index of 2005 conference papers

I Came Because They Told Me My Son Was Lost: Migration of Wirrárika Women from Eastern Mexico to the Northern Border and the U.S.

Lourdes C. Pacheco Ladrón de Guevara*
Universidad Autónoma de Nayarit

translation review by Nancy Soles

The social place of migrating women

The division of labor in indigenous communities is organized around everyday life. Symbolically, the environment sets the stage: Terrestrial life is to be lived because there is another parallel life with which the first life corresponds and harmonizes. In addition, the system of authority in the indigenous communities is patriarchal in nature, as is the family and, subsequently, the division of power and labor falls along gender lines. In the case of migration, however, how the division of power and labor gets modified differs. Each gender has access to and uses migration in different ways. This becomes a resource having different meanings depending on gender and age.

The children of agricultural family groups who transport themselves to the pacific coast to work as hard laborers, learn about migration early in life. The migration becomes a firm practice where tasks are distributed according to gender and the work becomes an act of physical discipline for boys and girls.

Migrating indigenous women (and in general, migrating women) have been left with few prospects for being included in symbols pertaining to the cultural code. Even though the Wirrarika women, in their character of feminine force in the indigenous communities, who have participated in the creation process and who have been involved in the agricultural cycle, they are limited in their participation in cultural activities to only certain ceremonies. In addition, they are excluded from the civil and religious charges and they assume the destiny of the family of their husbands.

The Wirrarika women have a minimum of schooling, they are generally monolingual and they live within a system that allows polygamy. The system of authority they live in is patriarchal, sealed by the authority of the adult males of the group. In this system, the destiny of women is decided early on, since they are committed in marriage, early in their lives.

Why do women from Western Mexico migrate?

It is very possible that the generalized impoverishment of indigenous groups influences the proliferation within the indigenous families. The traditional conditions in which families flourish are altered by the impact of the economy. Therefore, as an initial consequence, it becomes impossible for the families to continue to survive from their temporary seasonal crops on the pacific coast or from the selling of their arts and crafts.

In the present article we are going to show some interviews made with Wirrarika women or migrant Huicholas from Salvador Allende Community, a community located at the entrance to the Sierra Madre Occidental

____________________

I am an indigenous woman that emigrated to the North

Zenaida says:

“I went to work to Tijuana, about four years ago. It was, more or less, on the year 2001. I went to work because with the job of knitting here, I didn’t make enough money. And I told myself, I am going to go over there to work, because things out there are easier, I am going to go over there, and I took my children with me, because I didn’t have any one here to take care of them ”. (Zenaida, 2005).

Angela relates.

“I went to Tijuana when I was fifteen because I got tired of taking care of my mother. She had surgery of the matrix and I had to take care of her during a whole year. I lost my school. I was studying secondary school when they took me out to take care of my mother. I had an uncle in Tijuana, so I went over there. When I arrived there I almost could not work in anything because I was too young, I was a minor. So the only thing I could work in was washing dishes, and doing those things. I didn’t have my papers from my school; they didn’t want to turn them back to me, the papers of the elementary school. When I would go to pick them up they would tell me that I had to finish the secondary school, but how, it was not possible for me”. (Angela 2004)

The reasons for the migration of women are connected to the situation of the family. Zenaida’s husband had gone to the North some time ago and had never come back. This caused Zenaida to remain here in the community, without any support for her living.

“When I left here I didn’t have a husband. No, I didn’t have any, since he had already gone away. He left to the other side of the border and he never came back. He left for Texas and he didn’t get back. I know that he is some place out there, but he doesn’t come back home anymore. He is out there”. (Zenaida, 2005).

In the case of Angela, the reason for her migration was due to the impossibility of making a living in her local community and, to a certain degree, the opportunity of following the path that other relatives had already walked. The arrival of Zenaida to the homes of uncles and relatives made it possible for her to make the trip there, and also provided her with social support in the target spot upon her arrival. The decision to migrate, both for Zenaida as well as for Angela, was made solely by them.

The help they get to migrate

In the three instances, migratory webs facilitated the migration independent from the family situation where these three indigenous women were from.

“Me, I’ve never gone to Tijuana. No, it was the first time for me. I went over there because…since my brothers and sisters are out there, because of the convenience that they were there, that’s why I left. They had already gone there before, they‘ve been there for about three years. When I arrived there I was living with them. They never invited me to go there; I went there all by myself.

