Border Identifications: Narratives of Religion, Gender, and Class on the U.S.-Mexico Border (Inter-America Series) 0292702914, 0292705832, 9780292705838, 9780292702912, 9780292797130

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BORDER IDENTIFICATIONS

Inter-America Series Edited by Duncan Earle, Howard Campbell, and John Peterson

In the new “Inter-American” epoch to come, our borderland zones may expand well past the confines of geopolitical lines. Social knowledge of these dynamic interfaces offers rich insights into the pressing and complex issues that affect both the borderlands and beyond. The Inter-America Series comprises a wide interdisciplinary range of cutting-edge books that explicitly or implicitly enlist border issues to discuss larger concepts, perspectives, and theories from the “borderland” vantage and will be appropriate for the classroom, the library, and the wider reading public.

University of Texas Press

AUSTIN

N A R R AT I V E S

Border Identifications

OF RELIGION,

GENDER,

AND CLASS

ON THE

U. S . - M E X I C O

BORDER

PA B L O V I L A

Copyright © 2005 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2005 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819. ⬁ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements 䊊 of ANSI /NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper). Material in Chapter 7 reprinted from Social Science Journal, vol. 40, Pablo Vila, “Processes of Identification on the U.S.-Mexico Border,” pp. 607– 625, Copyright 2003, with permission from Elsevier. Material in Chapter 3 reprinted by permission of the University of Minnesota Press from Pablo Vila, “Gender and the Overlapping of Region, Nation, and Ethnicity on the U.S.-Mexico Border,” in Ethnography at the Border, edited by Pablo Vila (University of Minnesota Press, 2003), pp. 73 –104. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Vila, Pablo, date. Border identifications : narratives of religion, gender, and class on the U.S.-Mexico border / Pablo Vila. p. cm.— (Inter-America series) Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “An ethnography that explores the role of religion, gender, and class in the formation of social identity on both sides of the U.S.Mexico border. A continuation of the study Vila began in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders”—Provided by publisher. ISBN 0-292-70291-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-292-70583-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Group identity—Mexico—Ciudad Juárez. 2. Group identity— Texas—El Paso. 3. Group identity—Mexican-American Border Region. 4. Ciudad Juárez (Mexico)—Social conditions. 5. El Paso (Tex.)—Social conditions. 6. Mexican-American Border Region— Social conditions. I. Title. II. Series. HN120.C48C538 2005 305⬘.0972⬘1—dc22 2004022257

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter 1 CATHOLICISM AND MEXICANNESS ON THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER 21 Chapter 2 MEXICAN AND MEXICAN AMERICAN PROTESTANTS 57 Chapter 3 REGIONALIZED GENDER NARRATIVES ON THE MEXICAN SIDE OF THE BORDER 111 Chapter 4 GENDER, NATIONALITY, AND ETHNICITY ON THE AMERICAN SIDE OF THE BORDER 143 Chapter 5 THE PROBLEMATIC CLASS DISCOURSE ON THE BORDER: THE MEXICAN SIDE 169 Chapter 6 THE PROBLEMATIC CLASS DISCOURSE ON THE BORDER: THE AMERICAN SIDE 191 Chapter 7 CONCLUSIONS 229 NOTES 259 BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX 293

CONTENTS

283

THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK

1. ALTAR SURROUNDED BY HANGING CLOTHES, CIUDAD JUÁREZ 33 2. CONCORDIA CEMETERY, EL PASO

39

3. TEPEYAC CEMETERY, CIUDAD JUÁREZ

40

4. POOR PROTESTANT CHURCH IN JUÁREZ 54 5. CANTINAS AND BARS IN DOWNTOWN CIUDAD JUÁREZ 62 6. SEX WORKERS IN A JUÁREZ BAR

63

7. MAN READING A MAGAZINE AND DRINKING A SODA AT HIS HOME BAR 80 8. YOUNG WOMAN CELEBRATING HER BIRTHDAY 82 9. SOME MEN PLAYING CARDS ON A SIDEWALK IN CIUDAD JUÁREZ 83 10. A DISORDERLY BEDROOM, EL PASO 86 11. UNTIDY KITCHEN, CIUDAD JUÁREZ 88 12. CHILD CELEBRATING HIS BIRTHDAY AND TALKING OVER THE TELEPHONE 95 13. POOR CHILDREN IN A POPULAR COLONIA IN CIUDAD JUÁREZ 96 14. GIRL LEARNING HOW TO RIDE A BIKE 97 15. MAN WASHING DISHES, CIUDAD JUÁREZ 164 16. STREET IN THE COLONIA LA PERLA, CIUDAD JUÁREZ 178

PHOTOGR APHS

17. MIDDLE-CLASS NEIGHBORHOOD, CIUDAD JUÁREZ 18. BLACK BRIDGE, EL PASO

185

195

19. TAXI STAND, CIUDAD JUÁREZ 197 20. OUTHOUSE IN CIUDAD JUÁREZ 200 21. HUT AND MOBILE HOME IN THE COLONIA AMERICA, EL PASO 210 22. MANSION, CIUDAD JUÁREZ 23. DENTISTS, CIUDAD JUÁREZ

213 218

24. APARTMENTS FOR RENT, CIUDAD JUÁREZ

220

25. MURAL IN SEGUNDO BARRIO, EL PASO 227

PHOTOGR APHS

viii

This book has been made possible by the help of numerous people. Without the enthusiastic participation of the hundreds of interviewees who participated in the group discussions about the photographs, completing this book would have been inconceivable. Without their agreeing to share with me their narratives about themselves, none of this endeavor would have been possible. I would also like to thank the agencies that supported, in different capacities, my research: the Social Science Research Council, the Population Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin, the Institute of Latin American Studies of the University of Texas at Austin, the Center for Inter American and Border Studies of the University of Texas at El Paso, the University Research Institute and the Liberal Arts Faculty Development Grant of the University of Texas at El Paso, the Sociology and Anthropology department of the University of Texas at El Paso, the Division of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas–San Antonio, the Seminario de Estudios de la Cultura in Mexico City, the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas–San Antonio, the Faculty Research Award of the University of Texas at San Antonio, and especially El Colegio de la Frontera Norte. Several persons have played particularly important roles while this book was being written. Very special thanks go to Angela Escajeda and Pablo Luna for their outstanding assistance during the initial fieldwork and, after that, for their critical reading of my drafts, and to Sherry Jewel for her incredible help with the translation of most of the interviews from Spanish to English. Also important were other students who kindly helped me with other translations: Bibiano Maldonado, Eduardo Acosta, Karina Gerdau-Radonic, Damariz Macías, Adrianna Sáenz, Ivan Cervantes, Mark Alvarado, and James Steger. Debbie Nathan, as usual, performed miracles with my English, but this time she was helped by Kristina Larner and James Steger. My advisers in Austin (Bryan Roberts, Henry Selby, and Harley Browning) also deserve a very special acknowledgment, because they also were kind enough to go through the different versions of this book and always provide very good advice. Eduardo Barrera and John Peterson advanced very important points that, I am sure, improved very much the final product of my research.

AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S

The book was also improved by my participation in a two-year seminar about the border organized by Víctor Zúñiga whose participants were Norma Alarcón, Jorge Arditti, Victoria Novelo, Laura Velasco, Olivia Ruiz, and Luis García. My thanks to all of them for their comments and criticisms. Other people have read and criticized different chapters of this book: Howard Campbell, John Peterson, Cheryl Howard, Debbie Nathan, George Yúdice, Juan Flores, Jean Franco, Arlene Dávila, Bryan Roberts, Tim Dunn, David Spener, Melissa Wright, Sarah Hill, Vicky Meyer, Eddie Telles, Leslie Salzinger, Pablo Semán, Alejandro Grimson, Julia Chindemi, José García, Elea Aguirre, Patricia Fernández de Castro, Eduardo Archetti, Samuel Schmidt, Eduardo Barrera, and Elizabeth Jelín. All of them made insightful comments that I really appreciate. The students and participants of two seminars I taught at Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez in October 2002 were particularly insightful in criticizing the initial manuscript of this book. Theresa May, assistant director and editor-in-chief at the University of Texas Press, was very helpful in all the processes that were necessary to the completion of this book. I want to thank as well those people who, with their love, friendship, and support, made this book possible. First, I must mention my children, Juanchi, Paloma, and Malena. Second, my friends Tony and Alexandra Alfau, Oscar Riccardi, Nora Agostini, Enrique Figueroa, Mónica Maselli, Fernando Nachón, Lucas Rubinich, Pablo Semán, Luis Tulli, Edgardo Díaz, Rosa Cabezas-Gil, Leslie Salzinger, Juan Silva, María Cristina Bacchetta, Ramón Pelinski, Héctor Ramírez, Alain and Daglind Sonolet, and Fanny and Norberto Szmidt. The kindness, encouragement, help, and, above all, resilience of my wife, Julia Chindemi, were also invaluable in my life and to finishing this book.

AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S

x

In my previous book in the Inter-America series, Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, I tried to show how the categories and interpellations, the metaphors, and the narratives people use to address themselves and the “others” on the border have a basically regional logic in Juárez and an ethnic/racial one in El Paso (while national logics work on both sides of the border). Of course, I also wanted to show how the peculiar circumstances of the border “ask” people (above all, those of Mexican descent in the American side) to mix, in variable ways, those logics all the time. In this second book I will show how the regional, ethnic, and national logics behind interpellations, metaphors, and narratives are intricately intertwined with other possible identity anchors. I will concentrate on how religion, gender, and class subject positions are made meaningful in the border context when understood, as many people in the area do, through the particular lenses of region, ethnicity, and nation.1 If, as Kristeva (1973) points out, texts derive their meanings from other texts, in a continual interplay of readings and interpretations, this book is much more intertextual than others, because in its pages I make continuous references to the first book of the series, Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. However, that does not mean that this book cannot stand on its own and that it is mandatory to read the first volume to understand this second. On the contrary, I think that the narratives of religion, gender, and class I discuss here can be analyzed and comprehended in their own terms, in other words, as the particular discursive practices border actors enact to understand who they are in an area where particular discourses of region, ethnicity, race, and nationality are hegemonic. In this book, I rely heavily on the literature that claims that a cumulative effect of sorts emerges from the diverse identities we bear in our everyday lives. As Avtar Brah (1992, p. 131) points out for the specific case of women: Within . . . structures of social relations we do not exist simply as women but as differentiated categories such as working-class women, peasant women, migrant women. Each description references a specificity of social condition. And real lives are forged out of a complex articulation of these dimensions . . . in different womanhoods the noun is only

INTRODUCTION

meaningful—indeed only exists—with reference to a fusion of adjectives which symbolize particular historical trajectories, material circumstances and cultural experiences.

Thus, the real lives of residents of Ciudad Juárez (Juarenses) and El Pasoans are forged out of the complex articulation of racial, ethnic, regional, national, religious, gender, sexual orientation, age, and class, among other identity categories. Consequently, in this second book I concentrate on those identity categories the people I interviewed discussed the most in the meetings I had with them (i.e., I try to show how religion, gender, and class subject positions are made meaningful in the border context when combined with such categories as region, race, ethnicity, and nation). At the same time, however, I also try to explain why in some particular cases (Mexican and Mexican American Protestants more prominently, class subjects in other cases) those regional, ethnic, and national categories (and the border itself ) almost completely disappear. Commenting on the work of Laclau and Mouffe, Torfing (1999, pp. 150 –151) claims that there are many possible points of identification for the subject. A single subject may identify with many different things and may thus occupy many different “subject positions.” A subjectivated individual is thus a masquerading void. There might be inconsistencies and irresolvable contradictions between the different identifications of the subject; however, these aporias might be perfectly acceptable to the subject. After all, everybody is a little schizophrenic. Nevertheless, a minimal consistency or accommodation between different subject positions is brought about by hegemonic strategies which aim to articulate different struggles and identities around a nodal point.

In my research I have found diverse possibilities working in the process of identification of different subjects. On one hand, it was somewhat but not totally uncommon to hear interviewees advancing completely contradictory identity claims. Much more common, however, was to find interviewees who were looking for a “minimal consistency or accommodation between different subject positions” and used the hegemonic discourses of the region to do so, because that is precisely one of the most important reasons such discourses are hegemonic. In this sense, when the nodal point advanced by one of the most successful Mexican hegemonic discourses, i.e., “Southern Mexicans equal laziness, backwardness, and Indianness” was accepted by many of the people B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

2

I interviewed, a more or less coherent regional, religious, gender, and class identification was advanced by many of them. The narrative plots “Southerners are lazy,” “Southerners are more traditionally Catholic,” “Southerners are less modern in gender terms,” and “Southerners are not middle-class but blue-collar workers” are linked to such a nodal point and, as we saw in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders and we will see in the different chapters of this book, all these narrative plots are quite widespread in the region. Something similar occurs on the American side with the nodal point “Mexicans equal poverty.” While complete inconsistency was present but rare, total consistency was difficult to find as well. We will see in Chapter 2 how the Mexican Pentecostal discourse qualifies as one that conveys much more consistency in the process of identification than others. (For a definition of Pentecostals and other religious groups, see Chapter 2, note 1.) It will become clear that such consistency is purchased at the price of reducing the play of differences and extending the systems of equivalence to extremes other discourses do not reach. As Nagata (2001, p. 494) points out, “The fundamentalist mind-set is shown in refusal to find common ground or compromise, seeking differences rather than shared interest with others.” Therefore, in most of the narratives advanced by the people I interviewed, the hegemonic regional, ethnic, racial, and national discourses I presented in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders functioned as the nodal points around which many people organized their religious, gender, and class identities. However, there were a couple of instances in which such organizational principles did not work as expected and thus caught my attention. These cases are presented in detail in this book in order to shed light on the complicated process of hegemony construction, because they are cases of “failed” hegemonic attempts. Thus, Mexican Pentecostal narrative identities and some of the narratives advanced by poor Anglos in my sample go against the grain, because people attuned to those discourses look for other types of nodal points to articulate their identities meaningfully. It is not by chance that precisely those types of narrative identities are the ones that resist the hegemonizing effects of the regional, ethnic, racial, and national discourses so widespread on the area. This is so because, from the point of view of some of the most important narrative plots I found on the region, Mexican Protestants and poor Anglos are not possible characters in the narratives of people who organize their identities around the plots that state that “in order to be a Mexican you have to be a Catholic” and that “all poverty is Mexican.” Therefore, Mexican Protestants I N T RO D U C T I O N

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and poor Anglos are “unexpected” characters that do not fit in the narratives of most of the people I interviewed, and for that reason I was intrigued by the way people who do not exist, according to the hegemonic discourses, still managed to construct a valued narrative identity.2 This issue does not preclude the fact that some of the unexpected characters are highly valued by some particular discursive formations (ones that could become hegemonic over time), which want to articulate them to other particular floating signifiers (like class, for instance) through distinctive nodal points. I am referring here to what Hernández Hernández (1996, p. 125) has discovered in Ciudad Juárez, that is, how some maquiladora firms prefer to hire workers who are Protestant instead of those who are Catholic. Behind this practice we can easily discover the working of a particular discursive formation that links a particular class identity (that of a “worker”), with a particular moral stance (a “good” worker), and a peculiar religious identity (that of being Protestant and supposedly the performer of the Protestant work ethic). My approach to the border is distinct from other approaches in several respects. As I stress extensively in Ethnography at the Border (2003), my research differs in many ways from those authors who have described the U.S.-Mexico border using the metaphors “border crossing,” “hybrids,” and the like (Rosaldo 1989; Anzaldúa 1987; García Canclini 1990; Hicks 1991; Calderón and Saldívar 1991; Saldívar 1997; GómezPeña 1988, 1991; Harrison and Montoya 1998). As I explain in the conclusion of that book, I arrived in El Paso in 1991 with the “mission” of validating with an ethnographic work the ideas of García Canclini, Anzaldúa, and Rosaldo (hybridity, border crossing, third country, and the like)—ideas that mostly were developed within a literary criticism framework, not an ethnographic one. Yet as soon as I launched my fieldwork, I discovered that these ideas only partially address the much more complex process of identity construction in the area, above all because those authors tend to homogenize the border, as if there were only one border identity, border culture, or process of hybridization. I think, instead, that the reality of the border (at least the one where I did my ethnographic research for more than seven years, El Paso–Ciudad Juárez) goes well beyond that consecrated figure of border studies, the border crosser. In this regard, my research on border identities wants to avoid the border studies pitfalls I theoretically identify in Ethnography at the Border and ethnographically disclaim in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders and in this book. That is, the confusion of the American side of the border with the border itself (a confusion that completely obliterates B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

4

the Mexican side of the border from the picture), the essentialization of the cultures that meet in the border encounter, the failure to pursue the theoretical possibility that fragmentation of experience can lead to reinforcement of borders instead of an invitation to cross them, and the tendency to confuse the sharing of a culture with the sharing of an identity (so that the use of the “third country” metaphor promotes the idea that Fronterizo Mexicans and Mexican Americans construct their social and cultural identities in very similar ways). Interestingly enough, the hegemonic academic posture on the Mexican side of the border when I started my fieldwork early in the 1990s claimed exactly the opposite of the hegemonic voice of the U.S. border studies approach. That is, Mexican Fronterizos/as were not border crossers, but they represented the epitome of traditional Mexican culture and identity. Clearly influenced by what was occurring in the late 1980s and early 1990s (the passage of NAFTA and the possible deterioration of Mexican culture and identity due to Mexico’s alliance with the giant to the North), there was a very interesting academic discussion about the existence (or lack) of a particular “border culture” on the U.S.-Mexico frontier. That discussion was commonly linked to a broader debate about mexicanidad [Mexicanness] and cultural and social identities on the border. At the beginning of the 1990s, the sides were firmly established, above all on the latter topic. Some Mexican scholars argued that the process of transculturation was very strong on the U.S.-Mexico border (the position assumed by the American border studies approach), but they considered this feature a very negative one instead of praising it as did those in border studies. According to the Mexican scholars supporting this position, the results of this transculturation process were not only the weakening of the national Mexican identity in the region but also the presence of anomie and social disorganization. The most important academicians voicing this position were Carlos Monsiváis (1978) early on—he changed his position by the mid-1990s—and Ma. Luisa Rodríguez Sala (1985). Monsiváis, for instance, claimed that there was no such thing as a “border identity” (1978, p. 66): “Thus Mexican culture along the border comes to represent, in general terms, a loss of identity (identity here meaning a political and cultural force), the dubious mixture of two national life-styles (each at its worst), the deification of technology, and a craze for the new.” As we can see, what Monsiváis is proposing is a decadent version of the hybrid so praised by the American border studies metaphor of the “border crosser.” Monsiváis’ (1981, p. 19) description I N T RO D U C T I O N

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of the border as “el resumidero de un país” [the garbage disposal of a country] is strong enough to summarize his early ideas about culture and identity on the border. Other researchers argued, not only that mexicanidad existed on the border, but also that the Mexican national identification was stronger there than in other Mexican regions. In other words, these scholars were talking about border reinforcers instead of border crossers as being the most important border actors. According to Bustamante (1988, p. 9; see also Paredes 1978 and Lozano Rendón 1990): . . . in the northern frontier of Mexico the difficulty [in defining what national culture is] . . . is secondary, because the national culture is defined in contrast with the cultural otherness of the foreigners with whom people cohabit with and interact with on a daily basis. Culturally speaking, in the northern frontier Mexican is anything that can be identified as Mexican [lo mexicano] is anything that is not identified as American [lo gringo]. (my translation)

The goal of my own research on the border was neither to exemplify with a geographical region what the theorists of postmodernization were advancing in their highly abstract writings (the sin of most American border studies practitioners), nor to ease Mexican anxieties about the possible pernicious cultural and identitarian effects of NAFTA; rather, it was to investigate the complex processes of identification that, in some way or another, actually organize the behavior of border actors in the Ciudad Juárez–El Paso area. In that regard, I did not presuppose that either mexicanidad or hybridity was the main organizer of the social practices on the border. What I did was to allow the border actors to advance their own narratives about the complex identities that, in their everyday practices, they believed they had. In the first two chapters of the book I address the interesting way religious identities intertwine with region, nation, ethnicity, and race in a process where several thematic plots work to center some narrative identities on the border. In my analysis of religion on the border, I try to avoid a common trap in the sociology of religion, i.e., the failure to acknowledge that religious motivations have a force and existence independent of more pragmatic worldly interests. The dominant thrust in the sociology of religion has been to emphasize what have come to be known as the latent functions of religion. The emphasis has usually been on the often unintended ways in which religious commitment has met various psychological, emotional, social, political, and material needs of its adherents. However, in pursuing this traditional sociological analysis, we would do B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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well to pay heed to the advice of Bryan Wilson not to neglect the manifest function of religion. (Bowen 1996, p. 17)

In this sense, I consider religion to be one of the most important subject positions people have to deal with on the border in order to construct a more or less coherent self. If, in general, such a religious identification is traversed by different discourses about the deity, in the particular case of Mexican Catholics most of the narratives deal with the differences people perceive in the way distinct types of Mexicans practice the same religious faith. In the case of Mexican Protestants, however, most of the religious discourses concentrate on the issue of salvation. From a theoretical point of view, the chapters on religion also show, once more, the centrality of narratives in the construction of identity. As Booth (1995, p. 370) points out: Ask fundamentalists to explain their belief, and they’ll almost always tell you a story of a conversion experience, either their own or someone else’s, or a story of the founding of the world or the establishment of the one true church—a story with a beginning, middle, and end . . . And when you ask what precisely they believe in, having experienced that story, they tell you other stories: stories of how the world came to be, or of how their own place in it came to be. Just like those we do not call fundamentalists, they feel compelled to explain their beliefs by telling a story that they find makes sense not just of their personal lives but of the entire scheme of things in which those lives are led. The stories enfold the believer as in a total nurturing medium; they become the true account of nature itself.

We will find in those chapters different stories that both Protestants and Catholics advance to try to understand who they are and who the “others” are. As has happened in most Latin American societies, Catholicism and national identity (in this particular case, Mexicanness) have become highly intertwined. Thus, it is a widely shared, commonsense assumption on the border that being a Mexican and being a Catholic are almost synonymous. In the case of Mexican identity, the fusion between a particular religion, Catholicism, and nationality was primarily formed around the figure of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and here is where Protestantism clearly becomes the “other” for most Mexicans, because from a Catholic/Mexican point of view, the Evangelical tradition of condemning the worship of the Virgin cannot be considered truly Mexican. Because Catholicism and Mexicanness are intertwined, the process of identity construction among Mexican Protestants is, to say the least, I N T RO D U C T I O N

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complicated. Not only must they construct their Mexicanness without the usual help of the Catholic markers of identity that most Mexicans use, but they also have to prove to the Catholic “other” that they still deserve to be called Mexican. In Chapter 1, I show how the “Juarenses are less Catholic than Southern Mexicans” and “Mexican Americans are less Catholic than Mexican nationals” discourses on the border function as narrative plots around which many border inhabitants construct their “coherent” identities. I propose in this chapter that while Catholic symbols can function as possible spaces for constructing sameness, many Mexicans and Mexican Americans also use them to construct the “other” discursively. In this regard, the “other” for many Mexican Catholics consists, not only of Mexican Protestants who do not share their same faith, but also of Mexican Catholics from other regions or countries, whom they consider less Catholic/Mexican than themselves. Accordingly, many interviewees argued that while Mexicans generally share a faith centered in the Catholic Church, they differ in how they practice their faith; and this difference is linked to how attached they are to traditional Mexican culture; for many people, being more Catholic is equated with being more Mexican. On the Mexican side of the border, various Catholic practices are used to stress differences between Southern Mexicans and Fronterizas/ os. Many of the former consider the latter less traditionally Catholic than themselves, while many Fronterizos/as think that the real departure from Catholic practices is exercised by Mexican Americans. On the U.S. side of the border, many Catholic Mexican Americans also use religion to emphasize the difference between themselves and Mexican nationals, Mexican American Protestants, and Anglos. They acknowledge that they practice a different kind of Catholicism from that in Mexico. But they also proudly point out that they nevertheless are Catholics (and, by default, deserve to be called Mexicans). The real non-Catholics (and non-Mexicans), they say, are not themselves but Anglos and those Mexican Americans who have converted to Protestantism. Therefore, for many of the Mexicans I interviewed in the border context, the Protestants (either of Mexican origin or Anglos) function as the “others.” This last issue brings about the interesting problem that many people of Mexican descent who identify themselves as Protestants face on the border, where the discourse (and the narrative identities constructed around such a discourse) that claims that “being Mexican means being Catholic” is widespread. This issue is the topic of B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Chapter 2, where I deal with the “unexpected” character of Mexican Protestantism. In this chapter I show how, in some cases, Mexican Protestants do not differ whatsoever from their Catholic counterparts in their antiSouthern, anti-Mexican, and anti-American stances, while in other circumstances they seem to assume a much more pious stance. In this regard I found self-defined Mexican Christians who utilized very similar narrative arguments to differentiate themselves from the “others” when those others were defined in regional and national terms on the Mexican side of the border, or in ethnic and national terms when the interviewees constructed their identities on the American side of the international divide. However, a particular feature of the narrative identities of this type of interviewees (quite different from other “antiSoutherner” stances I encountered in Juárez) was its peculiar religious overtones. Therefore, if as I show in the chapter on Mexican Catholics, there is a clear religious innuendo that marks the differences between Southern Mexicans and Fronterizas/os (Southerners are more “traditional” or “fanatical,” while Fronterizos/as are more “modern,” but both accept the same religion and eventually will be saved if they follow what their common faith prescribes), the religious overtone among many Mexican Protestants is, first, much more pronounced, and, second, centers around a very different set of distinctions from the ones that were prominent among Mexican Catholics. Some of these Mexican Protestant interviewees have a very well developed plot to explain why, in some respects, people in Northern Mexico and in the United States are much better prepared to be part of the “saved ones” than people in Southern and Central Mexico. At the same time, most of the Mexican or Mexican American Protestants I interviewed were keenly aware of the “unexpected” character of their religious identity. However, these interviewees did not consider themselves to be less Mexican because they were no longer Catholics. How can these interviewees claim that they are still Mexicans while abandoning some of the most cherished Mexican (Catholic) traditions? I show in Chapter 2 how in the construction of their particular narrative identities of self-defined Mexican Christians they first detach their religious identity from their national one, and then they reattach their national identity to the most important secular elements of it. Many Mexican Protestant interviewees (above all, Pentecostals on both sides of the border) construct a valued identity of Mexicans who are not Catholics in which, not by chance, the border itself acquires a new meaning. For some of the Mexican Protestants I interviewed, the I N T RO D U C T I O N

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most important border is not the geographical one that separates Mexico from the United States, or the regional one that separates Southerners from Fronterizas/os, or the intraethnic one that separates Mexican nationals from Mexican Americans, but the religious border that separates the “saved” ones from the “condemned” ones. The most important source of their narrative identities (the “sources of the self,” according to Taylor or Holstein and Gubrium) is the Bible, which is inerrant, rather than the different artifacts that popular culture (which can be in error) provides them to peruse on the topic. Simultaneously, the border that appears in many comments in the chapter is an internal one, not an external, geographical one, and the people to whom one has to answer questions are not the customs officials or the Border Patrol agents who habitually question Mexican nationals about the reasons for their crossing the international frontier, but God. With this crucial change in their understanding of the border between themselves and the “others,” many self-defined Christian interviewees (born-again or not) bring about an entire array of new narrative plots that were absent not only among the Mexican Catholics I interviewed but also among other, less religiously involved Mexican Protestants. If for many of the Mexican Protestants I interviewed the border is completely resignified and, instead of being a geographical or ethnic one, becomes a religious one, following this same logic, some other selfdefined Mexican Christians in our sample also moved in a similar manner. However, they framed that change in historical terms, where the “us” (Protestants who will be saved) versus “them” (Catholics who will not be) is resignified in terms of their own personal histories and becomes “us right now” (people who eventually will be saved because they have finally discovered Jesus Christ) versus “us in the past” (Catholics who were destined to damnation). As a result of this conversionist narrative, where most interviewees in my sample looking at the photographs constructed complex narratives about Southerners, Fronterizos/as, Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and Anglos, as well as machistas [male chauvinists], mandilones [men whose wives boss them around], and the like, these converted Catholics used the same photographs to construct self-referential temporal narratives. At the same time, while many of the non-Pentecostals I interviewed used particular photographs to “prove” their points about the “natural laziness” of the “other” (depending on the interlocutor, the Southerners, Mexicans, Mexican Americans, or the like), Pentecostal interviewees used the same photos to illustrate their own process of identity change after they converted from Catholicism to Protestantism. That identity change, however, was not framed B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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as a change “from a lazy to a hard-working person,” but, once more, as a change in their relationship with God that opened an entire array of new ways to perform their identities among those converted. Therefore, it is not coincidental that this kind of interviewees (Protestants in general, but most prominently Pentecostals, self-defined born-again Christians in particular) took a look at the photographs (and by extension at the occurrences in their lives) from a very different point of view than most of the non-Protestants I interviewed. They were looking for other clues to interpret their lives, because their narrative plots asked for different signs than other people’s signs to construct meaningful stories. Those were the signs that they believed God had left to be interpreted in the same way they were used to reading the Bible to make sense of their lives. My point here is that while looking at photographs, many times interviewees use them only as excuses to advance their own narrative identities, for these kind of Pentecostal interviewees the photos become more excuses than for most. This provides a very interesting paradox. On the one hand, these ex-Catholics/self-defined born-again Christians have some of the most rigid and nonflexible narrative plots of my sample: they have one religious plot that tints any other subject position they have in terms of nation, race, ethnicity, region, gender, age, or class; they recognize only one authorized “source of the self”—the Bible—and so on. As Holstein and Gubrium (2000, p. 174) point out, these kinds of interviewees are somehow taught to accept the hegemonic discourse advanced by their church as their unique narrative framework. In other words, they learn to govern themselves so that they present biographical particulars in terms of such an institutional discourse, a discourse that offers the “narrative maps” they use to make sense of their experience. That is the reason why their narratives not only appear much more rigid than others but also look alike. This is because “while not identical, these self-presentational stories draw upon similar themes, idioms, and vocabularies; in other words, they employ the same narrative maps” (Holstein and Gubrium 2000, p. 180). At the same time, many of these same interviewees who presented rigid and similar narrative identities used the photographs in a much more flexible way than most of the non-Protestants I interviewed, going well beyond the referent of the shot to imagine the scenes (usually scenes linked, in one way or another, to something written in the Bible) they want to portray. However, what at firsthand seems a paradox is really not one, because it is precisely the inflexibility of their narrative plots (everything is prewritten in the Bible) that requires the flexibility I N T RO D U C T I O N

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they show in the way they manage the photos. In this regard, as in any type of inflexible plot we encountered in our fieldwork among other types of interviewees, what these interviewees do is to tailor reality because, in a very profound sense, they cannot change a narrative plot that, after their conversion, was so hard to achieve and develop. If we agree with Taylor (1989) that one of the reasons people invest so much in the fiction we call “the self” (a fiction that requires transforming the multitude of different identifications we perform into “one and coherent self”) is because of the Western religious mandate for “the account” that, at due time, will save or condemn us, people like the self-defined born-again Christians I interviewed have an important advantage regarding other kinds of interviewees. This is because the main source of their narrative identities, the Bible, already prearranges the different identities they can have, so the self can be “coherently” prepared in advance for “the account.” If common folk ultimately look at reality from the point of view of the character their narrative identity constructs, and therefore “experience” many times becomes a selffulfilling prophesy, the characters many Mexican Pentecostals construct overdetermines much more the kind of “experience” these people are able to build. In their case, not only the perception is prearranged by their identity plots, but the latter are much more coherent than most of the identity plots of the non-Pentecostals I interviewed. In this way, “coherence” is twice overdetermined in their case. In Chapters 3 and 4, I address the particular ways gender identities overlap with region, nation, race, and ethnicity on the border. Gender has become, for horrifying reasons, a hot topic in the region in the last ten years or so: the mass murder of girls and young women (some of them maquiladora workers) in Ciudad Juárez has made this border city infamous worldwide. From 1993 to 1999, more than two hundred girls and women were killed in Ciudad Juárez and abandoned in the surrounding desert. Several suspects were jailed during those years, but the killings continued uninterrupted. By the time the shocking situation was finally discovered (around 1996 or 1997), the bulk of my research had already been done and my main hypotheses fully developed. Interestingly enough, due to the character of my findings, I was not surprised by what was going on: a very entrenched debasing discourse regarding women from Juárez in general and female maquiladora workers in particular (equating them with prostitutes) was rampant in my sample. My hypothesis was that, since this discourse was so prominent, perhaps the murderers saw the women they were killing only as prostitutes

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(women whose lives are less valued in many male discourses) instead of as workers (like themselves) or plain women (like their mothers and sisters) whose lives are more valued, which could have acted as a deterrent against their cold-blooded murder. I do not pretend that my approach to gender in the region provides the explanation of why Ciudad Juárez has become the world capital of murdered women. What I am saying, in contradiction to other scholarship on the issue, is that a discourse that equates maquiladora workers with prostitutes is a fertile terrain to construct narrative plots in which to kill a supposed prostitute does not have the same moral weight as killing a female worker or a woman in general. My analysis tries to go beyond positions on the issue that claim, for instance: . . . almost by definition Ciudad Juárez is violent, but only a comparative analysis with other cities of the country could confirm for us such an assertion. However, the murder of women is manifested in the gender oppression, in the inequality of relationships between masculine and feminine, in a manifestation of domination, terror, and social extermination . . . The women [in Ciudad Juárez] are related with a . . . culture . . . of gender violence . . . a culture that is not neutral, a culture that has persisted through the centuries and has established itself in Ciudad Juárez: that of feminicidio [female homicide]. (Monárrez Fragoso 2000, pp. 113 –114; my translation)

Perhaps it is true that Juárez is violent, but such a statement introduces hundreds of questions that are worth investigating. Is Ciudad Juárez more violent than Tijuana, for instance? It doesn’t seem so and there are no massive female killings in the latter. Is Ciudad Juárez the only city in Mexico in which the culture of feminicidio has installed itself? If the author firmly thinks so, she should at least have advanced a hypothesis of why it is so. Her main explanation is that those poor females were killed because, being independent and trying to live outside patriarchal control, they challenged Juárez’s entrenched machismo and they were punished for doing so: Stigmatized and transformed into a member that should be sacrificed . . . the woman can belong to the group of “the good women” or to the group of those that are perceived as essentially “bad women,” which can be victimized and subject to murder . . . The women who live alone and outside of patriarchal control are insecure and can end up murdered . . . Thus, confronted with such murders, the women, post-mortem, are scrutinized in their behavior, and it is said that they deserved such a death, according to the

I N T RO D U C T I O N

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idealized construction of feminine behavior. (Monárrez Fragoso 2000, p. 91; my translation)

Therefore, the “bad women” are the independent ones in this analysis, leaving unanswered, once more, why so many “independent” women are not killed elsewhere in Mexico or in the many border towns where female workers are the majority of maquiladora workers. The author has many clues in her otherwise illustrative article to at least advance a much better hypothesis than to claim that the girls and young females were killed in Juárez because of the existence of a feminicidio culture in the city. While on one hand she quotes several statements in which male interviewees clearly pointed out that the reason the females were killed was because they were prostitutes or they lived like prostitutes, on the other hand she writes things like the following: [the women who worked in the assembly plant and were murdered] represent a significant incidence of workers in this sector who have been murdered. Our opinion is that their death was due, not to the fact that they were maquiladora employees, but to their being women, and because they were women with a greater risk of, and vulnerability to, being attacked because they were migrants and walking across large tracts of land very late at night. (Monárrez Fragoso, 2000, p. 109; my translation)

I think that my research on gender in the region can clarify, at least a bit, why the culture of feminicidio could flourish in Juárez and not in other cities in Mexico that have very similar homicide figures, female participation in the work force, and the like. In Chapter 3, I analyze how gender narratives are regionalized and nationalized on the Mexican side of the border, where many Southern Mexicans and Fronterizos/as believe that there are particular gender behaviors and attitudes that characterize Fronterizas/os, as distinct from Southern Mexicans on the one hand and Americans on the other. These particular gender behaviors are thematized around several specific discursive formations well developed in the region. First, and the most important in my sample, is the figure of the libertine Fronterizo/a, which easily becomes the libertine prostitute (female or male) associated with the “city of vice” discourse I analyze in Chapter 1 of Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. Second is the figure of the liberal Fronteriza/o as a discourse that points out that, due to the peculiarities of Juárez as a desert border town in the middle of nowhere, their inhabitants have developed a more tolerant stand regarding gender and sexual behavior. Third is the discourse of the liberal Americans, and this narrative has at B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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least two variants, a negative and a positive one. In the negative one, Americans are depicted as totally lax in their morality, encouraging, for example, little children to use drugs and have sex. In the second, positive variant, Americans are described as being more liberal than Mexicans but not necessarily more libertine. And finally, I also discuss the figure of the “bossy American woman.” This kind of discourse develops in two distinct but related ways. On one hand it talks about Mexican machismo, and how men in Mexico supposedly are the head of the household, making the most important decisions and exercising power (sometimes violently) over their wives. On the other hand, the discourse revolves around a reversal of what many Juarenses believe happens in American families, that is, that women supposedly wield power over their husbands. Many of the same images I discuss about Juárez repeat themselves on the other side of the border. Consequently, the figures of libertine Fronterizos/as, liberal Americans, and bossy females occupied center stage in most of my interviews. In Chapter 4, analyzing two groups of Mexican immigrants that migrated to the United States in very similar circumstances but still have very different gender discourses, I point out the importance of the narrative plots those immigrants brought from Mexico and the subsequent modification of those plots due to their experiences in the United States in the construction of their commonsense discourses about gender relations among Mexicans living on the U.S.-Mexico border. Finally, I dedicate the last part of the chapter to an analysis of Mexican machismo and the redefinition of gender roles on the U.S. side of the border. Chapters 5 and 6 show how class discourses are mostly absent in the area. The hypothesis I propose in these chapters is that the relative absence of class discourses in the region is linked, at least in part, to a metaphorical displacement through which moving up the social scale is equated by many people with moving from one country (Mexico) to another (United States). In this case, as discussed in earlier chapters in relation to religion and gender characteristics—for example, Catholic practices and “liberal” gender behavior—that were addressed as if they decreased or increased as people moved geographically from South to North, many of the people I interviewed believe that poverty decreases (and some times totally disappears) once one moves from Southern to Northern Mexico, and when one crosses the U.S.-Mexico border. In this kind of discourse, the explanation of poverty (and its opposite, the lack of it) is detached from any reference to class exploitation and framed in regional and/or national terms; that is, some regions and I N T RO D U C T I O N

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countries are poor or they are not, and so to leave poverty behind is to leave that region or country. On the U.S. side of the border (the topic of Chapter 6), the absence of class discourse regarding social inequality is linked to the “all poverty is Mexican” narrative theme. Such a narrative can range from the denial of poverty on the American side of the border to the claim that the Mexican immigrants or the Mexican Americans who are still poor, even in the United States, are those who cannot overcome the supposedly cultural deficiencies they brought with them from Mexico. Therefore, if, as one of the most important hegemonic plots of the region claims, “all poverty is Mexican,” how do poor whites construct their social identities? Obviously, the process of identity construction in this group is at least tricky, because they have to account for their poverty in the context of a hegemonic discourse that claims that whites are not poor. They live in poverty; therefore, they are something that is not supposed to exist—and still worse, they share their condition of poverty with a variety of social actors covered by the umbrella term “Mexican” who, in many different narrative accounts, are the epitome of all the foibles the construction of the despised “other” can symbolize. On the other hand, the geographical metaphor of displacement I am arguing, which is behind many discussions about social mobility in the region, does not help this group either. Why? Because they are not immigrants but natives of the Land of Opportunity who nevertheless do not share the prosperity that supposedly comes naturally to those who live long enough north of the Rio Grande. In the process of interviewing poor whites, the first thing that got my attention was their awareness that all poverty is not Mexican. With a consistency that I never expected, most of the interviewees correctly identified all the locations in the photographs, without the bias of the “gaze” that was usually presented by most of other types of interviewees (those who invariably used the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot), a bias that made most of them identify the locale of the poverty photographs as Juárez and the site of the middle-class and rich depictions as El Paso, as well as to confuse the location of the cemeteries (they put the poor one—El Paso’s Concordia—in Juárez). That does not necessarily mean that they did not have problems with Mexican illegal immigrants, the culture of El Paso, and the widespread use of Spanish as a quasi–lingua franca in the city. My point is that, at least for the poor Anglos I interviewed, the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot was foreign to their discourse. At the same time, the metaphor of geographical displacement in lieu of social mobility, so widespread in my sample, did not work for them either. B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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For most of the poor white people I interviewed, poverty does not exist only among Mexican nationals, nor is it linked only to the Mexicans who move from their country to the United States; rather, poverty is “everywhere” in the region, and their main narrative is about how poor people like themselves face similar problems and attempt comparable solutions on both sides of the border. The “others” in this type of narrative are middle-class El Pasoans—Anglos, Mexican Americans, and African Americans alike. Because the main narrative plot of the poor Anglo interviewees maintains that “not all poverty is Mexican, there is Anglo poverty in El Paso,” these interviewees use the economic advantages of the “other side” to mitigate their poverty much more than the rest of my sample. Therefore, what we have here is the paradox of poor Anglos taking advantage of the economic situation on the other side of the border (being perhaps the border crossers of the border studies approach?) in order to improve their standard of living, because they do not construct their identities around the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot. This is something that those Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans who do use such a plot cannot do, because doing it would jeopardize their identity construction processes. In other words, poor Anglos can go to Juárez and buy medicine three times cheaper, go to doctors and dentists who charge them three time less, and even eventually move there because room and board is cheaper, because nobody will confuse them with the “despised” other of the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot. For some Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans, the trip to Juárez, from the point of view of the processes of identification we are talking about here, is less rewarding and much more dangerous. Regardless of their reluctance to use the hegemonic “all poverty is Mexican” discourse, most of the poor white people I interviewed still had their own negative feelings regarding Mexicans, Mexican culture, and Mexican Americans. However, my point is that those prejudices did not impede them from somehow detaching their narratives from the hegemonic plot of the region and offering a more nuanced version of border life. As one of the homeless I interviewed says, talking about the different photographs showing El Paso’s murals (a clear and prominent example of El Paso’s Mexican culture): Elizabeth: . . . to me it feels like if they’ve been through a lot of pain and the way they release it is by painting and let someone else see what they feel. A lot of times people don’t know how to express themselves to someone else, especially to another culture, when they’ve been raised differently I N T RO D U C T I O N

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or from another country. So I like the murals because you can look at them and think: “Well, what did the person look like? What was he like?” or “What’s his culture?” or “What did they believe in?” It kind of makes you think yourself, “What would I do if I was in that person’s shoes for a little while? Would I do the same thing he did or she did?” you know.

I think that Elizabeth summarizes in this brief commentary the spirit of the plot many of the poor Anglos I interviewed used during the interviews: “We are very similar to them; I can easily think of myself being in their shoes.” As we can see, this is a plot that is located at the antipodes of the “all poverty is Mexican” hegemonic plot most of the middle-class Anglo, African American, and Mexican Americans I interviewed (regardless of class) were using. Finally, in the conclusion I give a brief account of the trajectory of the research project that brought me to El Paso–Ciudad Juárez in 1991: my initial thrill with the border studies approach and my subsequent disenchantment when faced with a “real” border, not a literary one. In the last part of the conclusion I advance some theoretical ideas I have developed while writing this second book of the series. I consider them a refinement of what I proposed in the first book. In this regard, I believe that at the level of discursive formations, diverse floating signifiers are conferred a particular identity by the articulatory power of a peculiar master signifier or nodal point.3 In this way, the nodal point gives “identity” to those floating signifiers within a coherent discursive formation. At the level of people’s identity, however, the power to confer identity falls into the sphere of the narrative plot, whose articulatory function consists in transforming happenings into events, that is, meaningful episodes in the story of the character being constructed. My current thesis is that the diverse discursive formations that try to win the battle for conquering the common sense of a particular setting enter the process of identification through the narrative plot of the character being constructed. In this regard, the narrative plot not only “filters” the interpellations that a particular discursive formation promotes (my thesis in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders) but also “filters” the discursive formation itself. The filtering process occurs at several levels. First, the narrative plot has the power to decide which nodal point will be central and which one secondary in the construction of the character of the story. Most of the people I interviewed on the border decided to use the nodal points that organize meaning and identity in terms of region, ethnicity, race, and nation as their central narrative plots. This was the reason I started my ethnographic account following B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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those narrative plots in the first book of the series. That many people of the region organized their religious, gender, and class identities around the master signifiers region, ethnicity, race, and nation is the reason this second book deals with these subject positions. Second, the narrative plot “asks” for an array of different discursive formations to “buttress” the character it is developing. There are innumerable discursive formations in popular culture that offer different ways to understand people’s identifications. It is the narrative plot that conjures some of them to help it in the process of identity construction. Third, once a particular discursive formation is accepted by the narrative plot because it helps it in its identity claims, the narrative plot still exerts a kind of screening power regarding the floating signifiers that can, or cannot (for the particular character being constructed), be quilted by the master signifier into the discursive formation in question. If on one hand the nodal point confers meaning to a vast array of floating signifiers in general, in particular (i.e., in the case of the person who is using that discursive formation to buttress her or his identity claims), the narrative plot somehow “decides,” first, which of those floating signifiers will finally be quilted into the discursive formation and which ones will not, and second, the narrative plot also has a say in the quality or strength of the quilting. Fourth, the narrative plot “helps” the nodal point in its quilting task through it own transforming of happenings into events, that is, limiting the amount of floating signifiers the nodal point has to quilt. If what I believe (following Bruner 1987) is true, that is, that eventually the culturally shaped cognitive and linguistic processes that guide the selftelling of life narratives achieve the power to structure perceptual experience, there are many things the character of the story cannot “see.” If the character of the story cannot see things due to the biasing power of the narrative plot, it cannot verbalize those things into floating signifiers that have to be quilted by the nodal point. My point is that some of the power most theoreticians put on the shoulders of the nodal point as the articulatory master of a particular discursive formation has to shift to the narrative plot instead. I think that certain discursive formations become hegemonic, not because they have been able to fully articulate “more” floating signifiers or the same amount of signifiers a competing articulatory process is also quilting but in a more “logical” way (or something like that), but because they were more successful in being accepted as possible narrative plots than other articulatory attempts. At the same time, if they were more I N T RO D U C T I O N

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successful in doing so, it is not necessarily because they articulate “better” floating signifiers (though this is not going to hurt its final success), but because (for reasons that should be studied locally) those nodal points can be more easily used by already existing narrative plots. Having introduced the organization of the book, it is time to go to what people had to say about their identifications in terms of religion, gender, and class, three of the most important subject positions I have encountered in the region after more than seven years of fieldwork.

