Making Ends Meet: Income-Generating Strategies Among Mexican Immigrants (New Americans (LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC).) (New Americans (Lfb Scholarly Publishing Llc).)

Using ethnographic interviews, Sarmiento studies how globalization affects ordinary Mexican American immigrants, shaping their families and daily lives. Even as families are divided by borders, they try to remain cohesive units. Globalization challenges immigrants to restructure their families, gender roles, and even their political boundaries. The unstable working conditions of immigrant men are decisive for the form in which families organize their income-generating strategies. However, women are key to the family economy in that they subsidize low wages through paid and unpaid work on both sides of the border. Analyzing how Mexican immigrants to the United States use migration as a survival and income-generating strategy, Sarmiento (anthropology and Chicano/Latino studies, U. of California at Irvine) focuses on Tzintzuntzeno families on both sides of the border. She looks at characteristics of employment and reproduction before and after migration and discusses the social mechanisms between communities sending and receiving family income. She emphasizes the role of women in the migratory experience, illustrating the changing nature of employment and the active role women play in families' economic strategies. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR Socorro Torres Sarmiento. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 217-231) And Index.