I went because another girl invited me, a girl from the same colony (settlement), and her father paid the bus ticket and everything for us, because I didn’t have the money to go, they paid us the ticket and that’s why I left, and out there both of us rented a place and we stayed there, me and the other girl, the one I left with, and after a period of time, she went her way and I stayed with my family.

When I arrived there, I was, for a little while, with my brothers and sisters, for a month only, and after that, I didn’t. I stayed all by myself”. (Zenaida, 2005).

The hardest thing: to leave the children alone

Although the migratory webs facilitate migration in terms of departure and arrival, and in providing an initial support group, it is the domestic family that makes it possible to have a permanent stay in the target spot and to return home. For Angela and Zenaida, thanks to the support of the members of their family who took care of their children during their working time, it was possible for them to get a job and to stay in it.

“The little one was three or four years old. And the other one, the oldest, was 13, and this one 9, and the little one was 6 months old when I took him, but when I left I didn’t take the oldest one with me, I only took these two I left the oldest one with my mother”, (Zenaida 2005)

“I leave my children with my sister. I took one of my sisters to help me to take care of them while I was working. She takes care of all our children, the children of all my sisters while we go out to work. Now, I’m back home here because I have two children here with my mom.” (Angela 2004).

The migration of women with their children inspires the migration of their younger sisters. This occurs when women are without husbands because they have to join the job market. In the case of a married woman migrating with her husband, he is the one who enters the job market first while she performs the procreative tasks at home. It is not until the children are grown that these women are allowed to join the job market.

Why are the older children left in the community and the little ones taken with them? It seems that in these cases the solution would be the other way around, since the older children could eventually become workers, and, therefore help support their home in the target place. Nevertheless, it does not turn out like that because the contingent facts that occur in local communities allow the older children to get more advantages than if the leave the local community. The system of web hosting schools set out by the (SEP) Secretary for Public Education and the (CDI) National Committee for the Development of Indigenous Peoples grant scholarships of room and board to the indigenous children in school age. These scholarships cover, the elementary education, and in some instances, secondary education. Therefore, migrant indigenous women prefer to leave their school age children in the local community in order to continue to receive the benefits of the scholarship, which also provides food, rather than to take them to the migration target spot.

The mother of the migrants takes care of all her grandchildren of school age. This is a difficult task for grandmothers with many grandchildren.

“It is a heavy task for my mother. Yes, it is for her, because she has a lot of grandchildren. They were left here. And, here they are, all of them. Gee, about seven of them, I guess. They are a lot, they belong to the daughters that have left, they are out there, and their children are here. They leave them here while they are going to school. Right now they are at school. When they finish school, they are not here, they take them with them, or sometimes they send some money. Not always, of course, they don’t send money, when they don’t have a job”.

It is the mother of the migrants who receives the family remittances. With these remittances, the indigenous migrant women fulfill their obligations to provide for their children and, at the same time, help provide sustenance for the family group, since the remittances are used collectively, for every one of the members remaining in the local community.

“Here they stay with my mom. Yes, they remain here with my mom. And the money I send her is used to buy food and everything. Yes, for the food, although this is not just for them, but for each and everyone… I would send money here to my mom. Yes, I would send it every fifteen days, $ 500.00 or sometimes $ 1,000.00, for the children, because they were here.” (Zenaida, 2005)

The responsibility of childcare rests solely on the shoulders of the grandmother in her daughter’s absence. This task is not exempt from difficulties and while it is a way for grandmother to help her daughter, it is also a responsibility impossible to liberate from. Of course the final responsibility of the children rests on the mother, even though far away in Tijuana or some other place in the United States. With the existence of rural phones, to a certain degree mothers and daughters can locate each other quickly.

“Last Sunday I was notified that my son was lost and immediately I took a bus and set out to here. The child has already been found; he had gone following another child, older than him who knew how to go to many places, like Atonalisco, or even to Tepic. I want to take them with me right away, because I am going back today. I have a little boy that I can not leave here. My mom tells me to wait until he gets out of school since the school year is almost finishing. That way I will take him with his school papers and I can enroll him in school out there” (Angela, 2004).