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Introduction

In most Latin American societies, Catholicism and national identity (in this particular case, Mexicanness) have become highly intertwined (Fortuny Loret de Mola 1994). According to Bowen (1996, p. 4): The close ties between Catholicism and Latin American culture have their roots in the Iberian, post-Columbian conquest and the colonial society it produced . . . In Mexico, where the indigenous vastly outnumbered the colonists, their pacification and incorporation into a new colonial society meant their Christianization in Catholic terms . . . National identity throughout Latin America became in turn so permeated with a generalized sense of Catholicism that its repudiation inevitably raises questions

Chapter 1

about national identity and loyalty.

Thus, it is a widely shared, commonsense assumption that being Mexican and being Catholic are almost synonymous. In the case of Mexican identity, the fusion between a particular religion, Catholicism, and nationality was primarily done around the figure of the Virgin of Guadalupe,1 and here is where Protestantism clearly becomes the “other” for most Mexicans, because from a Catholic/Mexican point of view “the Evangelical tradition [which condemns the worshiping of the Virgin] could not be truly Mexican and must, by its very nature, be destructive of all that is distinctively Mexican” (Bowen 1996, p. 129; see also Fortuny Loret de Mola 1994, p. 60). One of the things that surprised me the most when I arrived at the border was how Mexican respondents (on both sides of the international divide) addressed as Mexican customs what indeed were Catholic customs, as if they were interchangeable. My surprise sprang from my being originally from another Latin American Catholic country, Argentina, where people usually refer to secular customs (mate, asado [barbecue], and fútbol [soccer]) when asked about the country’s traditions. Therefore, I was amazed when the Mexican traditions I heard mentioned, again and again, were El Día de los Muertos [Day of the Dead], Christmas, Las Posadas [a nine-day Christmas festival], and matachines [folk dancers]—all of C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S ON THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER

them Catholic traditions. Of course, many people also mentioned mariachis, tacos, and the like, but Catholic traditions never failed to appear on the list of Mexican traditions. This widespread assumption, among laypeople and scholars alike, of the centrality and homogeneity of religion among Mexicans is buttressed by data (Camp 1997). Catholicism as the most important religion of the country is also supported by the data available. At the beginning of the last century, Catholics accounted for nearly 99 percent of the population (Camp 1997, p. 111). In 1950 they accounted for 98.2 percent of the population, but by 1990 they were 89.7 percent (Molina Hernández 1996, p. 22). According to the 1990 Mexican census, the 4 million Protestants represented about 5.8 percent of the population (Molina Hernández 1996, p. 22; see also Bowen 1996, p. 4, who puts the figure at around 5 percent). This is a lower rate than that of Brazil, Chile, and Guatemala, for instance, where Protestants represent more than 25 percent of each country’s population.2 Thus Mexico’s high Catholic percentage is considered an exceptionality by many authors (Stoll 1990, p. 7). Commonsense assumptions, census data, and theoretical discussions about Mexicans and religion seem to point in the same direction, i.e., that being a Mexican and being a Catholic are very intertwined. According to Elizondo (1994, p. 117), Catholic religious practices are “the ultimate foundation of the [Mexican] people’s innermost being and the common expression of their collective soul.” In this way Elizondo singles out one type of identification, the religious and Catholic one, as the most important process by which Mexicans and Mexican Americans construct their identities. National, ethnic, racial, class, gender, age, and regional identifications occupy only a secondary role in the construction of Mexican identities, according to this scheme of thought. Once again, Mexican tradition, Catholicism, and Mexican identity become synonymous. Along similar lines, Olson (1987, pp. 149–150) points out that the very close relationship that people of Mexican descent establish between Catholicism and mexicanidad is related to the idea of pueblo [people, community]: “Since virtually everyone was Catholic, community identity was synonymous with church identity.” In this sense, a religious identity is not an identity that Mexicans choose freely; instead, it is an inherent part of ethnic and national belonging and remains a part of the identity irrespective of formal adherence to the rituals the faith officially prescribes. Along the same lines, Figueroa Deck observes, regarding Latinos in the United States, that even for many people of Latin American descent living in the United States (a Protestant country), the appearance of B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Evangelical churches competing for their religious adherence is seen as an attack on their cultural identity: Given the need to resist the onslaught of Americanization and certain forms of modernization, the thoughtful Hispanic will view evangelical efforts to convert Hispanics as a particularly vicious attack on his or her cultural identity. Even though the Hispanic American may not be active in practicing the Catholic faith, he or she perceives that the culture is permeated by a kind of Catholic ethos that evolves around a rich collection of rites and symbols . . . The evangelical penchant for reducing the mediation between God and humanity to the Scriptures is antithetical to the Hispanic Catholic tendency to multiply mediations. (Figueroa Deck 1994, pp. 420 – 421)

As we can easily see from many different positions, Mexicans and Mexican Americans alike are portrayed as having an intimate connection between their national, ethnic, and religious identities, and when different scholars introduce the term “popular Catholicism,” class is also introduced into the mix. At the same time, however, even though Catholic identification in Mexico seems to be strong, Catholic practice there seems to have somehow receded lately. Additionally, if, as Stevens-Arroyo (1995) claims, 67 percent of Latinos in the United States are Catholic, that means a robust 33 percent of Latinos practice other religions or no religion at all. In relation to the Mexican case, according to Camp (1997, p. 114), although 70 percent of Catholics attended church weekly in 1959, that figure was reduced to only 54 percent in 1982 and went down to 44 percent in 1988 (see also Molina Hernández 1996, p. 22). Paradoxically, it seems that the attempts made by the Catholic Church since the 1950s to avert potential Protestant expansion in Latin America brought about mostly unintended consequences that promoted precisely the expansion of Protestantism that the church feared. According to Levine (1995, p. 158): . . . growing concern for the promotion of more informed and voluntary participation among Catholics was energized by translation of texts and liturgies into local languages, by the new prominence given to the Bible in Catholic practice, and by a host of efforts to develop new roles for laypeople [those changes, in turn, meant that] . . . Long-standing distinctions marking Catholics off from Protestants faded as Catholic ritual was simplified and changed to incorporate popular music, local languages, heightened participation, and above all, access to Scripture. C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S

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These innovations in Catholicism opened significant doors for Protestant expansion. “Protestantism now appeared more legitimate in Catholic circles” (Levine 1995, p. 159). We are going to see in the following two chapters that the commonsensical image of religious homogeneity among Mexicans is hiding a very complex process of identity construction. My position is that, not only do different practices of the same faith (Catholicism) enable different people to separate themselves from the “others” (those who practice the faith differently), but also the presence/absence of Protestantism in many discourses about religion on the border plays the role of the “constitutive outside.” I am talking here of those absences that explain a presence, that is, the way in which Catholic identities in the region are constructed in relation not only to “Catholicism Southern style” but also to “American style” Protestantism. In other words, Protestantism, implicitly or explicitly, is a constant beacon in the way many Mexicans and Mexican Americans construct their Catholic religious identity. When discussing Mexican Protestantism on the border, we have to refer most of the time to Evangelical Protestantism, because it is the most widespread credo on the region. According to Stoll (1990, p. 3; see also Stoll 1993): . . . evangelical Protestantism is best defined as a tradition distinguished by three beliefs, including (1) the complete reliability and final authority of the Bible, (2) the need to be saved through a personal relation with Jesus Christ, often experienced in terms of being “born again,” and (3) the importance of spreading this message of salvation to every nation and person, a duty often referred to as the Great Commission.

At the same time, the majority of Evangelicals in Mexico are Pentecostals, which are characterized by a much more militant anti-Catholicism than the traditional Protestant denominations. In Ciudad Juárez in particular, by the end of the 1980s almost half of the Protestant organizations were Pentecostal or neo-Pentecostal, 21 percent Evangelical or mainline Protestants (Evangelicals, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Baptists), and 14 percent Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventists, and Mormons (Hernández Hernández 1996, p. 116). Because of the prevalence of Pentecostals on the border, the dichotomy Catholicism-Protestantism is sometimes expressed in very heated terms in the region. As Martin (1990, p. 236) points out, many Pentecostals view the Roman Church as the enemy of Christian truth.

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According to this author, Pentecostals have “a particular dislike for those features of Catholicism which are most distinctive, like papalism or Marian devotion, and also a contempt for the syncretic amalgam of Catholicism with indigenous faiths known as ‘Christo-paganism.’” In other words, what many Pentecostals dislike the most is precisely what Catholic practitioners and theologians seem to praise the most: Iberian Catholicism . . . was absorbed by the pre-Columbian spirituality with its emphasis on the cosmic rituals expressing the harmonious unity of opposing tensions . . . In the secular-based culture of the United States, it is the one who succeeds materially who appears to be the upright and righteous person—the good and saintly . . . In the pre-Columbian /Iberian Catholic mestizo-based culture of Mexico, it is the one who can endure all of the opposing tensions of life and not lose one’s interior harmony who appears to be the upright and righteous one. (Elizondo 1994, pp. 119 –120)

In this regard, for most Pentecostals the debate with the Catholic Church is structured in terms of religion versus faith (Deiros 1991, pp. 170 –171). Roman Catholicism is considered a religion with large amounts of idolatry and superstition. As a religion it is transmitted and acquired with the culture as a set of observances, rituals, and ceremonies highly mediated by institutions. In opposition to religion, Pentecostals proclaim the superiority of faith, whose main characteristics are immediacy, personal participation, and spontaneity. According to Deiros (1991, p. 171), “The idea that Catholicism, unlike Protestantism, has encouraged a low moral sense remained a central theme in antiCatholic Protestant fundamentalist preaching well into the 1980s.” 3 However, contrary to the commonly held belief in Mexico and the United States, Northern Mexico is not more Protestant than other Mexican regions. Accounting for this belief, Molina Hernández (1996, p. 8) points out that the notion of Northern Mexico being more Protestant than Central or Southern Mexico comes from its proximity to the United States and the assumed American cultural influence on Fronterizas/os, “that is, their ‘pochismo’ or ‘agringamiento’ [their being highly Americanized] . . . [according to this posture] this phenomenon occurs due to a foreign stimulus (the imperialist conspiracy), which has the support of the weakness of the national identity in the affected regions” (my translation). According to the 1990 Mexican census, only 20 percent of Mexican Evangelicals live in the North, compared to 37 percent in the central part and 31 percent in the southern part of the country (Bowen 1996,

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p. 10). Therefore, if the Protestant population of the North represented 5.7 percent of the population, that of the South represented 12.1 percent. The Protestant population of the thirty-seven municipios [counties] that border the United States is a little bit higher, 6.3 percent, but still well below that of Southern Mexico (Hernández Hernández 1996, pp. 113 –114). In Ciudad Juárez in particular, 5.9 percent of the population is Protestant. All in all, the North was a robust 88.1 percent Catholic in 1990 (Bowen 1996, p. 39, Martin 1990). Doing the usual review of the literature to write this chapter, I found some very good sources on Mexican Catholicism (although not on border Catholicism) and some quite recent, good sources on Mexican Protestantism, but very few on religion among Mexican immigrants.4 This lack of studies on religion is a paradox, because again and again in different ethnographic research done among immigrants in the United States it becomes clear that “religion is not only a central element in the maintenance of ethnic identity among immigrants, but that it may well be more important for their identity than was true in their homelands, where religion is often taken for granted” (Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000a, p. 18). Since there is not much information about religion among immigrants in the United States, it is not surprising that we also lack reliable information on the particular issue of Mexican American conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism. Thus, Figueroa Deck (1994, p. 409) claims that a “careful gathering of primary sources has yet to occur and monographs . . . are very limited.” Nevertheless, according to the author, preliminary data suggest that Latin American Catholics are flocking to Pentecostalism in very significant numbers. According to Figueroa Deck, it is precisely the massive move of Hispanics from Catholicism to Pentecostal denominations that is contributing to the revival of evangelicalism and “making evangelicalism, particularly in its Pentecostal manifestation, the fastest growing and arguably the most dynamic division of Christianity in the United States” (Figueroa Deck 1994, p. 412). According to the limited research done on the topic, an appreciable number of U.S. Hispanics are either joining Pentecostal churches or flirting with the idea of joining: “Andrew Greeley maintains that more than a million have left the Roman Catholic Church in the fifteen-year period between 1973 and 1988 and that the larger percentage of these are joining either evangelical or Pentecostal churches” (Figueroa Deck 1994, p. 416). Greeley (1988) estimates that sixty thousand Hispanic Catholics a year are converting to Protestant denominations. B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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One of the most important reasons Figueroa Deck advances for this phenomenon is the similarities that characterize popular Catholicism and Pentecostalism: In a certain sense the movement of Hispanics to evangelical religion is a way to maintain a continuity with their popular Catholic faith which in the period both before and after the Second Vatican Council has been disparaged, opposed, dismissed, or ignored by many official teachers of the Church. (Figueroa Deck 1994, p. 422)

Those characteristics of popular Catholicism that make Hispanics so prone to convert to Pentecostalism are its orality, face-to-face transmission, lack of rational articulation, simplicity, dramatism, emotivity, tendency to eschew the cognitive in its effort to appeal to the feelings and senses, concern for an immediate experience of God, implicit belief in miracles, practical orientation toward healing, and “tendency to personalize or individualize one’s relationship with the divine” (Figueroa Deck 1994, p. 422). To these characteristics of the faith Figueroa Deck adds a sociodemographic characteristic that he sees as very important to a full understanding of the phenomenon: the class distance that seems to separate the constituency of mainstream U.S. Catholicism from newly arrived Hispanic Catholics, a class distance that does not exist between them and most of the Pentecostal churches (Figueroa Deck 1994, p. 423). In addition, the author also maintains that Protestantism [emphasizes] the possibility of entering into a personal, direct relationship with God by diminishing many of the mediations (sacraments, images, saints, visible Church) that seemed to stand in the place of such a direct relationship. Consequently, Hispanics attracted to evangelical religion are looking for something they realize has been lacking if not denied them in the past: personal conversion. (Figueroa Deck 1994, p. 426)

Precisely this last feature, that is, the experience of personal conversion, is the one that popular Catholicism lacks and makes Pentecostal churches so appealing for working-class Latin American immigrants in the United States. We have to remember here that the popular Catholicism of Mexicans and Mexican Americans is a highly mediated faith in which the Virgin and especially los santos, the Catholic saints, “in return for prayers, lighted candles, devotional promises, and roadside and fireside shrines, would provide assistance, protection, and direction” (Olson 1987, p. 150).5 Marín and Gamba (1993, p. 368) found very similar reasons for conversion in their survey of Hispanics in the United States. C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S

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Interestingly enough, Pentecostals are not only driving people away from Catholicism in the United States, but they are getting many followers from traditional Protestant denominations as well. According to Figueroa Deck (1994, pp. 413 – 414): The reasons mainstream effort did not thrive, while those of evangelicals and Pentecostals did, were . . . 1) they had informal “on-the-job” training programs for ministers, 2) they established relatively small communities in the barrios where the people were to be found, 3) they identified ministers from the community itself, 4) they empowered them to function, and 5) they seldom if ever questioned the need to use Spanish in the ministry . . . evangelical /Pentecostal efforts have been characterized by a respect for some important idiosyncrasies of the local community and its natural, indigenous leaders.

A new cohort of researchers working on Mexican American religious practices seems to be departing from the mainstream pairing of Catholicism and Mexican culture I mentioned above (Elizondo 1994; Stevens-Arroyo 1995; Stevens-Arroyo and Díaz-Stevens 1994; Figueroa Deck 1994; Olson 1987). That is the case of Leon (1994), who argues that instead of weakening Mexican culture and identity, Pentecostal churches have the potential of strengthening both. In other words, Pentecostalism, according to Leon (1994, pp. 81– 82), is becoming a distinctive part of dominant Chicano cultures, not the reason for their decay. Analyzing a ritual performed at the East Los Angeles church he studied, Leon (1994, p. 75) describes a chorus sung by the parishioners: “I love my Mexico, I love my [Mexican] people, I love Jesus Christ.” According to Leon, such a chorus signifies a key dimension of Mexican American Pentecostalism: the synthesis of religious and cultural sensibilities and identities. The chorus, according to this author, “works to construct a cultural ethos that draws on both the larger Pentecostal and Mexican templates.” If the literature about religion among Mexican immigrants in the United States is scant, that focusing on El Paso is almost nonexistent and mostly of an impressionistic character. Thus, reporting on interviews conducted among Episcopalian, Lutheran, and Presbyterian ministers in El Paso, Weigert, D’Antonio, and Rubel (1971, p. 223) point out that some respondents are quite aware of the sociological dimension of their ministry: For example, two of the ministers perceive the relationship of stratification and the church somewhat as follows: the upper class Mexican American, B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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if he is Catholic, is likely to remain so; the lower, poverty class Mexican American is likely to be attracted by the emotional appeal of personal salvation presented by the Fundamentalist and Pentecostal churches; the upwardly mobile middle-class Mexican American, however, in his attempt to become assimilated into the dominant value structure and identity of Anglo America, and who is in a period of cultural as well as social transition, is most likely to be attracted by the message, practice, and position of their churches.

We will see in the following chapters how at least part of this kind of account made in the early 1970s still accurately described what I encountered in El Paso in the 1990s. At the same time, Weigert, D’Antonio, and Rubel (1971, p. 225) confirm with their research the “native” character of Pentecostalism, not only in Mexico, but also among Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans in the United States, because most of the pastors they interviewed were Mexican nationals. At the same time, the ministers interviewed by the authors in the early 1970s followed, step-by-step, the most important tenets of the Pentecostal faith, that is, the distinct emphasis on the Bible as the verbatim word of God, on Jesus as the only savior, and on the work of the Holy Spirit, especially glossolalia and divine healing. According to the ministers, such a work has to be visible among those who claim that they have been born again by signs in their daily lives. Usually this means that the members of their churches have to abstain from smoking, drinking, dancing, using cosmetics, going to the theater, and the like. In comparing their faith with the Catholic faith, these pastors emphasized that they do not worship the Virgin Mary or the saints (to whom they refer as “idols”). In fact, “one minister would not label the Catholic Church ‘Christian’ at all, because it practices Mariolatry. The sole head of their church is Jesus, not Mary or the Pope” (Weigert, D’Antonio and Rubel 1971, p. 226). In the conclusion of their article, these authors affirm that both the traditional Protestant denominations and the Pentecostals help in the process of assimilating people of Mexican descent into American society in El Paso: Whereas the Ecclesial type may explicitly help assimilate members into a life style fitted to the organizational realities of a corporate welfare society, the Pentecostal type, by ignoring assimilation while motivating individual virtue, assists members to acquire a rationalized work ethic fitted to an individualistic, production-oriented society. (Weigert, D’Antonio, and Rubel 1971, pp. 230 –231) C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S

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As we can see, the review of the literature reveals mostly a very descriptive and narrow portrayal of the process of religious identity construction among people of Mexican descent in the region. This chapter and Chapter 2 are an attempt to fill at least part of the void in the study of religion among people of Mexican descent on the U.S.-Mexico border. In these chapters I first concentrate on how some symbols drawn from traditional Catholic practice (practice considered by many scholars to be one of the most important cultural markers—along with language and the extended family—that Mexicans and Mexican Americans share) are employed in the process of identity construction among Mexicans and Mexican Americans on the U.S.-Mexico border (Vila 1996). I want to go beyond the usual comparison between American (i.e., mostly Irish-oriented) Catholicism and Mexican Catholicism to point out the regional differences in Catholic religious practice that Mexicans find among Southern Mexicans, Northern Mexicans, Fronterizos/as, and Mexican Americans.6 Therefore, I will propose that while Catholic symbols can function as possible spaces for constructing sameness, many Mexicans and Mexican Americans also use them to construct the “other” discursively. Here too we witness a very complex interplay between interpellations, metaphors, and narratives in the process of making sense of the “other” in religious terms.7 As I pointed out in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, as soon as the people I interviewed were engaged in the construction of a particular character they wanted to play out before me, the categories, interpellations, and metaphors they used were selected from the point of view of the distinctive plot they were constructing. Of course, although complete narratives are absent from most of the interview excerpts I present below, the structure of the narratives is not. Thus, the characters the interviewees develop for themselves and “others,” as well as the basic thematic plot that structures their narratives, still guide the process of selection and thinking about events that are behind their understanding of reality. We will have the chance to see in this chapter how a couple of thematic plots work as nodal points that center some narrative identities on the border. The “Juarenses are less Catholics than Southerners” and “Mexican Americans are less Catholics than Mexican nationals” discourses on the border function as narrative plots around which many border inhabitants construct their “coherent” identities. The primacy of these narrative themes determines how events are processed and what criteria will be used to prioritize events and give them meaning. We will B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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see how these particular themes selectively appropriate the happenings of the social world, arrange them in some order, and normatively evaluate these arrangements. Discourse and Catholic Symbols among Mexicans and Mexican Americans Introduction

In this first chapter on religion on the border, I analyze only the narratives I collected among people of Mexican descent who define themselves, in different degrees, as being or having been Catholics. Thus, I do not discuss the narratives of either Mexicans or Mexican Americans who are Protestants (the topic of the next chapter), or the plots advanced by Anglos who are Catholics. In relation to this last point, it is interesting to note that for some Anglos who are Catholic in El Paso, the identity problem seems to be how to detach their religious identity from the well-entrenched discourse that claims that on the border being a Catholic means being a Mexican. One of my students at UT El Paso told me a story that illustrates what I am saying: A controversy at a local church comes to my mind. In a Catholic church in a small white neighborhood not far from UTEP, a Mexican American priest was scorned by the white parishioners for moving a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe from the back of the church to the front of the church, right next to the big crucifix. “This is not a Mexican church!” they complained. Ironically, the few Mexican American parishioners were not happy that the Virgin was taken from her own little private altar in the back. Needless to say, the painting was returned promptly before the problem could escalate. (Jaime González, personal communication, July 24, 1997)

Therefore, in this chapter I concentrate first on one plot that seems to organize the narrative identities of many people of Mexican descent on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. I have selected this plot for analysis, not only because it is prominently used on the border, but also because it is directly related to one of the more important features of the process of identity construction, its moral dimension (Taylor 1989). This plot argues that while Mexicans generally share a faith in the Catholic Church, they nevertheless differ in how they practice their faith, and this difference is linked to how attached they are to traditional Mexican culture; being more Catholic is equated with being more Mexican. C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S

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Thus, some interviewees practice the same religion but differently, and understand that diversity as a cultural marker that separates themselves from “others.” On the Mexican side of the border, Southerners and Fronterizas/os refer to various Catholic practices to stress the differences between them. Southerners consider Fronterizos/as less traditionally Catholic than themselves, while the Southerners’ plot argues that being less traditionally Catholic is concomitant with being less traditionally Mexican. When Fronterizas/os use religion to differentiate themselves from Americans (both Anglos and Mexican Americans), the comparison is not between different ways of understanding the Catholic religion but between religion and nonreligion, as though being Protestant instead of Catholic means one has no religion at all. Some Fronterizas/os even advance the hypothesis that Mexican Americans are abandoning the Catholic faith (and their Mexicanness) by incorporating Protestant practices into their Catholicism or by formally embracing Protestantism. On the U.S. side of the border, Mexican Americans also use religion to emphasize the differences between themselves and Mexican nationals, other Mexican Americans who are Protestants, and Anglos. They acknowledge that they practice a different kind of Catholicism, but they also proudly point out that they are still Catholics (and, by default, still deserve to be called Mexicans). The real non-Catholics (and nonMexicans), they say, are not themselves but Mexican Americans who have converted to Protestantism and Anglos. The Mexican Side of the Border: How Southerners Consider Themselves More Catholic than Fronterizas/os, and Fronterizos/as Consider Themselves More Catholic than Mexican Americans

In most of the interviews I conducted on the Mexican side of the border, the interrelated issues of Catholicism and Mexicanness figured prominently, regardless of the interviewee’s social class, gender, age, or time of migration. The set of interviews I conducted in a trade union is a good illustration.8 The young people present at those interviews claimed that there is a “lack of Mexican culture” in Juárez (a common opinion in Mexico about the city) and that there are two interdependent sides to this phenomenon. On the one hand, they said Mexican customs are more deeply rooted elsewhere in the country than on the border. On the other hand, they claimed that in Juárez American customs have replaced Mexican ones. And by “American customs,” they, most of the time, refer to Protestant customs. B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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With regard to the first point, the interviewees stressed that certain traditional Mexican celebrations are very important in the South but almost nonexistent in Juárez. Interestingly enough, they pointed to Catholic customs and celebrations as the epitome of Mexican culture, as if one were synonymous with the other, as in this exchange: Felipe: When I went to Mexico [Mexico City], do you know what I found in each vecindad [poor tenement house]? Huge altars in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe! Angela: Do you see that here in Juárez? Have you seen it? Felipe: I haven’t seen it! Aurora: No . . . even the churches aren’t the same . . . they’re different down there [in the South] . . . there the whole colonia gets together . . .— if the people living there are of very low income—and they build an altar specifically for the Virgin of Guadalupe. Many altars, not just one! . . . because down there it is customary . . . to serenade the Virgin. Everyone in the village gets together . . . they meet and they go neighborhood by neighborhood, serenading the altars. And they put candles outside their houses, because they have the idea that if they illuminate the house, the saints will visit and bring well-being and happiness to it. Also, [on the Day of the Dead] . . . they put up an altar inside the house, and they put on it what their deceased loved ones liked the most when they were alive, their favorite foods . . . it is the custom for the whole family to get together after they take the flowers [to the cemetery], and they eat all the food . . . they put skulls with the names of the deceased on the altar, and candles and everything.

PHOTO 1

Altar surrounded by hanging clothes, Ciudad Juárez

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To question Juarenses’ Catholicism in that manner is to challenge one of the most important aspects of a shared Mexican identity: it is to question whether Southerners really share with Fronterizas/os a value system that is beyond time and empirical circumstance; it is to question the sharing of the profound roots of their common culture that, as we saw above, is completely intertwined with a religion, Catholicism, which built its identity upon the syncretism it made with the traditional native cultures it encountered. Among the more important Catholic customs that migrants from the South claim Juarenses no longer follow is proper care for their dead, as in the following conversation between Secundino and Aurora: Secundino: . . . Our traditions are much more deeply ingrained in Central and Southern Mexico . . . in those parts of the country we have a great deal of respect for our dead, for their resting places . . . Here we see that many people don’t care anymore, whatever is convenient for them . . . they go and encroach upon whatever territory is pointed out to them by their leaders. “You can build your house there, right there” . . . I’ve read in the newspaper that they destroy the graves to reuse the materials they contain. Aurora: I knew of a cemetery that was located near the Bermúdez Industrial Park. That cemetery got my attention when I saw it . . . because, like Secundino said, we have respect for our dead down there, in Central and Southern Mexico; we build their tombs and we have legal deeds to those plots . . . so that no one encroaches on that little piece of land, we don’t permit that. Then I see that here they only put up a little metal plaque [as a monument] . . . just a little plaque, and so that’s the difference that I’ve seen in the United States . . . and people are adopting that same custom here. Because down there [in the South] we have the custom of taking fresh flowers to the dead, and I notice that here . . . I mean, like the United States, right? that they only use plastic flowers . . . and that’s why I noticed that cemetery . . . I mean, because of that custom. Then I said to myself: If we are here [in Mexico], why not respect our customs?

By emphasizing the way Juarenses care for the dead, Aurora and Secundino mark a difference in how Fronterizos/as deal with the concept of continuity through history. Claiming that Juarenses abandon their dead, these young migrants from the South metaphorically allege that Fronterizas/os break their relationship with their own past and their Mexican traditions. According to Elizondo (1994, pp. 128 –129): The final, absolute, definitive death beyond which there is no earthly life left is when there is no one around to remember me or celebrate my life. Thus B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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in remembering—recordando—we keep alive our ancestors as much as they keep us alive and continue to guard over us. The pain which we experience when someone we know and love dies is transformed into an inner joy at the annual celebration of those who through death have entered ultimate life. Our memory of their lives becomes a source of life and energy. As we bring them flowers, build altars of remembrance, light candles, share in the common bread and punch of the dead, we enter into the última fiesta. In the mystical moment of celebrating el día de los muertos, the veil of time and space is removed and we are all together on earth and in heaven, in time and in eternity singing the same songs, enjoying the same food and drink and sharing in the same life that no earthly power can take away from us . . . Society might take our lands away, marginate us and even kill us, but it cannot destroy us. For we live on in the generations to come and in them the previous generations continue to be alive.

Interestingly enough, Secundino accuses Juarenses of lacking respect, not only for the space the dead occupy (their tombs, gravestones, and location), but also for the past itself, as if there were no room for the (Mexican) past in a Fronteriza/o’s perspective. According to Secundino, the dead (here used as a metaphor for Mexican tradition) have a fixed, consecrated, and rightful space in Southerners’ everyday life, a space Juarenses lack. In addition, these interviewees equate abandoning the dead—that is, abandoning the past and Mexican tradition—with endorsing American customs, such as using plaques instead of crosses as grave markers and plastic instead of natural flowers. Naturally, these interviewees express regret that, in their view, native Juarenses do nothing to preserve Mexican customs, thereby allowing American traditions to replace Mexican ones, as in Aurora’s complaint below: Aurora: Then when I came here . . . I would hear about Santa Claus and about this and that, and I asked myself, “But why?” . . . and I have always told them, “Let’s be Mexicans, if we’re from here . . . we have to be Mexicans.” And today in Juárez, parents are educating their children with customs from over there [the United States] . . . the parents . . . adoptan9 their children to have customs from over there.

According to this discourse, Mexican ethos and identity are actualized through practices that are also essential to the maintenance of Catholicism. Not to practice these rituals, then, is equated with abandoning a “true” Mexican identity.10 In her discussion about the cult of Santa Claus, Aurora is not urging “Let’s be Catholics” but “Let’s be Mexicans,” C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S

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as if the possibility of being Mexican and also believing in a figure promoted by the American Protestant-based culture were not possible. In this regard, according to these interviewees, absence of Catholic ritual does not mean absence of religious practice altogether. It simply means that Catholic ritual has been replaced by other practices foreign both to Catholicism and, by extension, to Mexican tradition. Here the “lack of culture” stigma of the northern border, commonly accepted by the rest of Mexico, becomes the agringado [Americanized] image that many Mexicans hold of Juarenses. In this process of Americanization, the Protestant “other” many times occupies center stage, and the Catholic Church hierarchy is in charge of supplying some of the anti-sects discourses many of our interviewees use in their process of identity construction. As Hanratty (1988, p. 211) points out, “The church’s position is that the uncontrolled proliferation of sects in Mexico is an issue which threatens not only Catholicism but the nation as well in that the sects disrupt social peace and divide communities. Perceiving the source of the threat to be the United States, the hierarchy has not hesitated to employ anti-American language.” This explains why some representatives of the Mexican episcopate have advanced the idea that defending the Catholic religion is an issue of national security. In particular, many of them have charged the sects with threatening Mexico’s national sovereignty (Camp 1997, p. 28). Camp (1997, p. 107) quotes Father Gabriel Medina Mavallanes as saying that the Protestants are a “noxious U.S. import,” that Catholicism and Mexican nationality are inseparable, and that the United Nations is plotting to destroy Mexican families with disinformation about birth control, sex education, and women’s roles. At the same time, Bishop Javier Lozano Barragan, according to Camp, has declared publicly that the sects threaten national sovereignty and that they present an attack on Mexican culture. Some native Juarenses, however, have no choice other than recognizing that the Catholicism they practice is different from that of other Mexicans; of course, different people address this distinction in different ways. Some interviewees, for instance, had no problem accepting that customs in Juárez are different from those in other parts of the country because of the strong influence of the United States. This was the reaction in the set of interviews we conducted in a vocational school.11 In those interviews the young students tried very hard to “prove” that Juarenses and Fronterizos/as are a special kind of Mexican—more modern, liberal, and hard-working. Therefore, they were not ashamed that the religious influence of the U.S. had changed B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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some traditional Catholic rituals in Northern Mexico. As one of them puts it: Jorge: For example, here we have a custom that’s really an American custom; we call it El Día de la Coneja [The Day of the Bunny], Easter. The way it is celebrated here is very much in the American style, but down there, in Southern Mexico, I don’t think . . . [they celebrate this custom; I believe] they set on fire a Judas and stuff, and here no, here it is completely different! Here we are used to . . . Easter baskets . . . candy and stuff . . . Over there it is different; they are used to more food . . . a party!

Native Juarenses in the trade union interviews took a similar stance in recognizing that they practice a more “modern” kind of Catholicism; however, they also regretted abandoning “old-fashioned” Catholic customs. At the same time, they perceived another difference that they felt separated them from Southerners, a difference that was mentioned frequently in our interviews. Just as the geographical move from Southern to Northern Mexico and from the Mexican to the U.S. side of the border was characterized by a gradient from more to less Catholic tradition, so it also seemed to be characterized by a gradient from more public to less public Catholicism. The following comments are illustrative: Jesús: . . . people don’t have images of saints outside their house in Juárez, but I imagine that inside they have them. Felipe: Well, I have seen some . . . but maybe in two or three houses only, but not as many as they have in the South . . . this is not a small, backward village! Jesús: . . . there are many people in colonias that do put up altars and matachines and everything. Felipe: But I’m sure people do it more in the South. Aurora: Down there people leave the altars permanently . . . Felipe: Well, like I told you . . . outside the house, there have only been a few houses that I’ve seen . . . But as soon as you walk in the house, you can see immediately an image of Christ or of the Virgin of Guadalupe . . . but we Juarenses do not have altars outside the house.

These interviewees claim to practice a more modern Catholicism (“This is not a small backward village!”), in which one need not show publicly the character of one’s faith. They identify the “old” or less modern version of Catholicism with the South and with Southern migrants because it is a commonsense assumption among native Juarenses that the poor residents of Juárez colonias are mostly Southern immigrants. Interestingly enough, these interviewees are mixing two things that, at least C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S

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analytically, could be considered different issues. I am referring here to the distinction between modern and traditional on the one hand, and urban and rural on the other. Thus, Felipe’s statement about Juárez not being a small backward village seems to refer to both simultaneously, equating modernization with urbanization. But Felipe’s quotation (and many others in the same vein that I collected during my fieldwork) also introduces another dimension to the modern-urban construct, that is, region: “I’m sure people do it more in the South.” In this sense the modern-urban logic is made much more complex when framed in regional terms, because part of the traditional Southern style of Catholicism also would be practiced, according to our interviewees, by those who live in Mexico City, the most urbanized and modern city of the country! Here is where region overdetermines other possible logics of understanding attitudes and behaviors. We also noted the theme of Fronterizas/os practicing a more modern Catholicism in the interview we conducted with a group of maquiladora managers in Juárez. Lily, Salvador, and Carolina, at the time of the interview, were in their early thirties, held professional degrees in administration, and worked for a U.S.-owned maquila in Juárez. All of them were Catholics and were born in northern Chihuahua. According to these interviewees, the traditional way of practicing Catholicism is preserved only in Southern Mexico, in the countryside, or by elderly people in Juárez, not by young, modern, Americanized Juarenses like themselves, as this exchange demonstrates: Salvador: Well, this [photograph portraying saints hanging on a patio wall] is Juárez . . . however, it seems to me that people living there are old people . . . this is an older person, we are talking about a fifty-five- or sixty-year-old person. Pablo: Why? Salvador: This type of altar [photo 1] is not used anymore by modern Catholics . . . Pablo: Why do you think they couldn’t be young people? Salvador: On the border . . . gosh! We live a more fast-paced lifestyle, accustomed to the practicality of El Paso, Texas . . . that’s why we don’t have much spiritual tranquillity. It is not a problem of religious irresponsibility . . . besides, God is everywhere.

While Salvador acknowledges that he practices a more modern and Americanized version of Catholicism, he does not deny being Catholic altogether. This is why he ends by saying, “It is not a problem of religious irresponsibility . . . besides, God is everywhere.” This defense of B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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his Catholicism is not peripheral; on the contrary, it is a well-developed practice because Salvador knows Southerners heavily criticize Fronterizos/ as for not being real Catholics. Interestingly, when Juarenses want to establish their differences from Mexican Americans, they use almost the same kind of discourse that Southerners use to deny authentic Catholicness/Mexicanness to them. Although many of the respondents from Juárez I interviewed acknowledged that they practice a different kind of Catholicism than do Southerners, they still considered themselves very close to the Catholic tradition, something they denied to Mexican Americans. Here again, a regional (or national) identity overlaps with a religious one to draw the lines of battle for what seems to be one of the border’s greatest trophies: Mexicanness. Thus, it is not by chance that many interviewees from Juárez marked the differences that separate them from Mexican Americans by citing American influence over the latter. In much the same fashion, Southerners cited American influence on Fronterizas/os to establish their own differences from Juarenses. Here also, as illustrated above, the cult of the dead is used to stress differences between Juarenses and Americans: Felipe: . . . [in the United States] they don’t do anything to remember their dead. A special day to celebrate the dead doesn’t exist, isn’t that so? ————— Robustiano:12 Cemeteries that are quite old have been abandoned . . . I imagine it is probably because relatives don’t even exist anymore.

PHOTO 2

Concordia Cemetery, El Paso

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Margarita: But also . . . because people here visit cemeteries more often than people over there [in the United States] . . . here [in the El Paso photograph] people no longer put little flowers . . . on the gravestones. Here in Juárez, there are always people in the cemeteries, because here people visit them more often. Pablo: Why does that happen? Margarita: Because over there people more easily forget their loved ones.

In the process of stressing their religious differences from Americans, these interviewees point out that people in Juárez are more Catholic than in El Paso, because Juarenses follow the Catholic tradition of remembering their dead, while El Pasoans follow the Protestant way, in which, supposedly, they hardly care for the dead at all. As Margarita and Robustiano observe: Margarita: The reason they are abandoned over there . . . is because they say, “He died, it’s over,” and here even after they die they’re still remembered. Robustiano: Everything that’s been said about cemeteries is true and is linked to the religions that exist over there. I think there are more religions over there than over here. There is more Catholism [sic] here. For example, by means of our Catholism [sic] we carry on the tradition of taking care of the cemeteries and everything . . . and over there in the United States there is more brotherhood13 and all of that . . . if a person dies, forget it, there he stays! And over here, because there are so many Catholics and stuff, there is a tradition of taking care of the tombs.

PHOTO 3

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Tepeyac Cemetery, Ciudad Juárez

Interestingly, Robustiano argues that in El Paso there are more religions than in Juárez. He means that in Juárez people are more homogeneous from a religious point of view, since they are mostly Catholic, while on the American side people profess different kinds of Protestantism. His argument is a veiled criticism of how Americans see their relationship with the deity; to Robustiano, having more than one religion is not a positive feature. He further alleges: Robustiano: Go on and see those that have been buried . . . forgotten! On the other hand, look, Catholic cemeteries look like parties! . . . Cemeteries over there look pretty sad because there is no fruit, there is no . . . the brothers don’t even put up crosses or anything . . . they just bury them and forget about them . . . that is why those cemeteries are abandoned.

But Robustiano considers himself different, not only from Protestant Americans, but also from Catholic Americans (Mexican Americans, in the case of El Paso), because in his eyes Catholicism is not the same on both sides of the border. Thus, Robustiano makes a criticism of his former Mexican American coworkers similar to the one Southerners apply to Juarenses: Robustiano: I imagine that Catholism [sic] is different over there in the U.S. because in the U.S. one does work . . . Let’s say, there is no time to rest or anything like that over there . . . because of work, there is no time to practice Catholism [sic] for example, because over there you have to work hard . . . and people’s drugs [debts]14 force them to work and work . . . I was also working in the U.S., but not me, it’d be Friday, and then, let’s go! But there were some guys who would not even rest on Sundays . . . !

Robustiano’s main argument is that because the lifestyles on the two sides of the border are so different, the ways of practicing Catholicism on each side are also different. He implies that being a Catholic in the Mexican way requires a certain amount of free time, which Mexican Americans lack due to their work and consumer attitudes. Robustiano argues that Americans in general are less religious than Mexicans and that Mexican American Catholics are less Catholic than Fronterizo Catholics. Through these discursive devices, a hierarchy of Catholicism that serves as a metaphor for degrees of Mexicanness is established for different regional identities. In this hierarchy, Southerners supposedly practice a more traditional Catholicism, Fronterizas/os a more Americanized one, and Mexican Americans a totally Americanized C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S

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one or—still worse—none at all. It is implicitly understood that in this process, as Catholic practices are abandoned, other religious practices are incorporated, especially those advocated by the different branches of American Protestantism. As Robustiano points out: Pablo: Why do you think the Mexican population of the other side has stopped being Catholic? Robustiano: . . . the majority of people who leave here [for the United States] do so because of poverty. Then when the wetback leaves due to poverty, he doesn’t find a job, he ends up with the brothers [Protestants] . . . And all that so they can get some help . . . I have had a lot of friends that have gone over there as hard-core Catholics, plenty of vices, and . . . when they return here, they return with another faith, practicing another religion . . . Let’s say I start talking with them and ask them, “Why did you get into that [religion]?” “Well, you know, hunger was killing me and I had to look for other religions to sustain my family and myself, which pushed me to enter the brotherhood in the United States.” That’s why I think this is going on.15

Robustiano is describing, not just how some Mexicans become Protestants in the United States, but also how many Fronterizos/as do the same in Juárez. For some Protestant denominations, it is very common for parishioners to go to the poorest neighborhoods of Juárez to distribute food and clothing among the inhabitants, and this activity is taken by many Catholics as proselytism, that is, as a way to convert Catholics, taking advantage of their poverty. As Bowen (1996, p. 12) points out: [Very] pervasive is the view that Evangelicals, and American missionaries in particular, seduce or buy converts through offers of food, clothing, and other material benefits. Betrayal of one’s patrimony for “bread and dollars,” as one priest I interviewed aptly put it, is the standard and perhaps predictable explanation offered by the Catholic Church.

The explanation that Protestant growth in Mexico is due to the economic incentives coming from the United States is not only widespread among laypeople like Robustiano, but was also a common explanation advanced by several researchers for many years. Nowadays its appeal is somehow subdued, among other reasons because “research has failed to established a direct correlation between Pentecostal growth [the reason Protestantism has grown in recent years], on the one hand, and foreign personnel, resources, and strategies, on the other” (Wilson 1994, B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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p. 90). Hernández Hernández (1996, pp. 122–124), for instance, found in his research on Protestant organizations on the border that [t]he Protestant societies that operate on the northern frontier are societies with local roots and not merely branches of groups in the United States . . . most of the Protestant religious presence, in all its forms, has been born through the initiative of Mexican citizens . . . in support of the idea of Protestant societies having local roots is the virtual absence of monetary donations by foreigners . . . Even when some congregations end up receiving donations, they are almost always goods (food, clothing, etc.) but sometimes money; the contributions of food and clothes are always of greater value than the money. (my translation)

At the same time, such a position is considered by many as “a poor analysis that does not take into account the multiple endogenous elements that are taken from the indigenous culture to be subsequently transformed by and for the same converts” (Fortuny Loret de Mola 1994, p. 51).16 Nevertheless, if discredited among intellectuals, it seems that this commonsense explanation of Protestant growth is alive and doing well among the laypeople of the region. Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and Catholicism in the United States

In our discussion of religion and regional differentiation among Mexican nationals, we found that certain Catholic practices are used as a “measure” of Mexicanness and that, according to some interviewees from Southern Mexico, Southerners score higher than Juarenses in Catholicness (and therefore in Mexicanness as well). A similar mechanism was described when we analyzed how some Juarenses think of Mexican Americans as being less Catholic (and therefore less Mexican) than themselves. We will analyze a similar scheme in our El Paso interviews, but from the vantage point of immigrants who actually lived in El Paso.17 We start with interview excerpts of Humberto and Marta. These recent immigrants lived in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in El Paso. They migrated to El Paso from Juárez (Humberto was born in Sonora and Marta in Juárez) less than six years before their interview, living first in a public housing project. Both were in their early fifties and working as unskilled clerks in El Paso. They had some high school education. Interestingly, this couple talks as if they still live in Juárez. Thus, they refer to religion in the same fashion as did many of the C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S

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people I interviewed in Juárez; that is, they contrast the Catholic traditions of Southerners and Fronterizas/os. Marta: . . . I’d say that in terms of religion, all Hispanics have the same religion, right? Maybe the only difference is that there, in the South, they have a belief about bringing the dead the food they used to eat, . . . that is just (how do you say it?) a . . . Humberto: . . . tradition. Marta: A tradition. But believing that is just not true, because the dead person is not going to come back to eat and drink what he did in life. They take them the things they liked in vain. Humberto: Down there in Southern Mexico . . . they practice that tradition the Day of the Dead a lot, taking the dead everything they liked and mariachis and all that. But those are things now . . . Marta: . . . They are secondary things, because . . . Humberto: . . . They are out, out of the ordinary.

As we can see, Marta and Humberto think that the “normal” and “common” way to practice Catholicism is their own way, that is, a modern or less traditional Catholicism as practiced by Northern Mexicans and Mexican Americans. For these interviewees, the epitome of fuera de lo común [out of the ordinary] Catholicism is the way Southerners observe the Day of the Dead by bringing food to the tombs to please their beloved ones with the kind of food they loved when alive. We must recall here that it is precisely that type of Catholic custom that Southerners in Juárez complained Fronterizos/as are abandoning, along with their Mexicanness. Marta: I don’t think they really think that the dead are actually going to come and eat! . . . Why bring things to the dead? I don’t know . . . it’s better to say a prayer for them. Humberto: Take them flowers and a rosary, say a few prayers. That . . . is sufficient I think; it’s senseless to take food and drinks . . . what for?! Marta: But nevertheless, one is respectful . . . because those really are the traditions of the South, right? They are passed on from parents to children and so forth.

