeing a different way of life (King et a l, 1983). Nor would I want to suggest that none of those who migrate for adventure live, at least for part of the duration of their migration, with family or relatives already in the US. What I am arguing is that while subsequent behaviour may not conform to, or only partially conform to, our conception of what a migration for adventure should entail, this does not detract from the validity of adventure as a motivation for migration.

Although the role of adventure and curiosity as an incentive to migrate is a neglected variable in the literature, it has been noted on occasion (e.g. Altamirano, 1995; Arroyo et al., 1991; Dwyer, 1994). In a study of rural migrant-sending areas in Jalisco, Jésus Arroyo et at. (1991) found that nine per cent of the first trips of migrants were said to have conocer y aventurar^ as the principal motive. In the same study, it was argued that migrants from areas only recently incorporated into the migration process were more likely than those from areas with a long history of migration to go to the US out of a sense of adventure. Following this reasoning, it may be expected that the motive of adventure would be more common amongst migrants from large urban centres, since these areas are relatively new sources of migrants. In the urban communities of this study, it seems that more than a quarter of migrations are initiated at least partially because of a desire for adventure.

It is important to recognise, when the desire to experience international travel, or to work abroad in a ‘year out’, is widely accepted in the ‘developed world’, that similar drives may

1 To get to know it and to have an adventure. The phrase conocer y aventurar was also used frequently by respondents in the study communities to describe the reason for migration.

also occur in the less advantaged ‘developing areas’. This is not to suggest that these processes are identical, or that young Mexican migrants from low-income areas operate in the same economic, social, or psychological contexts as privileged ‘W estern’ students or ‘travellers’. It should be noted however that the urge for new experiences is not one confined to the ‘developed world’, leaving the migrants of the ‘developing world’ to be viewed as passive prisoners of economic constraints or social obligations.

While Table 6.2 exposes adventure as a significant yet much ignored reason for migration, it conceals the difference which exists between male and female motives. Table 6.3 reveals the importance of family reasons for women migrants, and contrasts this with the predominance of work as a motivation for men.

Table 6.3 Reasons for migration; a comparison of female and male migrants aged 16+ Reason for migration Female migrants (%) Male migrants (%)

Work 25 52

Family 55 12

Adventure 20 36

Total 100 100

n=20 n=33

= 11.304 with 2 degrees of freedom