When Angela’s mother notified her about her lost child, Angela asked the assembly plant, where she was working, for a permit so she could go look for her child. This kind of task could not have been assumed by her mother, because it would have entailed leaving her home, leaving alone the rest of the children under her responsibility. Consequently, activities performed by grandmothers are directly associated with the necessary activities concerning the children’s attendance at school, so that the children can continue to enjoy the benefits of the scholarship for food and other scholarships of the compensatory programs of the Federal Government. This circumstance obligates the older children to remain in the community until they are no longer beneficiaries of the social benefits.

In the case of Herminia de Jesus, the domestic group allows her to have a place when she arrives in the community, but it does not mean that she will have the backing to enter the job marked. What is certain, in this case, is that she can count on a place for her child where he will be able to be socialized in the commnity’s ethnic culture. Once the children reach the appropriate age to enter school, they are sent back to their original community, and at this time, the mother of the child is able to enter into the job market. The growing of their children liberates them from the responsibility of their daily care, because this responsibility is now passed on to the community of origin located in the Sierra Madre Occidental.

I am not going back to the community

When the indigenous women migrate to the northern border or into the United States, their intention is to get back to their community. However, it is not always possible to fulfill this intention for varying reasons. Among them we can point out the following:

1. The unchanged conditions that brought about the migration. When indigenous women get back to the community of origin, they find themselves without any possibility of earning a personal income, so, even though their coming back to the community had been necessary or even forced, within a short period of time they convince themselves about the impossibility to remain in the local community. This forces them, once more, to look for a way to set out on the road of migration.

“I think I am going back, one of these days, next Saturday to be exact, a cousin of mine is leaving. I’m thinking to go back again. I am going to take my children; I would only leave this one, the older one. He is in fourth grade and I want him to finish school. I’ll only take that one. He is in Kindergarten. When he is taller he will get back. They lose school if I take them. I took this one and he lost a year of school”. Zenaida 2005)

2. The possibility of building a family in the target spot. This occurs when women join partners with another migrant in the target spot. It gives them a place to build a new family whose interests are not always to get back to the woman’s community of origin. Even though the husband belongs to the same community, the new couple has the possibility to build a new family according to new patterns of behavior, different from the behavior held in the family and community of origin.

“I met my husband out there. He is from here, but we are not coming back. There is nothing to do here”. (Angela, 2004)

3. The building of one’s own patrimony in the target spot. Contrary to what occurs in the community of origin, in the communities of the target spot the indigenous migrant women have the opportunity to construct their own patrimony (chattels). This is possible by populating marginal zones with no public services. The lack of public services is not a deterrent since the migrant women come from localities that lack these basic services. Therefore, adaptation is relatively easy. This low cost housing allows the migrant women to save their income and thereby increase their own patrimony.

“In Tijuana, we got a house, later on, first, we didn’t have a house, but we built one, and we were there in the house and all my brothers and sisters joined us, and we didn’t pay any rent, neither water or electricity in the colony, because the colony was just forming out. The colony was called Nueva Esperanza. It is the one that went on fire and got all burned. (Zenaida, 2004)

4. Escaping from the assigned destiny. Entering into new forms of life allows women to escape from the ethnic situation which has not always been favorable to them. However, it depends on each indigenous group and on the conditions of the families of the migrant women. Since the migratory process tends to accelerate things, it is possible that this process had begun earlier. In the case of Zenaida and Angela, they had left the Warririka traditions from the time they left their community, because of their conversion to the Evangelical Church and consequently the abandonment of Warririka traditions.

5. Obtaining their own regular income. Obtaining their own income periodically, (paid weekly or every two weeks by the assembly plants), produces changes in the behavior and lifestyles of the women and in the way they spend or save their money. The assurance that the system of labor provides, allows the indigenous women to plan for their future, or to have a future. They can now have a schedule for purchasing food, or for night transportation and, above all, the assurance of an income. This regular permanent income facilitates the realization of plans of consumption, usually facilitates the forming of their own patrimony, facilitates the commitment to assume debts, (since they have the possibility to respond to them) and, above all, the possibility to influence decision making among the members of the domestic group. Obtaining an income allows them to have a new place within the social group.

6. The formation of new expectancies of group life. The set of conditions in which the migration of women take place leads to a positive validation, not only for them as individuals, but also for the whole group. The success of the indigenous migrant women, measured against the patterns of life in the place of origin and of the target spot, becomes a contributing factor for the migration of new members and even for the whole family.