Thus Marta wants to differentiate a Southern tradition from a Catholic tradition, detaching what Southerners in the above comments always wanted to attach: Catholicism and its practice in Southern Mexico. To Marta, both altars and the cult of the dead Southern style are not, by definition, the Catholic (and Mexican) way to practice Catholicism, as Southerners claim. Instead, these practices are only a Southern B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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tradition, a tradition highly influenced by the pre-Hispanic culture of the natives of the region but not necessarily a Catholic tradition. Additionally, for Marta and Humberto this tradition is so foreign that they do not seriously think that Southerners really believe in what they are doing. A second issue that these recent immigrants to the United States evaluate from a Juarense’s point of view instead of an El Pasoan’s is, again, the private versus public display of Catholic practice. Nevertheless, they are not only pointing out the differences between Southerners’ public displays of faith versus Fronterizas/os’ private displays (as some Juarenses we interviewed did), but they are also fiercely criticizing those public displays, which they feel characterize Southerners but not Juarenses, Northerners, or Chicanos. Angela: In this photograph the religious images are outside of the house. Would that be very common in Mexico? Humberto: Well, not in Juárez. But perhaps farther south in Mexico, yes . . . because that is . . . not common in Juárez. In Mexico, yes, because there are people more . . . Marta: . . . well, one has to also recognize there are a lot of people who use those religious images only to attract the naive . . . suppose . . . I have the Virgin of Guadalupe and I plan on healing people . . . The ignorant people will say, “Ah yes, this one is very Catholic.” Or if it’s true [that the person is a good Catholic], then the rest is a lie. Angela: In other words, they confuse religion . . . Marta: Uh-huh . . . with fanaticism . . . Humberto: There are some clever rascals who will say, “Ah, I have it! Look at this . . . the image is crying,” and then they put it there and make a little altar for it. People then start spreading the news that in a certain part [of the city] there is a religious image . . . and then people start going to see it and pay those who are taking advantage of them.

For these interviewees, people who have Catholic images outside their homes could not be Juarenses or Mexican Americans but must be Southerners or, worse, unscrupulous people who make money by taking advantage of the religious fanaticism of uneducated people. In this sense, Marta and Humberto at first denied that the Southern way of practicing Catholicism is the real way, but now they claim that, not only is it incorrect, but people who practice Catholicism this way are not believers but fanatics. In the set of interviews I conducted with a group of women in San Elizario (an El Paso suburb), I heard the voices of Mexican immigrants C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S

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who had lived in El Paso for some time.18 Analyzing their discourse offers us a deeper look into the complex process of negotiation that takes place as Mexican immigrants become Mexican Americans. These women acknowledge that Juarenses (in other words, they themselves, in the past) are correct in claiming that Juárez is “more Catholic” than is El Paso: Rosalba: . . . over there . . . the Catholic religion is more deep-rooted . . . It’s just that the people here are constantly in a rush, they don’t even go to mass! Like, if one puts a saint in the living room, well, it looks ugly there, I’d rather put it over there in the bedroom.

Rosalba first blames the frenetic lifestyle of Americans (that she herself follows) as the reason why El Pasoans are changing their way of practicing Catholicism. She is not saying, as did many Juarenses, that Mexican immigrants are becoming Protestants, but rather that they are still Catholics but now have different religious practices that are adapted to the peculiarities of an American lifestyle. Such comments were prominent in most of our interviews with Mexican immigrants in El Paso, including a group of people we interviewed in a government housing project:19 Yolanda: . . . even on Sunday, and even if you’re from over there [Mexico], you start to get lazy [once you’ve moved to the United States] . . . but not over there in Juárez—you go to mass every Sunday! Pablo: Why is that so? Aníbal: Well, because of the influence we have from our own country, Mexico, right? I do not know if that makes a difference in itself, that in being Mexican there is more . . . more religious loyalty . . . well, since a long time ago people have gone to mass, even to catechism and confirmation. It’s that there is more . . . freedom in the U.S. than in Mexico, so the religious beliefs tend to be not secondary [sic] but even tertiary, right? Here one needs to keep moving to survive . . . I’m referring to . . . other things in life having more influence than religion. In that way religion is falling behind in people’s priorities.

Thus while Aníbal, like Rosalba, thinks that religion is not as important in El Paso as it is in Juárez, he again pinpoints the influence of American “liberalism” in explaining the change in attitude toward Catholicism that seems so prominent in the discourse of these interviewees. But not only the competition of other religious cults is behind the lessened Catholic behavior of some Mexican immigrants in the United States. The presence of Protestant cults also seems to be undermining Catholicism in a very peculiar way. Because of the evangelical B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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activities of some Protestant groups, according to the interviewees in the government housing project, the Catholic Church demands more of its members in El Paso than it does in Juárez, which discourages people who otherwise might have continued to practice their religious faith “Mexican-style.” The reason for this higher level of demand is competition by Protestant denominations for the same religious constituency. Micaela: And my son went to church classes just before confirmation due to my pressure, right? Because . . . they ask the kids to take confirmation classes for two years! . . . And even that has changed a lot . . . Because of that, people have lost a lot of faith and all that, because traditions have changed a lot. Before, it was not customary to counsel parents for baptism or confirmations at a young age, or to study two or three years of doctrine to get the first communion . . . and two or three years for . . . Agustina: But it’s for the conscience itself. Micaela: . . . sure, it’s for their religious conscience, but the kids don’t want to waste their time going to religious classes now. I’ll grant you they don’t spend very much time—maybe they lose two hours once a week taking the classes—but they don’t want to anymore. Agustina: Even less here, but in Juárez, believe me, they go! Micaela: Yes, but in Juárez confirmation classes take six months! And here it’s two years! . . . and that also contributes a lot toward kids’ demoralization. Pablo: Why are they stricter here? Yolanda: Because of all the religions that are flourishing, which cause the Catholic Church to ask for more commitment from people, for people to be more conscious of their religion in order to avoid confusion, like there has been when people say, “Well, I did not know what it was about,” and so they change to another religion.

Here Protestantism appears again as the underlying cause of the differences that many interviewees perceived between Catholic practice in Juárez and El Paso. In this case, due to competition with Protestant denominations in El Paso, the Catholic hierarchy seems to have toughened requirements to receive the most important Catholic sacraments (baptism, confirmation, marriage, etc.). This has discouraged many people from going to church or participating in these rites of passages. As one interviewee explains, she decided not to marry in the Catholic Church due to this strictness: Agustina: I was going to get married through the Church, but since we live here . . . we have to go to counseling! Even after having lived together C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S

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seven years, we still have to go to counseling to get married?!20 We didn’t mess with it anymore, really. In Juárez it’s not like that . . .

In her comments above, Rosalba expresses an opinion that Mexican Americans in our interviews reiterated frequently about Juarenses (and that resembles a claim Juarenses made about Southerners)—that Juarenses practice Catholicism openly, while Mexican immigrants in the United States practice privately (“Like, if one puts a saint in the living room, well, it looks ugly there, I’d rather put it over there in the bedroom”). Thus, Rosalba uses the image of a saint who is displaced from the living room (the room that people usually share with friends and acquaintances who are not part of their inner circle) to the bedroom (the most private room of the house) to stress how Catholicism privatizes itself once it crosses the border. And here it appears that the process of privatization is more profound in El Paso than in Juárez, if we remember that the image used by Juarenses mentioned a saint who moved from the porch to the living room, while Rosalba’s metaphor moves the saint from the living room to the bedroom. Looking for explanations of this process, Rosalba advances a sort of shame hypothesis. Rosalba: Like, as if they were embarrassed, ashamed, or I don’t know what, to say that they are Catholic, right? Pablo: Why would they get embarrassed? Pilar: Well I don’t know, it’s that here people are . . . people become more . . . Rosalba: . . . it’s like people don’t have, feelings— one is becoming more . . . Nora: . . . more indifferent. Rosalba: I’m going to tell you something, I feel that people here live better materially, but there is more unity in Mexico, more friendship, more love for your fellow man. Here one lives on the run, very . . .

In El Paso, where lo Mexicano [that which is Mexican] is synonymous for some people with all they want to detach from, Catholicism, by overlapping with Mexicanness, is something to keep private, along with use of the Spanish language and other symbolic markers of ethnicity and nationality that can be kept from public scrutiny (as skin color cannot).21 This is probably why the idea of vergüenza [shame] appears in Rosalba’s statement.22 At the same time, moving the saints from public to private spaces also means metaphorically reducing the importance of the saints in one’s religious practices. This reduction, in the border context, also means likening one’s faith to the faith of the supposedly B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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more modern Americanized “other,” the Protestant who does not worship saints at all. However, this interviewee is also looking for another kind of explanation to make sense of the different way of being Catholic in El Paso. This time she focuses on some characteristics of Americans regarding taking care of others, which supposedly are different from those of the Mexicans. According to her observations, Catholicism cannot prosper in a society that is not willing to care for others, a society without compassion, as the United States is portrayed. In Mexico people care for others and people have compassion; therefore, in Mexico Catholicism can prosper. As on the Mexican side of the border, a good measure used by the interviewees to appraise the level of Catholicism of the “other” is the way people take care of their dead. Thus, if Americans supposedly do not have feelings and do not care for each other, it is not by chance that they do not take care of their dead either. Nora: I think that in Mexico, people tend more . . . to visit cemeteries much more than here . . . Pablo: And why do you think this is so? Nora: Well, because of the same thing we discussed above . . . Rosalba: Religion.

Thus, religion again occupies a very important place in the construction of self and “others.” As we have repeatedly seen, it is a central component in the idea of Mexicanness. In the following excerpt from an interview with Alex and Alicia, the image of saints moving from a public to a more “private” location also appears:23 Alicia: How many houses [are there in El Paso] (look, like here in the pictures) . . . that have saints . . . all outside? Pablo: Are there any in El Paso? Alex: No!! Alicia: That I have seen, no. Alex: . . . there are some, but . . . I mean, inside, not outside! Pablo: What is the reason for that difference? Alex: They do that to pro-te-, pro-tect the . . . house, I imagine! Alicia: But it’s very uncommon to see saints like that here . . . Alex: But . . . but they have only one! . . . but not like . . . those . . . who . . . who have . . . three Alicia: . . . four, five . . . C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S

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Alex: . . . they have . . . one . . . one, two . . . They have six! . . . and not . . . Pablo: There are too many saints, here there would be less. [laughs] Alex: [laughs] No, well yeah . . . [laughs] . . . Alicia: Let’s go to your dad’s room . . . [laughs] Alex: No! [laughs] Pablo: How many does his father have? [laughs] Alicia: All of them! Alex: All of them! Alicia: But inside his room, not outside the house . . .

Alex and Alicia’s reference to saints that are displayed publicly in Mexican households but privately in American households again implies that they believe Juarenses are less ashamed of their religious practices than are Mexican Americans. It also refers to what seems to be an “appropriate” place for saints in Mexican American houses: the bedroom, not the porch or the living room. However, in the following statement, Alicia suggests another reason why saints might be displayed outside in Juárez: Alicia: Also, I think that people put the saints outside in Juárez because of . . . those people who go and knock your door . . . the brothers? [Protestants] . . . a lot of people put them outside so that when the brothers come, they won’t stop; my mother does it! . . . [to show the brothers] that they are Catholic . . . so that people of other religions won’t stop to ask for money or something . . .

Once more, Protestantism appears as the “phantom” in relation to which Catholic practices in Juárez are structured differently from those in El Paso. Thus, according to Alicia, Mexican Catholics want to avoid Protestants more than American Catholics do. According to Bowen (1996, pp. 191–192), avoiding Protestants is practiced all over Mexico: Evangelistic fervour was one of the major sources of tensions between Catholics and Evangelicals at local community level . . . The constant evangelistic campaigns of most churches and the many small groups of women and teens who evangelized from door to door insured that most households in most neighbourhoods had been canvassed several times. The resentment this could engender was evident in the posted signs, seen everywhere throughout Mexico, on the fronts of homes, saying, “We are Catholic and Mexican. We are followers of the Virgin of Guadalupe. We do not want to have anything to do with foreign Protestant propaganda.” B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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In the interview we had with the members of the Antunes family (who had lived in El Paso for over twenty years at the time of the interview), the issue of the different ways Mexicans and Mexican Americans practice their common faith, Catholicism, appeared again:24 Elena: . . . I think that here in the United States there are still some of the traditions that we, Mexicans, had . . . [but Catholicism] is changing.

Thus, Elena has no problem acknowledging that Mexican American and Mexican Catholicism are different. She easily points out that Mexican Americans follow only a small part [un poquito] of the Mexican Catholic traditions. And as happened in the Juárez interviews, Elena and her family also believe that the old way of practicing Catholicism is maintained only in Mexico or by old Mexican immigrants in El Paso: Elena: I think that as one modernizes, . . . the first thing one does is remove the saints from the wall and put up other decorations. Catalina: But when there is an older person living in the house, no . . . Elisa: No, there are always some . . . ! Catalina: My mother! There’s no way my mother will let me remove her Virgins of Guadalupe that are this big! [referring to large images] Her Santo Niño de Atocha and her Martín de Porres. I have them there because she [likes them] . . .

Interestingly, these interviewees think the first thing Mexican Americans do to separate themselves from Mexican Catholicism is to remove the saints from the living room walls and replace them with decorations, and they frame such a move as “modernization.” Once again, a change from the public to the private sphere seems to mark the transition from a Mexican way of practicing Catholicism, framed as the “old” and “traditional” way, to a Mexican American one, here understood as a more modern way of practicing the same faith. However, in the case of these interviewees we know the saints were removed from the walls but we do not know their final destination, if any. Seeking to explain the difference between the Mexican way of practicing Catholicism and their own, these interviewees point out the relationship they believe exists between religion and poverty: Elena: . . . and this other one [photo 1] . . . reminds me also of the old days, when I was young in Mexico. Beatriz: What’s that— clothes hanging there? Elena: Yes, it is an angel with its . . . outside and in the middle there are some little saints. Normally, when one is very poor one is more attached to C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S

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the saints, to religion . . . it’s as [though] . . . if poor people lose faith in the saints and in God, they have lost everything, because they are poor and don’t have anything else . . . Adriana: They don’t have anything else to lose . . . Elena: Well that’s why . . . [they have] saints everywhere! Pablo: Would one be able to see a photograph like this in El Paso? Elena: I have never seen one. Pablo: Why do you think it would be impossible to see a picture like this? Elena: Because here the government helps everyone.

Thus, according to Elena, people in Mexico are more religious because they are poorer than people in the United States. What Elena is doing here is mixing different plots that are very prominent in the region: Mexicans are more religious than Americans; all poverty is Mexican; and there is no such thing as American poverty. Therefore, if Mexican Americans no longer worship saints publicly, it is because they are no longer poor. If they are not poor, it is because they receive government economic support, while Mexicans do not. Adriana uses the same type of explanation to illustrate why her children are less religious than she is—because they have not suffered from poverty as she did: Adriana: The kids of today have not lacked things as much as we lacked them. In other words, they don’t have the need to have such faith, because they haven’t lacked anything, they haven’t suffered any hunger, cold, they don’t have a reason to [have faith] . . .

Nevertheless, while they recognize the differences between Mexican and Mexican American Catholicism, these interviewees still believe they are true Catholics and differentiate their faith from that of Anglos: Elena: I think that religion keeps Hispanics more united. Because . . . besides believing in your work or in money, if you believe in God or in a saint, I think that it helps you to keep your family together, because you have something to talk to them about—about a religious faith, for example. I think you accomplish more teaching them faith, and then [they’re more prepared] for what they find in the outside world and at work.

According to Elena, Hispanics in the United States are more faithful than Anglos, and through their faith they keep the family together (something Anglos supposedly do not do). In addition, the Catholic faith is a barrier that Hispanics have against the pure materialism that seems to them to characterize Anglos. Elena advocates a combination of both faiths as the best route for Hispanics: keeping Catholic traditions B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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in order to maintain the family, while adopting Anglo faith in money and hard work. Our interview with the López family clearly demonstrates how people of Mexican descent view Catholic practice on the border as a hierarchy of faith, to the point that they believe they can quantify how much traditional Catholicism exists in Southern Mexico as contrasted with the Mexican side of the border and El Paso.25 Paul: Do you think the celebration of the Virgin has changed? Horacio: Oh no! Not down there [in Southern Mexico]. Well, . . . not here either, on the border. But down there they do it . . . for example, if here on the border, here in Juárez, 20 percent of the population does it, perhaps down there 60 percent of the population does it. Rick: You mean to say that . . . people are more Catholic the deeper you go into Mexico and less Catholic the closer you get to the Americans? Horacio: Their beliefs are more conservative, son. Because down there, for example, as they revere our Holy Mother, the Virgin of Guadalupe, they also worship the Virgin of San Juan de los Lagos, and other images of the Virgin as well.

In this commentary Horacio wants to put forth a similar meaning regarding what Marta and Humberto pointed out before, that is, that the Southern way of practicing Catholicism is not the “common” or “correct” one, as Southerners claim, because it is out of date. As in other interviews, these interviewees point out how faith seems to privatize itself as it moves from south to north and crosses the border. Instead of using the image of saints changing location within the house, the López family cites one of the most public displays of faith—the Catholic tradition of making the sign of the cross [persignarse] when passing a church. They say the practice is widespread in Southern Mexico but almost nonexistent in El Paso. To explain this difference, they equate traditionalism with the past, in this case with their own past: Rick: Do you make the sign of the cross when you pass in front of a church? Horacio: Oh no, son . . . I used to do it before, but it’s not . . . it doesn’t get you anywhere. I asked a priest, and he told me it was nothing more than a form of saluting our Lord. It’s a way of not being ashamed of your beliefs, because a lot of people pass and they make the sign of the cross without rhyme or reason . . . Rick: I think that is something we learn from our elders, because I used to hang out with this friend when I was at Ysleta High, and when we passed a C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S

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church, he made the sign of the cross and he said he always did it because his grandmother always did it and she said that it’s something that must be done.

It is interesting that Horacio mentions the issue of shame, as Rosalba did, to explain why El Pasoans do not want to display their Catholic faith publicly (“it’s a way of not being ashamed of your beliefs”). In the hierarchy of faith to which many people of Mexican descent repeatedly refer to stress their differences from the “others,” Anglos and African Americans are at the bottom of the scale; they are described as being detached from God: Rick: Don’t you think it’s strange . . . what’s more, I have never seen a white American make the sign of the cross, never. Mónica: Or a black person either. Only us Mexicans are like that. Rick: Why do you say that the Mexican is like that? Mónica: Because making the sign of the cross is more common for a Mexican than for any other race. It’s like the Mexican is more Catholic than any other race. The Mexican has always been the closest to God. Rick: One can say that since an early age we have been taught to have a lot of respect toward those things that have to do with religion.

In addition, in some instances the religious practices of Anglos and African Americans are the object of fierce mockery and ridicule: Rick: I chose these pictures because they are of religion, and in all these we have temples, right? Then, they remind me . . . of how easy it is for

PHOTO 4

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Poor Protestant church in Juárez

anyone to establish a religion anywhere, right? They buy any old shack and right away establish their religion there, pick up the offerings, and it seems to me they make a mockery out of what religion should be . . . to me, what they really do it for is to get money, in reality, their faith is not that strong. I got this other photo because of the Mormons, because they do their two or three years of being on their bikes just because their religion requires it. But I wonder, how do they do it? I barely get on my bike and I start sweating, and they have their shirts and ties on. Horacio: Yes, yes, I’ve seen them. People scare them with their cars. Rick: I chose this one photo also because it says something about religion. Because one can see that here they have a little cross and an altar for various things, religious objects, and so many things seem to me like fanaticism, and the furniture is so dilapidated . . . in other words, it seems to me like fanaticism . . . I say it’s fanaticism because anybody can go and start a church from a shack. It seems to me a violation of my respect for the Catholic religion that anyone can start their own temple, even though we are all free to do so. But they violate my view of what should be respect toward religion.

Anglos and African Americans are portrayed as believing in money instead of religion—or worse, as making money through religion. Rick even states that he feels violated in his religious faith by the way Anglos practice their religion. For him, it seems there is only one true religion, Catholicism. Other religions are merely fanatical creations of people who do not want a real union with God. Thus, we have seen how Catholicism, widely considered one of the most important areas of commonality between Mexicans and Mexican Americans, can also be used to construct differences between the two, as demonstrated in the interview samples above. Citing religious practices and other differences, these interviewees constructed identities that often allowed them to point to the “other” in a derogatory and prejudiced way. This discursive process of constructing the “other” follows a wellestablished pattern that also pervades other nonreligious ways of constructing the “other.” I am referring here to the regional logic of classification in Juárez and the ethnic one in El Paso (and the national one in both cities). It is well known that the “obsession” Americans have with race and ethnicity as mechanisms to “order” reality is an obsession that has downplayed other ways to understand attitudes and behavior. Something similar happens with the Fronterizo obsession with region. Thus, it was not by chance that people of Mexican descent on C AT H O L I C I S M A N D M E X I C A N N E S S

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both sides of the border established a geographical hierarchy between Catholic practices and Mexicanness as they did in our interviews. This was so because, on the one hand, to think of identities in geographical terms is a well-entrenched Mexican way of understanding themselves and “others.” On the other hand, to think in a hierarchical way seems to be a basic premise in any construction of identity when morals are involved.

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Chapter 2

Introduction

If, as I have tried to show in the previous chapter, on the border there is a close relationship between being a Mexican and being a Catholic, the process of identity construction among Protestants of Mexican descent is, to say the least, complicated.1 They are something that is “unexpected” from the commonsense point of view of the region. We have already seen some strategies developed by several of the Mexican Catholics I interviewed to make sense of this “inconsistent” type of identity, for instance, to claim that many Mexicans become Protestants only because of economic necessity. Thus, I thought that it would be interesting to know what kind of narrative plots Mexican Protestants develop to make sense of a particular kind of identity that supposedly is an oxymoron. We had the opportunity to hear such narratives in several interviews on both sides of the border with people of Mexican descent who identified themselves as Christians but not Catholics. Virginia Garrard-Burnett, in the conclusion of Rethinking Protestantism in Latin America, stresses that Latin American Protestantism has the potential of redefining people’s social identities. According to her, it is quite obvious that Pentecostalism in particular has improved the situation of women in the household (more of this below), but she asks (1993, p. 208): “Might the same also be true, say, of class or ethnic conflict? Could conversion change the terms in which social classes and ethnic groups define their differences, making them more amenable to nonviolent resolution through the definition of new ‘imagined communities’?” In the pages that follow we will see that, at least in relation to Mexican and Mexican American Protestantism, there is not a simple answer to her question, because on certain points it seems that Mexican Protestants do not differ whatsoever from their Catholic counterparts in their anti-Southern, anti-Mexican, and/or anti-American stance, while in certain circumstances they seem to advance a much more pious stance. Let’s turn to the ethnographic material, which illustrates this complexity. The first thing that rapidly caught my attention when interviewing self-defined Mexican Christians is that, in many cases, there is not MEXICAN AND MEXICAN AMERICAN P RO T E S TA N T S

much difference between the way Mexican Catholics and Mexican Protestants construct their most important narrative identities. In this regard I have found Mexican Protestants who utilize very similar narrative arguments to differentiate themselves from the “others,” when those others are defined in regional and national terms on the Mexican side of the border or in ethnic and national terms when the interviewees construct their identities on the American side of the international divide. We have to remember here that some of the anti-Southerner stances on the Mexican side of the border and anti-Mexican stances on the American side quoted in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders and in other chapters of this book came from people who identified themselves as “Christians,” that is, Protestants. At the same time, in some other cases there is a very pronounced variation in the way Mexican Protestants and Catholics construct their identities, and those similarities and differences are not necessarily related to which side of the border the interview was conducted on. Let us delve into the ethnographic data to see how this operates.

Similarities at Work between Mexican Catholics and Mexican Protestants

On the Mexican side of the border, for instance, we had an opportunity to interview a group of Baptists, which offered us a glimpse of how Mexican Protestants construct their “unexpected” identities as “nonCatholic Mexicans.” 2 The participants of that interview were José Luis, who was twenty-five years old, an accountant, and married, and who was born in Ciudad Chihuahua and had moved to Juárez three years before; Teresa, a fifty-year-old married nurse who was born in Durango but who had moved to Ciudad Juárez more than twentyfive years before; Lupe, a thirty-four-year-old insurance agent who was single and a native Juarense; Clarisa, an eighteen-year-old student who also was from Juárez; and Ada, another student, who was twenty years old and married. At first glance there is not much difference between these interviewees and most Catholic people we interviewed in Juárez. They also use very common narratives like the “despised Southerner” and “materialistic Anglos.” In this sense, Lupe, for instance, firmly believes that female Southerners only come to Juárez either to prostitute themselves or to have a good time before crossing to the United States: Lupe: I’ve heard it said that that’s the reason people from Mexico’s interior come to Juárez [to make money at any cost and using whatever means B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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available]. Because they are not going to stay for a long time . . . the ones who think they will be here for a [short] while dedicate themselves to those things. For example, here is a photo [photo 9] of them playing cards. Other people here are doing other things. Angela: Prostituting themselves? Lupe: Yes. And they come here just to make money and then go away or find a way to go to the U.S.

In addition, Teresa identifies abortion (something that she is totally against) with Southern Mexican females who work in the maquiladora industry: “From the statistics I could see, there is a large percentage of abortions among the maquiladora women, more than the housewives [have?].” A particular feature of the narrative identities of this type of interviewees (quite different from other “anti-Southerner” stances I encountered in Juárez) is their distinctive religious overtones. As we saw in Chapter 1, Southern and Northern Mexican Catholics describe each other with a clear religious innuendo that marks their differences: Southerners are described as more “traditional” or “fanatics,” while Fronterizas/os are portrayed as more “modern.” Since both accept the same religion, however, the interviewees assume that eventually Catholics both in the South and along the border will be saved if they follow what their common faith prescribes. Unlike the Catholics’ innuendos, the religious overtones of these Protestants are much more pronounced. In addition, the interviewees focus on a very different set of distinctions than the ones prominent among Mexican Catholics. As I describe in more detail below, some of these Mexican Protestant interviewees have a very well developed plot to explain why, in some respects, people in Northern Mexico and in the United States are much better prepared to be part of the “saved ones” than people in Southern and Central Mexico. We must also keep in mind that for people like José Luis, Clarisa, Lupe, and Teresa, one of their most important identities—besides being Mexicans, Fronterizos/as, and the like—is being Christians, that is, part of the group of people who, having discovered Jesus Christ, are destined to be saved. According to Bowen (1996, p. 102), salvation is at the center of Mexican Evangelicals’ faith, and it has the following characteristics: For Mexican Evangelicals, the essence of salvation is the achievement and maintenance of a personal relationship with the supernatural or God through the mediation of God’s son, Jesus Christ. Salvation is achieved by faith, not right action, though the former is assumed to give rise to the latter. Salvation M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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is available to all, despite the sinful nature of humans, by virtue of the payment or sacrifice paid by God’s only son, Jesus Christ, through his death.

The same holds true for Hispanic Protestants in the United States as well (see Marín and Gamba 1993, pp. 362–362). Therefore, as part of this well-developed narrative of “salvation” versus “condemnation,” some of our interviewees advance an anti– Southern Mexican stance that has a particular religious connotation. According to this discourse, because of the intense religious syncretism between indigenous idolatrous religions and Catholicism that occurred in Central and Southern Mexico but not in Northern Mexico, the former region is identified as the origin of what they consider the worst characteristic of Mexican Catholicism, the idolization of images and superstition. According to Bowen (1996, p. 128): The core objection of Evangelicals was that Mexican Catholics “practice idolatry” by “worshipping images” rather than God and Christ. Catholics, said the pastors, “do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” which for Evangelicals was the sine qua non of salvation. Evangelicals focused their condemnation on the religious practices, customs, and traditions of the mass of the Catholic population, claiming Catholics worshipped dead representations rather than a living God. Catholicism they dismissed as a pre-Hispanic vestige dressed up in Roman error, which was as pagan as it was heretical.

In this way, the anti-idolization stance that characterizes Mexican Protestantism in general is framed as an anti-Southern stance by these Northern Mexican self-defined Christians, because in their narratives Northern Mexico is excluded from that process of religious syncretism. With this discursive move, the geographical “us,” which I have described in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders as being so important in the construction of a valued Northerner and Fronterizo identity, is equated with the most important “us” for this particular type of Christian interviewee, that is, the “saved” (or at least more prone to be saved) ones. José Luis: You can see much more syncretism in the South, because it is where the native indigenous groups were located and where the Spaniard arrived, where he started to conquer, right? In the North, especially in Chihuahua, right?, if you see it, the area is deserted—hard, hard to work. Then, the people who decided to conquer the desert developed a different kind of character. There wasn’t so much syncretism [sincretía (sic)] because the indigenous groups were, well . . . very timid. On the one hand, we can see the Tarahumara in the Tarahumara sierra, who never mixed with the [Spaniards] . . . and he is very proud of his race, the indigenous one, to B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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the point that if someone went down to the city . . . [he] couldn’t return to the sierra because the other Tarahumaras wouldn’t accept him. And for the other side of the North, we had all the tribes of Apache fighters, whose purpose was war. Thus, [in the North] the Spanish race was preserved, to a certain point, a little more pure. In the North, there wasn’t as much syncretism as in the South, and also the eagerness to work hard to conquer the desert contributed to changing, to a certain point, the way of thinking of the North in relation to the South.

What we have here is a very interesting overlap of a racial discourse (explicit) and a religious one (implicit). The religious discourse is implied in the excerpt above in the word “syncretism” and is made explicit later in the interview, which is provided below. In this interview, Southerners are depicted as being more Indian-like and less prone to salvation than Northerners, while Northerners are portrayed as being more European-like and more prone to salvation. Another respect in which these Protestant interviewees did not differ from most of the Catholic respondents on the Mexican side of the border that I interviewed is in their critical depiction of “Americans.” Thus, they do not see any contradiction in depicting Americans as much more prone to salvation (because most of them are Protestants, something they like about Americans) and at the same time as being more liberal and materialist (something they clearly dislike). This is not a real contradiction, according to the Protestant discourse that separates faith from actions, because salvation is achieved by faith, not by performing right actions. In this sense, for instance, talking about a photograph of some senior citizens, José Luis repeats the very popular Mexican discourse of “Mexicans keep their elders at home, while Americans put them in nursing homes.” Another area in which I did not find many differences between the discourses of Catholics and Protestants was in relation to the narratives many Southern Mexican immigrants in Juárez use to denigrate Juarenses. In this regard, I had the opportunity to hear strong antiJuarense and anti-Fronterizo stances from Southern Mexican Protestants who focused on the same issues that Southern Catholics scrutinized in many of my interviews in the region, for instance, Juárez being the “city of vice,” where, according to Eloísa, the cantinas are the “trademark” of the city, in the same way some cities in Southern Mexico are well known for their caramel stores. Eloísa: This photo calls a lot of attention because it . . . identifies Juárez a lot . . . like in Celaya . . . where there are many cajeta [candy] stores M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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[laughs]. In Juárez, for example, on Juárez Avenue and Mariscal [Street], the bars are [the stores that identify the city]. And in this photograph too, right? It [looks like] a bar on the outside, but on the inside unfortunately there are many young women, right?, and they work there.

It was also not unusual to hear broadly anti-Mexican narratives from Mexican American Protestants; indeed, dozens of self-identified Christian Mexican Americans, using the “all poverty is Mexican” hegemonic plot of the region, considered Juárez the epitome of bleakness and assumed that various photographs portraying bleak conditions were representations of Juárez, when actually the photographs were taken in El Paso—in the colonia America, to be more accurate. Therefore, it is quite obvious that at least some of the Mexican American Protestants we interviewed share with their Catholic counterparts the same kind of narrative identities, in which the “other” is the poor Mexican national who is careless and filthy.3 We can see how these self-defined Mexican Christians share with their Catholic counterparts a series of narrative themes about the “others,” either the “others” to the South, the usually despised Southern Mexicans, or the “others” to the North, the “Americans.” At the same time, many of our Mexican American Protestants share with their Catholic companions many of the same negative images about the “other” (usually the Mexican national across the border), which revolve around moral defects such as machismo, among other things. However,

PHOTO 5

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Cantinas and bars in downtown Ciudad Juárez

as will be evident in the pages that follow, while some Mexican Protestants constructed their narrative identities in a very similar way to their Catholic counterparts, in other instances (showing how complex and contradictory the process of identity construction can be), it appeared that Mexican Protestants were less critical of their “cousins” south of the border than were the Catholics. Nevertheless, at the same time that the Protestants I interviewed either coincided with their Catholic counterparts in their criticisms directed toward Southern Mexicans, Fronterizas/os, and/or Mexican Americans or showed a little benevolence toward them, most of them were fully aware of the unexpected character of their Mexican Protestant identity. When Not Being Catholic Is Not Equated with Being Less Mexican

The awareness of the unexpected character of their Protestant identity is quite prominent in an interview with members of the Apostles of Christ, a Pentecostal church in El Paso. In that interview, the participants were David, Rebeca, and Sara. David was a forty-one-year-old maintenance worker born in Zacatecas who had been living in El Paso for five years. He was married and lived with his wife and children in an apartment provided at no cost by the church. He did not finish his middle school education. Rebeca, David’s wife, was also born in

PHOTO 6

Sex workers in a Juárez bar

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Zacatecas, thirty-nine years before the interview. She described her occupation as housewife and had completed only her elementary education. Sara came from the same small town in Zacatecas as David and Rebeca. She was a forty-eight-year-old maid who was separated from her husband and had only completed two years of primary education. In talking about a photograph depicting hanging cloths and a shrine with saints in the background, David points out: David: . . . many people have that kind of image, because we are Mexicans, we are Catholics. It was instilled in us that that was the thing to do, right?

Additionally, these interviewees do not consider themselves to be “less” Mexicans because they are no longer Catholics. Talking about the photographs of the cemeteries, Sara observes: Sara: . . . the tradition of going to the cemetery to bring flowers to our dead, that’s part of the Mexican tradition . . . we have already left behind all of that . . . [but] we still continue being Mexicans . . .

How can these interviewees claim that they are still Mexicans while abandoning some of the most cherished Mexican traditions, like the honoring of the dead? At first glance it seems that they are confirming what many Mexican Catholic interviewees told us about Mexican Protestants, that is, that they are abandoning the most important Mexican traditions that, in their discourse, are Catholic traditions. However, many of the Mexican Protestants I interviewed did claim an unambiguous Mexican identity without any problem. In the construction of their particular narrative identities of Mexican Christians, they first detach their religious identity from their national one, and then they reattach their national identity to the most important secular elements of it: Rebeca: We will be Mexicans until we die. Sara: Yes. We respect our government, we respect our flag. We don’t bow before it, but we respect it, we respect the colors, everything that is from our country.

In this type of discourse, showing deference to the Mexican government and the Mexican flag is much more important to maintaining their Mexicanness than going to cemeteries to honor their dead. Respect for government and flag is indubitably linked to being Mexican (if you show deference to another country and another flag, it means that your national identity is another one), but visiting the dead is a Catholic tradition that can be practiced in any other Catholic country, not just B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Mexico.4 To complete their discursive move, these Mexican Protestant interviewees reroute the identity discussion from the kind of identity that Catholics pinpoint in their criticism of Mexican Protestants (being more or less “Mexican”) to the type of identity that is crucial to them—being among those who will be saved because they have discovered Jesus Christ versus being a part of those who will be damned because they have not found Christ (a narrative topic we will analyze in more depth below): Rebeca: [but feeling less] Mexican no, the only thing is that we do not practice [the cult of the dead] any longer, because we understand God’s Word now, and before we [visited cemeteries] because nobody had told us the truth. That’s why it is said that we have a bandage on and the day you start looking for the Lord, the Lord takes the bandage off and one awakens . . .

What Rebeca is claiming here is that, in fact, the cult of the dead was part of an identity she has abandoned (being a Catholic) because of her discovery of Jesus Christ. And this particular Mexican tradition is not mentioned by chance, because, as we have seen in the previous chapter, it is one of the most important manifestations of Mexican Catholic identity, which endeavors to integrate, in the same syncretic fashion, the Hispanic and pre-Hispanic elements of Mexico’s heritage (Bowen 1996, p. 129). That abandonment, however, does not mean in any way that she has abandoned her identity as a Mexican. In Rebeca’s account there is a possible process of learning, discovery, and awakening regarding religious identities, something that she does not see as possible regarding national and/or ethnic identities: “Mexicanos vamos a ser hasta que nos mueramos . . .” [We will be Mexicans until we die . . . ] In this regard, she sees her religious identity as more flexible than her national/cultural/ethnic one but only to a certain point. She does not see a possible further change in the former after the discovery of the “true” religion. At the same time, Rebeca is advancing one of the most important issues of the Evangelical repertoire, that is, that people like herself who have converted from Catholicism to Protestantism have a monopoly on the truth. According to Bowen (1996, p. 127), most Mexican Protestants believe that their faith is the only true faith and that all others are therefore false, heretical, and/or dangerous. Additionally, such an exclusivism many times is extended to other non-Catholic denominations, with some Protestants having serious doubts about whether members of other Evangelical denominations are “true Christians.” Of course, M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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exclusivism is most clearly and forcefully directed against Catholicism, and many Evangelicals believe that Catholics are not real Christians. Deiros (1991, p. 169) applies this kind of characterization to Evangelical fundamentalists only (like our Pentecostal interviewees, for example), not to Latin American Protestants in general. Showing how difficult it is to separate the different aspects of people’s identity, Rebeca connects her experience as a onetime Catholic and the criticisms many Mexicans address to people like herself to the experience of Mexican males who decide to abandon Mexican machismo and start helping their wives. Again, she is detaching something that many interviewees (as we will see in the gender chapters of this book) always put together, that is, machismo and Mexicanness. Once again, she implicitly claims that gender identities are more flexible than national/cultural/ethnic ones. For Rebeca, a Mexican will always be a Mexican, but that does not mean that a Mexican will always be a Catholic or a machista: Rebeca: It’s like what happens with the machistas. The day they start helping their wives [people begin to say]: “But you are not a man any longer, your wife bosses you and all that . . .” Sara: Yes, it’s really similar to that: “Hey, now you don’t drink. Hey, now you belong to the other side because you don’t drink any longer, you are not . . . a man.” And he really is the same person.

In the same way that a man who helps his wife is still a man, these interviewees claim that a Mexican who does not go to cemeteries frequently to honor her or his loved ones is still a Mexican. When asked how they endure the harsh criticism that is directed toward them by many Mexican Catholics, these interviewees counter with the well-developed biblical narrative of Jesus Christ preaching in the desert and their certainty that someday they will be understood and people will discover the truth and be saved. In this type of narrative, David, Sara, and Rebeca are a misunderstood vanguard among Mexicans, a vanguard that will eventually prevail and perform for their fellow Mexicans the best of all services, that is, help them in their salvation, because they are following what is clearly written in the book that tells the absolute truth, the Bible (more of this below) (see also Garma Navarro 1998, p. 359). Rebeca: . . . I am not saddened because of the criticisms of my being Christian. I prefer to keep my testimonials [to myself], in order for them to see that in reality God lives within oneself. The things that we practiced B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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along with them [the cult of the dead, for instance], we don’t practice anymore, not because we don’t want to be Mexican anymore or anything like that, but because we want them to reach salvation too.

Rebeca is saying here that for her to have the only type of identity that she has really cared about since her conversion to the Evangelical path (that of a “saved” soul), it is mandatory for her to abandon a practice that many people erroneously confuse as a Mexican practice, while it is actually a Catholic one. What she is saying is that she is willing to abandon some of the markers of being a Mexican (the cult of the dead), while retaining other markers that do not compromise either her Mexicanness or her salvation (e.g., respect for the Mexican government and the Mexican flag). All of her choices are made in order to assure the success of the process of construction of the identity that really matters to her: a Mexican Christian who, due to her discovery of Jesus Christ, will be one of the saved ones. Step-by-step, these Mexican Protestants are unfolding the most important markers of their differential Mexican identity: a Mexican who is not a Catholic but still deserves to be called a Mexican. Other Identities, Other Borders

Among the cultural markers these interviewees rely on, a couple of narrative plots are prominent. As I have pointed out, for some of the Mexican Protestants I interviewed the most important border is not the geographical one that separates Mexico from the United States, or the regional one that separates Southerners from Fronterizos/as, or the intraethnic one that separates Mexican nationals from Mexican Americans, but the religious border that separates the “saved” ones from the “condemned” ones. The most important source of their narrative identities (the “sources of the self,” according to Taylor or Holstein and Gubrium) is, not the different artifacts of popular culture (which can be in error), but the Bible, which is inerrant and enables them to understand who they are.5 In relation to the disappearance/resignification of the border for these kinds of interviewees, the following observations advanced by Teresa, of the Mexican Baptist group, are very illustrative: Teresa: . . . We make the borders. Everything is in our mind, everything is in our heart. And when our mind and heart are positive, all of our life will be positive. If we think about good things, we are going to do good things. If we think about bad things, we are going to do bad things. And up there M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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is a God that sees each and every one of us. We will answer to Him, not to anyone [else]. Only to Him.

The border in this interview excerpt is an internal one, not an external, geographical one, and the people to whom one has to answer questions are not the customs officials or the Border Patrol agents who habitually question Mexican nationals about the reasons for their crossing the international frontier, but God. What I want to stress here is that the reaction of some of the Mexican Protestants I interviewed regarding the photographs still triggered comments about “us” and “them,” but oftentimes the actors occupying these positions were not the usual ones we saw in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders or that we will see in the rest of this book, that is, Southern Mexicans, Fronterizas/os, Juarenses, Mexican immigrants, Mexican Americans, Anglos, African Americans, and the like. Instead, the category of “us” in the usage of many of these interviewees relates to a narrative of salvation in which the discovery of Jesus Christ has transformed people like them into “saved” ones, and “others” (“them”) into “nonsaved” ones. This kind of narrative was prominent among many of the selfdefined Mexican Christians I interviewed on both sides of the border. However, we have already seen that many Mexican Protestants also heavily construct the Southerners, the Fronterizos/as, the Mexican citizens, and/or the Mexican Americans as the abject “others.” These interviewees either mix one set of narratives with the others or skip any reference to the difference between “saved” and “condemned” ones. However, a particular type of Mexican Protestant (on both sides of the border) made exclusive use of the “saved” versus “condemned” narrative. I am referring here to the born-again Christians I had the opportunity to interview, that is, those who converted from Catholicism to Protestantism in its Pentecostal variant. For most of the Pentecostals I interviewed on both sides of the border, the only social category they really care about is the religious one that separates the “saved” from the “condemned.” This is so because in the only ordering of the world they are worried about, their identity categories are stripped down and reduced to only one, that of a “soul,” which has only two possible classifications: “saved” or “condemned.” Referring to the work of Cucchiari in Sicily, Smilde (1994, p. 49) points out that an “egalitarian sense of family . . . is reflected in the redemptive dogma of Sicilian Pentecostalism, in which men and women come before God as abstract ‘souls’ shorn of all hierarchical social identities, including gender.” B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Thus, if what is most critical about a person is his or her relationship to God, then whether that person is Southern Mexican, Juarense, Mexican American, Anglo, male, female, poor, rich, or the like is of little importance: “Access to divine grace is assured to the humblest member or prospective convert, since salvation and the illumination of the Holy Spirit are immediate and socially indiscriminate” (Wilson 1994, p. 101). This is a kind of agonistic narrative that usually organizes itself in terms of virtue and vice, and its “messages are highly conventional and formulaic, and often very repetitious and even redundant” (Shultze 1994, p. 71). This is so, according to Shultze, because Pentecostal narratives are oral narratives, not written ones. As in other oral narratives, in the Pentecostal narratives [s]tories divide the world into right and wrong, good and evil, and especially vice and virtue. Complexity and nuance are the province of the literary mode, not the mode which lacks the luxury of parchment or paper. In order for speakers to recall narratives, and listeners to make sense of them, stories are built around oppositional values. This makes oral rhetoric rather Fundamentalistic, where black and white are clearly distinguishable. (Shultze 1994, p. 80)

A good example of what I am talking about is an interview I had in El Paso at Casa Alianza, a Protestant poor people’s rehabilitation center and Pentecostal church, with Celina, Samuel, Manuel, Rita, and Anselmo. Celina was a twenty-three-year-old housewife born in Sonora, Mexico. She moved to Ciudad Juárez when she was eight years old and still lived there, but she went to church in El Paso. She finished middle school and lived with her husband and children in her own house. Samuel was a twenty-five-year-old student who was single and was born in El Paso. He, like Celina, finished only through the eighth grade, and at the time of the interview he lived at the Casa Alianza center. He was a second-generation Mexican American who did not have any family living in Mexico and seldom went to Ciudad Juárez. Manuel was eighteen years old, born in Ciudad Juárez, and moved to El Paso a year before the interview. He was single and had completed only six years of school. He lived at the shelter. Most of his family still lived in Mexico. Rita was born forty-three years before in Sonora, Mexico. She was a housewife who seventeen years before had migrated to Ciudad Juárez, where she was still living with her husband and children. She, like Celina, went to church in El Paso. Finally, Anselmo was a forty-year-old divorced male from Honduras. He was a construction worker and had resided in El Paso for the twelve years M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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prior to the interview. He had completed high school and lived at the center.6 Showing how borders work differently for Pentecostals and using the photographs in a very different way than most of my other respondents, Anselmo, talking about a photo depicting a door, offers the following reflections: Anselmo: And . . . do you see this door, right? . . . it represents . . . it says in the book of Saint John that he is the door . . . “he is the way, the truth, and the life, and nobody gets to the Father except through him.” And the door through which we can arrive at and enter God’s Kingdom is Jesus Christ . . . It’s a representation of a door toward . . . toward other . . . because we don’t know what is on the other side. But when you already have . . . [the Bible] says that you will know the truth, and the truth will set us free . . . Many people do not know what is behind that door, but when you know God’s Word, you know that something more beautiful, something more wonderful . . . exists on the other side.

