Latina Activists across Borders: Women’s Grassroots Organizing in Mexico and Texas [Paperback]

Milagros Peña (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 082233951X | ISBN-13: 978-0822339519 | Publication Date: April 4, 2007

Over the past twenty-five years, nongovernment organizations (NGOs) run by women and devoted to advancing women’s well-being have proliferated in Mexico and along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. In this sociological analysis of grassroots activism, Milagros Peña compares women’s NGOs in two regions—the state of Michoacán in central Mexico and the border region encompassing El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. In both Michoacán and the border region, women have organized to confront a variety of concerns, including domestic violence, the growing number of single women who are heads of households, and exploitive labor conditions. By comparing women’s activism in two distinct areas, Peña illuminates their different motivations, alliances, and organizational strategies in relation to local conditions and national and international activist networks.

Drawing on interviews with the leaders of more than two dozen women’s NGOs in Michoacán and El Paso/Ciudad Juárez, Peña examines the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and liberation theology on Latina activism, and she describes how activist affiliations increasingly cross ethnic, racial, and class lines. Women’s NGOs in Michoacán put an enormous amount of energy into preparations for the 1995 United Nations–sponsored World Conference on Women in Beijing, and they developed extensive activist networks as a result. As Peña demonstrates, activists in El Paso/Ciudad Juárez were less interested in the Beijing conference; they were intensely focused on issues related to immigration and to the murders and disappearances of scores of women in Ciudad Juárez. Ultimately, Peña’s study highlights the consciousness-raising work done by NGOs run by and for Mexican and Mexican American women: they encourage Latinas to connect their personal lives to the broader political, economic, social, and cultural issues affecting them.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Latina Activists across Borders is a significant contribution to research on gender and grassroots social movements. Milagros Peña’s analysis of the tensions between faith-based organizing, different types of feminisms, and class-centered ‘popular’ social movements challenges ahistorical paradigms of women’s grassroots activism. And her narratives of women self-consciously developing gendered senses of self are remarkable illustrations of the ways feminism and spiritual agency interact on both sides of the border.”—Denise A. Segura, coeditor of Women and Migration in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: A Reader

“Through powerful narratives and context, Milagros Peña finds a common and collective voice for Mexican, Mexican American, and Latina women. This work is groundbreaking because it provides a new vista by which to understand and assess the local and the global women’s movements from a feminist perspective. Peña tells a story that has never been told and tells it very well.”—Alberto López Pulido, author of The Sacred World of the Penitentes

From the Publisher

"Latina Activists across Borders is a significant contribution to research on gender and grassroots social movements. Milagros Peña's analysis of the tensions between faith-based organizing, different types of feminisms, and class-centered `popular' social movements challenges ahistorical paradigms of women's grassroots activism. And her narratives of women self-consciously developing gendered senses of self are remarkable illustrations of the ways feminism and spiritual agency interact on both sides of the border."--Denise A. Segura, coeditor of Women and Migration in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: A Reader

"Through powerful narratives and context, Milagros Peña finds a common and collective voice for Mexican, Mexican American, and Latina women. This work is groundbreaking because it provides a new vista by which to understand and assess the local and the global women's movements from a feminist perspective. Peña tells a story that has never been told and tells it very well."--Alberto López Pulido, author of The Sacred World of the Penitentes --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books (April 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082233951X
• ISBN-13: 978-0822339519
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #960,390 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars theory meets practice, July 22, 2007

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Elevate Difference "Elevate Difference" (worldwide) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Latina Activists across Borders: Women’s Grassroots Organizing in Mexico and Texas (Paperback)

Milagros Pena's book, Latina Activists across Borders, is a significant attempt at recording the oral histories of women responsible for developing and running NGOs (non governmental organizations) in Mexico and the border cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez. This particular kind of work is necessary to further understand how women organize as activists outside of more privileged academic, feminist settings.

As a feminist who chose to leave the academy, I am often baffled by how women comfortably practice their feminist values outside the sanctuary of women's studies departments and women's centers on college campuses. In many ways, practicing feminism outside of the ivory tower takes guts, particularly in those parts of the U.S. (and elsewhere) that insist men and women practice and participate in traditional gender roles. Pena's book provides some insight on how women outside of the academy practice feminist values in what could be considered hyper-patriarchal locations.

The notion of taking "baby steps" has a very real impact in places where feminist ideas and beliefs are considered foreign, feared or maligned. I was impressed by one interviewee from Michoacan when she proclaimed what an achievement it was for women to meet (outside of the home) to discuss feminist-informed initiatives. Of course, there are places in the U.S., other than the border, where minute actions would also be considered quite significant--the small, southern town where I live, for example.

The importance of networking between NGOs, even those with a religious impetus, is vital for the survival of these grassroots efforts. It is important to note, that the organizers interviewed in Mexico saw a natural relationship between the goals of organizations with religious roots and those with more feminist ones. In other words, they were not mutually exclusive. Both types of organizations worked to help those in need. Yet, many of the women in Mexico were careful about labeling their efforts feminist since local reactions to preconceived, reduced views of what feminism entails (primarily, those who reduce it to "man hating," and those with religious reasons for resisting feminism) are rather entrenched. Instead, these organizers have labeled their activism as part of a "woman's movement" to help soften the edges of public misperceptions of feminism. While this magical renaming no doubt helps to get women in the door that need the services and programming these NGOs provide, it also has the potential to further entrench the idea that feminism is something to be feared, denigrated and resisted.

The book is worth reading for those who work in NGOs, study feminist theory or consider themselves feminists. The tone is academic, as is the language, but the excerpts from the transcripts are quite interesting and warmer in tone than the whole of the book. There are varied ways of practicing feminism and this book underscores those multiple practices as being necessary for surviving a patriarchal and capitalist reality.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timely, February 19, 2010

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Kai Calil Toshumba - See all my reviews
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