“I am not coming back to this community. I am going to take my sister Maribel, now that she finishes her secondary school. We are out there, almost all of us, Zenaida, Simona, my brother and me. I tell my mom that there is no reason for her to stay here. When she goes out there to visit us, she comes back with a little bit of more gained weight, when she comes back here she loses weight and gets slimmer because she doesn’t have the same food”. (Angela, 2004)

The tragedies of migration

Indigenous women live in constant tragedy. This does not mean that it will become something normal in their lives. The sisters, Angela and Zenaida de la Cruz, had an accident in which they lost all their belongings that they had accumulated for a long period of time and even, a child of Angela, lost his life.

“The house went on fire. It consisted of an only one room made out carton and wood. I didn’t know it, at first, because during that time I was working by night, so when they notified us, it was too late, it was about 2:00 am in the morning, And this is what happened out there, a piece of land that was mine, was all burned up, and also the son of my sister Angela died all burned up. And a tragedy like this, it is better to suffer it in my own community. ‘Because everything that I owned was burned up, and to start all over again and to buy everything, it was very difficult. It was a matter of starting all over again… The little money that I got was gone with the fire, because I didn’t carry the money with me, I had it there, at home”. (Zenaida, 2005)

The loss of her whole patrimonial; the savings that were jealously kept and the death of her nephew led to the search for refuge in the community of origin. Zenaida got back to the local community where she tried to find a job as a cook in the restaurants near the Presa de Aguamilpa, or doing the knitting jobs for the art and crafts stores in the capital of the State or to find any kind of occupation. All her efforts to remain within her community of origin convinced her that even after having undergone the big tragedy in Tijuana, out there in that community she would have a better opportunity to start all over again. So she began plans to get on the road of migration again. The community of origin was closing the doors for her return, because if she returned, the impossibility of finding a job still existed and, therefore, the same impossibility to make a living.

“I was working there. That’s why I was working, I came back here, but now I want to go back again. Over here there is nothing, I tell you. With the knitting I don’t make a living. No, not really. On the other hand, it is okay here, here we are with our kids; they come and go to school and everything this way, it is okay, but ¿how are we going to live?... Yes, I want to go back. Back there, there is the job, also. Even more, when I resigned from my job they told me that if I go back, my job is there, and with the same salary. I have to go now. Yes, otherwise, if I don’t, they are going to forget about me, or the bosses might be changed, and they wouldn’t know me”. (Zenaida, 2005).

The contradiction which the indigenous women face between remaining in the community of origin and watching their children grow up or getting back to Tijuana where they can earn some money for this same purpose of the raising their children, is resolved in favor of the second option. It only takes a short period of time in the community of origin to be convinced of the impossibility of their returning back.

Indigenous working women are greatly exploited

The characteristics of the indigenous migrant women, especially given their availability to work at any kind of job, is an advantage in the place of arrival, and on the other hand, a disadvantage in their community of origin. In the arrival place, it is an advantage because getting a job in the assembly plant is considered a way to enter into a new lifestyle and, at the same time, it creates new opportunities for assuming life. Their situation of finding themselves alone, far from being stigmatized or pointed out, they become a desirable working labor force ready to work on any labor schedule since they do not have the limitations of conjugal life. On the other hand, in their community of origin, the availability of this working women force becomes a disadvantage, because they are jobless. With the impossibility to work in their community of origin they become labeled by masculine codes as women living alone This puts them at risk for becoming victims of the masculine violence from which they were attempting to escape when they migrated.

* Dr. Pacheco holds a Doctorate in social Sciences. Currently she works as a researcher in the Autonomous University of Nayarit. Miriam Torres and Xochitl Arreola have collaborated in the realization of the field work research.

Bibliography

Pacheco, Lourdes, 2005. Remesas en comunidades indígenas de Nayarit. Uso de remesas por mujeres indígenas” en Memoria del Quinto Congreso Balance y Perspectivas del Campo Mexicano de la Asociación Mexicana de Estudios Rurales, A. C., Universidad de Oaxaca, (CD).

Scout, Joan, 1996. “El género: una categoría útil para el análisis histórico”, en El género: la construcción cultural de la diferencia sexual, PUEG/Porrúa, México.

Interviews:  

De la Cruz, Ángela, 2004. Interview made to a migrant wirrarica woman, Salvador Allende Community, October 13.

De la Cruz, Zenaida, 2005. Interview made to a migrant wirrarica woman, Salvador Allende Community, March 13.

index of 2005 conference papers