In Anselmo’s testimonial, the border, the frontier (exemplified by the door), is Jesus Christ. Crossing that “border” (knowing Jesus Christ) allows people to encounter God. In this way, the differences these interviewees care about the most (as epitomized by the two kinds of people that “the door” keeps apart) are the differences between those who know the “truth” and those who do not. Only those who know the “truth” will be free and eventually saved. Additionally, already knowing what to expect on the other side makes these interviewees immensely happy (more on this below). Therefore, these interviewees have totally different “borders” in mind, and the U.S.-Mexico border is not one of the most important of them. The important border in Anselmo’s testimonial is represented by Jesus Christ, the only door that can open God’s kingdom. All the other doors, all the other borders, are secondary in his account. Thus, for instance, talking about a photograph showing small kids practicing karate, Manuel points out the following: Manuel: . . . maybe they are the children of some rich person . . . for example . . . when one teaches the child, the Bible says, . . . “teach the child the way of the Lord, and when he grows old he will not be set apart from Him.” Rita: He will not be set apart from Him. Manuel: . . . I think that the children here have money—we can say they are rich. And the mothers, in order to entertain them, put them in those B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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[karate] schools . . . they are indulging the child, giving him everything he wants . . . and these [other poor children in other photos], they don’t have [money] but perhaps their parents are educating them in the right way. Pablo: Excuse me, if you had to locate that photograph in Juárez or El Paso, where would you locate it? Or would it be the same in any city? Manuel: . . . I think that it would be [the same] in any city . . . because there is need [in any city]. In any city there is . . . there is also wealth. I think that this . . . this happens in different parts . . . I think that [the children in the karate photograph] . . . their parents are not educating them well, do you understand me? . . . That’s how I see the situation; those children are in need of something that, amen, . . . well, they need Christ . . .

Again, we do not see here the usual discourse of “rich El Paso” (the place most people in my sample thought that photograph was located) versus “poor Ciudad Juárez” that we see in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders.7 Instead, we have a narrative of “good-poor-kids-linked-to-Christsaved” versus “bad-rich-kids-detached-from-Christ-condemned” everywhere. Therefore, these interviewees are talking about universal issues, framed in some biblical understanding of class issues (“Es más fácil que entre un camello por el ojo de una aguja que un rico al reino de los cielos” [It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into heaven]). There is no national, regional, ethnic, or racial frame involved here. Once more, these interviewees’ borders are completely different from most of my non-born-again, selfidentified Christian respondents. A very similar exchange occurs while interviewees discuss the negative influence of television on people: Anselmo: This is a modern device . . . a television set . . . because of this device humanity has been degenerating. This is the medium Satan has been using to deceive young people, introduce suicide . . . sexual programs, violent programs . . . everything, everything . . . The most popular [programs] are those that . . . motivate your mind to do evil, not to do good . . . this [television] is guilty of causing most divorces in American society . . . why families are breaking up . . . and it encourages adultery . . . and also violence . . . and so we can see why there are many gangs nowadays . . . the reason there is so much violence at schools, it is because of [television] . . . Celina: I just want to add that it’s not only happening in the United States, it’s happening in Mexico and worldwide. Anselmo: Amen. Rita: They forget God. Anselmo: Amen. M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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According to these interviewees, most social problems in the United States and Mexico (suicide, divorce, adultery, violence, and so forth) are the product of “Satan’s” work and his preferred tool seems to be television. Interestingly enough, these comments are stronger than what Bowen found in his study on Mexican Protestants; he reported that “[w]hen it came to watching television, . . . very few pastors (6 per cent) or laity (3 per cent) were prepared to say it was categorically sinful” (1996, p. 119). Regardless of the degree of criticism, it is clear that in Anselmo and his friends’ narrative we do not see an anti-Southerner stance to explain social problems in Juárez or an anti-Mexican stance to explain American problems. At the same time, these interviewees do not claim that American culture is at fault because it spreads those sins all over the world. On the contrary, any regional, national, ethnic, or racial framework disappears and instead social problems are ascribed, without intermediaries, to the personal work of the devil. Again, the border these interviewees prominently identify is between those who, having discovered Jesus Christ, will be saved and those who, following Satanic treats, will be condemned. With this crucial difference in their understanding of the border between themselves and “others,” many self-identified Christian interviewees (born-again or not) introduce an entire array of new narrative plots that were absent, not only among my Mexican Catholic interviewees, but also among other, less religiously involved Mexican Protestants. Some of these plots are addressed in the following section. Pro-American Narratives Framed in Religious Terms

An interesting argument encountered among some Protestant interviewees explains why, in some respects, people in the United States are better prepared to be part of the “saved” ones than people in Mexico. Briefly, this discourse stresses that Americans have certain advantages on their road to salvation because Protestantism is more widespread in the United States than in Mexico. Using this kind of discourse, many Mexican self-defined Christians feel closer to their American counterparts (who are Protestant and therefore will join them in the afterlife as the saved ones) than to their Mexican Catholic compatriots who will not be part of the saved ones. This discourse was quite prominent in our interviews with Teresa, José Luis, and their Baptist friends. In this regard, Teresa points out the “advantage” Americans supposedly have on their road to salvation: They have never worshiped the Virgin Mary but only God. B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Teresa: . . . in general, they don’t have the culture, they don’t have the antecedents we have. I am talking about our gods—the gods of the Mayas, the gods of the Aztecs, all those things. And they also don’t have all those former beliefs . . . the things that are so deep-rooted in our Mexico. Because there was worshiping of the sun, of the moon . . . And they [the Americans] do not have that. Therefore, for them it is much easier, right?, to believe in one God and not in a Virgin.

In this pro-American discourse it is argued that the pre-Hispanic past, plus the syncretism encouraged by the Spanish Catholic priests to convert the native tribes, is a liability on the road to salvation these Mexican Baptists imagine as the only possible one, that is, a road that recognizes only Jesus Christ as the savior. In this regard, they characterize Mexico as a “país mariano, no cristiano” [a Marian country, not a Christian one]. This characteristic conspires against the salvation of its people and, by opposition, helps in the salvation of Americans, who live in a Christian country, not a Marian one. As José Luis indicates: José Luis: . . . the Catholic Church is deeply rooted in Mexico in particular. So deeply rooted that we cannot really say that Mexico is a Christian country. We can say that Mexico is a Marian country. The center of common Mexican worship, of the average and lower-class [común y corriente] Catholic, is the Virgin Mary . . . Many times we lose sight of that, and it is there where we who have what we consider the truth of the Gospel, the absolute truth of Christ, have to—with the power of the Holy Spirit—try to talk with these people and teach them the Gospel, introduce them to Christ, right? And to show them that in the Bible, well, the Virgin Mary had an important role and, yes, we respect her and we have her in a position of honor, but she doesn’t have anything to do with our salvation. She doesn’t have any role in our relationship to God. She is only the instrument God used. And this is what’s sometimes not understood by the popular religion.8

Beyond the clear class dimensions of this narrative, in which Catholicism is clearly related to the lower classes and Baptists like José Luis assume an elitist position because they know the “truth,” it is quite clear in this discourse that the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico is one of the most important barriers José Luis sees to people’s salvation. This kind of discourse is, according to Bowen (1996, p. 128), quite widespread among Mexican Protestants, many of whom consider Mexico to be a “nation of virgin worshippers.” Therefore, following the argument to its logical conclusion, it is not by chance that a country like the United States, which by and large M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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has not worshiped false gods or the Virgin but rather Jesus Christ, is blessed as a country and that its people will have much greater possibilities of being saved than people in Mexico. José Luis: At the beginning of the United States, when it was being founded, the motive of those who came from England, from Europe, was to come to the New World to have religious freedom, since there was much oppression where they lived because of the official religion. Therefore, all of the Puritan hordes came, the puritan movement, pure Christian, in order to have religious freedom . . . and for this reason the United States started to flourish. A nation where everybody worships God together is blessed by God and he gives it great wealth.9

In this kind of narrative José Luis also contrasts the “pure” origin of the United States with the “impure” origin of Mexico, and describes how that pure origin is related to the final (and different) destiny of its people, salvation rather than condemnation: José Luis: . . . the mixing that took place between the Spanish race and the indigenous race in Mexico was a very irregular combination in the sense that the Spanish father and the Indian mother . . . in the sense that the father treated her as a slave, right? When the children were born, they became more attached to their mothers, because many times they didn’t even know their fathers.

Here, part of that “impure” Mexican past is Mexican religious syncretism which is, according to José Luis, the origin of what these interviewees consider the worst characteristics of Mexican Catholicism, that is, the idolization of images and superstition: José Luis: And in Mexico it didn’t happen like in the United States. In Mexico it was the Catholic Church that dominated, because it syncretized with the pagan religion of our ancestors. It syncretized by saying: “OK, you are no longer going to worship the sun, now you will give praise to this saint because I am going to change it,” right? And apparently they were Christianizing the former religion, but they weren’t exposing the Gospel in its essence. Therefore, that kind of syncretism took place. And for that reason still the popular religion (and above all in the south of the country) is filled with idolatry, filled with superstition, right? Because the former religion was never taken away.

As we discussed above, although the borders of identity for these Mexican Protestants are framed mostly in religious terms, that does

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not mean that other borders completely disappear for them (especially among the interviewees in my sample who belong to historical denominations). Thus, José Luis does not miss an opportunity to advance his anti-Southern stance while appraising the leverage Americans would have in terms of their salvation. An important aspect of the “pure” experience of the United States, which allowed the country to be a mostly Protestant nation (and the reason, as we saw, that it has been blessed by God), is that it rejected mixing its culture with that of Native Americans, a rejection of which José Luis seems to approve: José Luis: In the U.S.A., it didn’t happen like that; there wasn’t that blend of cultures. The new people arrived, the Anglos, and they didn’t mix with the Native Americans. There wasn’t that blending, that syncretism, of religions. I think this is the reason why we are [in bad shape] . . .

This very interesting reading of Mexican and American history is done from the point of view of Mexican Baptists for whom being Mexican, Northern, and middle class is central to their construction of identity but being Christians is perhaps much more important. As GarrardBurnett (1993, p. 206) points out, Protestant “[b]elievers trade their primary allegiance to community, class, or ethnic group for discipleship in the Kingdom of God.” Reframing Some Regional Differences in Religious Terms

That their Christian identity is much more important to many of these respondents than their regional or national identities can be seen in José Luis’s comments on his experience of being a migrant from Ciudad Chihuahua living in Ciudad Juárez. There is a well-entrenched rivalry between these cities, in which many people from Chihuahua criticize Juarenses for their lack of culture, their Americanization, and their liberal and libertine behavior. Conversely, many Juarenses criticize Chihuahuans for their aristocratic airs. (See my analysis of this rivalry in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders.) José Luis is well aware of this rivalry, and he freely acknowledges that he had a very bad image of Juárez while living in Chihuahua (“I had the idea that Juárez, or the border, was like a hellhole [centro de perdición], that people went there only because there were many immoral liberties. For example, we see that there are a lot of bars, many vice centers, and the like”). Nevertheless, he frames his experience of adapting to the new city (and his rejection in Juárez, like that of many Chihuahuans) with

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a religious twist that was absent in many of my non-Protestant Mexican immigrants: José Luis: I guess that in my particular case I can say that I haven’t noticed rejection because . . . my primary relationship is with those in my church. So if I leave Chihuahua and go to another city—let’s say Juárez or Chiapas, or wherever—I’m going to be looking for a congregation for my primary relationship. With the congregation it doesn’t matter where you are from—we’re brothers and sisters. And that’s what I like, that I have the right to be Christian, right? That I can relate to others as brothers and sisters wherever I go. In fact, if I were to go to New York, I’d look for a congregation and I’d feel at home, right? Like, I’d be a brother from there, whether it was an Anglo congregation, a Latin congregation, or whatever. I travel to Mexico City and it’s the same. So because of that I haven’t noticed a difference [in the way people treat me], like I’m not in Chihuahua any longer, or [that people say], “People from Chihuahua are like this, people from Juárez are like that.” I haven’t experienced that kind of situation.

José Luis’s religious identity (being part of the Baptist “brothers and sisters”) redefines his other identities and even acts as a buffer in relation to some of them, in particular his being a “prone to prejudice” Chihuahuan living in Juárez. What José Luis is saying in this particular statement is that he is primarily a Christian and secondarily a Chihuahuan and a Mexican. His most important identity is that of a person who, having discovered Jesus Christ and the scriptures, will be saved alongside other people like him (Mexicans, Anglos, Latinos, or whatever) who also recognize Jesus Christ as their savior.10 Still, the otherwise “despised” Mexican Southerner can eventually become José Luis’s equal, but only if he or she is a Baptist like José Luis (the reference to a hypothetical Chiapas Baptist congregation in his remarks suggests the possibility of such an equality). Elaborating on the issue, Teresa thinks that there is much less distrust (racial, ethnic, regional, or national distrust) among people when they are Christians than when they do not recognize Jesus Christ as their redeemer: Teresa: [Being Christian is like having] a letter of recommendation. I’m a son of God, you’re a son of God. How am I going to be afraid of another who’s a brother, right? Even though it’s clear there is risk in everything, because I’m not going to say that we haven’t suffered many deceptions from time to time. But we open our arms and we open our hearts, because it’s a person who believes in Christ. Because, how could we not receive B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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him? How could we not give him love? How could we not give him affection? . . . When I arrive at a Christian church, everyone receives me with affection, even though my defects come out later, right? We receive each other spontaneously, because we have that recommendation that we are sons and daughters of Christ.

The metaphor that being a Christian is a letter of recommendation is a powerful one to convey what this kind of interviewees feel, that is, that many times their religious identities completely frame and convey meaning to their other subject positions in terms of gender, age, class, region, ethnicity, race, nationality, and the like. To them, being “brothers and sisters,” that is, sons and daughters of the same Holy Father, is much more powerful than being females or males, Mexicans, Chihuahuans, or any other identity.11 Therefore, in the above-mentioned interviews the border is completely resignified and, instead of being a geographical or ethnic boundary, becomes a religious one. Following this same logic, some other Mexican Christians in our sample also emplotted the border in a similar manner. However, they emplotted their borders in historical terms, where the “us” (Protestants who will be saved) versus “them” (Catholics who will not be) is resignified in terms of their own personal history and becomes “us right now” (people who eventually will be saved because they have finally discovered Jesus Christ) versus “us in the past” (Catholics who were destined for perdition). This narrative theme was very prominent in the interviews we had with the born-again Mexican Pentecostals.

From Geographical Borders to Biographical Ones

This kind of narrative was pervasive in the interviews we had with members of the Apostles of Christ Church and in the meetings we had at the Casa Alianza Center. For former Catholics among these interviewees, the geographical border tended to disappear and be replaced with a historical border. For photographs that in prior interviews had generally elicited comments about “here” and “there” or “them” and “us,” these interviewees responded with reflections about “before” and “after” (their conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism). We have to be aware here that converts are one of the most important sources of growth among Protestant churches in Mexico. In Bowen’s general sample, converts represented a little over half (53 percent) of the group, but “among adults, or those over the age of twenty in the congregational sample, converts [rose] to 62 percent of all M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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Evangelicals.” Among Pentecostals, the number of converts was still higher (Bowen 1996, p. 74). Of course, not all converts were former Catholics, but, considering the extent of Catholicism in Mexico, one can argue that the bulk of them were. According to Bowen (1996, pp. 103 –104), the concept of “conversionist sects” can easily be applied to Mexican Evangelicals: . . . conversionist sects are distinguished by their insistence that salvation can only be gained by “a profoundly felt, supernaturally wrought transformation of the self” . . . What the Pentecostals and historical denominations had in common was their recurrent emphasis . . . on the need to achieve and then maintain this deeply felt, personal sense of profound emotional transformation. This born-again experience . . . was above all defined as a transformation of heart, of feeling, of direct emotional encounter and certainty rather than as an intellectual apprehension. It was not a one-time experience associated with the original conversion to be fondly recalled thereafter, as proof of an original initiation. Rather, for the faithful, like a fire or a flame, the experience of rebirth and the attendant sense of direct communion with the divine was something to be constantly fed and nurtured for fear that it might die out, and salvation’s certainty recede. It was the key to salvation.

In this sense, conversion among Mexican Pentecostals is understood to involve a complete transformation of identity and lifestyle, to the point that fervent commitment to the new faith is expected to permeate all realms of the convert’s life. According to Bowen, different Pentecostal churches require different things, but two commonly cited requirements that he found in his sample were that converts had sincerely repented their past wicked nature and that they had embraced Christ as their only Savior. “In . . . establishing a personal and immediate relationship with the divine or supernatural, Evangelicals believe they are ‘born again.’ This utterly transforming personal relationship with the supernatural is what Evangelicals mean by salvation” (Bowen 1996, p. 76). Whereas most non-Pentecostal interviewees in my sample looking at the photographs had constructed complex narratives about “Southerners,” “Fronterizas/os,” “Mexicans,” “Mexican Americans,” “Anglos,” “machistas,” “mandilones,” and the like, these converted Catholics used the same photographs to construct self-referential temporal narratives. Here is where narrative theory can help us to understand the conversion experience. According to Yamane (2000, p. 185): . . . a narrative approach recognizes that there is no such thing as a “conversion experience” in-and-of itself. There are simply experiences which are B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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made meaningful after the fact, often in terms of narratives furnished by the “local culture” . . . or certain religious groups. Of course, involvement in the group prior to the experience can predispose a person to a particular narrativization, though it cannot determine the emplotment . . . [At the same time] [c]ommitment to the new group is effected in the process of constructing the conversion narrative . . . “biographical reconstruction” is central to the achievement of conversion . . . Conversion experiences lead to biographical reconstruction, or re-narrativization of one’s life . . .

This re-narrativization of the life story, in terms of what Martin (1990, pp. 163, 178) calls “spoken spiritual autobiographies,” works to construct “contemporary hagiographies that reflect the real-life work of God in the lives of individual believers” (Shultze 1994, p. 80). As Martin (1990, p. 203) points out, “When a Pentecostal speaks of life as delivered once again by a second birth in experiences of light and wind and fire, he or she dramatically symbolizes dissolutions of the past in catalytic and cataclysmic recoveries of wholeness. In Pentecostal language, that is an achievement of holiness.” According to Levine (1995, p. 161), converts to Pentecostal churches use very similar terms to describe the changes they undergo after their conversion: . . . they speak of going from darkness to light, of gaining self-control and a sense of how to deal with the world, of doors opening to health and to personal and familial advancement. Conversion in this sense is best understood not as a wholly otherworldly experience or orientation, but rather as a bridge between worlds, a tapping into charismatic power that then energizes men and women in their life as a whole.

Conversion narratives were triggered in my fieldwork by a couple of photographs depicting a young adult in a bar in his home and some prostitutes in a Ciudad Juárez bar (photos 6 and 7). Instead of the usual theme that equates Ciudad Juárez with a city of vice, which the latter photograph triggered in most of my interviews with non-Pentecostals, it prompts Celina to tell the story of her and her father’s redemption through religion: Celina: I took these two photos—there’s a clear relationship between them. This man is in a bar, and it looks . . . perhaps it’s in his house, or maybe not, maybe [he’s in] a bar . . . and over here there are also two people . . . two young women in a bar, . . . a cantina [photo 6]. This reminds me a lot . . . of the [type of] life my father used to live. Yes, my father, before he had Christ in his heart. All his life he was a bar manager—until now, right? now that he has Christ . . . He supervised a lot of women like M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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these, right? and not only that . . . I think he had a personal relationship with them. But I glorify the name of God . . . because he pulled my father out of that situation. Anselmo: Amen, hallelujah. Celina: He got him away from there, and . . . he has a dreadful life, right? . . . but also for us. I’m the oldest of five siblings and because I am the oldest, I went looking for him, [my mother sent me] to talk to him because we needed money . . . And glory be to God, because my father is not the same as before. Anselmo: Amen, hallelujah. Celina: He’s a good father now . . . he testifies that . . . we just didn’t have any love for him . . . but, glory be to God, because he . . . stopped all of that. Anselmo: Amen. Celina: We had bitterness, but [God] came and eliminated it. He washed it away and now my father is a special father, right? . . . Now our family is more united, right? And we owe everything to God. Nobody could do it, nobody! . . . My mother even went to see women who used witchcraft on him, and my father visited doctors and all of that . . . and nobody was able to change him . . . nobody, only God. Anselmo: Only Christ. Rita: Uh-huh.12

Interestingly enough, for Celina it does not matter that one photograph was taken in El Paso and the other in Ciudad Juárez, or that the

PHOTO 7

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Man reading a magazine and drinking a soda at his home bar

“markers” of those geographical origins were quite obvious in the photos. Here we did not hear the usual narratives about Juárez being a city of vice or about American libertine behavior. In this kind of commentary the moral stance is not primarily identified with some kind of “others” (whichever ones are important for the regional, national, or ethnic narrative at hand: Southerners, Juarenses, Americans, etc.), but is primarily related to the interviewees themselves in the past and secondarily to the people who, in the present, behave the same way they behaved in the past. Thus, Celina, like many other new self-defined Christians we interviewed, totally transcends geographical borders in the way she constructs her identity and the identities of her loved ones. Her important borders are others, that is, those that separate a sinful past from a virtuous present. And the frontier in this case, as we have seen before, is the acceptance of “Jesus Christ into the heart.” This acceptance for these “born-again Christians” shows a particular temporal marker. At the same time, since they themselves were “there” and eventually changed, the people who currently sin can travel their same route. Religious conversion is open to anyone. Later in the interview Celina uses another photo to illustrate her own, not her father’s, passage from damnation to redemption: Celina: . . . and here there is a young woman that I think is celebrating her birthday. Yes, I was remembering how we always celebrated [our birthdays], my sisters and I. Here I see a can of beer . . . over there I see another, it’s not as recognizable because it’s covered with a napkin. It’s like how we celebrated birthdays in our house before . . . [the birthday parties] always involved drinking alcohol, I mean, liquor . . . and there were other things . . . I mean, drugs, there was everything at those parties. So it reminds me of those days . . . and now maybe we don’t have money to buy many things . . . to have a party, right? But there is more affection involved. When we celebrate a birthday . . . there is a song that says . . . give thanks to the Lord for giving us another year. Then, here, like in this case [she refers to the photograph] we didn’t take into account that God allowed us to have another birthday. The only thing that was important for us was the celebration . . . to throw a party. Rita: Amen. Celina: But not now. Now . . . we give thanks to God. Even if we don’t have money to make a party, we give thanks to God anyway, because he gave us another year, amen. That’s the reason I’ve chosen this photograph.

Once again, alcoholism and drug addiction are not addressed by Celina as bad “moral” habits of the “other” (the “other” was different for various M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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interviewees in our sample; most prominently it was the “libertine Fronterizo/a”); instead, these addictions are viewed as a characteristic that she and others had in the past, before their discovery of Jesus Christ. While many of the non-Pentecostal interviewees used the same photographs to “prove” their points about the “natural laziness” of the “others” (who were, depending on the interlocutor, Southerners, Mexicans, Mexican Americans, or the like), these interviewees use the photos

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Young woman celebrating her birthday

to illustrate their own process of identity change after they converted from Catholicism to Protestantism. That identity change, however, is framed, not as a change “from a lazy to a hard-working person,” but once more as a change in their relationship with God that opened many new ways for those converted to perform their identities. That occurred, for instance, with David (of the Apostles of Christ Church in El Paso) and the photograph of some men playing cards in the streets. Here, a photo that was the epitome of Mexican laziness for many of the people I interviewed (young Mexican adults playing in the streets instead of working) is reframed into a document of how omnipotent Jesus Christ is because he had the power of transforming a hard-core, vicious person like David into a God-abiding individual: David: [What I’m going to tell you] I say to my own shame, right? But I will say it for the honor and glory of Jesus Christ who had mercy for me. This photo reminds me of the life that I [had, which I] deludedly considered a [good] life, and sometimes when I was with my friends, I told them that this was what life was supposed to be, playing cards, rolling dice. But that’s not entertainment, its pure trickery, do you understand me? We already know by whom: by the enemy, do you understand me? Sometimes I would even give myself the luxury of going to my house with beer— of screaming and dragging beer into the house. And a very proud guy [I was], do you understand me? We were living in darkness. But when Jesus Christ had mercy on us, we saw this kind of life [the one reflected on the photo] as trash. As the apostle Paul said: “The things of the world for us now are

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Some men playing cards on a sidewalk in Ciudad Juárez

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trash.” We are talking about vices here because I was wicked, and my family didn’t know and I believed I was deceiving everybody. But it wasn’t true. I lived in darkness. But the word of the Lord says: “I [sic] will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Free from what? Free from the clutches of Satan. That is what . . . was part of my life reflected in these photos. But once the Lord had mercy of me, he took me out of that world and its vices. That’s why I chose this photo.

In this way David makes it clear, once more, that the important border in his life, the one whose crossing completely transformed his existence, is not the geographical border he crossed five years before but the religious border he crossed when he accepted “the Lord, the Word, and the Book.” Here, we have David advancing a narrative that is “eager to proclaim the rebirth of the self by engaging in forms of behavior intended to repudiate the weaknesses and sins of one’s former life” (Deiros 1991, p. 161). At the same time, the border crossing is accounted for by David as the move from one realm, that of Satan, to another one, that of God. This move is from a world that is harshly described as “trash” to another one that is characterized as “light.” As Poewe (1989, p. 368) points out, while Pentecostalism “makes uncertain and deconstructs all that is ‘of the world,’ it makes certain and reconstructs under one truth all that is ‘of God’s Kingdom.’ ” Additionally, David is aware that the crossing did not depend entirely upon his decision and effort. Much like the daily crossing of the international divide, which depends ultimately on the arbitrary decision of a customs or Border Patrol agent, David’s crossing was decided, in the last instance, by “God’s mercy”: “ ‘It is God’s appointment’ with the individual. Above all, it is God’s initiative . . .” (Poewe 1989, p. 372). This idea of a border crossing that does not mean the move from one country to another but, more fundamentally, the move from one world (the terrestrial, degraded one where Satan is the enticer) to another (the celestial, dignified one in which God reigns) is developed further by Sara: Sara: [talking about the same photograph David was describing] My opinion is the same. Our past life is very different from the one we have now. Here [in the photo], gambling, vices, everything of the world attracts us. But even the Apostle Paul says that “we live in the world but we are not of the world; now we belong to the Celestial Kingdom—this is our thought, our way of living,” he says, because “I can do everything in Christ who strengthens everything [sic].” That is our strength, now that we are new creatures; we live here, the world is like a movie. B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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If the process of identity construction is a complex mix of past, present, and future, these interviewees are already enjoying, as part of their present identity, a possible celestial future that they do not have any doubts will be theirs. Therefore, Sara is not saying that “in the future” they will enjoy heaven, but that they “already” are living apart from this world and in a proxy of heaven. This, according to Bowen (1996, p. 103), is a quite widespread narrative among Mexican Protestants: For believers, salvation was not simply a promise of some desirable but distant future state. Salvation was more than an offer of heaven in the next world or life after death, though these were promised. Rather, there was a strong this-worldly emphasis, in that potential converts were assured that they would be immediately and utterly transformed in this world and blessed with a variety of gifts. The general promise was that the believer would have access to the unconditional love, care, and concern of God as a source of solace and strength. Through this special relationship with God, believers claimed that they received tranquillity, peace of mind, and a sustaining joy.

The metaphor of the factual world as a kind of movie helps to round out Sara’s argument. Using this metaphor, she claims that her current identity is that of a person who is detached from this world and sees people who will be damned (like she was in the past), as if they were acting in a movie. This was something that was real for her in the past, but it is no longer real in the present. Again, the border these people have crossed and encourage other people to cross is not a national boundary but the border between “reality” (their current life after having discovered Jesus Christ—a life that is, step-by-step, approaching the “perfect being that God created”; a life that is already an enjoyable one because it anticipates in the present the joy of their future life in heaven) and “fiction” (the life of people—themselves in the past—who do not realize the fictitious character of their identities, who live “in darkness” [en las tinieblas], as David states). The fact that interviewees of this type constantly use narratives to advance their arguments is not by chance, because, as Booth (1995, p. 386) claims, telling stories of salvation “is not just showing listeners how to be saved, with the consequences of the listening postponed until afterward; it is giving them the experience of salvation here and now, in the act of dwelling in story . . . The listener is lifted into that world in the act of listening . . .” In this regard, Booth claims that Evangelical stories are much more important than mere “Evangelical persuasion.” They allow both the teller and her audience to “really” live (for the time of the telling) the M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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life they foresee (and which is actually theirs during the time of the story) in the “real” world of God’s grace (not in the movie world). The difference between a common story and a fundamentalist one is, according to Booth, that while listening to the latter the listener not only enters another world but is told that the world in the fundamentalist’s story is infinitely truer and more real than the one the listener will fall back into when the story is over (the movie in Sara’s account). The best stories, in whatever tradition, incarnate not just their heroes but the gods their heroes worship and the experience of living—for the duration of the listening—in the world created and inhabited not only by a holy implied author but by those gods. The incarnation is not indeed physical, in the usual sense . . . But it enters “tangibly” through the senses of hearing or sight as the listener lives, for the time of the telling, lives in the divine world with the hero or heroes—and more subtly with the person who tells the story, whether that person claims to be the hero or not. Obviously the temptation to live increasingly in that divine world becomes greater as the secular world becomes less tolerable. (Booth 1995, pp. 386 –387)

Sara herself, at another point in the interview, uses a very similar “before and after” narrative structure when she talks about some photographs depicting very poor (and messy) households. Instead of triggering a discourse about Southerner, Fronterizo/a, Mexican, or Mexican American laziness and disorder, the photos prompt a very developed

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A disorderly bedroom, El Paso

discourse about how messy her previous life had been without Jesus Christ and how ordered and clean it is now that she is serving God: Sara: I have here two photographs (I don’t know if I can go ahead before the sister finishes with hers). I can compare this [a very messy household scenario], my past life, to my present life. This photo can tell you something about how my life was. As the apostle Paul said: “Because now, serving Christ, now I see everything [that was worthwhile for me in the past] as trash. Because over there, over there it is different, over there we will reach the perfection of the perfect man that God created.” . . . Our past life was dirty, it was disorderly . . . We can say that it was disorderly in all aspects—at home, in the streets. Now we are like new creatures. Like something entered our life and swept us inside out. It cleaned us and now we are clean. This is our new life now with the Lord.

In this kind of narrative, the move from “dirtiness” and “disorder” to “cleanliness” and “order” does not require the move from one country (Mexico) to another one (the United States), as many of the narratives we found in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders claim. Here the move, the crossing, is framed in terms of “willingness” and “mercy.” In this sense, moving from one kind of situation to the other requires that the person open herself to Jesus Christ and that God have mercy and accept the opening. If these conditions are fulfilled, a process of “identity cleansing” seems to occur and the person becomes a “new creature,” the creature who from then on watches the world as being like an old movie of her “dirty, disordered” past. According to Wilson (1994, p. 94), this is a very popular narrative among Latin American Pentecostals: “[Among Latin American Pentecostals] we are likely to see God’s handiwork primarily in the personal experience of adherents who believe intensely that their lives have been remarkably reordered. Their testimonies relate examples of their changed attitudes, physical healings, favorable turns of events, and unanticipated resources.” Along very similar lines and using the same photographs, Anselmo, on the other side of the border, points out in his interview that “for us, before coming to Jesus Christ, that was our life, a disorderly life.” Anselmo: In this other photo [photo 10], what I can see is . . . it’s a room . . . a room where a person goes to sleep, right? But from what I can see this person is very disorderly . . . don’t . . . don’t you see how everything is . . . all messy? . . . the cat there on the bed . . . look, there are . . . clothes on the bed. Clothes are supposed to be in a closet, right? Well, what I want M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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to say is [that this person is] disorderly. Sometimes we . . . before we came to Jesus Christ, our lives were like that, a disorderly life . . . there wasn’t responsibility . . . we had . . . many times we wanted to have responsibility but many times we didn’t accept it, we laid the blame to the others. And the Word of God says, “There are ways that at first seem right, but at the end they are the ways to death.”

For these interviewees, who had undergone the difficult process of religious conversion, with all the doubts and anxieties that it prompts, the process of crossing the most important border in their lives is framed as a continuous struggle to avoid falling back into their previous identities—falling back onto the “other side of the line,” the side of the border that will condemn them, the side of the line that is ruled by Satan, the one that will not save them. Therefore, talking about a photograph depicting a very messy kitchen, Samuel, instead of offering the usual “Southerner” or “Mexican” or “Mexican American” laziness narrative, advances the following commentary: Samuel: And . . . this kitchen needs to be cleaned, amen. In the same way, our hearts need to be cleaned. They are dirty and have to be cleaned, amen, in order to reach the Lord. Let’s say . . . that kitchen is going to be cleaned, amen, and then the next day they are going to use it again, and it’s going to be dirty again. The same with us, we have to live a life of constant repenting, amen. Day by day we have to continue repenting.

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Untidy kitchen, Ciudad Juárez

In this narrative the metaphor of “identity cleaning” is also present but as a constant process, not as Sara’s “once in a lifetime” event. In this regard, Samuel’s “migration” from one religion to another resembles more of a “circular migration” than a definitive one. In his comments Samuel acknowledges the continuous work that is required for a Christian who aspires to belong to the realm of God. Interestingly enough, some of the photographs that most other interviewees paid no attention to were consistently used by these interviewees to advance one of the most important narrative themes of their identities: how different they are now from what they were like before they crossed the most important border of their lives, the one that leads to God via Jesus Christ. That happens, for instance, in an Apostles of Christ interview when several interviewees mention things they no longer do, either because such activities do not serve the cause of God or because they distract the interviewees from the main task in their lives: teaching the word of the Lord. That is the case, for instance, with photographs depicting sport activities: Sara: Now that we are new creatures (because God tells us, right?, that the person who is in Christ is a new creature), sometimes we even do a little sports, right? Not all the time, because now our time is dedicated to the Lord, and the breaks that we used to have for it before we now spend more practicing the Word of God and fulfilling it and spreading the Gospel to all the nations and to every creature. This is the mandate of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that is what we do now.

According to the research done by Bowen in the 1990s (1996, p. 119), many Mexican Protestants do not practice sports for a variety of similar religious reasons. Something similar occurs in the Casa Alianza interview, when a photograph totally forgotten by virtually all of my other interviewees suddenly acquires a new dimension as part of the plot “my past as a sinner, my present as a server of God, and my future as a saved soul.” Therefore, talking about a photo depicting a lady doing her laundry, Celina advances the following comment: Celina: And this photo reminds me a lot of my house before I got married. I mean, much more for the clothes than for the poverty it portrays . . . my eagerness to wash everything and obsessively do chores [el afán de lavar y de estar allí, allí, allí] . . . I mean, now that we are in Christ, there is not that . . . of course, the Bible doesn’t say that we have to be filthy, right?, or leave everything messy . . . Anselmo: God is a God of order. M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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Celina: Of course, we have to carry out our obligations in the house, right? But we don’t have to work obsessively, amen. The Bible says: “Do not trouble yourself about tomorrow, how you are going to dress, what you are going to eat” . . . Yea, . . . “First seek the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things will come by themselves.” And this . . . reminds me of that eagerness, . . . because you can see poverty here, but that’s not what most motivates me [now]. [Because of] the eagerness . . . that [we have] when we do not have Christ, we are always wanting to satisfy ourselves. We don’t want to see anything dirty, anything messy, and we forget God. When we are in God, we are orderly too, right? And maybe we’re even more orderly, but it’s not a constant eagerness [to clean everything] or obsession to be [cleaning] everywhere . . . lifting, picking up, washing, because when you live in Christ you are busier with God’s things, amen. And God gives you the time to do all that. Rita: We put God first. Celina: We put God first, and God gives us time to finish everything. He gives us mobility, and you move and you do everything fast . . . Or you go to church first and leave everything messy, because when you return blessed there is more energy for washing and ironing and doing everything. Rita: [More energy to] finish. Celina: Yes, even in those things you can see God’s hand. I was telling a friend yesterday, God is there, even in the more insignificant things—in everything. If you have to wash the dishes and you do not want to do it, just say to the Lord: “My Lord, take away this laziness,” and the Lord will take it away, and you will start doing your stuff. And God makes a radical change in your life. Anselmo: Amen. Celina: Radical. It’s a total revolution that God makes in your life. And that’s it, that’s all I have [to show].

Celina’s narrative totally skips the major themes we were used to hearing in most of our interviews in the region. Instead of a regional discourse praising Juarenses for their cleanliness compared to Southerners, or an intraethnic one praising Mexican hard work compared to the presumed laziness [ flojera] of Mexican Americans, we again have a “before and after” discourse. This time, instead of relying on a negative aspect of the photo (poverty), the narrative takes into account a positive one (cleanliness) but criticizes this aspect from the point of view of a religious discourse that does not accept any other “important” task than to serve God. Therefore, perhaps to be clean, neat, and diligent can be important in the “world” (the “movie,” in Sara’s account) but B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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not in their “soon to come celestial world that I am already, somehow, enjoying.” In that world, their present world, things that can be praised from a commonsense moral stance on either side of the border can be criticized from a Christian worldview which requires that nothing interfere in the task of serving God. At the same time, the move from the “world” to the world of serving God is also framed in terms of whether one should serve God or oneself, which stresses the nongeographical border these interviewees claim they have crossed and they hope others will cross as well. In this way, what seems morally or customarily right in the “world” (to be clean in order to feel good) becomes morally wrong in the world these interviewees strive for (to be clean but at the expense of forgetting that it is God and not oneself who is to be served). And because in the eyes of God their decision is the right one, it is not by chance that God finally helps them. Ergo, without any intention of doing so, they can be as clean, neat, and diligent (or even more so) than before. It is not coincidental that Celina ends her comments by pointing out the radical change the discovery of Jesus Christ has introduced into her life. It is obvious that interviewees of this kind (Protestants in general, but especially Pentecostal, born-again, self-defined Christians) look at the photographs (and, by extension, at the occurrences in their lives) from a very different point of view than most of our non-Protestant interviewees. They are looking for other clues to interpret their lives, because their narrative plots ask for different signs than other people’s signs to construct meaningful stories. These are signs that they believe God has provided, to be interpreted in the same way they are used to reading the Bible to make sense of their lives. Thus, it is not coincidental that Anselmo, in explaining why he selected particular photos and not others and how he organized them in meaningful groups, stresses the following: Anselmo: And I . . . have different groups [of photos]. I was looking at them . . . and I was classifying them according to [how] the Spirit . . . the Spirit of God, was telling me, right?

In this kind of narrative, it is not Anselmo himself who is choosing and organizing the photos and talking about them freely. It is really God who is leading Anselmo in that procedure, because it is really God who has written the most important identity plots Anselmo uses to make sense of his life. The photos, as shown in most of my interviews, are only the excuses Anselmo needs to unfold his narrative identity. According to him, however, the one who is really behind the organization M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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of that narrative (and the organization of the photos in the package I showed to him) is not he but God. My point here is that although many interviewees used the photos as an excuse to advance their narrative identities, these Pentecostal interviewees employed the photos for this purpose much more intensively than other interviewees. This provides a very interesting paradox. On the one hand, these ex-Catholics/ born-again, self-identified Christians have some of the most rigid narrative plots of my sample. They have a particular religious plot behind their religious subject position that tints any other subject position they have in terms of nation, race, ethnicity, region, gender, age, or class; they recognize only one authorized “source of the self,” the Bible; and so on. On the other hand, many of these same interviewees used the photographs in a much more flexible way than most of my non-Protestant interviewees, going well beyond the referent of the photo to imagine the scenes they want to portray (usually scenes linked, in one way or the other, to something written in the Bible). However, what at first seems a paradox is not really one, because it is precisely the inflexibility of their narrative plots (everything is prewritten in the Bible) that required them to have the flexibility they showed in the way they managed the photos. In this regard, as in any type of inflexible plot we have encountered in our fieldwork among other types of interviewees (Vila 2000), what these interviewees did was to tailor reality because, in a very profound sense, they could not change a narrative plot that, after their conversion, was so hard to achieve and develop. As I pointed out in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, some individuals, while not acknowledging the narrative character of their own identities, take advantage of the fact that events also have a narrative structure, that is, they are discursively malleable. For these people, facts can be manipulated, but the basic plot behind their own narrative identities cannot be. The relationship between “facts” (or, in my case, photos as proxy for facts) and narratives is a very complex one, and the possibility of accommodating new, unexpected, or contradictory facts to one’s narrative identity seems to depend more on how flexible one’s plot is than on how forceful the facts are. Therefore, in a profound sense it really did not matter for Anselmo, for instance, to eventually discover that a girl holding a book portrayed in a photograph was not reading the Bible as he initially thought, because after discovering his perceptual mistake he rapidly retailored his account of the photo so that he still had a biblical narrative available to make sense of it. In the same vein, on another occasion Rita, in commenting about a photograph portraying B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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a young lady wearing pants talking to a well-dressed guy, assumed the man was a preacher convincing a young lady to “abandon the sinful world.” I am totally convinced that she would not have gone outside of biblical sources to make sense of her photo if I had told her that the young people in her photo were a young prostitute and her well-dressed pimp. Perhaps a reference to Mary Magdalene would have been in her story instead. Thus the accounts triggered by the photos can change 180 degrees but not the source of the plots that are behind their narrative identity and the way they look at reality, the Bible. The Bible as the Most Important Repository of Narrative Plots

One of the most prominent discursive devices interviewees of this kind use to construct their narrative identities is the Bible, which they rely on continually as their most important source of plots, metaphors, and interpellations. This is the major difference between many of my Mexican Protestant interviewees (and all of my Pentecostals) and the rest of my sample. In this regard, while most of the Catholics interviewed constructed their narrative identities using plots, interpellations, and metaphors they picked up from different cultural artifacts (most of them belonging to what can be called popular culture), many of my Mexican and Mexican American Protestant interviewees used the Bible as their main reservoir of narrative plots, interpellations, and metaphors. Because they regard the Bible as divinely inspired, it is their ultimate source of authority. Further, the use of the Bible in Protestant rituals is much more pronounced than in Catholic ones. As Bowen (1996, p. 107) points out: [Evangelicals] dismissed Catholics as uninformed and uncritical believers in superstition. This strain in Mexican Evangelicalism was most evident in the universal tradition of owning one’s own Bible and bringing it to every service. When the pastor preached, he was constantly citing Bible passages for support, which all were urged to consult, to see for themselves that what the pastor said was demonstrably and unarguably true.

In Bowen’s sample, 64 percent of his interviewees said they “read the Bible, apart from at church services, three or more times a week. A total of 88 percent claimed they did so at least once a week . . . Even allowing for a measure of exaggeration, these figures suggest that the Bible played an important part in the daily life of many Evangelicals” (Bowen 1996, p. 107). M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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In this regard, the following exchange is quite illustrative of the importance of the Bible as an almost infinite reservoir of narrative identities for interviewees of this kind: Sara: . . . the scriptures are like a manual, a manual for our life. It tells us in which way we are going to live, what kinds of things the Lord doesn’t like, what kinds of things he likes, which sins can lead us to eternal death, spiritual death . . . take us to eternal fire that is the inferno . . .

Here Sara points out that the Bible is her “life manual,” a site where everything necessary to guide a person to her or his salvation (or point out what can lead to his or her damnation) is already written. The Bible, for people who construct their identities like Sara, is the source that provides all the know-how necessary for successfully constructing a “saved soul.” There is no need to go elsewhere to search for narrative plots, interpellations, or metaphors, because everything is covered in the Bible. If the identity to be constructed is that of a “saved soul” (regardless of nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, age, class, and the like) there is only one place to go for the “sources of the self.” That place is the Bible. Other sources can have valuable information, but the place to look for readymade, to-the-point solutions for identity problems is “the manual.” If we agree with Taylor (1989) that one of the reasons people invest so much in the fiction we call “the self” (a fiction that requires transforming the multitude of different identifications we perform into a “one and coherent self”) is because of the Western religious mandate to be prepared for “the account” that, in due time, will pronounce us saved or condemned, people like my born-again, self-defined Christian interviewees have an important advantage over other kinds of interviewees. This is so because the main source of their narrative identities, the Bible, prearranges the different identities they can have so the self can be “coherently” prepared in advance for the account. If common folks ultimately end up looking at reality from the vantage point of the character their narrative identity constructs, and therefore “experience” many times becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, the characters people like Sara, David, Anselmo, and Celina construct overdetermine much more the kind of “experience” these people are able to build. In their case, not only is the perception prearranged by their identity plots, but the latter are much more coherent than most of the identity plots of my other, non-Pentecostal interviewees. In this way, “coherence” is twice overdetermined in their case. We have already seen above in this chapter how continuous references to biblical themes were advanced independently of the scenes B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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depicted by the photographs. Here, I want to show how most of my Christian interviewees (above all the Pentecostal ones) continuously quoted the Bible verbatim to advance their identity plots. This happened quite frequently in most interviews, and was prominent in the one we had in the Casa Alianza center. For instance, looking at a photograph depicting a baby girl drinking her bottle, Anselmo paraphrases the second book of Peter (“. . . where it is said that we have to desire spiritual milk, pure, unadulterated, in order to grow in salvation”) to refer to his own identity as a born-again Christian. A couple of minutes later in the same interview, Anselmo makes the following intervention: Anselmo: The second photo that impressed me the most is this child talking on the telephone, right? It is a child that I imagine is talking with his father. Because within Christianity we are also like children when we are growing up, and through prayers we talk with our Celestial Father, right? . . . he gives us through the Holy Spirit, he takes our prayer to the holy place. It says in Jeremiah 33:3: “Cry out for me and I will answer you, and I will teach you marvelous and hidden things that you don’t yet know.” This is the most essential thing for a Christian, right? The prayer. And the child . . . so here I imagine he is asking something to his dad, right? . . . in spiritual matters our Father is always by our side . . . in every moment that we want, we communicate with him.

If most of Anselmo’s quotations from the Bible refer to his own identity as a born-again Christian, Manuel does the same but in relation to class

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Child celebrating his birthday and talking over the telephone

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issues. Therefore, a quite important subject position, the position a person occupies in the economic structure, can also be addressed using “the manual,” in such a way that the particular class narrative Manuel advances can be “coherently” in line with his master religious narrative of a “born-again Christian.” Manuel: And here I took another [photo], of these children, . . . you can see that they are needy, right? that they live in poverty . . . many times the Bible tells us that there is going to be poverty, that there is going to be . . . well the need that is going to be in the world . . . you can see there that these children . . . they don’t have a house, but they seem very happy the children. Perhaps, maybe they won’t eat or maybe they will eat, we don’t know. But I think that perhaps . . . they do have something . . . but they don’t have abundance. I think that is how . . . Solomon said: “Better . . . better . . . a mouthful eaten in a poor person’s house where there is love than eating meat where there is dissoluteness” . . . where there is . . . do you understand me? Rita: Arguments, fighting . . . Manuel: But what I see is that . . . there is destitution and that . . . but you can see in the children’s faces that they are happy . . . that there is love in them . . . it could be they know Christ . . .

Manuel is repeating the well-known biblical plot of poor people’s priority in the order of salvation. It seems that Solomon is particularly

PHOTO 13

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Poor children in a popular colonia in Ciudad Juárez

appropriated for class issues, because Manuel goes back to this biblical figure to interpret a photograph depicting a middle-class scenario: Manuel: [And in this photo] it can be seen (maybe I see it) . . . a house that doesn’t have many needs and that doesn’t have a lot of wealth, but I see that she is happy, then I ask myself, what does she have? . . . that she doesn’t look either [poor] or [rich]. That is the way . . . I say, which is the Christian way. Because clearly Solomon said . . . that even though he had a lot of money, . . . he was the richest person, he was the man with the most wisdom, he didn’t dress [as well as] a flower dresses itself, plenty of colors . . . he says that he didn’t dress like that. On the contrary, he told the Lord: “My Lord, don’t give me either poverty or wealth, only support me with the necessary bread.” That is what I see, that she isn’t like this or like that, but she is happy.

Gender issues also can be addressed by quoting the Bible, and here again these interviewees do not see themselves as interpreting particular parts of the Bible to advance their personal opinion on the equality of men and women, but only citing what the Bible “without any doubt” attests. Once more, their gender identity (while using “the manual”) is “coherently” aligned with their religious one. As one interviewee states: Samuel: And I chose this photo [photo 15] because, not only the woman has to do the chores in the house, but also the husband . . .

PHOTO 14

Girl learning how to ride a bike

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Anselmo: Says the Word of God: “it is not good that man is alone . . . he also has to have competent help” . . . matrimony . . . was instituted by God . . . in the beginning, when he created Adam and took Eve from Adam’s rib, right? . . . when God gave Eve to Adam, what surprises me . . . were the words that Adam said, right? They were words of admiration . . . there in that photo, what I can see . . . is that maybe he is a man who is married . . . but he is also helping his wife. And matrimony has to be like that, helping each other. Because it says . . . “It has to be comp . . . comp . . . compitent [sic] help.” Rita: Competent. Anselmo: Competent, from each one to the other. It’s not like having someone over . . . that the man is over the woman and all is not . . .

For these interviewees, it does not matter that in many places the Bible clearly states that women have to be subordinate to men. In their interpretation of the Bible, which precisely hides the fact that it is only an interpretation, women are equal to men. Therefore, machismo is not necessarily a Mexican characteristic, as many people claim in the gender chapters below, but a feature of those who do not know God. Again, the border for interviewees of this kind moves elsewhere, and they are at odds with most of the narratives we will see among many interviewees who are not born-again Christians: Celina: This photograph . . . really impresses me. Because when we are without Christ, the man generally is a machista. He says: “The household chores belong to the woman only.” Anselmo: That’s right! Celina: And when Christ arrives and changes us, I mean, even machismo goes away. Anselmo: Amen, amen.

In this kind of narrative, it is really God who is “realigning” their different identities to make them cohere for “the final account” before him (“Y cuando viene Cristo y nos cambia . . . hasta lo machista se les quita” [And when Christ comes and changes us . . . even male chauvinism goes away]). At the same time, the gender border for these interviewees is also framed in relation to their own past as Catholics, which is equated, as we already know, with the lack of knowledge of God’s Word. Therefore, it is not coincidental that instead of working with the habitual pairs we will find in the gender chapters—that is, Mexicans ⫽ machistas, Americans ⫽ mandilones (males who like to be bossed around by their wives)—these interviewees use almost exclusively B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Catholics ⫽ machistas and self-defined Christians ⫽ non-machistas as opposite pairs.13 Celina: God . . . He comes and changes you! He takes away all that is bad, because to be a machista is not good . . . and when Christ comes . . . It’s not simply the change in religion . . . a Catholic . . . he knows and in his own way loves God, right? In his own way . . . but . . . he can’t . . . in other words, he isn’t specifically a machista. In other words, not all, not all, but the ones who aren’t [machistas] are very few, right?

The issue of gender relations in the Pentecostal world is a very interesting one. On the one hand, we have heard many testimonies like the ones quoted above, which lean toward a more balanced relationship between genders. This characteristic seems widespread, not only among Mexican Protestants, but among Latin American Evangelicals as well. As Brusco (1993, p. 148) points out: The machista personality and the male role defined by evangelical Protestantism are almost diametric opposites. The ideology of Evangelicalism condemns aggression, violence, pride, and self-indulgence while providing positive reinforcement for peace-seeking, humility, and self-restraint . . . The relative power positions of the spouses change. This is not to say that women now have power over their husbands. In evangelical households the husband may still occupy the position of head, but his relative aspirations have changed to coincide more closely with those of his wife.

According to Smilde (1994, p. 48), machismo among Latin American Christians is subdued because “Evangelicalism allows the male to step out of the position in which he loses face for his lack of efficacy in the public world, and into a situation in which he gains status by simply providing for his family as well as he possibly can.” This move, in turn, erodes the rift between male and female spheres, “championing the household as the locus of status-acquisition for both sexes.” Therefore, it seems that in Latin American Pentecostalism there is an important redefinition of gender roles and conjugal sexuality. Brusco notes that a primary text used by Pentecostals for discussing sexuality and marital relations is Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, which teaches that humans are naturally inclined to desire sex and that reproduction is not the primary purpose of either sex or marriage (Brusco 1986, 194–197). Smilde (1994, p. 51) reminds us that “Evangelicalism simultaneously serves to re-moralize sexual behavior and to champion sexual desire as an important part of marriage. Together these changes undermine important aspects of machismo and contribute to a renewed focus of M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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both members on the conjugal bond.” Smilde (1994, pp. 53 –54) goes on to show how “Evangelicalism appeals to . . . women as it does not attempt to overthrow the [patriarchal] system but rather undermines the ideals of machismo, re-moralizes the male ideal, and refocuses the male on the household.” On the other hand, however, talking about Mexican Protestants, Bowen (1996, pp. 124–125) points out that it is not at all possible to claim that the Evangelical world is a defender of female equality. Bowen sees male power as being ubiquitous in the Evangelical world, and in his fieldwork he found virtually no pastors who thought it should be otherwise: “Besides the doctrinal arguments drawn from Paul and examples of the all-male apostles, pastors justified their preference on the basis that ‘emotionally she is weaker,’ that ‘we are more responsible,’ or that, for a male leader ‘there is more respect and authority.’” However, it is important to remember that one of the most important reasons that women [are] drawn to the Evangelical world [is] because it cured their husbands of their former vices, turning them into model family men who thereafter devoted their money and energy to the care of children and spouse. One female convert told me that life was better since her husband converted because “he no longer beats me.” Almost all claimed that family life was more harmonious. Faced with these circumstances, many Mexican Evangelical women would prefer, it seems, a responsible if authoritarian husband to an abusive or absent one. Herein lies the essential appeal of the Evangelical doctrine that the man is to be the head of the household, just as the pastor guides his church and a male God wisely and justly rules over all (Bowen 1996, p. 126)

Therefore, it is not by chance that Pentecostals’ “puritanical values regarding alcohol, gambling, and sexual relations outside marriage also led them to repudiate the traditional values of machismo, though the continued dominance of men in their churches is a reminder that female equality is not a central value in the Evangelical world” (Bowen 1996, p. 222; see also Martin 1990, pp. 181–182, and Brusco 1986). As we can see, a very interesting debate exists within Pentecostalism that our own fieldwork in some ways reflects. Were it not for space constraints, we could continue quoting dozens of examples of the same kind, in which references to the Bible are made to make sense of the photographs, and, in the process, to the interviewees’ own lives as born-again Christians. However, I think that one final dialogue with allusions to the Scriptures is worth mentioning, because B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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it shows how the parables of the Bible can even acquire a kind of spatiallike character. Anselmo: In this photo you can see . . . two women, and they are painting the house. What I can see in this photo . . . is helping the community. I imagine that perhaps there are families who are painting their houses, and that is what is lacking in the community—to be a volunteer, right? And when you know Jesus Christ, there are times when you come to do many things that before you wanted a payment for, but because of the love that God has put in you, there are times that you come to do a work not to please the man [referring to the brother who directs Casa Alianza] . . . Because in Jeremiah 17:5 it says “Cursed is the one who trusts in man . . . ,” in 6, or further down, it says, “Blessed is the man who trusts God.”

Anselmo is not only quoting the verse, but he is also locating it spatially within the physical structure of the Bible, in a move that spatializes an important source of his current identity as a born-again Christian who does for free what he used to do for a living: painting and repairing things for the institution he now calls home. The Bible as an identity manual acquires its full meaning, and its advantages in relation to other sources of the self (most prominently those linked to popular culture) become quite clear. The Bible as a source of the self has not only all the identity answers any person would need to construct a meaningful narrative identity, but also answers that are readily arranged spatially to facilitate consultation. We can go a step further, though, and observe an interesting thing about all the Biblical quotations above. The interviewees are not using the Bible’s parables to understand photographs that depict their everyday occurrences; conversely, they are using the photographs as allegories to refer to what is written in the Bible. In this way of constructing identity, the “reality” is the Bible and the descriptions of the photos are the opportunities these interviewees take to construct their own parables, allegories, and metaphors about what is “real” and already written in the “book” about ultimate reality. Thus, we can claim that the standpoint of interviewees of this kind is either “inerrantist hermeneutic (the belief that the Bible is literal and correct, and that it can therefore be interpreted without error)” (Deiros 1991, p. 166)—as Manuel pointed out: “ ‘Because it says [things] quite clearly,’ said Solomon . . .” [“ ‘Porque clarito bien dice’, decía Salomón . . .”]—or an antihermeneutical stance14 (because they claim that they do not interpret the book but take at face value what is written there, which is transparent and above all factual). At the same time, for these interviewees the events M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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of the “world” that relate to their experiences would be only signs of another level of reality that is superior to the reality of their everyday world. That world is a “movie about condemnation” they watch while enjoying in advance their salvation, or the signs they need to reaffirm their connection with God and his manual. Talking about the inerrancy of the Bible, Deiros (1991, p. 168) points out: Evangelicals15 sought a source of absolute authority that would undercut the tradition-based claims of Roman Catholicism. They found it in the Bible, which, as the commonly recognized Word of God, they proposed to place directly in the hands of the Spirit-guided individual believer as his only necessary guide to faith and practice. Fundamentalists seized upon this historical impulse by emphasizing “no creed but the Bible” and the right of “private judgment” under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in its interpretation, with the beliefs and practices of primitive Christianity as normative and authoritative.16

In relation to the events of the “world” as only being signs of a superior level of reality, Poewe (1989, p. 365) claims that for Pentecostals, experiences become signs that express the concerns and activities in the individual’s life of the Holy Spirit. The (Holy) Spirit, alive and active, is taken to be a fact and religious experiences are imaginatively explored in light of this fact. What is left open, subject to deconstruction and reconstruction, is the individual’s life, especially the direction of his future and the reinterpretation of his past in light of that future. It is a future, however, that is now part of God’s plan. The constellation of these events imbues the individual with a sense of peace and well-being.

For Poewe (1989, p. 366), the crucial aspect of charismatic Christianity (that applies to Pentecostalism, in our case) is the metonymic mode of thought that Pentecostals enter in order to transform ordinary experiences into religious ones. The known is the “Spirit.” Reality, beyond “creation,” is the sum of the real consequences of “the work of the Holy Spirit” in the world through the lives of individuals. Worldly success, material wealth, physical health are real, but they are a reality produced by the “Spirit” through the individual. Work is real but it is first of all “the work of the Spirit” guiding individuals to do “His” work . . . The secular has become a consequence of the sacred. (Poewe 1989, pp. 375 –376)

In this sense, if the Bible, as written by God, is the ultimate manual for understanding reality, God continuously leaves signs here and there of B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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his doings in the world, signs that remit and actualize what is written in the Bible. Therefore, what Pentecostals interpret is not the Bible but reality, looking for the signs God has left to signal his presence. According to Poewe (1989, pp. 366 –367): The body, world, and universe . . . constitute a language of signs. It follows, therefore, that charismatic Christianity is a religion of and for the imagination. It is imaginative because it interprets this universe of signs (and de-sign) through the use of the imagination (especially the passive imagination of visions, prophecies, dreams, and discernment) . . . signs are current manifestations of the creative activity of the Creator.

Additionally, if for people like Anselmo the Bible does not need any interpretation because its message, coming directly from God, is crystal clear, making sense of the sometimes abstruse biblical allegories is considered plain common sense. As Deiros (1991, 179–180) points out: In fundamentalist evangelical churches, the basis for reliable knowledge is common sense rather than abstract reasoning. Knowledge is not the product of the subject who knows but something objective to be possessed. The most secure truths are those which are apprehended through personal experience. Truth is not built up through theories but is directly apprehended. It objectively and irresistibly affects the senses, which are passive organs. To deny this understanding is for the fundamentalists a matter of artificial speculation that confounds common sense.

For sure, this denial of knowledge as a construction is highly related to the attitude regarding the Bible I mentioned before: The most important truths of religion are those that have to do with the supernatural world and the future. These realities, however, cannot be apprehended through the senses. To know what is true, a precise revelation from the other world is necessary. The Bible is the authoritative and inerrant means for the revelation of these truths. Theology and human reflection are fallible and confusing. Common people do not need those human resources. They can approach the inerrant Scripture and capture its truths through common sense. (Deiros 1991, p. 180)

Other Plots, Other Interviews

To end the chapter, I want to briefly point out a couple of things in which these interviewees also totally differed from my other nonborn-again, self-defined Christian interviewees. The first one that M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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rapidly caught my attention was the dynamic of the interview itself, not the content matter of it. Most of my group interviews consisted of a very heated debate between the participants over the meaning of the different photographs I showed them. In those debates interviewees interrupted one another very often, and most of the interventions were of short or medium extension, precisely because of the continuous intervention of the other participants in the debate. This type of dynamic was never present in my interviews with Pentecostal Protestants. In most cases the interviewees meticulously took turns in fully developing the narrative they wanted to convey without any interruptions. The respect that the other participants showed to the person who was speaking was such that even in cases in which it was quite obvious that the original speaker had finished his or her narrative, the person who wanted to intervene asked the first person if she or he had already finished. Martin (1990, p. 171) goes so far as to claim that speech in Pentecostal groups “is direct and equal and approximates to Habermas’ notion of untrammeled ‘communicative competence’ within the limited enclave.” I am not willing to go as far as Martin, but I think that this particular dynamic is somehow linked to the use of the Bible as their main “source of the self.” This is so because the “order” the Bible has introduced in their process of identity construction transpires in the “order” in which they narrate, mostly in biblical terms, their own identities. In this regard, their verbal exchanges are more linked to the rituals of their church and the reading of the scriptures than to a common conversation among friends. For these interviewees, giving a narrative of a particular aspect of their lives resembles the very common practice of reading a particular story in the Bible, and in the same way that they do not interrupt their pastor or their fellow parishioner while they do so, they do not interrupt their fellow interviewee while he or she accounts for a photograph or tells a particular story about herself or himself. At the same time, the use of the Bible as their main source of narrative plots, interpellations, and metaphors influences their identity construction in another way. I am referring here to the sense of security and lack of doubt that most of them display while accounting for their lives. What I found on the border seems to be a widespread Mexican Protestant characteristic. According to Bowen (1996, pp. 102–103): “[A]ll the Evangelicals I interviewed in my first two summers of research professed to be absolutely certain of their state of salvation.

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So unanimous were they that I subsequently deleted the question from my interview schedule . . . Calvinistic angst was little emphasized by Mexican Evangelicals, who offered certainty of salvation for all prepared to make the leap of faith.” The people I interviewed “knew who they were” in the profound sense of knowing they were on the right route to pass the “account” that would be required for them to be saved. One of the most important ways by which they knew who they were was that they got their narrative identities from the inerrant Bible. In this regard, as I mentioned before, salvation for this kind of interviewee was much more than an offer of heaven in the next world or life after death. Instead, most of the Pentecostals I interviewed deeply felt that after their conversion they were completely transformed. Through a very special relationship with God, they had already received the serenity, peace of mind, and happiness that knowing their fate provided. Additionally, most of the narrative identities of the Pentecostals I interviewed were unfolded with a sense of “being guaranteed” that was qualitatively different from that of other types of interviewees in still another sense. This was so, not because most of the other people I interviewed had doubts about the validity of their identity claims, but because most Protestants I interviewed (again, most prominently the born-again Pentecostals) believed that the source of their identity claims, the Bible, has much more prestige than the popular culture sources of most of the “others’ identity claims.” They were using “the” source, something that the other interviewees (the bulk of my sample), who relied on popular culture sources for most of their narratives, could not say. Let’s consider the following exchange, for instance, in which David, using a big portion of one of the interviews, told me the “event” that totally changed his life, that is, the “hinge” of the before and after in his narrative identity. These kinds of “events” or “crisis” are central in the narrative identities of Pentecostal converts all over Mexico. According to Bowen (1996, p. 88): Among the converts I interviewed a full two-thirds identified a specific crisis or event in their lives as the immediate cause of their conversion. Lofland, in his often-used process model of conversion, speaks of the need for the potential convert to encounter a “turning-point” in life when “old lines of action were complete, had failed, or had been or were about to be disrupted, and when they were faced with the opportunity or necessity for doing something different with their lives.”

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At the same time, David’s narrative is following a well-structured format, that of “conversion narratives” in general. According to Booth (1995, pp. 369–370): . . . fundamentalist conversion narratives, are accounts of . . . emigration journeys that have become permanent; the protagonist . . . has traveled far from what I shall call Badland and has found a true home, which I shall call Homeland . . . [they] use their stories as open invitations to listeners to join them: Come, ye misguided ones! Immigrate into the only country of light, the City of the one true God. Come home! Come home! Ye who are weary, come home!

David’s narrative of the “event” is a clear example of what Lofland is talking about and, at the same time, an illustration of how the Evangelical tradition emphasizes the need to experience such a turning point. Additionally, the kind of “event” David “experienced” is one of the most common crises that precipitates conversions from Catholicism to Protestantism. According to Bowen (1996, pp. 93 –94): “An acute illness in either the life of the convert or someone close to the convert was another major cause of conversion. Apart from the combined family set of problems, no other issue was mentioned more frequently by converts.” It seems that David’s favorite sister suffered a terrible accident and the doctors could not do anything for her. Hearing the bad news, he almost fainted, and suddenly his entire life, like a movie, appeared in front of him, above all his many sins. But, at the same time, David suddenly remembered Jesus Christ’s words, the same words that some of his Protestant relatives had tried in vain to share with him before in order to change his life: David: . . . And what struck me the most . . . [was that] my life passed before me in an instant, and what stayed with me were the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, what the brothers told me, and all that. Then I was ashamed [because] I cried that day, do you understand me? Then I ran to the bathroom and turned my life over to the Lord. Never had I done that before— I turned my life over to the Lord right there. I was in there about fifteen or twenty minutes. I cried and cried, something I could not contain, do you understand me? Something that I had never felt, something so astounding, something so very special within me, that I could see that it was the Lord Jesus Christ who was calling me. Then I was telling him, in the middle of entreaties and supplications, I was telling him: “God, if it’s true that you exist, because they have told me about you, if it’s true that B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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you exist, grant me this miracle, the opportunity of seeing my sister live.” When I stood up, there was an exact certainty that my sister was cured. I did not want to go back, I did not want to doubt anything, because the Lord had already entered within my heart . . . I could feel that the Lord had already changed my life . . . and from there on I didn’t have any doubts that I was part of the Lord Jesus Christ. And from there on the Lord has helped me a lot, right? In such a way that I cannot deny that he exists . . . we have had many experiences so that, under absolutely no circumstances would I deny that the Lord Jesus Christ lives. [David continues his narrative with the different miracles they have witnessed.]17

David’s narrative of conversion contains most of the characteristics of Booth’s typology. First, the story is presented as a true one, and “a great majority of conversion narratives claim to be true stories, strictly literal accounts of what happened either to the author or to someone the author knows or has studied” (Booth 1995, pp. 371–372).18 The advantage of a true story over a fictional one is more or less obvious: if a spiritual event actually happened, its portrayal furnishes a stronger proof for belief than one that is simply made up. Second, the distance traveled by David from his previous life (plenty of sins) to his new one (dedicated to God) is lengthy. Third, David’s story of conversion is very effective as a story because “the most dramatic fundamentalist stories are bound to be those with the most dramatic, most tangible, most easily imagined agents, producing the most rapid-fire changes in the protagonist” (Booth 1995, p. 374). Fourth, David in his account underwent serious consequences because of his conversion, and the issue of consequences is central in any conversion story. According to Booth (1995, p. 374–376): The more dramatic accounts . . . exhibit amazing changes of behavior. Most authors of these stories emphasize strongly the contrast between “How I—and other people—behaved in Badland” and “How I—and other converts—behave in Homeland” . . . In accounts of consequences, what is gained is thus often more important than anything given up. Every conversion narrative suggests that what has been gained is simply everything: total bliss in this life— or at least in the next.

In this way, the “event,” the miracle, is what David considers was his particular communication with the Lord, the way Jesus Christ communicated him, personally, that he really exists. According to Bowen (1996, p. 103), for those of his interviewees who were converts and had experienced a serious problem or crisis in their lives prior to conversion, M E X I C A N A N D M E X I C A N A M E R I C A N P RO T E S TA N T S

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the promise that the believer would have access to the unconditional love, care, and concern of God as a source of solace and fortitude was a very powerful and specific promise. Evangelicals not only unburdened themselves to God through prayer, but they were convinced that God could and would answer their specific requests that a bad husband be reformed, a job found, or a sick child healed. These not insubstantial promises can never be proved or refuted by sociology or any other empirical science. To the extent that such notions of personal transformation are believed, they may become real in their consequences. I can think of no satisfactory way of testing whether Evangelicals were really happier, more fulfilled, more tranquil, or better protected in the face of life’s difficulties, but Evangelicals believed this to be true.19

It is important to note here that David’s security about the meaning of the event is such that he has to use a redundancy to fully express it: “When I stood up, there was an exact certainty that my sister was cured.” From then on, and with some reassurances along the way, David has not allowed himself any doubt about the existence of God, his belonging to the celestial realm because of the “personal” call, and the authority of the Bible as “the” source of his most important narrative plots, interpellations, and metaphors. In a very important sense, people who construct their narrative identities in this way almost by definition believe that their identities are “guaranteed.” This is so because their narrative plots, interpellations, and metaphors are much more fixed than those of people who rely on popular culture artifacts to “download” theirs. Of course, I am not claiming that there is no struggle about the “real” meaning of the Bible, regardless of the claim of its “inerrant” character. My point is, not only that such a struggle is much slower than, let’s say, the struggle about identity plots, interpellations, and metaphors that occurs daily on television talk shows, but also that regardless of the struggle, many fundamental plots, interpellations, and metaphors remain basically the same. Finally, another difference between this kind of Mexican Pentecostals and many of my non-Protestant interviewees is the sense of joy the Pentecostals display while narrating their lives. As Anselmo pointed out, “It’s a joy that only God’s Spirit can put in our hearts.” My point here is that while most of them are as poor as any other interviewees in my sample and have passed through very difficult life experiences, like most of the other poor Mexicans I have interviewed, nevertheless their sense of hope is qualitatively different. The fact that they already know B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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the last chapter of their lives (something that those who do not rely on the Bible as their primary source of narrative plots do not) marks the difference. After their conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism, these interviewees enjoy life as a journey with a very fixed and happy destination, buttressed by the unequivocal authority of “the Book,” the source of all certainties. I think that, beyond the obvious point that they “know” they are already saved, it is precisely because of the feeling they have about having an identity that is already “guaranteed” that these interviewees live their lives so happily (in this particular case, they are guaranteed a good life in the hereafter as a saved soul, but theoretically any kind of guaranteed identity works in the same way, as, for instance, a guaranteed identity as a revolutionary). In a world like the Postmodern one we inhabit, where multiple identity plots struggle against each other to “conquer” people’s identifications, to have that struggle “closed” may surely be a source of peace and joy.20

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Introduction

Any discussion about gender is always crisscrossed by other dimensions of identity. As Avtar Brah points out for the specific case of women: Within . . . structures of social relations we do not exist simply as women but as differentiated categories such as working-class women, peasant women, migrant women. Each description references a specificity of social condition. And real lives are forged out of a complex articulation of these dimensions . . . in different womanhoods the noun is only meaningful—indeed only exists—with reference to a fusion of adjectives which symbolize particular historical trajectories, material circumstances,

Chapter 3

and cultural experiences. (Brah 1992, p. 131)

This statement is plainly acknowledged by women of color theorists in general and Chicanas in particular. As a matter of fact, it is the cornerstone of their debate with what they call white, middle-class, Western feminism. As Patricia Zavella (1991, p. 312) points out: “Women-of-color theorists have argued that race, class, and gender are experienced concurrently, and any attempt to disaggregate this lived experience into separate analytic categories seems reductionist, even impossible.” In the particular case of Mexican gender identities, the new scholarship on the issue clearly works with the same premise. As Hirsch (1999, p. 1345) points out, “There is not, and never will be, just one answer to the question of how migration affects gender. A simplistic focus on how migration affects gender takes us back two decades in gender theory, to the idea of ‘woman’ as a unified category . . . gender may not even be the defining axis of women’s lives; we need to look at race and class as well.” To complicate matters further, theoretically we cannot really claim that any given subcategory (in our case, e.g., Southern Mexican women, Chicana women, working-class Southern Mexican women, or middle-class Fronterizo women) is internally homogeneous either. Besides, gender was not a clear-cut category in the narratives of most of the people I interviewed. On the contrary, it was crisscrossed most of the time with issues that would be classified as belonging to the sexual orientation of the people, not to their gender. R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S ON THE MEXICAN SIDE OF THE BORDER

Regardless of all this complexity, most of the people I interviewed claimed they have a particular gender identity and, not by chance, that identity followed a very consistent pattern in which the “others”—the Southern Mexicans, the Mexican Americans, the Juarenses, and the Americans (i.e., the “others” organized by the articulatory power of the most important nodal points of the area: region, ethnicity, race, and nationality)—were the backdrop against which most of the discussion about gender developed in the region. In this sense, what Brah proposes about the “racialization of gender” (Brah 1992, p. 132) could very well be extended to the “regionalization of gender” on the Mexican side of the border, and “ethnicization” and/ or “nationalization of gender” on the American side. According to Brah (1992, p. 133), “historically specific and different groups have been racialized differently under varying circumstances, and on the basis of different signifiers of ‘difference.’ ” Thus, my point here is that in a region (Northern Mexico and specifically Ciudad Juárez) where racial discussions are somehow absent in public discourses and people tend to mediate ethnic categorizations through the use of regional discourses to make sense of attitudes and behaviors, those regional discourses work like Brah’s racialized discourses in the construction of identity. Therefore, any analysis of the interconnections between racism, regionalism, class, gender, and sexuality must take into account the positionality of different racisms with respect to each other (Brah 1992). This applies, for instance, as we will discuss below, to the positionality of Southern Mexican women in relation to Fronterizo women, or the positionality of Anglo women regarding Mexican American ones. The Mexican Side: Regionalizing Gender Narratives

On the Mexican side of the border, most of the time gender is framed in regional and national terms. Thus, many Southern Mexicans and Fronterizas/os believe that there are particular gender behaviors and attitudes that characterize Fronterizos/as, as distinct from Southern Mexicans on the one hand and Americans on the other. That particular gender behavior revolves around several specific discursive formations well developed in the region. First and most important in my sample is the figure of the libertine Fronteriza/o, which easily becomes the libertine prostitute (female or male) associated with the “city of vice” discourse I extensively analyze in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. Second is the figure of the liberal Fronterizo/a as a discourse that points out that due to the peculiarities of Juárez as a desert border town in the middle of B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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nowhere, its inhabitants have developed a more tolerant stand regarding gender and sexual behavior. Third is the discourse of the liberal American. And finally, the figure of the “bossy American woman.” Of course, some of these discourses overlap, and we will find that many interviewees combine more than one in their narrative identities to different degrees. The complexity of the gender discourses in the area supports contemporary criticisms about the extremely stereotyped image of the Mexican family, not only in commonsense discussions, but in academic circles as well. Thus, Adelaida Del Castillo (1996, pp. 212–213) points out that [a]ccording to [commonsense] gender-based norms, the family in Mexico is hierarchical in structure, asymmetrical in social and gender relations, genealogical in patterns of residence, and loyal to the family in its moral economy. According to the traditional ideal, men have authority over women, the husband has authority over his wife . . . [and] the father remains the ultimate authority over the household and family matters . . . Mexican gender ideology, its observations and portrayals, expresses cultural ideals of gender-appropriate behavior which may or may not have correlations in actual behavior.

Del Castillo mentions several ethnographic studies conducted in Mexico since 1950 (e.g., Lewis 1951, Fromm and Maccoby 1978) that clearly contradict the above portrayal of the Mexican family, suggesting it more a “social fiction” than an actual occurrence. Her own research in the late 1980s indicates that economically empowered women in lower-income settlements use their power to displace ideal notions of gender-appropriate behavior and patriarchal dominance in the family (Del Castillo 1996, p. 213). We will see in what follows that my own research adds still more complexity to this already complicated picture of the Mexican family. The Libertine Juarense and the “City of Vice” Narrative

In relation to the first of the images referred to above, the “city of vice” discourse is central, and it works for both Fronterizas/os and Southern Mexicans. In a nutshell, that account (in different discourses, ranging from movies or popular songs to academic accounts) almost always portrays the border as a site of violence, drugs, and prostitution. But if the border in general has this bad reputation, Juárez’s and Tijuana’s images are still worse. Over the years, the presence in San Diego and El Paso of major U.S. military facilities has transformed Tijuana and R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S

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Juárez into providers of “leisure” (alcohol and prostitution) for the predominantly single, male population of those military bases.1 This commonsense image was well captured in the ironic (and sexist) comment made by historian Rubén Vizcaíno, who noted the role Mexican prostitutes played during World War II and observed that “[i]n certain ways, Mexicans should collaborate with the allies.” 2 What surprised me the most when interviewing people in Juárez was how the discourse of prostitution and, to a lesser degree, the discourse of male homosexuality, pervades several topics that, in principle, do not necessarily have an explicit gender or sexual dimension. I think that a possible explanation for this pervasiveness is the close relationship several authors have found between the limits of the body and the limits of any social system, limits that are crucial in any border situation. Thus, following Judith Butler (1990, p. 131), we can point out that the boundaries of female and male bodies sometimes become the limits of the social per se, limits that are prone to symbolic and factual pollution in border situations. Thus, according to Mary Douglas (1966, p. 115) “The body is a model which can stand for any bound system. Its boundaries can represent any boundaries which are threatened or precarious. The body is a complex structure. The functions of its different parts and their relation afford a source of symbols for other complex structures.” In analyzing Douglas’ proposition, Judith Butler (1990, p. 132) states: “Douglas suggests that all social systems are vulnerable at their margins, and that all margins are accordingly considered dangerous. If the body is synecdochal for the social system per se or a site in which open systems converge, then any kind of unregulated permeability constitutes a site of pollution and endangerment.” Thus, I believe that the vulnerability of Mexican society at its margins, specifically at its northern border—the border with the country that for many years has been considered its historical enemy; the country that, according to the Mexican official discourse, stole half of its national territory—is resignified in terms of the vulnerability of the margins of both female and male bodies at the U.S.-Mexico frontier. In this sense I propose that the frequent discussions of prostitution and male homosexuality that characterize commonsense narratives in Juárez are many times discussions about the margins of the body that resignify the issue of the margins of Mexican society in general in a “dangerous” situation, that is, where the system encounters the “other,” where “open systems converge.” 3 Using Douglas’ insight to explain male homosexuality, Butler (1990, p. 132) points out that “[s]ince anal and oral sex among men clearly establishes certain kinds of bodily permeabilities unsanctioned by the B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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hegemonic order, male homosexuality would, within such a hegemonic point of view, constitute a site of danger and pollution.” Thus, I would contend that the sense of permeability and pollution that many Mexicans identify with the northern border is resignified in discussions about male homosexuality, that is, discussions about the margins of the male body. This is so because, through the fixation of some rites of passage that govern various bodily orifices from the point of view of a hegemonic heterosexual construction of gender exchange, positions, and erotic possibilities (Butler 1990, p. 133), male heterosexuality and bodily contours and naturalness are established, where “the construction of stable bodily contours relies upon fixed sites of corporeal permeability and impermeability” (Butler 1990, p. 132). If the body is synecdochal for the social system per se, as Butler claims it is, then the male homosexual body (i.e., a body whose “natural/hegemonic” contours are trespassed, and thus a body opened to pollution and endangered) represents in the border context the permeability/pollution/endangerment of Mexican society in a situation in which its borders are also open and permeable and in danger of pollution from the “other.” Something similar occurs regarding female prostitution on the border, because prostitution presents another possibility for breaking borders, trespassing margins, and opening bodies to pollution. But here the discussion about female bodies and limits overlaps with a wellentrenched national discussion about the role of “open female bodies” in Mexican history in general. I am referring here to the discussion about the role Malintzín/La Malinche/La Chingada played in the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. In this discussion Malintzín4 functions as a mythic scapegoat for Mexico’s dependent status (Franco 1989). Thus, she has come to symbolize the humiliation—the rape—of the indigenous people and the act of betrayal that would lead to their oppression. As Jean Franco (1989, pp. xvii–xix) points out: The story of female treachery is particularly necessary in the nationalistic epic, especially the epic which has its origin in a conquest and a defeat. Fortunately there was a historical person to fit the bill—Doña Marina, known to the indigenous people as Malintzín or La Malinche . . . She became Cortés’ mistress and interpreter . . . In the narrative of the conquest she is the hero’s “helper” . . . to the indigenous . . . she is the medium for conquest . . . and the flawed origin (mother) of a nation who would make her the symbol of the schizophrenic split between the European and the indigenous.

In this sense, Malintzín is transformed into “Guadalupe’s monstrous double . . . and can be compared with Eve, especially when she is R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S

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viewed as the originator of the Mexican people’s fall from grace and the procreator of a ‘fallen’ people” (Alarcón 1989, p. 58). At the same time, according to Octavio Paz (1985, p. 86), the Mexican male subject has been constituted as a violent rejection of this shameful mother: “. . . as a small boy will not forgive his mother if she abandons him to search for his father, the Mexican people have not forgiven La Malinche for her betrayal. She embodies the open, the chingado, to our closed, stoic, impassive Indians.” 5 What I want to point out here is that in the case of the pervasive discussions about Juárez prostitution, if the body is synecdochal for the social system per se, the body of the prostitute (like the prostitutes who since the turn of the century have opened their bodies to the sexual requirements of the American soldiers) resignifies the openness of the border to the requirements of the “other,” which currently means, besides the continuous pouring of American males in Juárez’ cantinas, the border maquiladora program and its overwhelming use of young Mexican females in its labor force. Thus, it is not a coincidence that in many of the narratives quoted below, maquiladoras (most of them American-owned factories that are like wounds in Mexican territory prone to foreign pollution), are equated with prostitution, that is, as being the places where the prostitutes went to work when the maquiladora program started in the late 1960s, or the places where prostitution is currently exercised covertly. In this sense, the mostly single females who comprise the maquiladora labor force are (when that work force cannot be interpellated in familial terms as “daughters,” “sisters,” or “wives”) dangerous in symbolic terms. As Alarcón points out, “Many of those workers are ‘single,’ unprotected within a cultural order that has required the masculine protection of women to ensure their ‘decency,’ indeed to ensure that they are ‘civilized’ in sexual and racial terms” (1990, p. 253). Thus, the historical/mythical female figure of Malintzín is resignified by the prostitutes and female workers-as-prostitutes who supposedly, in one way or another, open their bodies to Americans. In doing so those females, paradoxically, reinforce the two different aspects of the myth. On the one hand, they strengthen the image of the Mexican woman as sexually passive. As Norma Alarcón (1983, p. 184) points out: The myth contains the following sexual possibilities: woman is sexually passive, and hence at all times open to potential use by men whether it be seduction or rape . . . Because Malintzin aided Cortes in the Conquest of the B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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New World, she is seen as concretizing woman’s sexual weakness and interchangeability, always open to sexual exploitation. Indeed, as long as we continue to be seen in that way we are earmarked to be abusable matter, not just by men of another culture, but all cultures including the one that breeds us.

We have to remember here that Malintzín is La Chingada, the fucked one, and that chingar, as a verb, is masculine, active, and cruel. As Octavio Paz (1985, p. 77) points out: The man who commits it never does so with the consent of the chingada. Chingar, then, is to do violence to another. The verb is masculine, active, cruel: it stings, wounds, gashes, stains. And it provokes a bitter, resentful satisfaction. The person who suffers this action is passive, inert and open, in contrast to the active, aggressive and closed person who inflicts it. The chingón is the macho, the male; he rips open the chingada, the female, who is pure passivity, defenseless against the exterior world. The relationship between them is violent, and it is determined by the cynical power of the first and the impotence of the second.

But on the other hand, the openness of Mexican female bodies to the Americans, to the “others,” also reinforces all the connotations of betrayal that the myth implies. As Cherríe Moraga (1986, pp. 174–175) points out: The sexual legacy passed down to the Mexicana/Chicana is the legacy of betrayal . . . As translator and strategic advisor and mistress of the Spanish conqueror of Mexico, Hernan Cortez, Malintzin is considered the mother of the mestizo people. But unlike La Virgen de Guadalupe, she is not revered as the Virgin Mother, but rather slandered as La Chingada, meaning the “fucked one,” of La Vendida, sell-out to the white race. Upon her shoulders rests the full blame for the “bastardization” of the indigenous people of Mexico . . . Malintzin, also called Malinche, fucked the white man who conquered the Indian peoples of Mexico and destroyed their culture. Ever since, brown men have been accusing her of betraying her race, and over the centuries continue to blame her entire sex for this “transgression.”

That is the reason why among “people of Mexican descent . . . anyone who has transgressed the boundaries of perceived group interests and values often has been called a malinche or malinchista” (Alarcón 1989, p. 60). For all these reasons, I think that in the border context both the heterosexual practices that involve female prostitutes (or workers-asprostitutes) and the homosexual practices of males are open to different R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S

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degrees of pollution, and that pollution resignifies the dangers of the Mexican social system’s borders.6 It is time to quote some of the innumerable observations people made in dealing with female prostitution to illustrate the point made above. For some Fronterizos/as, the “city of vice” image that Juárez has all over Mexico is an old one that many people still hold about the city, something that perhaps was true in the past but is totally outdated nowadays. As one of the participants in my interview with a group of attorneys points out:7 Dolores: In this photo [photo 5], I think that what gets my attention the most are the bars. Lately . . . there’s been a moralistic trend . . . and it’s been quite a failure—isn’t that true? If I were the mayor, I would build a big brothel . . . very gaudy, I wouldn’t hide it or anything. But the current moral position is to claim, “Okay, Juárez isn’t a cabaret anymore, Juárez isn’t just a place to have a good time. Juárez must be made a more dignified city, more decent, with other kinds of activities.” . . . The fact is that in many parts of Mexico, Juárez is still seen as a cabaret, it is still a brothel, it is still that kind of place . . .

What this reflection indicates is that from a Southern Mexican point of view, the development of a leisure industry in Juárez to provide “pleasure” to the United States seems to have marked deeply any consideration about Fronterizas/os’ gender and sexuality. This negative image is still present in contemporary Mexico, not only among people living elsewhere in the country, but also among immigrants in Juárez, who commonly bring this perception with them. Over the years the image may change, but for many immigrants we interviewed who were in their first years of living there, Juárez was the epitome of a city of vice. This was what happened in a series of interviews we conducted in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Juárez, where we interviewed a group of women who gathered regularly in a grassroots organization that is trying to bring running water to their colonia. These interviewees were housewives, whose husbands work in maquiladoras or different services, and they came from Puebla, Mexico City, and other Central and Southern locations in the country. All of them but Azucena—who was sixty-five years old—were in their thirties. These women compare their past experiences in Southern and Central Mexico with their present life on the border, and depict life in Juárez using all the negative images of the “city of vice” stigma: banditry, gangs, homicides, drugs, and, prominently, female prostitution. B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Luz: One comes from far away for a small piece of land and one sees many things, one perceives things differently, right? In Mexico City there are cabarets, but you have a greater chance of seeing schools . . . Consuelo: [Yes] . . . Instead of there being only bars . . . that we go downtown and we don’t see a little park, we only see cabaret after cabaret . . . one goes to the grocery store and sees a cabaret, and if it is not a cabaret, it is hotels and motels [where prostitutes do their business]. So, what can we do for entertainment? We’re better off just to stay here, so we don’t see so much filth . . . downtown there is so much filth! You don’t see anything but drunks, and the women are even outside with them! Children who are just twelve years old, isn’t that right? . . . they don’t care if the client is pretty young or old out there . . . Angela: And this doesn’t happen in other cities in Mexico? Consuelo: Well, in Mexico City you don’t see it a lot, because we go downtown and there are buildings, huge parks, the cathedral. You see trees, [and] there are places with ponies and games for the children. You don’t see a bar here and another one over there. Mexico City has a larger assortment of good things . . .

Comparing life in other places in Mexico with Juárez, they contrast a bucolic image of those places (schools, parks, churches, children playing on ponies, and the like) with the vice of Juárez (cabarets, hotels, corruption of minors, prostitution). Thus, step-by-step, these women construct an image of Juarense females as being more prone to vice than their counterparts elsewhere in Mexico. Consuelo: The girls who hang around downtown . . . the prostitutes . . . they are very young and also involved in vice. And truthfully, I’ve never had a drink . . . and I’ve seen girls here . . . almost everyone I know or see . . . holding cigarettes or smoking or drinking. And I never knew people who smoke so much or drink so much until I came here. Angela: Where are you from? Consuelo: From Mexico City . . . I came here five years ago. And [in Mexico City] I didn’t know many people who were drug addicts or who used marijuana or who drank a lot, right? And here I know many people who do. Most of the people I know . . . or see . . . they’re like that: they drink a lot or they smoke marijuana . . . and in Mexico City, almost no one [did] . . . here there is a lot more than over there!

Thus, Consuelo is arguing that “almost all women I know from here . . . except me and women like me, Southern Mexicans,” are linked to some kind of vice. In arguing that, this interviewee uses a very common R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S

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discourse in which prostitution, drugs, alcohol, and smoking delineate a kind of cabaret atmosphere made popular in movies about the border. Thus, it is not surprising that in offering solutions to Juárez’s problems, these interviewees emphasize eradication of the cabarets: Luz: . . . They would have to get rid of the cabarets . . . they would have to get rid of the women . . . of prostitution, because right there is where even the twelve-year-old boys learn it, and everything comes from [cabarets] . . . the vice, the crooked people, the drug addiction. Everything comes from them, including diseases . . . even the women, how many don’t have some kind of disease?

According to these accounts, female vice—above all, prostitution—is the “mother of all the problems,” because supposedly it takes place in the cabarets, which is where all the other vices are born. As we can see, this kind of narrative is well attuned to a hegemonic discourse that places the moral stance of an entire society on the shoulders of women, where the myth of Malintzín re-creates constantly the supposed fate of Mexican society in general and border society in particular. Thus, the entire “city of vice” imagery (crime, drugs, alcohol, prostitution) is linked in this kind of narrative to the supposedly deviant behavior of Juarense women. The sinful image of the city, constructed around the supposedly negative sexual behavior of females, is one whose acceptance is unbounded by class; we found a similar kind of discourse among groups of middleclass people, including a group of physicians and a group of university students. In the group of young physicians, a very interesting verbal exchange occurred, because some of the doctors were new migrants to Juárez, some had been living in the city for some years, and others were native Juarenses. Thus, as happened with the immigrant women in the poor colonia, the newcomers constantly compared Juárez’s supposed “lack of morals” (above all female morals) with the higher moral behavior of people in their native cities. Francisco: How do you see things in Torreón compared to here? Eduardo: Really, there are no wholesome amusements [in Juárez]. There is no family entertainment. There is only entertainment . . . for people . . . well . . . let’s say, with other kinds of ideas, about cabarets . . . prostitutes and all that. Because I say, “I want to go to a wholesome place to enjoy myself,” and maybe there are some but very few. But bad places—you find them right away, crossing the street. Angela: And in Torreón . . . how is the entertainment in Torreón? B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Eduardo: Over there, there are still strong family ties, and families get together and there are places to go . . . especially on weekends . . . for example, plays are performed there quite often. Cabarets, there are some, right? And there’s prostitution, like everywhere, but it’s less noticeable than here.

What we are witnessing here again is a discussion about morals and values and how inland Mexico, in this particular case Torreón, seems to have maintained what Juárez seems to have lost—those “true” morals and values so cherished by immigrants from the South. Thus, Eduardo claims that there is no “wholesome” entertainment [diversiones sanas] in Juárez, only bars and prostitutes. But the word sanas in referring to leisure activities is much more than the English word “wholesome,” because it also refers to “healthy” as the opposite of “sick” (remember Luz’s references to the illnesses associated with female prostitution?) and to “bad” as the opposite of “good.” Here again, then, Eduardo’s interview excerpts refer to prostitution and female behavior as the cornerstone of Juárez’s city of vice image. But in his remarks, Eduardo is also equating “healthy” with “familyoriented” (and implicitly “bad” and “sick” with non-family-oriented) entertainment, and with this equation he is showing how difficult it is to separate religion from any discussion about gender (and, implicitly, morals and values) on the border. In this sense, we agree with Brah when she claims that discourses of class, ethnicity, religion, region, gender, and sexuality cannot be treated as independent variables because each one is inscribed within the other—is constituted by and is constitutive of the other (Brah 1992, p. 137). Thus, the kind of narrative Eduardo advances claims, not only that leisure activities are healthier in Southern Mexico than in Juárez, but also that they are more Catholic oriented, so that the Church’s emphasis on family ties is contrasted with their absence in Juárez, a city where prostitution and nonfamily entertainment are supposedly rampant. This equation is very important because, as we saw in Chapters 1 and 2 on religion, to talk about morals and values on the U.S.-Mexico border is, above all, to talk about the position each particular interviewee has in relation to Catholicism, one of the most important cultural markers of both Mexicans and Mexican Americans. What Eduardo is referring to in his statement is how family oriented Torreón is compared to Juárez. In this sense, from a traditional Catholic point of view the supposed lack of family orientation in Juárez is a sin in itself, and prostitution and “bad” female morals and values are directly linked to that lack of orientation. R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S

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In the interviews we had with a group of Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez (UACJ) students, the “lack of morals” assumption (as if non-Catholic morals were not morals at all) repeats itself, but is now uttered by people who, being immigrants themselves and having abandoned the negative image they had about Juárez after living for a while in the city, still remember what they and their friends thought about Juárez before. Some of these students had come to Juárez from other cities in the state of Chihuahua only a few years before (Esteban came from Ciudad Chihuahua three years before his interview, Josefina and Ernestina from Camargo, and Lisette and Juan from Delicias). The other students were native Juarenses. Again, the supposed lack of morals goes through a well-defined pattern in which morals are linked primarily to women’s behavior, to the supposed “openness” of their bodies to “others,” in relation to which males have a doublestandard approach: Esteban: . . . and that’s one of the stereotypes that you encounter in the capital [Chihuahua City], for example, . . . with the girls . . . They say, “Ooooh, I saw some cousins from Juárez!” . . . and off go all their male friends to look for them! . . . Yes! Let’s party! . . . Come on! [laughs] Josefina: What? . . . I didn’t hear very well. Esteban: . . . For example, you have some friends in Chihuahua who have girl cousins here in Juárez, then the family goes to visit the friend you have in Chihuahua, and then they say, “My girl cousins showed up, from Juárez!” “From Juárez? Wow!” [laughs] And you show up with the girls, and they’re normal! [laughs] Juan: All you have to do is take advantage of them [because they are from Juárez]. [laughs] Ernestina: . . . I was remembering the last time I went to my hometown . . . Delicias. Some friends of mine commented that they think that the people who have come over here to the border to live have become more libertine, more liberal—that there are lots of discotheques, lots of bars, and that we live a kind of cabaret life all the time, right? That’s what they think . . . and it really made me mad! The truth is that it’s just the opposite. In my hometown I went out every weekend, sometimes Friday and Saturday, and here . . . I go out only from time to time . . . or let’s say it’s like a myth they’ve made up about the people . . . from here.

We can easily see how difficult it is for Juárez females to construct a positive narrative identity when they continuously confront this negative image of their city and its inhabitants: a city of vice and prostitutes. Women also have to deal with their gender identity when they are B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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identified in regional terms or when they decide to address themselves in regional terminology, because a Juarense woman, by default, is suspected of having loose morals and values, of being “open” to the “other.” 8 It is precisely here, I think, where the vulnerability of Mexican society at its margins is resignified in the vulnerability of the margins of female bodies at the U.S.-Mexico border. Thus, Esteban’s friend’s excitement due to the arrival of some girls from Juárez is the excitement linked to an easy date, a date that promises sex because of the supposed lack of Catholic morals among Juarense women. That presumed moral differential between Juarenses and Chihuahuans is framed by Ernestina as Juarense females being more “libertine” or “liberal.” But the supposedly greater openness of Fronterizas’ bodies to the “other” does not occur only in cantinas and brothels. As was noted above, maquiladoras were mentioned many times in our interviews as being places of prostitution. Thus, it was very common in our interviews for people to establish a relationship between cantinas, prostitution, and maquiladora female employment. As Margarita points out: Margarita: . . . The maquilas are just fucking prostitution [pinche puteadero], nothing but fucking corruption [pinche corrupción]. I think that a fucking cabaret [chingada cantina] is cleaner than the maquilas . . .9

A more refined version of the same argument was deployed in our interviews with professional women in Juárez. Grisel: . . . Once I spoke with a young woman from a maquiladora . . . and she told me that at a certain maquiladora they gave them [some pills] . . . when they showed up hung over, because there are lots of single women, right? Women began to have some financial freedom . . . some spending power, more freedom to go out . . . a lot of the girls left the cabarets, left prostitution, and went to work for the maquilas. That is also a very important fact. And that young woman told me that when the girls showed up hung over, they gave them some white pills, and that one time when she got to work and felt very tired, they gave her one of those pills and she surpassed her normal work level, so . . . they gave them amphetamines.

In this kind of narrative, the “city of vice” stigma moves from cantinas to factories, not only because Grisel states that many current maquiladora workers had formerly been prostitutes, but also because the behavior linked to women of loose morals (alcoholism, for instance) is used to depict the present attitude of many female maquiladora workers (“cuando llegaban crudas las muchachas” [when the girls showed up with hangovers]). Something similar happened in our interview R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S

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with some members of an important leftist party in Juárez. On that occasion, we interviewed some militants with very different backgrounds. Marina, a twenty-four-year-old native Juarense, was finishing medical school. She was single and lived in a middle-class neighborhood. Sofía, also a native of Juárez, was forty-one years old and worked as a clerk. Norberto and Miguel were born in different towns in Chihuahua. Both were in their late twenties, with university degrees in economics. Gerardo was a lawyer and Fidencio, in his late forties, a teacher born in Durango. In this meeting, many interviewees make the same connection between prostitution and maquiladora workers. They also mention that many prostitutes entered maquilas when the factories opened their doors, but they think that maquiladora workers still have to prostitute themselves due to the low salaries paid by maquiladoras. Sofía: . . . I remember when this Mr. Lezama, when the maquilas were opening, said (and Lezama said this, not I!): “Fortunately, the number of brothels has decreased due to the opening of the maquilas.” . . . it’s an issue brought up by a mayor . . . Norberto: It’s true that the maquila has meant a better income for the family, but if we go to the red-light district we will see that many female workers need to prostitute themselves on the weekends to make ends meet, to be able to support their families . . . [it] is a necessary evil, whether we like it or not [laughs] . . . No, excuse me, my political committee is made up of young women from [whorehouses] . . . Sofía: Really? . . . Norberto: I had to create one, they also have the right to be represented . . . Sofía: Norberto, and did you have to be the one to accomplish that task? Come on! Norberto: What’s wrong with it? Gerardo: They give discounts, Norberto . . . [laughs] Fidencio: Well . . . What Sofía said is true: Lezama did say it, that with the maquilas the cantinas were finished. When women started in the maquilas . . . many people said that the cabarets had moved to the maquilas. Now we have to face the truth; we shouldn’t blind ourselves, right? For example, here in the brewery, over there in the restaurant . . . little girls go there to look for old men or anyone who can pay them so they can take money home, and a lot of them prostitute themselves over there. I spent eight years walking around and riding the bus, and all the female workers got on the bus . . . and their conversation was like this: “As soon as it’s Friday, B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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I go out, or I go in [to work] in the morning and go out in the afternoon, because after work I go downtown [to walk the streets] and make the rest of the money I need.” That’s what they said, that’s what they talked about—and they were young girls . . . I mean . . . the basic raw material to save our country . . . goes over there to prostitute herself. That’s what maquilas are bringing about, but why? Well, because the pay you get doesn’t cover everything we were just talking about, like shoes, food, clothing, the rent, schools, basic utilities . . .

We can easily see how closely connected several identities are to the “city of vice” stigma and the openness of the female body; prostitution is working in the background as a possible explanation for Juarenses’ religious identity (or their lack of religion), their regional identity, their class identity, etc. Interestingly, when immigrants discuss the loose morals and values of Fronterizos/as, they talk, not only about native Juarenses, but also include the new Juarenses in the negative picture, as if the city’s “faults” were inescapable for those who live in it, independent of the time of residence—as if living on the margins of Mexican society, where the system encounters the “other,” where open systems converge, means the inevitable pollution of the female body, either native or migrant. Esteban: But I think it’s also that old stereotype that still hangs over Juárez, that stereotype that’s several decades old, that Juárez is cabarets, the city of vice, that it is perdition. Juan: And people think that you come here, and even though you dedicate yourself to your studies or your work . . . they say: “No, well, you’ve become one from over there.” That stereotype is still current . . . but Juárez has changed a lot. Maybe it still has its bad spots (because all cities have them), but people from other parts of Mexico stress them and restress them and they also exaggerate them a lot.

But, as I pointed out before, women are not the only ones who have to deal with the intertwining of gender, sexual orientation, and regional identity. They are not the only ones whose bodies are supposedly more open because they live on the border, where limits are prone to symbolic and factual pollution. Males have the same problem too. Esteban: . . . I’m from the state capital . . . and the first time I went back to Chihuahua my friends told me: “For sure you’ve gotten to know all the bars, all the discotheques, because you haven’t been back here for three weeks and you even dress differently already” . . . they said: “No, you’re not Esteban!” R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S

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We can see again in Esteban’s observations that for many Mexicans, geography and time seem to change people. In this case, Esteban’s friends tease Esteban about not being the same person they knew before. Since only three weeks had passed since Esteban departed from Ciudad Chihuahua, we can easily see that geography was more important than time in this construction of the “other.” Or, to put it differently, that geography is so strong in the commonsense construction of identity on the border that somehow it shortens the amount of time a person needs to radically change his or her behavior and attitudes—at least, gender behaviors and attitudes—in a place where body boundaries supposedly are threatened or precarious. We can also see in these remarks that Juárez’s “city of vice” stigma is heavily linked to its nighttime activities and these night activities implicitly refer to some sort of “deviant” behavior, still regarding males: Esteban: . . . and also in many of the jokes that they tell . . . well, among those who were my friends there . . . “What’s going on in Juárez? There are only fags there!” Yes, I swear to you! . . . in Juárez they’re either marijuana users or homosexuals, that’s the picture they paint . . .

It is clear here that the gender identity of males is also framed in regional terms, using the “in Juárez there are only fags” claim.10 Here, the limits of the male body are at stake and prone to pollution, due to the border situation and its unregulated permeability, a site of pollution and endangerment. It is important to point out that Esteban, after living for a while in Juárez, is very careful in drawing a line between his past and his present. Not only is the negative gender discourse about Juarenses a part of his past, but also the group of friends who remained in Chihuahua and held prejudiced attitudes about Juarenses (himself in the present) are no longer his friends; thus, his comment is in the past tense: “en lo que era mi grupo de amigos allá” [among those who were my friends there]. The “old” negative image of Juárez as a city of male prostitution and homosexuality is somehow actualized in the present, because the “city of vice” stigma is “helped” by a kind of a regional hero, an “informal ambassador” of the city, the well-known singer Juan Gabriel, who supposedly is (or at least “everyone believes he is”) a homosexual: Juan: . . . Do you know what “¡Arriba Juárez!” [Up with Juárez!] means? . . . It’s what Juan Gabriel always says: “¡Arriba Juárez!” [uttered effeminately]. One time I was playing with my band in Torreón (can you believe it?),11 and they yelled, “¡Arriba Juárez!” [uttered effeminately], and then B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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a man turns around and says: “You like the people from Juárez?” And he says, “Hmmm, that little mustache you have, but you guys didn’t fool us [we know all Juarenses are gay]!” [Another guy said,] “No, I’m not, thank you very much. I’m a priest.” And the man’s expression changed. Esteban: [joking] And then we yelled, “¡Arriba Juárez!” [uttered in a highly masculine and defiant voice] . . . Juan: . . . [mock-serious] What is it with you and these guys from Juárez? Do you like them or what?

So the “city of vice” stigma that worries and somehow threatens the identity of these male Juarenses seems also to revolve around “deviant” male behavior. This is not surprising, considering how an equation has been made between Mexican culture and machismo (Gutmann 1996). What is really surprising is that an entire Northern Mexico city has made a hero of a supposedly homosexual singer, as Juárez has done with Juan Gabriel, who not only is loved by most Juarenses but also has his own street in the city: Avenida Juan Gabriel. In one of the interviews I had with a group of physicians, something similar happens. Alejandro, one of the native Juarenses at the reunion, strongly rejects the portrayal of Juárez as a “city of vice” that his coworkers offer. But in doing so, he plainly acknowledges the bad name Juárez has all over Mexico: Alejandro: . . . when we go to the capital city (excuse me if you are from Chihuahua, from the interior of the country) . . . [and we say,] “We’re from Juárez” . . . we’re the drug addicts and prostitutes (males and females alike)! We’re the worst!

In this particular part of his commentary, the “privileged others” Alejandro is referring to are again the inhabitants of Chihuahua City who, as we saw above in the interviews with UACJ students, supposedly are the ones who disseminate the worst publicity about Juárez. In his comments above, Esteban mentions homosexuals, prostitutes, and drugs as the most common components of the image Chihuahuans hold of Juárez. Now Alejandro adds prostitutos, that is, male prostitutes, providing a new dimension to Juárez’s “city of vice” stigma and its particular gender/sexual orientation: in Ciudad Juárez you have not only homosexuals but also males who sell their bodies either to females or to other males. That is, you have male bodies that are “open” to the “other,” an “other” that supposedly does not have the right to penetrate those bodies, because in the scheme of the “heterosexual matrix” (Butler 1990) male bodies are not open by definition, or because those male R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S

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bodies, in the border situation, are open to the American (male or female) “other.” 12 In the case of Alejandro, the physician we are analyzing now, we do not have a discourse like that of recent immigrants who compare their hometown with Juárez to validate their negative image of the city (e.g., Amanda, Luz, Consuelo, and Eduardo), nor do we have a voice like that of immigrants who conclude that the stigma is not true (such as Esteban, Ernestina, Juan, and Josefina); rather, we have the voice of a native Juarense who is totally aware of the negative image other Mexicans hold of his city and struggles to prove the stigma is false. The first thing Alejandro wants to contradict about Juárez’s image as a city of vice is its supposed origin: the cantinas. Alejandro: . . . we’ve said that there are a lot of cantinas in Juárez, but let’s approach the issue from the standpoint of population density . . . there are more cantinas in Chihuahua than here . . . [in terms of] the number of inhabitants per cantina . . . there are more schools in Juárez than in any other part of . . . I’m talking about settlers per state . . . in Villahumada . . . how many cantinas are there and how many schools? Angela: . . . but the doctor said that there are more cantinas here than in Torreón . . . Eduardo: . . . comparing Torreón and Juárez, there are more in Juárez . . . [laughs]

Thus, Alejandro’s counterattack, instead of moving the issue to other dimensions, addresses the topic from the same standpoint of morals and culture that Eduardo used in his comments. Therefore, Alejandro wants to prove to other Mexicans that in Juárez “there are less cantinas and more schools . . . ,” with schools replacing Eduardo’s theaters as places of culture. Therefore, Alejandro’s strategy to “defend” Juárez is not to invalidate the moral issue through a discussion about Catholicism, its influence, and the possibility of another kind of “morals.” It is not to support the possibility that there is no single “normal” gender identity and/or sexual orientation but instead different and equally valid ways to practice gender and sexuality. On the contrary, his strategy accepts all the gender and sexual orientation claims made against Juárez and tries to prove that other cities are morally worse—that is, less Catholic—than Juárez. In this sense, we have here again the overlapping of a regional identity (being Juarense), a gender identity, and a religious one. Thus, the Juarense identity is reflected by the “others”—in this case, those inhabitants from the interior of Chihuahua and other states (e.g., of Torreón, B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Coahuila)—not only as more “agringados,” less educated, and less Catholic, but also as sexual deviants and sinners. Thus, to defend a regional identity for those who identify as Juarenses is, at the same time, to defend a particular gender and religious identity. That defense can take, at the extreme, two very different routes. One is to stress the supposedly liberal tradition of the border and its amplitude to accept and live with sexual behaviors that are not considered normal elsewhere in Mexico. The other route is to prove to the “other” that the negative image is wrong and that it is not true that Juarenses are more prone to homosexuality than other Mexicans. It is not surprising that the route selected by many of the people I interviewed was the second one, due to the traditional points of view about homosexuality that many Mexicans hold.13 For instance, the interviewee who recalled the incident about Juarenses and Juan Gabriel tried to prove that the negative image was wrong by teasing a man in the crowd who parodied Juan Gabriel by yelling “¡Arriba Juárez!” effeminately, suggesting that the “real” homosexual was the man in the crowd and not the Juarenses. In this sense, this interviewee was not far from the usual answer some Juarenses give to explain Juan Gabriel’s success in Juárez, considering his presumed homosexuality:14 “What we like is Juan Gabriel the singer. This is our Juan Gabriel, the Juan Gabriel that the city created. The other, the homosexual, Alberto Aguilera Valadez (his real name) was born in Michoacán, not in Juárez. Alberto Aguilera Valadez brought from Michoacán his homosexuality, and therefore his homosexuality is not a product of Juárez. Juan Gabriel the Juarense is the singer, not the homosexual.” 15 The Bossy American Woman

Another prominent discourse I have found on the Mexican side refers to the bossy American woman. This kind of discourse develops in two distinct but related ways. On one hand, it talks about Mexican machismo, and how men in Mexico supposedly are heads of the household, those who make the most important decisions and exercise power (sometimes violently) over their wives. On the other hand, the narrative revolves around a reversal of something that many Juarenses believe happens in American families, that is, that women wield power over their husbands. Because it is so difficult to separate the different identifications people make in terms of gender, class, age, religion, and the like, any discussion about machismo in Mexico necessarily has to deal with the issue R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S

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of religion. This is so because machismo is clearly linked to the Catholic cult of the Virgin Mary or marianismo. Evelyn Stevens defines it as “the cult of feminine spiritual superiority, which teaches that women are semi-divine, morally superior to and spiritually stronger than men” (Stevens 1973, p. 91). In this kind of portrayal, women are characterized by abnegation and an “infinite capacity for humility and sacrifice” (p. 94). According to Stevens, the ideal type “dictates not only premarital chastity for all women, but postnuptial frigidity” (p. 96). Smilde (1994, p. 50) contends: While traditionally the Marian image has provided women a modicum of respect and power within the household, it currently encourages a destructive double standard for men’s behavior. The harmful sequence of male intemperance, violence, and infidelity, met with female long-suffering and resignation, is expected by both parties and society at large. In addition, the ideal of female frigidity makes it not unexpected that males will pursue passion outside of their conjugal relationship.

If this is part of the cultural matrix from which Mexican machismo was constructed, then there is an ongoing, and very interesting, discussion about Mexican machismo. In a path-breaking book, Matthew Gutmann (1996) carefully critiques the stereotypes of the Mexican macho and points out the complex relationship that exists between gender and national identity in Mexico: “An equation of machismo with Mexican culture as a whole has occurred . . . Stereotypes about machismo are critical ingredients in the symbolic capital used by ordinary Mexicans” (Gutmann 1996, p. 27). According to Gutmann, machismo in Mexico, as an archetype of masculinity, has always been closely linked to Mexican cultural nationalism, and this linkage has been fueled by the work of prestigious intellectuals like Octavio Paz and Samuel Ramos: For better or for worse, Ramos and Paz gave tequila-swilling machismo pride of place in the panoply of national character traits. Through their efforts and those of journalists and social scientists on both sides of the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande, the macho became “the Mexican.” This is ironic, for it represents the product of a cultural nationalist invention: you note something (machismo) as existing, and in the process help foster its very existence. (Gutmann 1996, p. 240)

But this linkage between the Mexican nation and a particular gender identity, machismo, has obscured the existence of multiple versions of male gender identities in Mexico. Thus, Gutmann found in his fieldwork in Mexico City a much more complicated picture of Mexican B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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male identities, in which at least four main groups were easily identified by his interviewees: the macho, the mandilón [roughly, “henpecked”],16 the neither-macho-nor-mandilón, and the man who has sex with other men (Gutmann 1996, p. 238). My own research on the U.S.-Mexico border found a still more complicated picture than the one offered by Gutmann, because, among other things, when the discussion about machismo moves from Central Mexico to the border, it acquires a national framework that is absent in the data collected by Gutmann in Mexico City. Gutmann’s work also supports what some Chicano scholars have claimed for many years: the assumption of the absolute dominance of males over females in Mexican American families is not grounded in empirical research. Several Chicano scholars have examined macho ideology and practice among people of Mexican descent in the United States. For instance, Cromwell and Ruiz (1979), after carefully studying four major studies on decision making among Mexican and Chicano families, concluded that “the patriarchal Hispanic family structure characterized by macho dominance in marital decision-making is a myth . . . very compatible with the ‘social deficit’ model of Hispanic family life and culture” (1979, p. 355). According to these authors (1979, p. 370), while it is true that wives make fewer unilateral decisions than their husbands, joint decisions are by far the most common characteristic of the Mexican and Chicano families in their sample. However, confirming some of the interview excerpts below, husbands tend “to dominate in decisions concerning ‘wife’s work’” (1979, p. 361). More recently, Lamphere, Zavella, and González (1993, chap. 6) found that Chicano fathers in their study actively parented and cared for their children more than Anglo fathers did. Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez (1996, p. 148) goes beyond the previous authors and claims: “In each of the three case studies presented, little evidence supported any of the indications of patriarchy. If anything, Mexican households are mostly in the control of women . . . in fact, it is women, especially in the late stage of development, upon whom the entire structure of the household cluster rests or falls in economic and political terms.” According to this author, some of the studies about Mexican Americans that showed patriarchalism may have forced that conclusion because they did not take into account that the extended nature of most Mexican American families requires the adult males to be engaged in a series of labor tasks apart from their main occupation, be engaged in a “nighttime” job in addition to the day job, provide assistance to and within R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S

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the household cluster such as repair, maintenance, and construction of housing for either parents, kin, children, or many times neighbors and friends. If the question during the course of interviews of any Mexican sample only directs its attention to men either carrying out cooking or house chores as an indication of “patriarchy,” the response may reinforce this indication as an artifact of men doing other work after their own eight- or ten-hour days and thus not being eligible for added labor, as could be surmised at first glance. (Vélez-Ibáñez 1996, p. 148)

Nevertheless, other Chicano scholars, most prominently Chicana feminists, claim that machismo is alive and doing fine in Mexican and Chicano families. Thus, trying to explain what she terms the resilience of male authoritarianism in Mexican culture in general, Cherríe Moraga (1986, p. 177), points out, “You are a traitor to your race if you do not put the man first. The potential accusation of ‘traitor’ or ‘vendida’ is what hangs above the heads and beats in the hearts of most Chicanas seeking to develop our own autonomous sense of ourselves.” As we can see, this is a very different approach regarding the thorny issue of Mexican machismo. My own research tends to support issues addressed by both sides of the debate. Thus, Mexican and Mexican American families are much more complex than the stereotyped model of machismo portrays, but, at the same time, machismo is still alive in many of the comments of the people I interviewed, male and female alike. In this sense, I tend to agree with Lea Ybarra (1988, p. 17) when she points out that “[t]o state that egalitarian roles exist and that machismo is not the sole determinant of male-female roles in Chicano/a families, is not to say that machismo does not exist at all . . . Machismo . . . exists in varying degrees in some families and not at all in others.” What my research on the border also brings out is the national dimension that such a debate acquires when the discussion moves from Central Mexico to the U.S.-Mexico frontier. Thus, for example, I agree with Moraga that on the border anti-machismo is resignified as “proAmerican,” and I have found, for instance, that the mandilón image is linked to that of the bossy American woman. Here is where the figure of Malintzín (which, as we have already seen, is central to understanding the images of the “libertine Juarense”) overlaps, in the border situation, with that of the “bossy American woman.” In this sense, both the openness of the body to the “other,” and the questioning of male authority within the family are considered ethnic and national treachery, because both imply some kind of “foreign pollution” (see also Alarcón 1989, who claims that any Mexican woman who wanted to have her own B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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voice was considered for many years an heir of La Malinche). Thus, it is understandable why feminism and Chicanismo did not mix well for many years. The feminist-oriented material that circulated in Chicano circles around the 1980s “for the most part strains in its attempt to stay safely within the boundaries of Chicano—male-defined and often antifeminist—values. Over and over again, Chicanas trivialize the women’s movement as being merely a white middle-class thing, having little to offer women of color” (Moraga 1986, p. 178). We have to remember here that in the late 1960s feminism and Chicanismo proposed almost totally different agendas (Pesquera and Segura 1993, p. 99). The Chicano movement exalted marriage and reproduction and used family metaphors as an integral part of a politics of cultural affirmation. Some versions of the feminist movement, however, indicted marriage and reproduction and considered the family the primary source of women’s subordination. Thus, “[c]ultural nationalism idealized certain patterns associated with Mexican culture. For example, Chicano Movement groups often organized around the ideal of la familia. Any critique of unequal gender relations within the structure of the family was discouraged . . . Chicanas who deviated from a nationalistic political stance were subjected to negative sanctions including being labeled vendidas (sell-outs), or agabachadas (white identified)” (Pesquera and Segura 1993, p. 102). In this sense, like Malintzín in Mexican history, the Mexican female who defies her role as subservient to her husband is many times purported to be a traitor to her ethnic group; she is accused of being corrupted by foreign influences that threaten to destroy her people (Moraga 1986). In the case of Chicanos, the “foreign” influences are those coming from middle-class-white sources. On the Mexican side of the border, those influences are resignified as the ones coming from the American gender culture in general that, supposedly, is more egalitarian than the Mexican one. Although this may be the “official discourse” of Mexican machismo, we saw above that some authors claim such a discourse does not necessarily correspond to actual behavior. We will have the opportunity to see below how that “official discourse” is contested by some of the people I interviewed and supported by others. Overall, we will see how complicated the process of power negotiation is inside the household, and how women’s power and status in a city where women’s employment in maquilas and elsewhere is very high in many cases does not necessarily change even though the women have become breadwinners. In this sense, in a very comprehensive study of city households done in the 1980s, Staudt found that while her study documented a R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S

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“shift in household structure, it has also demonstrated the strong resilience of the man as dominant authority and head of household . . . The material or economic changes that maquila workers experience have barely dented a gender ideology in which women are subordinate to male authority” (1986, pp. 115 –116). This finding somewhat contradicts what Adelaida R. Del Castillo found in Mexico City, where lower-income Mexicans appeared to be undergoing radical changes in male/female relationships (Del Castillo 1996). Besides, according to Del Castillo, those changes seemed to be occurring in Mexico but not among Mexican Americans in the United States. Hirsch (1999), found instead that many couples in her sample (both in Mexico and the United States) were moving away from a very rigid gendered boundary which established that the wife’s space was the house and husband’s the street to a more egalitarian system in which women worked outside the household and husbands helped women with the household chores. That shift is related in Hirsch’s sample to a more egalitarian system of decision making within the household, a system that is rewarding to both wives and husbands rather than to wives only, as previous scholarship tended to assume. Interestingly enough, some husbands in my sample seemed to want to avoid any possibility of increased leverage or bargaining ability in the hands of their wives; therefore, they used all means possible to prevent their wives from obtaining salaried employment, knowing that once their wives had a salary their power would decrease. Thus, what many of the women I interviewed pointed out was their inability to persuade their husbands to allow them to work outside the house. This lack of success is brought up in our interview with Luz, Consuelo, Elba, and their friends. Elba: . . . [Here] there are men who are living in the past [chapados a la antigüita], who won’t allow the wife to work . . . Azucena: As you see here, there are . . . five women in this meeting . . . their husbands are young and they work and mine doesn’t. So she has her children, she has to take care of them, so her husband doesn’t let her work. The same for her. So they are living on only their husband’s salary—it’s really hard! . . . Elba: Also my husband has never allowed me to work, starting when we were very young . . . Pablo: Why? What was his reason for not letting you work? Elba: Well, that with the salary he made we did all right. And now that our sons are big, even less . . . B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Pablo: And would you have liked to work? Elba: Well, yes, I would have liked to work. All my life I’ve worked at home, because he wasn’t there . . . so when he was far away (he went to Chicago, Miami, to all those places over there) . . . then he was gone for [long] periods of time and I would go to work—it didn’t matter that he told me not to do it . . . Pablo: And he didn’t find out. [laughs] Elba: Right, and sometimes when he came home . . . “Oh, Elba, don’t tell me you’ve been working” . . .

We can see in this exchange, first, how male reluctance to allow their wives to work is framed in terms of “backward” behavior (“hombres que están chapados a la antigüita”), as if “modern” male behavior implies allowing wives to work outside the house. Second, what the commentaries also bring out is that female salaried work outside the house is a constant point of negotiation for members of the household, and that female tricks are not absent when a wife wishes to nullify her husband’s veto. A similar situation occurs with Edelmira and her friends. Edelmira: It’s just that many of our husbands won’t let us work, and I’m one of the ones who is not allowed—he won’t let me work. Even if we are starving, he won’t let me work. Pablo: And why not . . . ? Edelmira: . . . well, because he wants me home taking care of the children . . . Pablo: And would you like to work? Edelmira: Me? Yes, I would, but since I didn’t go to school . . . Pablo: Why would [a wife] like to work? Nivia: . . . to help the husband . . . Edelmira: . . . well, partly to help him and, the other reason is that you get tired of staying home all the time. A lot of times they, they don’t have money to give you—when you’d like to buy some other things [not just household essentials] and they don’t have money to give you. They only have what it takes for the house, and what are you supposed to do? Having just that little extra [working outside the house] . . . It’s only a little extra money, right? But it helps . . . It’s true, isn’t it?

We can see in these two exchanges that the most important reason for husbands rejecting their wives’ attempts to work outside the house is a very rigid male-enforced division of household labor in which, almost by definition, females are in charge of rearing the children and R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S

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taking care of the house, while the husbands are the breadwinners. At the same time, the main rationale behind Edelmira’s desire to work, besides helping her husband in a situation of poverty, is the possibility of having her own money to spend on those things that her husband does not allow her to buy, because supposedly they are not household essentials. As Patricia Zavella (1991, p. 313) points out, “Our nineteenth-century heritage of ‘women’s place’ constructions casts women as secondary workers who only supplement family income and masks women’s segregation in labor markets.” However, what we can also see here is that these women do not agree with traditional Mexican gender ideology and its sharp division of roles inside the house. Nevertheless, they do not actively struggle against those arrangements except when their husbands do not have the possibility of controlling them, as when Elba took advantage of her husband’s absence to work outside the house. It is interesting to note here that the main reason Elba, Edelmira, and their friends give to explain why American women work outside the home more than Mexican women is not their increased independence from their husbands or that machismo has been tempered in America due to the country’s more egalitarian gender ideology (something that occupied center stage in the narrative of other interviewees). Rather, they maintain that it is because of what I call in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders “the endrogado [indebtedness/drug addiction] narrative.” 17 In this kind of narrative, American females work in salaried occupations outside the house, not because they want to (as Elba and Edelmira do), but because they have no other choice due to their rampant consumerism. Pablo: Do you think that in the United States there are more couples that both work than in Mexico? Edelmira: . . . over there, there are more, mostly because they are forced to . . . both are forced to work! Pablo: And that’s not the way life is over here . . . Nivia: . . . and here it’s rare. That is to say, yes, people do work, for example, when they don’t have the comforts of life. Like, “Look, let’s work to get this or that,” then . . . both go to work. But a couple where both work is rare [if they are not trying to buy something special]. Edelmira: That’s true . . . I would really like to work, but he doesn’t let me, he doesn’t want me to work . . . But not over there. Over there, even if the husband doesn’t want it the wife goes to work, because if she doesn’t . . . He can’t do it alone . . . B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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In observations of this kind, American women work outside the home more than Mexican women, not because they have struggled hard for their economic independence, but because of the “drugs/debts” the household incurs to sustain the standard of living required in the United States. As Vélez-Ibáñez (1996, pp. 140 –141) points out: “In a pernicious sort of way, it may be that the greater the indebtedness [of the household], the lesser the strength of patriarchy within the household since it depends in large measure on the income derived by both the women and men of the household.” These Juarense females want to work, yet they are very critical of American women who do work, not only because of their endrogado attitude, but also because they greatly value the possibility of staying home and taking care of their children in an environment in which juvenile violence is an everyday occurrence. Edelmira: And over there in the United States the kids . . . get into trouble [se van a la perdición] at an earlier age because both parents work and are never at home. They’re all usually alone, without any adult supervision. Even if they are in first grade, the kids are alone . . .

A very similar kind of argument is made by Margarita and Robustiano. According to these interviewees, the requirements of the “American way of life” (with its endrogado result) does not allow the husband to be the only breadwinner of the family; the wife must also enter the workforce, which means she must abandon her children in the process. Robustiano: If here in Mexico it was the father and the mother [both taking care of the children], they stayed together here with their children. But then they go to the other side, and the moment they get there, they put the little kids in school, right? So over there the man works, but he cannot make ends meet by himself . . . then the drogas [debts] come and the woman has to go out and work for the family to be able to live . . . the woman starts to work too, and the union that existed here is gone. So the little kids are in school, the husband and wife are working, and the union that existed in Mexico is gone . . .

In this kind of narrative, not only do the children suffer when their mothers have to work outside the home due to the move to the United States, but the family in general lacks the communication that supposedly characterizes families in Mexico. Of course, husbands suffer too, because their wives no longer take care of them as they did in Mexico. Robustiano: And when the woman works . . . it’s not like here when you come home, right? and your wife already has your dinner served and R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S

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everything’s all right. Over there, no. The husband comes home and his wife isn’t there and he has to cook for himself. The wife comes home and the man has already eaten, and the wife makes herself a sandwich and everything, right? Really, it seems to me that communication is seriously lacking . . .

But Robustiano thinks that the endrogado attitude he considers rampant in the United States is not the only cause of females’ working outside their homes. He also believes that women in the United States have more power than their Mexican counterparts, and that they use that power, among other things, to work beyond their husbands’ desires. Here is where the image of the “bossy American woman” appears in all its dimensions, and one of the most important things Robustiano claims is linked to American female power is the capacity of wives to curtail men’s leisure. Robustiano: . . . over there it’s hard, it’s hard. Over there, it’s the woman who rules. Margarita: Over there the woman really wears the pants [trae los pantalones bien puestos]. Robustiano: Over there she’s the one who gives orders . . . over there you go to a bar to have a drink, and your wife comes and pulls you out. Margarita: Let’s go over there, Angela!

It is interesting to note in this exchange how Margarita symbolizes American female power replacing male power with the metaphor of who wears the pants (supposedly male attire) in American households. On the other hand, Margarita’s joke seems, at first glance, to portray her as liking that reversal of household power in American families. At the same time, Robustiano thinks that such power is a distinctive feature, not only of Anglos or Mexican Americans, but also of some female Mexican immigrants, who learn how to use it as soon as they cross to the American side of the border, showing again how a kind of geographic determinism works prominently in relation to gender and sexual behavior. Robustiano: . . . the Mexican immigrants . . . they leave here and begin following the ideas and way of life [people] have over there, right? They get together with their neighbors there and [their neighbors say], “You know what, don’t let him do this and that.” And “Do it like this.” Then they start using the customs people have over there. That’s how they become accustomed to everything, if the man was in control here, right? Well, she gets together with her neighbor over there and: “You know, B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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don’t let him [do it]. If he’s drunk, don’t allow him to drink anymore. He went to a bar? Go and get him out!” I knew a guy from here, right? Well, he was Mexican and so was his wife. They went to the United States, you see? Well, the guy wanted to indulge himself and to have the same power [llevar la misma rienda] he had here . . . that girl went and got him out of a bar. Well, the guy thought he could act the same way as he did here, so he slapped her. The girl sent for the police and he got six months in jail. Six months in jail just for slapping the girl!

Thus, Robustiano, who describes gender relations in terms of control and who holds the reins [riendas] in the relationship, is totally astonished that his acquaintance had to spend six months in jail simply for following the Mexican custom of showing who has power in a marriage: slapping his wife. Robustiano is totally convinced that it is American culture that is at fault, not his friend, whom he relieves of any responsibility for his actions. Thus, the problem resides in American gender culture and its empowering of females, not in the violent behavior of his friend. Robustiano: You get along here in Mexico, you get along well and everything, and then you go over there and that’s when all the mess [relajo] starts—let’s say, because the woman begins to feel more powerful than the man.

Thus, the problem is not his friend’s unwillingness to change his behavior in a culture that supposedly has a different interpretation of gender relations, but his wife’s believing what that culture supposedly thinks about females, that is, that they have more power than males! In this sense, American culture is guilty, not Robustiano’s friend, because supposedly the couple was doing well in Mexico and the problems started when American culture “wrongly” influenced Robustiano’s friend’s wife.18 Robustiano’s wife, Margarita, although she shares with her husband the idea that males everywhere should have more power than females, believes that many times the real problem is men’s lack of self-control, their going beyond what is proper behavior. Margarita: I think that the man rules everywhere, but also that he must not cross over the line . . . because a man must know what his obligations and responsibilities are . . . and he must know that he is supposed to come home and not make you go looking for him, do you follow me?

But Margarita also uses a very patriarchal discourse regarding males’ sexual promiscuity. Thus, according to Margarita, men are not fully R E G I O N A L I Z E D G E N D E R N A R R AT I V E S

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responsible for their sexual behavior, in this particular case their womanizing attitude. On the contrary, according to her, women most of the time “provoke” men into engaging in extramarital relationships. Margarita: I say one thing, Angela, that we, the women, are mostly to blame, because if you give a man a chance, an opportunity, it’s not his fault, Angela, it’s not his fault. If you allow Pablo to hug and to kiss you, it’s not his fault. If you allow someone else to hug you, it’s not his fault either. The woman, it depends on how she asks for respect . . . and then they say it’s the man. No, it isn’t true. There are women that men don’t have to [approach], they introduce themselves, and then the problem is how to get rid of the bitches [cabronas]! I don’t blame the man in those situations, I blame us, the women . . . Do you really think that my husband . . . two, three, four young girls gather around him, in their bikinis or their little miniskirts, do you think he’s going to tell them, “Get away from me”? He’s not going to do that! It’s not his fault.

In this way, Margarita shifts the moral responsibility for extramarital relations from males to females. She does not see any difference between Juárez and El Paso in that kind of female behavior, as if that kind of gender attitude were something essential to womanhood, not a regional or national attribute. It is interesting that some literature about Mexican gender behavior, reversing the commonsense idea about machismo, claims that machismo is somehow promoted by females themselves. Thus, it has been suggested that Mexican women not only dominate males, but they also assist them in their cultural perception of the female sex (Del Castillo 1996, p. 214). According to Romanucci-Ross (1973, p. 58): The mother is . . . far more influential than the father in giving the son his image of the opposite sex and his expectation that he will be abandoned by all women except his mother . . . All women are whores, Jezebels, and betrayers; the mother alone will not betray . . . The man is therefore strongly attached to his mother emotionally and strangely bound by her authority. He is certain to distrust women, whom he thinks will betray him or disgrace his manliness by making him a cuckold (pendejo) . . . and his macho behavior is intended to belittle the woman who might otherwise hurt him. He will abandon before being abandoned.

Margarita seems to believe that all women are potentially whores, and that men are not at fault in behavior that, in her account, moves from males being “womanizers” to females being “whores.” According to Del Castillo, many times Mexican women would, if allowed, follow the path B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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of the so-called uterine family, a family in which women divide and dominate domestic units in order to undermine the authority and power of the patriarch (Lamphere 1974). In such families, “the mother will portray women (except herself ) as untrustworthy and may even encourage her son’s use of extreme macho behavior, whether in the form of adultery or wife-abuse” (Del Castillo 1996, p. 215). Margarita, as well as many other Mexican females we interviewed in Juárez, seems to adhere to this kind of gender discourse. As we can see, and as many authors have pointed out recently, the image of the Mexican macho is much more complicated than the stereotyped vision rendered by popular culture (and some academic accounts as well). In this regard, we have seen in the interview excerpts above a much more nuanced version of the image, the negotiation of such an image within the household and, last but not least, the promotion of such an image by some Mexican women. But what happens when Mexicans go to the other side, to the source of the “liberal/ bossy American female”? Do they change their gender behavior rapidly due to the pressure of American culture? That will be the subject of the next chapter.

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Many of the images in Juárez that we have considered repeat themselves on the other side of the border. This is most common in the case of interviewees of Mexican ancestry (the bulk of our interviewees). Thus, it was not uncommon to hear very similar commentaries about gender and sexual orientation on the American side of the border, where the figures of libertine Fronterizas/os, liberal Americans, and bossy females occupied center stage in most of our interviews. Therefore, instead of repeating here what we already know about these figures, I am going to present a couple of interview excerpts concerning those images, and then concentrate on the complex relationship many Mexican immigrants establish with the bossy American female, who is a condensation of some of the other figures.

The Image of the Liberal American on the U.S. Side of the Border

It is very interesting to note that, on the American side of the border, the thematic plot of the liberal American woman remained unchanged among recently arrived immigrants to El Paso. Many of the recent immigrants I interviewed expressed their disagreement with such a version of gender behavior and preferred the less liberal Mexican woman version instead. This is what we found in our interview with the Pérez family. Humberto and Marta were among a group of recent Mexican immigrants living in a lower-middle-class neighborhood of El Paso. They had migrated to El Paso from Juárez less than six years before (Humberto was born in Sonora and Marta in Juárez), living first in a public housing project. Both were in their early fifties and working as unskilled clerks in El Paso. They had some high school education. Their daughter, Catarina,1 introduces the topic of the bossy American woman. Catarina: . . . Mexicans tend to hang around with other Mexicans. Like

Chapter 4

me, well I do talk to Americans, Anglo-Saxons, but I have more trust in those who speak my own language, Spanish . . . [I wouldn’t have] the same level of communication with [Anglos because of] the language [barrier] and their way of . . . the Anglo morals are very different from the morals of Mexicans or Mexican Americans. They think very

G E N D E R , N AT I O N A L I T Y, A N D E T H N I C I T Y ON THE AMERICAN SIDE OF THE BORDER

differently. I talked to my boss (she’s American, right?), and she said that she left home at eighteen, she left her parents. And they don’t care if they’re virgins [ser señoritas] or not when they get married. But if you’re a Mexican, they tell you, they instill in you from childhood, that women should try to stay virgins [ser señoritas], that it’s worth it. The American women from here are very liberal.

Catarina is repeating the most important components of the “liberal American women” Mexican discourse, this time focusing on the issue of female virginity and its supposed value in Mexican culture compared to its supposed lack of value in American culture. Like many interviewees on the Mexican side, these interviewees are totally opposed to any kind of sexual education, equating this kind of education to the lack of morals that is an inherent part of the “liberal Americans” image. Marta: . . . Mexicans have a very different outlook about children obeying their parents, and also about morals—right?—than an American woman. Everything’s easier for her, but I would imagine that now with AIDS and everything, they have to limit themselves. Catarina: Not even [for AIDS] now, because even in elementary school they’re already telling them to have safe sex. Even at UTEP sometimes they come around and pass out condoms to the students. Marta: That’s what Teresita and I were commenting on . . . that in middle and high school they’re going to give them condoms. Oh, you can bet the majority of us Mexican women are going to oppose that! Because in the first place, if the boys aren’t thinking about that, just giving them condoms by itself will arouse their curiosity and make them think about it. And now they’re saying it’s the Hispanic woman who’s the single mother most often, right? It’s not because . . . the Hispanic woman is more, let’s say . . . has more sex. . . it’s because there’s more abortion among Americans, and it doesn’t bother them . . . but the Mexicans prefer to give birth to the product of their sin. But Americans are worried about what people will say about it . . . and then, poor people have more conscience about what a child is, and what it means to murder a child, than those with money . . . whatever their nationality [they think,] “Oh no, what will they say? We’re high-class people, people with money. Let’s get an abortion.” Well, that’s very bad . . . those Mexicans who are wealthy are very worried about what people will say, and they will think: “Because my daughter isn’t a virgin anymore [ya no es señorita], she’s not . . . she’s a single mother.” Therefore, they’re more accepting of abortion. And that’s murder, it’s a living creature . . . better to be abstinent or take care of yourself, but don’t have an abortion. B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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We can see here how difficult it is to separate the multiple identities these people experience simultaneously and construct imaginarily as a unique identity of Mexican immigrants living in the United States. It is obvious that the most important frame in their testimony is a moral one; that is, basically they consider themselves different from the American “other” in terms of values and morals. But this difference is deployed at different levels simultaneously. At the level of female sexuality, the difference is framed in ethnic terms (we have already discussed how female sexuality is used to “measure” the moral stance of an entire culture or ethnicity [American]). In this sense, these female immigrants once more depict American women as having very loose morals and practicing sex irresponsibly (the reference to the AIDS epidemic is a good point here). They point out, however, that the problem of the lack of morals goes beyond a particular ethnic female sexuality, because it seems to be promoted by the state itself, the public sphere—at least by its educational institutions, which “promote” sex among adolescents who otherwise would not be interested in it. Of course, at least implicitly, the state is already framed in ethnic terms; the women are talking about one of the agencies of the U.S. government, not about the Mexican educational system. At the same time, the moral stance framed in ethnic terms has to make sense of data that contradict the image of the puritan Hispanic female versus the libertine American woman these interviewees are advancing, that is, the higher incidence of teenage pregnancy among Hispanic women than among Anglo women. What kind of solution do these interviewees find to this puzzle? Basically, to claim that the higher incidence of pregnancy among Hispanics is not because they have more sex—that is, they have looser morals than Americans—but because Americans practice abortion much more often than Hispanics. Here the supposed lack of morals among Americans is displaced from sexual promiscuity to the immorality of killing an unborn baby. Thus we can see how a religious identity (being a Catholic and framing intercourse between nonmarried people as a sin) plays a very important role in the definition of the sexual orientation and gender identity of these interviewees. But to complicate matters further, Marta and Catarina also use a class framework to explain gender/sexual/moral/religious differences between themselves and the “others.” That is, it is not only Americans who are more promiscuous and more prone to kill unborn babies, but upper-middle-class people in general (Anglos and Mexicans alike), who prefer to “save” the reputation of their daughters by committing the atrocity of abortion. If at first glance this last shift in their G E N D E R , N AT I O N A L I T Y, A N D E T H N I C I T Y

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emplotment process seems to leave what has been until now a strict “national/ethnic” frame, if we remember that these interviewees, as many others in the region, use prominently the “all poverty is Mexican” narrative plot (in which Mexicans in general are seen as being poor and Americans in general as being middle and upper class), we can claim that they are not departing much from their initial—and highly ethnically/nationally charged—plot, which points out that Americans are mostly the ones with loose morals and values. For interviewees who have this kind of approach to gender and sexuality—an approach that they frame simultaneously in terms of ethnicity and/or nationality (Mexican), religion (Catholic), and class (poor people),—it is not coincidental that they oppose divorce American style and value the fidelity of Mexican women to their husbands, a fidelity that (supposedly) helps them to endure any kind of situation. Alejo: Over there in Juárez— or anywhere in Mexico—if you get married, you’re doing it for your whole life. There are many women whose marriages have gone bad . . . but they’re stuck [pegadas]. Since it has been instilled in her to be obedient to her husband, she remains obedient to her husband. And here, no! Here, you get into two, three little spats and the marriage is over. But over there, no. Arguments and arguments and the marriage goes on, because it has been instilled in her to be faithful to him. And here it isn’t so; they don’t give a damn about it [les vale sombrilla todo]. Angela: But who behaves like that? The Mexican American or the AngloSaxon? Marta: Anyone. Alejo: Uh-huh, anyone.

The very complicated relationship between ethnicity and/or national identity (Mexican descent), religious identity (Catholicism), and class identity (poor people), with all of them framed in moral terms, brings up the pertinent question: What is the self-definition of a Chicana in El Paso? In order to answer this question, it will be worthwhile to explore the figure of the bossy American woman on the American side of the border. The Bossy American Woman and the Construction of a Chicana Identity

As a matter of fact, we have several possibilities for answering the question of who is a Chicana/Mexican American woman in El Paso. Could she be any female in the United States of Mexican descent? Any female B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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from Mexico living in the United States for more than five, ten, or twenty years? Any female from Mexico who has obtained legal residence regardless of length of stay? Any female of Mexican descent who was born in the United States? Any female from Mexico with U.S. citizenship? The basic goal, of course, is to establish when a female Mexican immigrant becomes a Mexican American or a Chicana. Is it when she starts thinking about her gender more in what she considers “American terms” than “Mexican” ones? Or when she starts thinking of her ethnicity more than her nationality? And, still more complex: What is the process of gender identity change (if any) in this particular region of the U.S.-Mexico border, where most of the population is of Mexican descent and Mexico (the origin of the ethnicity) and Mexican gender discourse are just across the border? All these questions bring us back to the complexities of the process of gender identification we discussed above. As Micaela di Leonardo points out (1991, p. 30): “[R]ecognizing the embedded nature of gender involves . . . an understanding that women must be seen not only in relation to men but to one another. In any particular population, major social divisions—race/ ethnicity, class, religion, age, sexual preference, nationality—will crosscut and influence the meanings of gender division.” The aim of this section is to show the complexities addressed by these questions, focusing particularly on the case of female Mexican immigrants living on the American side of the border. In doing so, I want to contribute to the emerging revisionist scholarship dealing with gender relations among people of Mexican descent in the United States I mentioned above. As Hondagneu-Sotelo points out (1996, pp. 185 –187): Gender relations in ethnic families are typically explained as culturally determined, as derivative from either “traditional” or “modern” values . . . The stereotypical view maintains that Mexican immigrant families are characterized by extreme machismo. This image consists of a caricature-like portrait of excessively tyrannical men and submissive women. It is based not only on the notion that immigrants preserve intact cultural traditions but also on the belief that machismo is “traditional” among Mexican families. Research, however, does not support the claim that all contemporary Mexican and Chicano families are characterized by a uniformly extreme type of patriarchy . . ., although patriarchal ideologies and divisions of labor certainly endure . . .

As we have seen in the previous section about the Mexican side of the border, the caricature-like portrait does not work on the Juárez side either, and as we will see below, the picture is much more complex on the G E N D E R , N AT I O N A L I T Y, A N D E T H N I C I T Y

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American side too. But as Hondagneu-Sotelo points out, the stereotype is not the only discourse that, both in academia and from a commonsense viewpoint, tries to make sense of gender relations among Mexican immigrants in the United States. An emerging view sees Mexican immigrant families as becoming less patriarchal because of American cultural influences, with changes in conjugal roles deriving from the influence of modern cultural values. According to Hondagneu-Sotelo (1996, p. 188), this line of research fails to take into account that many immigrant families adopt increasing egalitarian gender behaviors, while still retaining elements of traditional Mexican culture. Her own research shows how an extremely segregated community, characterized by limited contact with Anglos, has incorporated very egalitarian gender arrangements within the household, arrangements that cannot be attributed to any “Americanization” or “modernizing” acculturation process. Another problem with the acculturation perspective in gender is that it usually reifies one gender culture (“Anglo”) and measures how much the other gender culture (“Mexican”) has changed to become similar to the reified one, as if the latter does not undergo changes in itself. As Norma Williams (1987, p. 215) points out: “Instead of adopting an assimilationist perspective, it appears more realistic . . . to assume that Anglos—as well as Mexican Americans—. . . are undergoing basic revisions in their . . . gender role expectations.” This line of thought is further developed by Hirsch (1999) in relation to Mexican culture. As she correctly points out: “transnational communities are located in time as well as in space, and so to understand the gender regime . . . of a transnational community we need to talk not just about migration-related changes but also about . . . the history of the sending community . . . the sending communities themselves are changing” (Hirsch 1999, p. 1333). In her study, for instance, she found out that “[ y]ounger women (and some of their husbands) on both sides of the frontera articulate a vision of intimate partnership influenced both by the true love of soap operas and by the increasing economic and social possibility of leaving a violent or even just unsatisfying marriage” (Hirsch 1999, p. 1332). At the core of such a change of gender ideology in Mexico is the move from an old version of marriage based on respeto [respect] to a new one based on confianza [confidence]. Obviously the change goes beyond ideals, because the young couples interviewed by Hirsch were more likely to make decisions together, “to regard a spouse as a companion, to share the tasks of social reproduction, and to value sexual intimacy as a source of emotional closeness” (Hirsch 1999, B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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p. 1334). What Hirsch is referring to is a very important change in the gender discursive formation in Mexico—a change that we will see below that is also working at the level of the narrative identities of some of the people I interviewed. Just as Hondagneu-Sotelo introduces her own twist to this revisionist approach, in which the alterations in patriarchal behavior “are attributable neither to the adoption of feminist ideology nor of ‘modern’ values, as the acculturation model posits, nor to women’s enhanced financial contribution to the family economy, but to arrangements induced by the migration process itself” (Hondagneu-Sotelo 1996, p. 185), and Hirsch’s approach points out the importance of the change of gender ideology in Mexico, I want to introduce my own twist as well, proposing that differences in gender discourses may be attributable also to the diverse gender plots immigrants use to understand the gender positions they occupy in an array of social relationships, within and outside the home. In order to understand the importance of the different gender plots in the construction of Chicana identities, we have to go back to something discussed before, that is, as Moraga pointed out, the fact that gender relations within the Chicano movement were not egalitarian for many years. That is, we have to be aware that the “offer” of gender identity coming from the most important Mexican American social movement was, for many years, very patriarchal. As Chabram Dernersesian stresses, the early Chicano movement was characterized by a nationalistic male-centered discourse that not only excluded Chicanas, but, in some extreme cases, equated them with traitors. In the process, some of these initial discourses emphatically praised machismo, like for instance, Armando Rendón’s Chicano Manifesto, published in 1971 (Chabram Dernersesian 1993, p. 40). Not only does this portrayal of Chicanas as malinchistas put them alongside the “other” (Tíos Tacos and Anglo oppressors), it considers female betrayal much worse than the male version, “since malinches betray not only a political principle but male dignity and manhood as well. Ultimately, for Rendón, malinches (Chicanas) obstruct social progress, collective identity, and reconciliation with oneself, the family, and the nation” (Chabram Dernersesian 1993, p. 41). In this sense, Chicanismo and machismo were equated, and in order to be part of the Chicano movement Chicanas were asked to embrace Chicano manhood as a political and personal objective. An important part of this manly construction of the Chicano movement and the exclusion of Chicanas from it is the importance the figure G E N D E R , N AT I O N A L I T Y, A N D E T H N I C I T Y

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of la familia [the family] played in the construction of Chicano identity. According to Moraga (1986, p. 181): Unlike most white people . . . Third World people have suffered the threat of genocide to our races since the coming of the first European expansionists. The family, then, becomes all the more ardently protected by oppressed peoples, and the sanctity of this institution is infused like blood into the veins of the Chicano. At all costs, la familia must be preserved . . . We believe the more severely we protect the sex roles within the family, the stronger we will be as a unit in opposition to the Anglo threat.

In this sense, some authors claim that among Chicanas and Chicanos, women’s work in the home is often articulated as part of “doing Chicana” . . . a claim legitimized by a shared sense of the Chicana/o culture as under assault by outside social pressures . . . When Chicanas contest traditional patterns they can become caught between their desire for personal empowerment and their politically charged responsibility for cultural maintenance. Thus, the need or motivation to continue traditional patterns may be more complex for Chicanas inasmuch as it is one potential site for reinforcing Chicana/o culture and ethnicity. (Segura and Pierce 1993, p. 78)

Thus, it is not by chance that many of the Mexican immigrants and Mexican American females I interviewed were reluctant to accept as their own outlook the more liberal/egalitarian/individualistic account of sex and ethnic roles some versions of the American culture promotes, as if accepting them would mean, by definition, to destroy the family or to betray their ethnic identity. In Segura and Pierce’s (1993, p. 81) words: [I]n the particular constellation of Chicana/o families the development of gender identity and group or ethnic identity are closely intertwined. Chicana mothers do not raise their children to be “independent” or “individualistic,” as European-American mothers do . . . Instead Chicana/o mothers encourage their children to think and act communally—for the good of the family and the community . . .

Of course, many Chicanas did not accept the label of malinchista or the necessity to embrace machismo to be part of the movement; on the contrary, they started struggling against the authoritative discourses of the Chicano movement that usually favored male models of resistance (Ché Guevara as an icon in the Chicano student movement, Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, etc.), “and relegated women to the passive interstices of la familia as nurturers and bearers of culture” (Zavella 1991, B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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p. 316). For some Chicana scholars, Chicanas’ struggles against this maleoriented model of ethnic liberation mean that “there is no turning back to racial utopias which polarize the forces of oppression along ethnic lines and create fictitious narratives of domestic bliss with the concept of a male-centered familism” (Chabram Dernersesian 1993, p. 52). However, other Chicana scholars disagree with this negative portrayal of familism and emphasize some positive aspects of the phenomenon, without, of course, negating that its negative side can reinforce societal patriarchy (Segura 1988, p. 26). Among those positive aspects of Chicano families that somehow are related to familism and those Chicana authors appreciate is “a collectivistic orientation that is devalued by the dominant culture’s emphasis on individualism” (Segura and Pierce 1993, p. 70). Thus, according to these authors (1993, p. 73), “in Chicana/o families the blending of gender identity and ethnic identity creates forms of masculine and feminine personality distinct from that of the European-American middle class.” 2 In the analysis that follows, I will try to provide some ideas about how this conflictive process proceeds, trying to see how familism and patriarchy function in the accounts of some Mexican immigrants, and also trying to see if the newly acquired voice of the Chicana movement is already part of the commonsense account of gender identity among those who are interpellated as Chicanas. Thus, I am going to concentrate in this section on two groups of female Mexican immigrants whose members have similar characteristics in terms of migration status, nationality, class, type of work, religion, age, etc. Despite that, they are very far from each other in the process of becoming Chicanas, both in ethnic and gender terms. Through an in-depth analysis of their narratives, I want to show the complexity of the process of becoming a Chicana on the U.S.-Mexico border. In doing so, I want to complicate the simplified picture that many studies about gender relations in Mexican American households portray. But also in my analysis I will go beyond the consideration of variables such as changes in gender behavior produced by different processes of migration, or degree of acculturation or wives’ employment outside the home, to explain variances in perceived gender roles among Mexican immigrants and Mexican American women, in order to accentuate the importance of the narrative identities and the peculiar construction of the “other” many of the people I interviewed were making to understand their gender identities. Thus, I totally agree with several Chicana scholars who point out the relationship between female earning power and women’s greater decision making in the family (Baca-Zinn 1980, Lea Ybarra 1982a, G E N D E R , N AT I O N A L I T Y, A N D E T H N I C I T Y

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1982b, Zavella 1987, 1991, Del Castillo 1996). This research shows that when wives worked, “Chicano couples were more likely to have ‘egalitarian’ values regarding the household division of labor and carry them out in practice, and that Chicana working wives had more influence in family decision making than homemakers” (Zavella 1991, p. 317).3 However, I call attention to the narratives Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans tell themselves in order to make sense of their earning power and their decision making, narratives that sometimes interpret a very similar “objective” situation in totally different ways. Talking about “similar objective situations,” my analysis also goes beyond Hondagneu-Sotelo’s approach, which focuses on a dimension that is generally overlooked by gender scholarship on immigrants, that is, on those behavioral changes initiated by the migration process itself. Hondagneu-Sotelo’s (1996, p. 188) argument is that “the partial dismantling of patriarchy arises from new patterns of behavior induced by the arrangements of family stage migration.” In families in which the husbands first migrated prior to 1965, an unorthodox, more egalitarian gender division of labor emerged when members of the family were reunited, while in families in which the men began their migrant sojourns after 1965, daily housework arrangements were not radically transformed once families were reconstituted in the United States (Hondagneu-Sotelo 1996, pp. 198 –200). Analyzing two groups of Mexican immigrants that migrated to the United States after 1965 but still have very different gender discourses, I point out the importance of the narrative plots those immigrants brought from Mexico and the subsequent modification of those plots due to their experiences in the United States in the construction of their commonsense discourses about gender relations among Mexicans living on the U.S.-Mexico border. The first group of interviewees were in their thirties and had arrived into El Paso during the ten years before the interviews. Still, some of them had several of their children living in Juárez and others lived for extended periods of time on the Mexican side during this ten-year period. They worked as maids and factory workers, and in other low-wage jobs. They spoke no English and lived in one of the poorest neighborhoods of El Paso. Norma was born in Durango but lived in Juárez for more than eighteen years before moving to El Paso ten years before the interview. She did not finish her elementary education. María, a housewife who was born in Juárez and, like Norma, did not finish her elementary education, had only lived in El Paso for three years. Estela was a little bit older; she was in her fifties, had arrived in El Paso two years before the interview, did not finish her B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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elementary education, and was born in Delicias, Chihuahua. Anabel had some secondary education; she was from Cuauhtemoc and worked as a seamstress, either in El Paso or Juárez. All of them were Catholics. In the process of becoming a Mexican American, Mexican immigrants have to deal, not only with the ethnic part of their identities, but also with the gender part, because gender identity, regardless of some commonalities, is constructed differently in Mexico than in the United States. But, although identity may be multiple, fractured, and contradictory, the multiple aspects overlap all the time. Thus, in the gender stories these Mexican immigrants told me, we encounter a continuous overlapping of the national, ethnic, religious, and gender aspects of identity. The overlap is quite clear when these women are talking about gender relations, at which times they prominently use one of the images we discussed above, that is, the portrayal of bossy American women. In their particular case, the image of more liberal women encompasses both Chicanas and other American females in one broad category— American women: Jesús: What are the women from here like? Norma: What are we like? On this side? If the husband allows it, we boss him around. María: . . . and if he doesn’t allow it, we do it anyway! [laughs] Pablo: Good gracious! Norma: Yeah. The husband here is a mandilón.

According to these interviewees, there are many differences between Mexico and the United States in terms of gender relations. Thus, although the people I interviewed on the Mexican side of the border had only indirect knowledge about bossy American women, these interviewees, living in the United States, supposedly knew about such women firsthand. After the above-mentioned joking, the interviewees seriously reflect upon their particular experience of arriving in a culture where the position of women is supposedly different from that position in the traditional Mexican culture. Thus, for some of them—not by chance those who are still strongly attached to Mexico—the option is not simply to embrace what they call the American way of being a woman, but rather to value and rescue from criticism the “traditional” Mexican male. Norma: The husband here is a mandilón. Anabel: It just depends on the wife . . . That’s why I don’t have a husband, because I want a husband who’s like they used to be [marido como antes] . . . G E N D E R , N AT I O N A L I T Y, A N D E T H N I C I T Y

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Here clearly Mexico is Anabel’s past and the United States her present, and this time framework relates to her gender behavior: “marido como antes” refers both to her past in Mexico and to the supposed backwardness of Mexican males in relation to American males, a feature Anabel appears to like. What also is important in Anabel’s comment is the idea that male behavior is ultimately dependent on female attitudes: “It just depends on the wife . . .” Thus Anabel is using a very similar argument to the one Margarita used in the previous chapter to “explain” the behavior of womanizers in Mexico; that is, basically it is the woman’s fault. In Anabel’s case, whether the husband is a mandilón depends on the wife. Interestingly enough, this active role of women in inducing male behavior is not oppositional to the Malintzín myth, because, as Cherríe Moraga points out (rejecting Octavio Paz’s view of La Malinche as totally passive): “In the very act of intercourse with Cortez, Malinche is seen as having been violated. She is not, however, an innocent victim, but the guilty party—ultimately responsible for her own sexual victimization. Slavery and slander is the price she must pay for the pleasure our culture imagined she enjoyed” (1985, p. 185). It is important to point out here once more that, in some ways influenced by the use of the theme la familia as a cornerstone in the construction of the Chicano movement, research about machismo among Mexican Americans has provided contradictory results. Thus the pioneering literature of the 1970s defined machismo in a more positive light and found commendable attributes in its practice. This literature was in sharp contrast to the descriptive and subjective accounts by Chicana feminists of machismo and sexism in the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. The literature of the 1980s, much of it by Latina scholars, approached this behavior in a more sober light by looking at both positive and negative aspects of machismo. The notion of Chicano patriarchy in the family was not verified by empirical studies. However . . . I would venture to say that it is alive and well among us, that both men and women assist in its construction, and that there are regional and generational variations of this complex social phenomenon. (Del Castillo 1996, p. 215)

We will see that the women I interviewed were also not very consistent in their portrayal of their experiences with machismo. Thus, it is not surprising that other participants in the same interview seem to have worked out with their husbands some kind of compromise so that the men lie between the traditional Mexican macho and the weak American husband summarized by the mandilón label: B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Norma: No, no! Normally the women over here are that way [bossy]. I on the other hand . . . I [tell my husband] . . . “and you do this and you do that,” but as soon as he gets mad . . . ay!, I make myself invisible [chiquita]. Or until he says, “Enough!” But until then I enjoy myself and get away with all I can . . . And he lets me get away with more and more. Then suddenly that’s it—you get put in your place . . . Like I told you, I get away with it as long as my husband lets me . . . or a little bit longer, but all he has to do is get mad and I stop, . . . and no more, no more . . .

According to this interviewee’s commentary, some of the Mexican women who have moved to El Paso try to imitate the freer behavior of the more dominant American women, but with some limitations imposed by their continuing acceptance of the gender discursive formation that is articulated around the signifier “respeto” [respect] (Hirsch 1999). At the same time, those limits are the ones established by the tolerance of their Mexican husbands, tolerance that seems to be influenced by the milieu. As Del Castillo (1996, p. 217) points out: “The meaning and use of gender in culture has a relational dimension specifically sensitive to context . . . Gender here is approached as a negotiated relation to be contested and questioned, never to be taken for granted as a rigid social role. In this sense, gendered relations are more like strategies which are culturally sensitive to sexed meaning and context, and as such are read, utilized, and negotiated according to changing circumstances and objectives.” In this sense, in her gender strategy, Norma sees herself as being in the middle between overly dominant American women (and their too weak American husbands), and the overly dominated Mexican women (and their too macho Mexican husbands). In her female subject position, the “others” are both overly submissive Mexican women and overly dominant American women, a feature these interviewees extend to Chicanas: Norma: . . . the majority of women, well those who were born and raised here . . . are like that [bossy]: they order their husbands around, they go dancing, they drink . . . María: They’ll get their husband’s paycheck . . . Norma: Yes, they’ll take care of it. María: They just boss their husbands around . . . they support their husbands’ addiction to beer [el vicio de la cerveza] and everything else . . . they boss them around.

Thus, not only do Anglo women “dominate” their husbands in the United States, but Mexican American women do also. And in this excerpt G E N D E R , N AT I O N A L I T Y, A N D E T H N I C I T Y

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we can see what the features of that dominance are: independence to decide their own leisure activities without male supervision, engagement in activities supposedly linked to loose moral stances (dancing and drinking), enough power to control the household economy, and the like. As we already saw in our interviews on the Mexican side of the border, in order to find reasons to explain this difference in male and female behavior between countries, and between females belonging to the same ethnicity—Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans—the interviewees relied heavily on two popular commonsense discourses: that of the Mexican male as a macho and that of the American female as a liberal. The interviewees on the American side of the border do the same: Pablo: And that [female dominance] doesn’t happen in Juárez? Their relationship with their husbands is different . . . Norma: No, because in Juárez there is still a little bit of machismo left. María: That is what characterizes males in Mexico: they force their machismo [on women]. The man who agrees to be dominated is rare . . . In Mexico the male constantly [forces] his machismo [on women], so I think that when a man—when [a woman] finally gets married, they think they have you more securely . . . Anabel: . . . And they take advantage of that.

As a counterpart to the Mexican macho, we do not find in this part of the interview the image of the “weak American husband” (the mandilón) but rather that of the liberal American woman, as if the problem of machismo (as was pointed out by Anabel above) is more the problem of women—their inability to put limits on their husbands—than a male defect: Estela: . . . For me . . . if the woman allows the man to dominate her, well the man will take advantage of the situation! But when the woman finally says, “Hey! No more!”—it’s just that . . . as a woman you’ve got to put your foot down and say, “Aayy! . . .”

We can see here how similar Margarita and Estela’s observations are. Both place the weight of male behavior on the shoulders of females instead of on the males themselves. If they are right, American women are the ones who say “Aayy” more often to their husbands. María: . . . Here the woman is more liberal. Estela: Like, after a woman who was born here—an American, right?— gets a divorce, I don’t think she will return to her husband. B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Norma: Here they will leave and go to where the dance halls are located . . . Estela: They will go live with someone else . . . someone else, maybe, but not with their own husbands. María: . . . Not here. The women here, if their husband fights with them, they just leave them there and go look for someone else and go dancing. That’s what the women here are like . . . they are more liberal in every way, not like over there [in Juárez]. Here a woman sees her sexuality as . . . Norma: Something very natural . . . María: Yes, and she’s the one who comes on to a man, insinuates herself [into his company]. She’s the one who decides . . and in Mexico that isn’t the case. Estela: It’s a little calmer.

For these interviewees the image of the American female is a very disturbing one (“[in Mexico] . . . it’s a little calmer”). Because the American woman supposedly is aggressive, has a lot of power, and takes sexuality as something “natural,” these interviewees cannot see her as their possible future. A female who goes to bars as soon as she divorces, who does not keep her “proper” place (understood as allowing males to court her instead of her courting them), is, in these interviewees’ estimation, a female whose behavior is characteristic of an identity that is at the antipode of their own gender identity. The present narrative identity of these female interviewees thus relies more on their past as submissive Mexican females than on a possible future as liberated American women that they do not feel can be theirs. Although there are some glimpses of American influence in their gender identities, those glimpses are not enough to close the gap they feel separates their gender attitudes from those of Anglos and Mexican Americans—ethnicities that, in terms of sexuality, are collapsed into one identity. Something different happened in the set of interviews we conducted in El Paso with Nora, Rosalba, and their friends (introduced in Chapter 1). There we could hear the voice of Mexican immigrants who had lived in El Paso a little longer than Norma and her friends (fifteen years instead of ten), and that had less quotidian contact with the “other side.” An analysis of the discourses of Nora, Rosalba, and their friends offers us the possibility of going deeper into the complex process of negotiation that takes place when Mexican immigrants start becoming Mexican Americans/Chicanas, at least in the gender part of their fractured identities (because this group is very “Mexican” in other aspects of its identity). Since Nora, Rosalba, and their friends had been in the G E N D E R , N AT I O N A L I T Y, A N D E T H N I C I T Y

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United States for a while but were not born here, it is interesting to note that they also considered Mexican Americans as “others” and told us, in different interviews, diverse stories of discrimination that they had experienced from Mexican Americans.4 But having lived in the United States for a while, they already valued some features of American culture and no longer praised certain aspects of Mexican culture they had experienced in their past. Notably, the American traits these immigrants liked the most were American gender relations. In this sense, we will see how Nora, Rosalba, and their friends use a gender discourse that approaches what they consider American ideals much more closely than the discourse used by Norma and her friends. They do not want to go back to Mexican machismo, as Anabel points out above, or to take a middle of the road position between Mexico and the United States in gender relationships, as Norma and Estela opt for in their narratives. Instead, they plainly enjoy the equal position women are said to occupy in American society. Thus, members of both groups are Mexican immigrants with similar migration experiences, are monolingual Spanish-speakers, hold working-class jobs, and so on. Nevertheless, they have very different gender narratives, narratives that locate them in very different places on the route that metaphorically leads them from being Mexican immigrants to being Chicanas. As we have already discussed above, the more egalitarian gender roles these interviewees affirm have been documented in the literature about gender relations among Chicanas/os (Argüelles 1990, Baca-Zinn 1975, 1976, 1980, Chavira-Prado 1992, de la Torre 1993, Cromwell and Ruiz 1979, Cromwell and Cromwell 1978). Moreover, some research has found that Mexican American husbands and wives have expressed greater satisfaction with an egalitarian decision-making domestic structure (Bean, Curtis, and Marcum 1977; Hirsch 1999). But what kind of gender relations do these interviewees consider “Mexican oriented” and what kind “American oriented”? Quica: In Mexico, the male is more machista than here. Nora: They also demand . . . that their wives be virgins . . . more in Mexico than here. Here they are a bit more open-minded, more liberal, but I imagine that they still prefer [their wives to be virgins]. I don’t know, I’m saying probably, right? It depends on the person. Here in the U.S., you hear more talk about such things, that they have open marriages, and that . . . they have group sex . . . Here you hear about it more than in Mexico. In Mexico there is less of it, I mean, if it exists . . . no . . . people don’t talk about it like they do here. I mean, I never heard about group sex and open B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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marriages in conversations in Mexico, and here I heard about them almost as soon as I arrived . . .

Here the women stress the more “open-minded” character of American males (they do not worry about their wives’ virginity at marriage), and this is presented as “proof” of the lack of machismo that supposedly characterizes American males. It is interesting to note here that in the narrative of these interviewees American liberalism is exemplified by American husbands, not by the “liberal wives” that Norma and her friends utilize in their pro-Mexican gender relations discourse. For example, according to Nora’s account, American males seem to have the power necessary to define the kind of gender relations American society is going to follow (a power Norma put on the shoulders of American females). Thus we have the paradox of a pro-male discourse that gives females the responsibility for the maintenance of traditional gender relations (females are to blame for the womanizer or macho attitudes of their husbands), as well as the power to change those relationships (females are responsible for turning their husbands into mandilones), and a pro-female discourse that stresses the capacity of males to do the same. But some of these interviewees also seem to approve of one of the most “extreme” aspects of American openness and liberalism—an openness and liberalism that reaches levels impossible to understand from a traditional Mexican point of view. That is, some of the interviewees seem to condone couples with open marriages and multiple partners, and the like. But Nora is not totally sure that this kind of liberal sexual behavior does not exist in Mexico. It may in reality exist, but no one talks about it. Even if it exists silently in Mexico, Nora still enjoys the ability to talk about such things in the United States. It is very interesting that the wording Nora uses is linked to hearing, not vision. She could have said: “In Mexico you don’t see such behavior . . .” Instead, she stresses: “In Mexico . . . people don’t talk about it like they do here . . .” Nora also adds a time dimension to the issue: the United States is more advanced than Mexico because it already has something (sexual liberation) that Mexico possibly is going to have in the future. And this difference in sexual orientation that some of these immigrants enjoy about the United States seems to be related to the difference in the position of females in American society compared to their position in Mexican society. Nora: . . . it’s just that over there they teach women to be submissive. From the beginning they teach us that the man can do whatever . . . that he is G E N D E R , N AT I O N A L I T Y, A N D E T H N I C I T Y

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more liberal; if he strays [anda], has other relationships, then we as women must [accept it] . . . and that is not the case here. Here they start telling you that no, that the woman has the same value as a woman [sic], that if she sees an injustice [she has the right to react], even if she loves her husband . . . If you see that the marriage isn’t going anywhere, your children’s happiness and your own come first . . . that is what I like about living here. I like that. Pablo: In Mexico you would probably be more submissive? Nora: Yes, over there you have to put up with it, over and over again [aguanta, aguanta y aguanta]. You’re stuck carrying the load. What’s the saying—“it’s your cross to bear”? So bear your cross! Oh, come on! No! Pablo: Let them crucify someone else! [laughs]

Nora clearly enjoys the egalitarian position of women that is part of the commonsense discourse of the United States. Therefore, she regrets that Mexican culture supposedly teaches submissiveness to females, allowing only males to be “liberals.” In this sense, Nora is equating “liberalism” with the unrestricted exercise of heterosexual sexuality, something that is allowed to males in Mexico but not to females. In the United States, according to Nora, females can be as liberated as males. They can also be as “modern” as their male counterparts, where modernity is equated with sexual liberation, as we saw above, but also with the equal value of males and females. Thus, according to Nora, in the United States each person has her or his own value, and no one has to put aside personal happiness in order to maintain a marriage that is not fulfilling. And the metaphor of the cross is not introduced by chance, because what this interviewee is rejecting is a part of the Catholic tradition (which is so intertwined with the idea of Mexicanness) that, according to her, oppresses women. Additionally, this Catholic/Mexican tradition of suffering for the sake of other people that Nora seems to reject is not a marginal one but, according to some Catholic scholars, is located at the center of the Catholic credo. According to Elizondo (1994, pp. 127–128), Jesus’ sacrifice of enduring the most cruel suffering for the salvation of humanity, “in the minds of our people, is the ultimate power of God—the power to endure for the sake of those we love . . . only the power to endure for the sake of another is truly divine and life-giving . . . In the presence of el Señor del Gran Poder, we see and celebrate our own inner strength which has allowed us to endure for the sake of our families and our people.” At the same time, the centrality of the cult of the Virgin in Mexican tradition (which we discussed in Chapter 1) works in the same B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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direction for many Mexican women. According to Smilde (1994), among the lower classes in Latin America the Virgin is believed to receive her power from God for her unlimited willingness to take suffering upon herself as the most compliant servant of God. As Bohman (1984, p. 305) points out, “The Virgin is thus the exemplary believer, who obeys even when she does not understand—she is an ideal for women who should learn to aguantar [endure], show paciencia [patience] and have faith in God who will finally reward their suffering if not on this earth then in the after-life.” As we can see, what Nora seems to be rejecting in her Mexican/Catholic heritage is linked to some of the most centrally located beliefs of this tradition. Therefore, in this complex overlapping of subject positions that occurs in the process of identity construction, what Nora and her companions are explaining to us is how profoundly their life in the United States has changed their narrative identities, how profound the process was of their becoming, at least in religious and gender terms, Mexican Americans. First, they have changed their gender identity; the gendered “other” is not only the American or Americanized male (and the more macho Mexican type male) but also the submissive Mexican female (themselves in the past). And they are aware that they were able to change their gender identity because they live in the United States, and that only in the United States do they enjoy certain economic and social advantages that allow them much more latitude in the performance of their gender behavior. Nora: Well, also, here [the difference in gender relations between Mexico and the United States] has a lot to do with the availability of resources . . . I mean, if you’re a resident or you become a citizen, then a woman perceives herself as having more protection. In Juárez there is not as much assistance as here. Over there you would think about it [divorcing] more . . . If women here are sometimes frightened . . . What I’m saying is, it’s easier here, right? It’s easier here . . .

This last comment is in line with what Hirsch (1999) has found in her own research among Mexican immigrants in Atlanta. According to her, while a matrimonio de confianza [marriage based on trust] seems to be present on both sides of the border, such a marriage is in reality practiced more in the United States than in Mexico. One of the reasons for this difference is a series of local factors that go beyond working or not working outside the house, and that make women less socially and economically dependent on men. Among those factors Hirsch mentions a house-street division that is weaker in the United States than in Mexico G E N D E R , N AT I O N A L I T Y, A N D E T H N I C I T Y

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and a lesser degree of shared vigilance of public behavior in the United States than in Mexico. Summarizing her point, Hirsch (1999, p. 1340) stresses: The difference [in women’s power] is not that women work in the United States and that they do not in Mexico; rather, it is that women’s labor in the United States brings them much closer to economic independence than do their sisters’ efforts south of the border. In Atlanta, it is eminently possible for a woman to support her children earning just above the minimum wage . . . The net effect of all these differences (violence, women’s work, increased privacy) is that women do not need men in the same way in Atlanta as they do in the sending communities.

Secondly, these interviewees have changed their religious identity—at least they do not accept any longer what traditional Catholicism predicates about woman’s position’s in society. Hence, we encounter here a very interesting overlapping between a gender, a religious identity, and a national one, processed in a comparison between their own past, present, and possible future, that is, processed as a narrative. Thus, it is not coincidental that their final reference to their gender identity as Mexican immigrants in the United States values precisely the quality that Norma most criticizes in American females: that they boss their husbands around (the mandilones metaphor). Rosalba: Here . . . the woman is the . . . head of the household. The man works and the woman is the head of the household; the woman is the one who brings order to the household . . . In Mexico, the man is the one, he’s the macho. Over there in Mexico, you hear more about men having . . . lovers, . . . supporting two households. You don’t hear about that so much over here.

Once more an auditory framework appears to mark the differences between being a male (and implicitly a female) in Mexico or the United States. According to Rosalba, in the United States the husband works but the wife controls; she is the real chief of the household. Thus, Rosalba is confirming and enjoying what Norma and her friends considered one of the worst characteristics of American society. Rosalba also believes that American husbands respect their wives more—or perhaps they do not have other possibilities than to obey their bosses, because supposedly they have fewer lovers than Mexican husbands have. We have seen in this section how an important change Mexican immigrants have to undergo in their identity plots to become Mexican

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Americans is related to their gender identities, because American hegemonic gender discourse is at odds with their Mexican gender narratives. Of course, we have to take into account here that an important factor in the construction of an American gender discourse is its portrayal as being different from Mexican gender ideology, in which the Spanish word macho plays a crucial role in its construction.5 As Gutmann (1996, p. 234) quite poignantly points out: “What many in Mexico may fail to recognize in ideological stances expressed in statements such as ‘My boyfriend may not be perfect, but at least he’s no Mexican macho’ is the mixture of anti-Mexican racism and sexist justifications for gender relations in the United States. In this way the perpetuation in the United States of stereotypes regarding Mexican machos and self-sacrificing women helps to obscure and preserve gender inequalities in the United States.” Thus, if we want to understand why Norma’s friends and Nora’s friends have moved in such different directions in their process of becoming Mexican Americans, even though they all belong to a very “homogeneous” sample in most sociological terms, we have to do more than introduce new variables to try to make sense of the difference. It would be worthwhile, for example, to try to understand the plots these interviewees arrived with from Mexico and the kinds of changes those plots have undergone after the interviewees have spent more than ten years of living in the United States.6 Of course, I am proposing here a different kind of inquiry, a different kind of social science. Another commonly cited dimension of Mexican machismo that has been the object of research is the apparent unwillingness of males of Mexican descent to help their wives and/or mothers in household chores. According to Beatríz M. Pesquera (1993, p. 181): Among Chicano couples, the most significant factor affecting the redistribution of household labor is women’s employment. Ybarra (1982b) and BacaZinn (1980) argue that there is a correlation between women’s employment and increased male involvement in household labor. Zavella (1987), however, points out a key fact: although women’s employment somewhat altered the distribution of labor, tasks remained sex-gender segregated. Data from my study of professional, clerical, and blue-collar Chicana workers corroborate these findings. Women’s employment generally brings about greater male involvement in household labor, but it does not lead to an egalitarian redistribution of tasks . . . the distribution of household labor is shaped by the women’s level of economic contribution to the household and their employment demands.

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Thus, according to Pesquera, “The portrait that emerges from [her] study is a tendency toward a reproduction of the traditional household division of labor juxtaposed with a minimal degree of task reallocation” (Pesquera 1993, p. 194). In our fieldwork we had the opportunity to see how different people perceive the division of household labor and its relationship with the broader issue of Mexican machismo. One of the most interesting exchanges occurs in the López family, whose comments allow us to glimpse what is one of the possible Mexican American male discourses about gender and sexuality. In one of the interviews we had with the family, Rick congratulates himself for being willing to accept “female” chores and criticizes his brother because he is unwilling to do them: Rick: And this photo reminds me—take for example here at the house, we will ask Rob to help us, and he will say that there is no way that he will do any of that work. And that reminds me that I wash dishes, I clean the table, I mop the floors—whatever I can do to help with the housework. And in this way the females can do other things instead of doing

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Man washing dishes, Ciudad Juárez

housework—[like] having a conversation. This reminds me that today what people claim has changed a lot—I mean, that we Mexicans are very macho. In reality, it’s not that way anymore, because now we take on roles that used to be only for women. Paul: And who is he, your brother? Rick: He’s the one that’s hanging around. Rob: Thanks a lot, bro. Rick: He won’t even pick up a dish or anything. Paul: So do you think he fits the macho label? Rick: Perfectly. The macho label fits him perfectly.

Thus, Rick thinks that the stereotype of the Mexican macho does not apply to him; he, more modern and highly influenced by the American culture in gender terms (we have to remember here that in the interviews we had with him he rejected almost any influence of American culture in ethnic and religious terms), prefers to help in domestic chores in order for the family to have more time to spend together. Of course, he frames his task as “help,” something that in reality is the responsibility of the “other,” but he at least is willing to kindly assist the “others” in performing their tasks. But anyway, he considers his “help” as a step beyond, for instance, his brother’s attitude. But Rick thinks that the difference between the new Mexican American male who helps females with household chores and the old Mexican macho who does not help is also a matter of generations, because he criticizes his father (Horacio) for, on the one hand not helping his mother (Mónica) in those chores, and on the other hand as having been a bad influence on Rob. Horacio: And he thinks that women are here to serve him. Rick: I also think he picked up a lot of that behavior from my father. Laura: Aha. Rick: [For instance] my dad would often do this to you: if he tasted the coffee and it was cold, my father would make this sound [makes a sound], and I think Rob picked it up from my father. Horacio: Possibly . . . [laughs (he seems to doubt this is true)] After the interview we will talk . . . Rick: . . . it’s very typical in many households, both in Mexico and here, for the girls to be given [se les obsequia] the task of washing the dishes almost always. After dinner—and it doesn’t matter if she is a very intellectual or very modern girl (such as in a home like this)— dishes have to be washed and the chore falls on someone. And now that the girls all got married, there is no one left to wash the dishes, neither Poly nor Jane. G E N D E R , N AT I O N A L I T Y, A N D E T H N I C I T Y

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Mónica: No women. Horacio: Least of all the old man [jokingly referring to himself]. Mónica: Least of all the old man. Horacio: He suffers from rheumatism [laughs].

As we can see, although Rick recognizes that machismo is still present in many families in Mexico and the United States, he thinks that it is gradually disappearing from those households that, being more modern or more Americanized, do not rigidly divide domestic chores along gender lines. In one of the interviews I conducted in the colonia called America (one of the poorest in El Paso), we had the opportunity to see a different aspect of Mexican machismo. We could see how the Mexican immigrant women who lived there expressed the fear they still felt in relation to Mexican males and how that fear promoted particular kinds of behaviors.7 Thus, in discussing illegal immigration, Rosario points out that it is easier for a Mexican woman than a man to cross the border illegally and stay in the United States. Rosario: . . . And it’s worse for men—a man isn’t accepted in any home where they say, “We will give you a corner [a place to stay]”; people don’t trust a male. So they come here and they suffer . . . with a male they are distrustful. Whether he is a good or bad person, people are always distrustful of him.

This mistrust regarding Mexican males is framed by these interviewees in terms of Mexican men’s unrestrained sexuality. Leticia: It is just that we were raised not to trust men . . . I remember when we were little and if one of our uncles came over, my mom would check on us with a flashlight all night to see what was going on. Always “. . . Do this because of your uncle” and “Do this because of you brother” [i.e., dress properly, behave properly, don’t do anything they can misinterpret as sexually enticing]. I mean, we never . . . I do not even trust my own sons. It is difficult . . . it is hard and all of that.

In this kind of commentary, unrestrained male sexuality seems to be related to something “natural” or so ingrained in Mexican culture as to appear as natural and not possible to modify through education, because to mistrust your own children’s sexuality is to frame that unrestrained sexuality as something the person cannot control, even when you have taught them to control it. And these interviewees see that mistrust as something very entrenched in Mexican culture, which still works on B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Mexican female immigrants who have spent more than twenty years in the United States like themselves. Rosario: But that’s how we were raised . . . Velia: . . . to distrust men . . . Leticia: . . . and there is no need to be like that, I think.8 Rosario: Such pessimists, right? Well, sometimes when we are talking it might come up . . . and you continue with the same thing, protecting your own kids, and if they’re girls—ahh, it’s a lot worse if they are girls! We protect them as much as we can, and when they get married we still continue . . . “M’ija [my daughter, my darling], take care of your son . . . take care of your daughter,” and the next generation continues in the same way.

We can see from this exchange that mistrust of Mexican males’ unrestrained sexuality is not restricted to sexual contacts regarding women but extends to small male and female children. As Rosario recognizes, it is indeed a very pessimistic and negative vision of Mexican male attitudes and behaviors that is not necessarily framed in moral terms (we did not hear any complaint about male morality in this exchange) but in terms of something natural or deeply cultural that comes with being male in Mexico that males supposedly cannot control. This particular version of the incest taboo seems to be widespread in Mexico, and what Leticia and Rosario mention in the interview is the enormous effort Mexican females make to keep their children from having intercourse with their own uncles and brothers, but without necessarily blaming their male relatives personally for that behavior, which is considered somehow out of their rational control. As Gloria Anzaldúa (1987, pp. 17–18) points out: “Our mothers taught us well ‘Los hombres nomás quieren una cosa’; men aren’t to be trusted, they are selfish and are like children. Mothers made sure we didn’t walk into a room of brothers or fathers or uncles in nightgowns or shorts. We were never alone with men, not even those of our own family.” Conclusion

As we have seen, both Mexican and Chicano literatures suggest the domestic empowerment of women, but some writers are surprised by the resilient invocation of patriarchal gendered norms that continues to be part of the discourse of many Mexican women and Chicanas who no longer subscribe to or practice those patriarchal norms (Del Castillo 1996, p. 222). In the interview excerpts quoted above, it was clear that G E N D E R , N AT I O N A L I T Y, A N D E T H N I C I T Y

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many women in my sample do not practice or subscribe to those ideas, others practice but do not subscribe to the rigid gender roles characteristic of patriarchal Mexican ideology, and still others do practice and subscribe to that discourse. Thus, we have a very complicated picture that suggests other possibilities than those addressed by the literature. In this sense, I think that Mexican and Mexican American families are much more complex than the stereotyped model of machismo pretends, but also that machismo is still alive in many of the narratives of the people I interviewed, both males and females. But instead of relying on the difference between actual behavior and professed gender ideology, as authors like Del Castillo do, I wanted to point out in this chapter how the different narrative identities women of Mexican descent construct may be the base of their different discourses (and behaviors) about gendered roles we have witnessed in the interview excerpts above.

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Chapter 5

Introduction

As I have pointed out in previous chapters, the regional, ethnic, and national logics we have found that are used in the process of classifying, creating metaphors, and narrating identities are so strong in the Ciudad Juárez–El Paso area that they overdetermine other ways of understanding the process of identity construction. In the chapter on Catholicism we saw how what is considered for many people to be a characteristic that most Mexicans share—that is, the practice of the Catholic faith—can become instead a site for stressing the difference many Mexicans believe separates them, in terms of region, from other Mexicans in Mexico and, in terms of nationality, from Mexican Americans. In the chapters on gender we saw how this issue is also framed and made meaningful in terms of region, nation, and ethnicity. In this sense, if the process of identity construction is that complex overlapping of diverse logics of making sense of difference, it is because, as Stuart Hall (1996, p. 3) points out: “Identification is . . . a process of articulation, a suturing, an over-determination not a subsumption . . . Like all signifying practices, it is subject to the ‘play’ of différance. It obeys the logic of more-than-one. And since as a process it operates across difference, it entails discursive work, the binding and marking of symbolic boundaries, the production of ‘frontier-effects.’ It requires what is left outside, its constitutive outside, to consolidate the process.” I will discuss in the following chapters how the peculiarities of the border situation overdetermine the discussions (and lack of discussion) about another possible (and potentially powerful) identity anchor: class. The first thing that becomes obvious in the Ciudad Juárez–El Paso border region is the relative absence of class discourses.1 This absence may seem natural on the American side of the border, due to the rejection of class discourses that seems to characterize American common sense. As Martha Giménez (1992, p. 7) points out: “Unlike most countries, which recognize the existence of social classes and class struggles in both commonsense understandings of social reality and legitimate political discourse, the United States is silent about class and obsessed with racial/ethnic politics. While T H E P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E ON THE BORDER: THE MEXICAN SIDE

other dimensions of stratification such as, for example, gender and age also enjoy political legitimacy, the politics of race/ethnicity has displaced class politics on the American political scene.” According to Giménez, possible causes for this absence of class discourse are the heterogeneous origins of the population, the heritage of slavery, the presence of “colonized minorities” (Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Ricans), and “the lasting political effects of McCarthyism, which eradicated the left from American politics and defined class politics as un-American” (Giménez 1992, p. 7). What is really remarkable is that the same absence of class discourses is widespread on the Mexican side of the border, where class was addressed for many years, not only by the state and the ruling party (internally organized along class lines), but also by left parties and in public discourse in general. The absence of popular discussions about social inequalities in class terms in our interviews cannot be attributed to a sample bias, because that lack was prominent in instances where it should have been present, for instance, in our interviews in the Centro de Orientación de la Mujer Obrera [Working Women’s Orientation Center], the Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos [Confederation of Revolutionary Workers and Peasants], the Destacamento del Pueblo [“People’s Garrison”], and the Partido de la Revolución Democrática [Democratic Revolutionary Party]. The hypothesis I propose is that the absence of class discourses in the region is linked to a metaphorical displacement through which moving up the social scale is equated by many people to moving from one country (Mexico) to the other (United States). In this case, as discussed in earlier chapters concerning religion and gender characteristics (Catholic practices and “liberal” gender behavior) that were assessed in terms of their change in meaning due to the geographical move from south to north, many of our interviewees believed that poverty decreases (and sometimes totally disappears) once one moves from Southern to Northern Mexico, and particularly when one crosses the U.S.-Mexico border. In this kind of narrative, the explanation of poverty (and its opposite, the lack of poverty) is detached from any reference to exploitation and framed in regional and/or national terms. That is, some regions and countries are poor or they are not; to leave poverty behind is to leave a poor region or country. Therefore, in many of our interviews on both sides of the border, this geographical displacement of class discussion put the blame for the poverty in which many Mexicans live either on the shoulders of immigrants from the South (who, as I extensively discuss in Crossing B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Borders, Reinforcing Borders, are highly stigmatized in Juárez) or on Mexico’s elite, understood as the usurpers of political power that transforms their position into one of economic power, but not necessarily as the representatives of the Mexican bourgeoisie. In either of the two explanations, many of the interviewees believed that the way out of poverty is not some kind of internal struggle for the redistribution of wealth within Mexico but working in the United States, whether by migrating there or commuting if they live in a border town.2 On the American side of the border the absence of class discourses regarding social inequality is linked to the “all poverty is Mexican” narrative, which I develop fully in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. Such a narrative can range from the denial of poverty on the American side of the border to the recognition that poverty still exists there but assigning it to the presence of Mexican immigrants or to Mexican Americans, who supposedly still have not overcome cultural deficiencies that they or their forebears are thought to have brought with them from Mexico (deficiencies that, in one way or another, are considered the cause of poverty in Mexico).

Social Inequality, Poverty, and Southerners as the Only Poor People in Juárez Ana: . . . this is absolutely true; we have to move to the other side to make more money.3

In Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, I discuss the historical origin of the development of Northern Mexico as an imagined community understood as more egalitarian than Central and Southern Mexico, where northern peasants and hacienda workers benefited from their military role and were able to achieve a better class situation and status position than the peons of Central and Southern Mexico (Alonso 1995, p. 48). This regional characteristic mixed with the peculiarities of Ciudad Juárez, a relatively new urban settlement where the landed aristocracy was not as prominent as in Ciudad Chihuahua and where the “original accumulation” behind the regional bourgeoisie (to borrow Marx’s phrase) was developed in not very honest ways. The story goes that some of the most important regional entrepreneurs made their initial capital smuggling liquor to El Paso during the American Prohibition, inaugurating a tradition of economic linkage with the other side of the border that nowadays expresses itself through Juárez’s maquiladora industry, which is among the most important of the country (Martínez P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E M E X I C A N S I D E

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1986). Therefore, the combination of these two historical developments buttresses an image of Juárez as a quite egalitarian society, not highly hierarchical like Central and Southern Mexico or Ciudad Chihuahua. My point here is that at least part of the absence of class discourses in the region is linked to these historical developments. The glaringly obvious absence of any class discourse to address social inequalities is, however, in the current conjuncture, in part overdetermined by contemporary hegemonic discourses at both the international and local level. For instance, in the maquiladora’s managerial discourse, the euphemisms planta [plant] and operadoras/es [operators] replace fábrica [factory] and obreras/os [workers]—breaking available discursive links with political traditions that locate the source of social inequalities in the exploitation of labor. In this context, it is worth recalling that it was in Juárez that the local Maquiladora Association refused to finance the Centro de Orientación de la Mujer Obrera (COMO), because it was unwilling to exchange the word obrera for operadora.4 As one of our interviewees points out: Rafa:5 This photograph caught my attention because of the way in which maquiladoras . . . solicit work, right? In other words [it’s done] in a fancy way . . . they’re called “production operators,” that’s what caught my attention. Pablo: Why do you think they used the word “operators”? Rafa: . . . in order to attract people, it seems to me the label “production operators” is a bit more . . . attractive than a simple worker or employee, or someone who works like a robot for us.

Thus, Rafa is totally aware that “operators” is a euphemism that denies that exploitation and alienation (“someone who works like a robot for us”) are an integral part of factory work. Nonetheless, it is striking that the language used to discuss social inequalities in most of our interviews never even touches upon class. Many interviewees tended to speak of social inequalities through a language of individual fate and responsibility framed and understood through the regional discourse so prominent on the area. Thus, it was not infrequent to hear arguments in which poor people were depicted, on the one hand, as being absolutely responsible for their misfortune and, on the other hand, as not really deserving the label of “verdaderos Juarenses” [true Juarenses] because they were Southerners. That is what happens in our interviews with the students in the vocational school where the interviewees, on several occasions, claim that Fronterizos/as work harder than Southerners. The interviewees try B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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constantly to prove that they are more frugal and less leisure-oriented than Southerners. All their narratives portray Southerners as basically lazy and absolutely responsible for their poverty. Abigaíl: We are different. I think that the border here . . . is different from the rest of the republic . . . Jorge: Yes . . . we people from the border are more . . . inclined to work.

Abigaíl and her friends are asserting that border people work harder than people from the South and that they are also more dynamic. Moreover, they are less likely to be frivolous or spendthrifts. Recent immigrants from the South are portrayed as basically idle, lazy, and/ or drunkards, who have only themselves to blame for their lack of resources. Jorge: . . . people who come here from the interior of Mexico . . . well, they come to live . . . in terrible conditions! Ernesto: But these people have, well, no backbone! Because . . . ask a bricklayer . . . or even a maquiladora worker! Ask them . . . they work . . . from six in the morning to six in the evening to earn some overtime and many of them do take home good paychecks. But just ask them, what they do on Fridays? . . . The answer is always the same . . . Ramiro: Dancing . . . Jorge: Dancing and getting drunk! Ernesto: And getting drunk . . . and for what? If during the week they have to beg for their bus fare . . .

Many of the native Juarenses I interviewed seem quite convinced that all the people who were born in Juárez either still live there and are very well off, or have already arreglado6—that is, they are already living, working, and enjoying middle-class status in the United States. The only people in Juárez living in poverty are thus immigrants from other parts of Mexico, especially from the South. The explanation for their poverty lies in certain cultural deficiencies brought from the South: Ernesto: Ask a bricklayer, “How much do you make?” He will tell you: “Well, you know . . . if I work a full week, if I go in on Monday . . . ,” because you know, Monday is the typical day [when people do not go to work because they are drunk]. Jorge: Hangover . . . Ernesto: Hangover, right? . . . He gets home . . . completely sozzled and without any money! Why? Because these are people who have no backbone! . . . P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E M E X I C A N S I D E

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Jorge: . . . these are people . . . who do not really want to get on in life! . . . Ramiro: Poverty is one thing, laziness is another . . .

The problem these types of testimonies identify is not low salaries but the culture and morals of the people themselves. The problem, in other words, is said to be “a particular kind of mentality.” It is in this context that the term flojo [lazy] puts the finishing touch on this more than negative image of the “people from the South.” As they address these issues, many Fronterizas/os depict themselves as people with more positive attributes than Southerners. Hence, a moral battle around the concept of mexicanidad [Mexicanness] is fought by many Juarenses on several different fronts, one of which—the battle to establish that Southerners have less moral value than Juarenses—is crucial. Here, the Juarense or Fronterizo identity works as a symbolic dividing line, distinguishing the unworthy poor from the worthy, and the rightful Mexican from the unrightful one. By ascribing extreme poverty to the “other”—recent immigrants who work in maquilas and on building sites and who allegedly come from the South7—interviewees who identified themselves as Fronterizas/os or Juarenses protected themselves, almost by definition, from the extreme poverty which they identified with “others.” We find a similar misconception in our interviews with some maquiladora managers. Therefore, we are not talking only about the prejudices of working class and lower middle class Fronterizos/as who are quite close in class terms to those from whom they desperately want to detach or Juarenses who do not know the sureños [Southern Mexicans] firsthand because they do not work with them. The maquiladora managers in this interview know their workers firsthand and still believe all of them come from the despised South. Lily: For me this photograph is of Juárez, and I chose it because . . . these are the conditions people who work with us in the maquiladoras live in . . . Well, it’s the problem of not having a place to come to, because many people are from other parts of Mexico, not from Juárez . . . Actually, Juárez’s population is completely mobile . . . Carolina: . . . there are people . . . who came, who were my operators, and they used to say, “You know what? Today I won’t be able to go to work because my roof caved in.” Yes, because these people are not from here, they’re not Juarenses. They’re people who arrive from elsewhere and say, “Well, where will I stay? Well, let’s see, here’s a little piece of land.” Lily: And here I’ll make . . . just a little room using a cardboard box or sheet metal [scraps], and here we go!

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As we can see, these interviewees also construct poverty as being from Southern Mexico, claiming that the only people who live in the kind of poverty shown by the photographs are recent Southern Mexican immigrants who work in the maquiladora industry or wait for their opportunity to cross illegally into the United States; that is, those in poverty are not native Juarenses. The interesting thing is that this kind of discourse also appears in our interviews with members of the leftist party that I analyze in Chapter 3. Some of the people I interviewed in that setting also believe the only poverty that exists in Juárez is among Southern Mexicans: Marina: We’re seeing that there are a lot of people who come from other cities, the familiar problem of a border where people do not have a place to come to [nowhere to live], who settle down wherever they can . . . and who live in terribly poor conditions, right? And it’s very difficult for me to understand (whether you believe it or not) how they can survive in such an unhealthy environment, so depressing . . . I’m almost convinced . . . that most people who live there are people who’ve been in Juárez for a short time. That’s definitely what I believe—that’s how I see it.

Therefore, many of the people I interviewed in Juárez are totally convinced that all native Juarenses either live in better conditions in Juárez and/or have already arreglado—that is, are already working and/or living in the United States. Thus, the only truly poor people they recognize in Juárez are those who come from the South, which many times (like in the vocational school interview) leads them to explanations of poverty that focus on cultural or moral deficiencies brought by the immigrants from the despised South. It is precisely in relation to these kinds of observations that the word arreglado adds a new meaning to its already polysemous character. Although what has been “arranged” or “fixed” is never explicitly mentioned when the word is used, it is tacitly accepted that the main thing that needs to be arranged/fixed is the legal papers to cross and work on the “other side,” so mentioning the object becomes unnecessary. However, what the word arreglado also means in this context is that the situation of the person who already has papers to work on the other side has also improved, because she or he can take full advantage of the economic opportunities the American side has to offer. Thus, not only were the person’s papers arranged or fixed, but his or her life was too! Here is where the idea of social inequalities framed in regional terms (“there is no such thing as Juarense poverty”) overlaps with the

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metaphor of geographical displacement. Thus, to go up the social scale, to move out of poverty, is equated with moving to the other side of the border, or at least taking advantage of the other side of the border. If this is so, those who are poor in Juárez are recent immigrants from the South or the few Juarenses who, for one reason or another, could not arreglar their papers and so cannot move/work on the other side. As one of the interviewees in the meeting we had with a group of retired lowermiddle-class teachers points out: Rubisela: . . . I have some uncles and aunts who lived in Juárez all their lives, but in order to have a better economic position they obtained [arreglaron] their passport and went over there [to the United States] . . .

To complicate matters further, in some extremely anti–Southern Mexican discourses the interviewees allow Southerners the possibility of improving their situation and moving to the United States as native Juarenses do, but they clearly differentiate—many times in moral terms—between the kind of work Southerners and Juarenses perform in the United States. Salvador: There are skilled people in Mexico, educated people who I don’t think have a trace of sadness—not like the Southern immigrant who arrives immersed in sorrow because he is leaving his hometown [but] thinking that here he’s going to find the solution [to all his problems] . . . that’s simply a mistake. But they don’t come here by mistake—they’re going to try to make some money . . . I don’t know, it seems to me that they go [to the United States] . . . to prostitute themselves, to become servants [maids]. When they’re here in Juárez, there’s work for them . . . they’re young people who can work as operators and succeed well enough.

Thus, according to Salvador, those Southerners who can cross do so to become prostitutes or maids, not to move to a middle-class status like Juarenses supposedly do when they move to the other side of the border. For such Southern immigrants, Salvador imagines a better future would be as workers in Juárez, if they are willing to work hard at the maquiladora industry—something, as we saw, many Juarenses doubt they can do. Here again poverty continues to be Southern Mexican and middle-class status linked to Juarenses. This overlap between geography and class appeared in many other interviews in Juárez and is well exemplified by what happened in another leftist party environment. These interviewees worked for the party full-time, were in their forties, and defined themselves as B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Catholics. Javier completed three years of high school and Julián has a master’s degree in education. Pablo: What kind of people do you think work in maquiladoras? Are they people from Juárez or from other places? Javier: Well, I think 40 percent are from Juárez and 60 percent are from somewhere else. In high-level jobs, like engineering, the majority are from Ciudad Juárez. In low-level labor jobs, the majority come from the interior of the country. Pablo: From what states, for example? Javier: From Zacatecas, Durango, Coahuila, and Chihuahua.

As we can see, Javier claims that while the majority of workers at maquiladora plants are Southern Mexican immigrants, in general engineers and managers are native Juarenses. Thus, Javier—a leftist militant, a member of a party that many times uses class terms to refer to identity—is also using the hegemonic discourse that points out that “all poverty is Southern Mexican” and refuses to address social inequality in class terms. In this case Javier refuses to use the euphemism “operators.” Instead he uses “workers,” but he cannot abandon the commonsense discourse that claims that “workers” and “Southern Mexicans” are synonymous. In this kind of account, native Juarenses who have not moved to the other side of the border are the only ones who fully take advantage of the presence of American enterprises (maquiladoras) in Juárez. Thus, like their counterparts who relocate to the United States to move up the social scale, they use Americans to move up socially in Juárez. We can see how the multiple mirrors that constantly work in the way people construct their identities on the border in general also work on how people make sense of their subject position on the social scale. Thus, for many of the Juarenses I interviewed, the “others” to the South are constructed as those who are lower on that scale, while Juarenses are constructed as being above the former in class terms because of their supposedly privileged relationship to the United States (the “other” to the North). Therefore, in many of our interviews (as happened above in our discussion about religion and gender), the “other” (the “trace,” in Derridean terms, that explains how a particular Juarense identity develops in terms of class, precisely by avoiding any discussion in class terms and reframing such a discussion in terms of geographical moves) once more is the United States. As Stuart Hall points out, “Above all, and directly contrary to the form in which they are constantly invoked, identities are constructed through, not outside, difference. This entails P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E M E X I C A N S I D E

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the radically disturbing recognition that it is only through the relation to the ‘other,’ the relation to what it is not, to precisely what it lacks, to what has been called its constitutive outside, that the ‘positive’ meaning of any term—and thus its ‘identity’—can be constructed” (Hall 1996, pp. 4–5). This happens because the hegemonic regional narrative plot that points out that “all poverty is Mexican” works, not only on the American side of the border, but on the Mexican side too. This issue was apparent in the way many of the Juarenses I interviewed sorted out the different photographs of poverty we showed them. For those working with the thematic plot “all poverty is Mexican,” there was no doubt that most of the photos were taken in Mexico. Thus, many Mexican interviewees located, almost by definition, the photographs that depicted poverty on the Mexican side, and those depicting middle-class scenarios on the American side. For them, it was very difficult to accept that poverty also existed in the United States. This can be seen, for instance, in our meeting with the group of women who regularly attended meetings of the grassroots organization I analyze in Chapter 3. Luz: And I think this photograph is from here, from Juárez . . . because of the water [she refers to a filthy puddle in the middle of the street] and because of those poorly built houses. And this one is from El Paso . . . because the house is very well built and very beautiful . . . And this other one seems to be from over there [El Paso] because it’s very beautiful.

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Street in the colonia La Perla, Ciudad Juárez

Although some of the interviewees in this group have never gone to El Paso, this fact does not restrain them from “imagining” that poverty exists only on the Mexican side of the border: Elba: Well, look, like this photograph . . . well, I am not sure, I don’t know El Paso, but I imagine that it’s one of the colonias from here [Juárez] . . . Angela: Why is that? Elba: Well, because of how modest the houses are. There are children playing . . . no, well, colonias exist over there too . . .

It is nothing new to point out how powerful the hegemonic discourse of the “American dream” is in the United States. What is striking is how powerful this discourse also is on the border, where Mexicans face, on a daily basis, the dark side of American capitalism. We have to remember here that the Texas border counties are among the poorest counties in the United States and that El Paso is the poorest city of its size in the country (and one of the poorest SMAs of the nation), with a household income one-third below the national average and a staggering unemployment rate twice that of the rest of the nation.8 My hypothesis is that the reason the “American dream” discourse could survive the poverty facts that surround everyday life on the U.S.-Mexico border, for some of our Mexican interviewees, is because the necessity of having the United States as their utopia for social and economic improvement (the geographical displacement as a proxy of social and economic mobility) was so intense that they could not deface that utopia.9 If identity is that complex combination of past, present, and future, for them to destroy that possible future would have been, in some sense, to shatter their present identities. Obviously, this was more prominent in the case of the poor Mexican nationals I interviewed. For them, to destroy their imaginary possibility of improving their present poverty situation through migration to the United States would have been to destroy a very important part of their present situation—that symbolic escape that allowed them to endure their actual poverty. Thus, it was not by chance that, for quite different reasons than the Americans who did the same (extensively analyzed in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders), many of the Juarenses I interviewed mistakenly put the photograph of the mobile home in Juárez and not in El Paso.10 This is what happens in our interview with Ana, Leonor, and Isabel: Ana: Well, this [photo 21] has to be here in Juárez, because it has the same look as here on the outskirts [of Juárez]. P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E M E X I C A N S I D E

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When we point out their mistake, their first reaction is incredulity. After the initial shock, they try to make sense of a very unexpected situation, stressing that most probably the inhabitants of those poor colonias in El Paso are recent Mexican or Hispanic immigrants. For these women, it is impossible to think of “American or Anglo poverty.” Only Mexican/ Hispanic/Latino poverty makes sense to them as they follow, stepby-step, the different variants of the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot I discuss in Chapter 3 of Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. Ana: Really! Now you can see that El Paso doesn’t have only nice houses! [laughs] Leonor: We’re not the only ones who are screwed up. Pablo: And who do you think lives in those conditions in the U.S.? Isabel: Well, many times it’s people who cross over without their legal immigration papers! Right? I say they’re the ones who live in those little houses . . . They’re people who don’t have their papers . . .

Therefore, after Ana’s exclamation of revenge [“Pa’ que vean que no nomás El Paso tiene casas buenas!”] comes Leonor’s comment that, despite commonsense assumptions, Mexican nationals are not the only ones who are screwed up. These interviewees end up repeating commonsense discourses that are prominent in the region. We find a very similar situation in the interviews with Elba, Amanda, and Luz and, not surprisingly, their reaction is very similar. Angela: Well, some of the photographs you thought were in Juárez are really in El Paso. Amanda: Wow . . . incredible! Angela: Why is it so hard to believe that these types of houses exist in the U.S.? Amanda: Well, because one really has to be severely poor, without any money. But still, in that situation it is not possible, since there are government agencies that can help you, either giving you a house or helping you to improve your house—that’s why I don’t understand why that house is in that condition . . . Well, I tell you something: If houses like that exist, they must belong to Latino people . . . they could be the houses of Latinos . . .

Something similar happens in our interview with the Buendía family. At the time of the interview, Cristóbal, the father, had a small locksmith shop near his house. He was forty-nine years old and came to Juárez from Zacatecas when he was nine years old. He had completed only his elementary education. Araceli, the mother who was forty-five, worked B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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as a clerk in a local school. She had received some technical training at a vocational school in Juárez. She and Diana, her daughter, were native Juarenses. Diana, who was eighteen years old, attended the University of Juárez. All the family was Catholic. Pablo: Which people do you think live in those conditions in El Paso? Diana: The immigrants, don’t you think? Those from here. Araceli: Yes, the—how do you say it? The wetbacks . . .

But this family also tells of their surprise when, on a trip to Albuquerque, they found out that there are poor people in the United States as well. Araceli: Well, we once went to . . . where? . . . Albuquerque, and I saw ugly-looking houses, and [the people] were Americans . . . but like hippies, or something like that. And I said, “Gosh! I thought they were Mexicans.” I thought that they were Mexicans! Because Mexicans always have . . . how would you say it? . . . they are notorious for being dirty and disorganized. But they were not Mexicans . . . Anyway, I said, “Wow!” . . . And even my relative made a comment about them. He said, “No, it’s that they’re hippies, and they too are very dirty and disorganized.” And I said, “Wow!” . . . Pablo: And your first impression was that they were Mexicans? . . . Araceli: Yes . . . And it wasn’t like that—they were Americans!

What Araceli wants to point out in her commentary is that although poverty is not Mexican only, it is not properly American either. Using the word “hippies” as a qualifier, she explains that those Americans behave like Mexicans (“. . . es que son hippies y también [like Mexicans] muy sucios y muy desordenados”). If there is no poverty in the United States except the poverty Mexicans or Latinos bring from their home country, how can these interviewees maintain their dream of escaping poverty by moving to the United States if other Mexicans fail in the attempt? To resolve this problem, many interviewees stressed, once more, that they were hard workers, while those poor Mexicans living in the United States were not. As Isabel puts it: Pablo: Well then, how do you explain that people from El Paso can live in those conditions . . . without water and sewers . . . ? Isabel: Well, I think they’re lazy people, right? . . . who like to procrastinate . . . who like to say . . . “tomorrow” or “later” . . . or perhaps they earn very little money . . . who knows . . . ! P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E M E X I C A N S I D E

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A similar kind of situation appears in the interviews we conducted with a group of cholos [working-class youth subculture] in a poor colonia on the west side of Juárez. All were teenagers and worked in different maquiladoras. Some were born in Juárez; others came with their parents from different northern states. All of them had completed their elementary education but did not have any high school education. In their interviews, these youths cannot believe that the photographs depicting poverty are from El Paso (“El Chuco,” in their argot, short for “El Pachuco”). Their surprise is very intense, because, here again, in their utopias the geographical move of going to the United States seems to be the only way of moving socially and escaping poverty. Chuy: As you can see, Juan Gabriel worked hard and began to sing . . . everyone has a talent, one must discover it . . . Chema: That’s . . . only a pretty phrase . . . Tito: But in order to discover it [a talent] here [in Juárez] . . . is difficult. Güero: It’s difficult to get ahead. Tito: For most of us, it’s all just pretty phrases . . . nothing more. Pablo: And what must be done so that they don’t remain just pretty phrases? . . . What would have to be done? Güero: We’d have to go over there, to El Paso [El Chuco].

Thus, when they discover that in El Paso there is poverty as in Juárez, they also have to realize that perhaps a mere geographical move to the United States would not be enough to change their fate. Pablo: Here are two photographs from El Paso and two from Juárez . . . Do you see much difference? Güero: Which ones are from Juárez? . . . the ones from this side [of the table]? Pablo: Both areas are poor . . . Tito: Well I don’t know, I’d say . . . they are poor because they want to be . . . Don’t you think? Chuy: They don’t want to work! . . . ————— Güero: . . . these young people have their immigration papers and yet they’re lazy . . . they’re not taking advantage of the opportunities they have . . . Chuy: I . . . would work doing anything . . . as a painter, as a construction worker, a gardener, cleaning, anything . . . Güero: There’s plenty of work over there . . . ! B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Chema: And . . . having their immigration papers, why do they live like that . . . in that . . . Tito: In that condition. Chema: In this condition? . . . They say that it’s because there’s no work. It’s because they don’t look for it . . . There’s plenty of work! Lencho: There’s plenty of work everywhere, but it all depends on oneself. Chema: I imagine that . . . what they’re really after is food stamps, no?

Therefore, they also imply that poverty in El Paso is linked to the laziness of the Mexican Americans who do not take advantage of work opportunities in the United States (their utopia) but prefer to profit from the American welfare system. The interesting thing is that many of the middle-class people I interviewed also subscribed to the myth of the absence of poverty in the United States and also mistakenly located the photo of the mobile home in Juárez. These interviewees, not having to endure a present of abject poverty, did not depend as heavily as the very poor ones on the utopian myth. Nonetheless, the myth still worked as an open possibility to improve their economic situation as well—everybody knows that it is not the same thing to be a middle-class person in Juárez as it is to have that status in El Paso. Gerardo: . . . when the city literally exploded with the maquiladora industry, there wasn’t room for the new workers. It was impossible for the landlords to construct new houses to house all the newcomers, so then another Juárez for the poor appeared, and this is the Juárez of the land invasions, of the cardboard houses, of the pallet houses. So then the new neighborhoods are established on the outskirts by parachutists [paracaidistas: illegal land-invaders] . . . Pablo: Now, why did you choose that photograph [of mobile home, which he does not know was taken in El Paso] and not this one [an extremely poor colonia in Juárez] as an example of being synonymous with the outskirts in Juárez? . . . Gerardo: [That photo] is more characteristic than the other one . . . Pablo: You think it’s more characteristic? . . . Gerardo: And more symbolic . . .

Thus, as happened with some of the Mexican Americans I interviewed earlier, Gerardo thinks that the epitome of Juárez poverty is the photograph of the mobile home taken in El Paso. However, some of the other interviewees have doubts about Gerardo’s location of the photo, and try to solve the puzzle themselves. P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E M E X I C A N S I D E

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Dolores: But this one looks like . . . Is this one from Juárez? Pablo: What do you think? Esther: Go by the Azteca colonia [and you’ll see houses like that] . . . Dolores: But isn’t this one from El Paso? Pablo: What do you think? Is it from El Paso? Gerardo: Show me [the photo] again . . . ! Dolores: Well, because over there, there are mobile homes that are a little bit fancy . . . [laughs] Carmen: You said that the photo is from El Paso, since there are mobile homes in El Paso . . . I think it’s in Juárez, no? Pablo: Why? Carmen: Because . . . in El Paso . . . even the places where the poorest people live have running water . . . what do you call it? urban infrastructure . . . Gerardo: Let me clarify something, I did not say it was Juárez, rather I said it looks like Juárez . . . Pablo: Next time I’ll tell you where it’s from . . . Carmen: Now I have my doubts . . .

We can see that once the other interviewees discover the mobile home, Gerardo wants to modify his initial statement, claiming that he never said what he really did say (that the mobile home photograph is “more exemplary and more symbolic” in epitomizing Juárez’s poverty than the one portraying the filthy puddle) and that he only claimed that the mobile home “looks like” Juárez. Following step-by-step what many of the Mexican American groups did, these interviewees, as soon as they discover their mistake, point out that if there is poverty in the United States, it is never as extreme as Mexican poverty. Carmen: . . . these are workers’ homes, and at least they are made from adobe, but there are some that are made from cardboard— or something like that. And I was going to compare [a cardboard house from Juárez] with one from El Paso, because, as poor as they might be . . . there’s much similarity, but they have more advantages [in El Paso] . . .

Something very similar can be seen in our interview with Amparo and Elvira, who were in the other group of retired teachers we interviewed in Juárez. They had actively participated in the Teachers’ Union; thus, it is not by chance that they use the word “workers” [obreros] instead of “operators” [operadores]. Elvira, according to Amparo, “has the good fortune of being a native Juarense.” She was fifty-two years old at the time of the interview and Catholic. Amparo was born in Camargo, Chihuahua, fifty-one years before. She migrated to Juárez when she was B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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eighteen. As in the interviews analyzed above, Amparo considers the mobile home the epitome of Juárez poverty. Amparo: . . . this photo also reflects a social stratum that is, mmm, lowly— yes, even poor, although there is still worse poverty . . . what we call the poorest of the poor, the paupers, who are the polar opposite of the very rich . . . This one, and this one too . . . this is a very extreme form of poverty . . . a very terrible kind, which also can be seen in this other one. All those photographs are from the colonias on the outskirts, which for the most part are occupied by workers who’ve been affected by the peso devaluation and all that; before that, their wages were precarious, and now it’s even worse . . .

But in this interview the opposite also happens: the interviewees mistakenly put all the photographs of middle-class neighborhoods (half of them from Juárez) on the American side of the border. Elvira: Yes . . . these are . . . in El Paso, this is El Paso. Right away you can see the difference in construction . . .

Nevertheless, the most extreme case of idealization of El Paso as rich and the denigration of Juárez as poor happens in our interview with the first group of retired teachers. In that interview Alejandra does not have any problem whatsoever claiming that her perception of El Paso as rich is totally biased—but it works! Alejandra: I’ve always had the idea that crossing the river to the other side . . . I mean, the way that I see it, what my eyes see, or what my

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Middle-class neighborhood, Ciudad Juárez

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perception is, okay? is that whatever exists here can also exist over there, but somehow things look much nicer over there. Pablo: What do the other ladies think about your comment that things look nicer over there? Do you agree or disagree? Rubisela: Well I think that negative things have to have the same appearance whether here or over there . . . Alejandra: I’ll show you my photos in a moment . . . do not misunderstand me, okay? I’m from here, right? And I like it very much . . . [But I always ask myself,] Why can’t we be equal to what exists over there? So it would look nice [in Juárez] . . .

However, knowing that her perception is totally biased (and does not necessarily correspond to the reality of either city) does not stop Alejandra from claiming that everything is better in El Paso, including poverty. Alejandra: I think this photo is from that side, from the American side . . . Pablo: Why? Alejandra: Because . . . here you can see what I was telling you about. These people are humble people, but it looks clean, it looks orderly. They are poor, but look . . . look at the difference, look at it! . . .

Not only is poverty much more “ordered” in El Paso in Alejandra’s perception, but she also believes that unemployed people are more “beautiful” in El Paso than in Juárez. Alejandra: . . . So that people can’t say that only Mexicans [are lazy] . . . I was telling Armida about that photo, that I thought Americans weren’t . . . Rubisela: . . . weren’t lazy . . . [laughs] Alejandra: . . . Look, we have here [in this photograph] two lazy Americans . . . but I insist that they look nicer . . . [laughs]

When I finally reveal that the photograph of poverty Alejandra had located in Juárez—the one showing the mobile home—is actually in El Paso, Alejandra’s answer follows step-by-step the logic of the regional hegemonic discourse: If there is American poverty that is not “ordered,” “beautiful,” or “clean,” it is because it belongs to Mexican immigrants, not to Anglo Americans. Pablo: And what shall we make of your previous comment that everything in El Paso is prettier, more ordered . . . ? Armida: . . . don’t tell me it looks very beautiful . . . [laughs] Alejandra: No, no . . . listen, look . . . no! It still looks . . . different. It’s different because, for example . . . what would we want for all those who B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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live on the outskirts of town? [We would want them] to have this kind of house. Because here on the outskirts some people live in cardboard houses— cardboard, not plywood. Then, yes, as I was telling you, . . . these houses aren’t Americans’. They belong to people who come . . . Rubisela: . . . those who arrive as . . . Alejandra: . . . [as] Mexican immigrants . . . but with the advantage that they can buy their materials in El Paso . . .

We had the opportunity in Chapter 2 of my Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders to look at this discourse that claims that “all poverty is Mexican” from a different angle, and to see how it works (through the overlapping of a regional/national identity and one of class) in the displacement of any discussion of social inequalities in class terms through the framing of those inequalities in geographical terms. I am referring here to the discussion in which both the trade union workers and Edelmira and her friends explain why some Mexican Americans are so discriminatory toward Mexican nationals. According to some interviewees, both Border Patrol and customs agents of Mexican descent mistreat Mexican nationals who are law abiding and want to cross legally, while Anglo Border Patrol members are kinder and always trying to help them with their paperwork. Edelmira: . . . to simply get a local passport [border visa for visiting an American border town for seventy-two hours] or certain papers, if you get a Mexican he’ll even ask for the least important paper that you need, but if he’s an Anglo [gabacho], no . . . But look, as Mexicans they should help one. Isn’t it true that they should help us because they’re the same race as us? Nevertheless, they mistreat us a lot, those ungrateful ones. But an Anglo doesn’t.

In that discussion, one of the hypotheses proposed by both groups of interviewees is that such discriminatory attitudes are linked somehow to the desire of many Mexican Americans to prevent the progress of Mexican nationals in class terms, that is, to obstruct by any means the geographical move of Juarenses from Mexico to the United States that is always equated with a move up the social scale. Felipe: I think that . . . we’re very selfish, we’re very selfish, and [the Mexican American customs agent thinks], “I’ve got what I want [to live in the U.S.] . . . Well, don’t let him have it [too], because then he might even surpass me . . .”

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common among the people I interviewed in Juárez and is exemplified in the following exchange. Concepción: . . . they don’t want us to achieve what they have achieved over there, I guess . . . Edelmira: Well, they don’t want us to better ourselves. I think that is also the reason, right? They want us to stay over here, on the ground, but who are they? If they were able to move up, why, let’s say, why can’t I? If I’m intelligent and I went to school and I want to obtain my legal papers and I want to succeed, I’ll succeed. But if he doesn’t help me . . . if he has the opportunity to help me and he doesn’t help me, well I’m not going to be able to. Because if he doesn’t want to give me that paper, well, what can I do?

This excerpt clearly shows that geographical mobility is metaphorically understood as social mobility. Thus, for Edelmira the obstacles many Mexican American immigration officers use to stop Juarenses from acquiring papers to work in the United States are their way of preventing Juarenses from rising socially (“no quieren que uno trate de progresar . . .” [they don’t want us to better ourselves]). According to Edelmira, such an attitude is fueled by Mexican Americans’ desire to keep Juarenses below them socially. It is interesting that this interviewee frames her narrative with the metaphor of a ladder that goes from the ground, Mexico (“. . . quieren que se quede uno acá [in Mexico], en el suelo” [they want us to stay over here, on the ground]) upward, that is, the United States. And the metaphorical ladder seems to have well-established steps, those which would permit a person to imagine him- or herself in a geographical/economic/social journey to somewhere better than Mexico. In Edelmira’s commentary, those steps are natural intelligence, education, willingness to move geographically/ socially and—immigration papers! (“Si yo soy inteligente y yo estudié y yo quiero arreglar y yo quiero subir, subo” [If I’m intelligent and I went to school and I want to obtain my legal papers and I want to succeed, I’ll succeed]). It is precisely on the step that Edelmira cannot control by herself (immigration papers), that the Mexican American appears as the villain of the narrative who attempts to abort the interviewee’s journey toward a better future (“O sea si él tiene la oportunidad de ayudarme, y no me ayuda pues no voy a poder, porque si él no me quiere dar ese papel, pues, ¿qué hago?” [If he has the opportunity to help me, and he doesn’t help me, well I’m not going to be able to. Because if he doesn’t want to give me that paper, well, what can I do?]). B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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As we can see, the United States and its inhabitants, the Americans, are an inescapable point of reference in any discussion about social inequalities in Juárez. This reference works in several ways. First, Southern Mexicans are constructed as those despised “others” who are not influenced as Juarenses supposedly are by the “American Protestant work ethic,” and for that reason they do not work hard enough to get out of poverty, as supposedly Juarenses do. Second, poverty is automatically equated with Mexico and wealth with the United States. Third (and closely linked to the previous reason), any discussion about social inequalities is metaphorically framed in geographical terms instead of in class terms. And finally, the anti–Mexican nationals attitude many Mexican Americans express is framed by many Juarenses as the latter’s attempt to stop the social mobility of Mexican nationals by impeding their geographical mobility. As we can see, this is a very difficult terrain for the appearance of a class discourse with possibilities to successfully frame social inequalities in terms of exploitation.

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Chapter 6

People of Mexican Descent and the “All Poverty Is Mexican” Narrative Plot

On the American side of the border, any discussion about social inequality (or any discussion about identity, for that matter) also has to deal with the widespread commonsense discourse that establishes that “all poverty is Mexican.” Therefore, for many people in El Paso (above all, Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans), the thematic plot that organizes their perception of social inequalities in El Paso frames any discussion of social mobility in geographical terms as well, that is, achieving higher positions on the social scale is still defined as moving to the United States or becoming more Americanized. The interesting thing is that despite the fact that El Paso is the poorest city of its size in the United States, many people still construct the city as “rich.” That construction is behind the “all poverty is Mexican/all wealth is American” thematic plot that finally displaces the idea of Mexican social mobility within Mexico with the view that the only way for Mexicans to achieve social mobility is by moving to the United States. As I point out in Chapter 2 of Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, some Mexican immigrants themselves are the most important propagandists of the myth of the geographical/social movement supposedly implicated in the process of migration to the United States. I am referring here to the complaints of many of the Juarenses I interviewed about those emigrants who attempt to demonstrate on their return trips to Mexico, by the most obvious means they have available (big cars, gifts for the children of their relatives, etc.—what I have called the “American dream show”), how poor they were in Mexico and how well they are currently doing in the United States. (As Margarita, with her characteristic wit, pointed out, “They used to eat beans with their bare hands and now they use a fork!”) The important thing to point out here is that many Mexican immigrants now living in the United States use their geographical move as a platform to improve their class situation in Mexico. Robustiano: We’re here in Mexico, we don’t have opportunities for any of that. So then we go to the U.S., we come back in an old car,

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we think we’re better than others. So then the people who you knew, you look at them differently because now you’re in a car.

Working in the United States in a stressful and discriminatory environment, sometimes without legal papers, Mexican immigrants tend to see each other as equals. But when they go back to Mexico, they return with a working-class American salary that places them in a very different social position with respect to their working-class compatriots. Thus, Robustiano’s criticism is directed toward immigrants who return to Mexico and use their sojourn in the United States as a means of socioeconomic advancement within Mexico. He is speaking of those who, after experiencing exploitation, poverty, and racism in the United States, attempt to belittle their fellow citizens upon their return by showing only the pleasant side of their journey. Robustiano: Well, let’s say that over there [the United States] we all see ourselves as equal; the problem is here in Mexico, not over there. We are saying that over there one dollar is one peso right? but you come back over here and now a dollar is three thousand pesos; so that if they have fifty dollars, well, they are terrific! But over there [in the United States], no, with fifty dollars they’re not going to put on airs—isn’t it true that they won’t be conceited? . . .

Here is where the interesting overlap between a migrant identity and one of class occurs. The “American dream show” staged in Mexico by Mexican immigrants who go back to visit family and friends, sporting big cars and with fancy toys for the children of their relatives, is an attempt to transform a migrant identity into a class identity. Or to put it another way, it is the attempt to use the weight of living and working in a first-world country to transform a working-class identity in the United States into a middle-class identity in Mexico. Of course, the show has other effects as well, for instance, to prove the immigration process was a success, or that she or he had good judgment, etc. However, at least in light of how some of the people I interviewed interpreted the show, one of its more important components is to transform a migrant identity into a class identity. In this sense, at least symbolically, the American dream show is a performance that addresses how the immigrant has advanced in class status in Mexico. Going back once more to Margarita’s phrase about eating beans with a fork (“¡Están impuestos a comerse los frijoles a puño y ya agarran tenedor!”), we can easily see how this expression has both class and national implications. Thus, the interviewee is not only talking about the Mexican immigrant as an agringado (a person in B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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the process of losing his Mexican culture and nationality and becoming Americanized), but also as a person abandoning his lower-class origins and becoming more middle class. Robustiano: . . . at least a little pile of money right? . . . you get more for it here than over there; we were all equal over there, we had no problems with comparisons, like whether you had a new car or you had this or that.

Thus, in most cases, living in the United States does not allow Mexican immigrants to rise economically above other Mexicans living north of the border. Returning to Mexico, on the other hand, allows the immigrants, at least for a while, to use the salary differentials between a minimum American salary (“el montoncito de dinero” [a little pile of money]) and a minimum Mexican one as a way of being richer than their paisanos who decided to stay home. These Mexican immigrants seem to use their geographical move as proof of their new middle-class status in other ways as well. According to some of our interviewees in Juárez, they do the same when Juarenses visit them in the United States: Nivia: . . . many of the people who live here, just because they got their immigration papers [arreglan], or someone got them their immigration papers, think they’re superior to you. ————— Edelmira: . . . my sister-in-law changed, she was from here, my brother moved her [to the United States], he got her [arregló] her papers and everything, but she’s very different now. She thinks very highly of herself, she thinks she is better than everyone . . . She dyed her hair blond . . . No, I’m joking. ————— Concepción: You go over there . . . and they tell you, “You’re so poor . . . !” . . . You go to their house [and they tell you], “Clean your feet when you come in.” Come on, I’d rather not go! . . . When you go to their house, they treat you as if you’re a beggar . . . Just because they have their immigration papers, they believe they are different . . .

Again, the idea that Mexicans who migrated to the United States have gone up the social scale appears prominently, and Concepción’s imagery (“they treat you as if you’re a beggar”) is very close to Edelmira’s complaint in Chapter 5 regarding Mexican Americans (“They want us to stay over here, on the ground”). These interviewees feel that Mexican P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E A M E R I C A N S I D E

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Americans and Mexican immigrants take advantage of their new life in the United States to stress their class superiority over Mexican nationals who, for different reasons, decided not to migrate. If this is so, it is not coincidental that many interviewees on the American side of the border used the photographs related in one way or another to the possibility of moving from Juárez to El Paso (the American consulate in Juárez, the bridges, the boats on the river, etc.) to symbolize their idea of social progress as geographical move. My point is not to deny that people improve economically when they move from Mexico to the United States. In most cases they really do. What I want to point out here is the continuous tendency many Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans have of framing any discussion of poverty on the Mexican side, as well as its probable solution, with the idea that the only way to solve it would be to move people from one country to the other. In this sense, the use of any other possible frame to make sense of the problem of Mexican poverty disappears from the horizon of meaning for most of the people of Mexican descent I interviewed on both sides of the border.1 One of the few exceptions I have found is the belief of some Fronterizas/os that it might be possible to end poverty in Mexico by “democratizing Mexico and ending its corruption,” with democracy being equated with the United States; that is, “democratizing” Mexico in this case would really mean “Americanizing” Mexico, bringing America into Mexico. Our interviews with Leticia, Rosario, and Sukis are paradigmatic in that sense. Leticia, while taking a look at the photo of the American consulate in Juárez (showing the long lines people have to form when waiting to be seen), makes the following comment: Leticia: And this, well . . . as always [there are] lines of hopeful people (because that’s what you are, hopeful). Because sometimes you know that you’re going to pass . . . but thank God I . . . Rosario: You were sure [you would pass] . . . Leticia: Yes . . . right away . . . What’s more, I applied for permission to get married here, and they gave me immigration forms! . . . Because of that, I didn’t have to struggle at all. But . . . many of these people have to struggle a lot, and I didn’t have to go to sleep early . . . I didn’t have to struggle for anything . . . and many people really struggle a lot, a lot . . .

As we can see, Leticia frames the arreglar procedure (getting papers to work and/or live in the United States) in very heroic terms. She first points out the hope all these people have of getting their American visas, no matter how many hours they have to spend waiting for them. B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Second, she frames the difficulties of getting the papers as if it were a war (“many people really struggle a lot” [“mucha de esta gente batalla mucho”]), as if getting the papers was a major battle in the struggle to move up socially, that is, moving geographically from Mexico to the United States. The heroic frame of the process of moving from one country to another (and the possibility of moving up socially as well, if you survive the attempt) is repeated in that interview by Rosario, as shown in this exchange: Leticia: . . . I took [the photo of] the Black Bridge2 . . . unfortunately many accidents have taken place here . . . it’s a crossing that seems so . . . simple. But you can see [that it is not an easy crossing place] in this photo. Look, right away you see that [the bridge is] black, just like [its] name . . . a black bridge that has seen many tragic things . . . the river— do you see it?—the water almost seems to have images in it . . . of the tragedies that have occurred [there] . . . Rosario: The misfortune of the poor . . . Pablo: Why the misfortune of the poor? Rosario: Because everyone who goes to seek his fortune in the United States is going to pass through there. They [the Black Bridge gang] are waiting for them there to assault and kill them . . . that’s the misfortune of the poor. And if you do manage to cross, as soon as you reach the middle of the river you drown. And if you do make it to the other side, the Immigration people shoot you. That’s why it’s . . . the misfortune of the poor . . .

We can see that Rosario has a very bleak picture of the undocumented immigrants’ struggle to make their fortune in the United States (we have to remember here that Rosario does not want any more

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Black Bridge, El Paso

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Mexican immigrants coming into the United States because, supposedly, right now there is no room for more people here [“ya no cabemos”]) (see Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, chap. 4). Thus, according to Rosario, who uses the bridge as a metaphor for the “misfortune of the poor,” the final destiny of undocumented Mexicans who are striving for economic progress is something very different from progress, that is, death by drowning or, for those who have successfully crossed the bridge, being killed either at the hands of the Black Bridge gang or by the Border Patrol. In an interview with Armando and his family and friends, the physical imagery of moving from one country to another is used to point out the social progress that Mexican immigrants to the United States experience.3 In that interview, Irene points out, as Rosario and Leticia did before her, the dangers many undocumented Mexicans undergo in trying to “make a better life” working in the United States without legal papers. Sergio: It’s the Black Bridge . . . Serafín: It’s the Bridge of Horrors . . . [laughs] Irene: It reminded me of El Puente Negro that I hear so much about . . . it reminded me of . . . people crossing and trying to make a better life . . . a better life . . . little do they know . . . Serafín: No, because you cross or [other] people cross there . . . and over there they rob you! Pablo: But the ones who cross, if they do make it across . . . Irene: The better life.

Again, undocumented immigrants engage in a battle in which their lives are at stake, but the reward—coming to the United States to improve their social condition—supposedly justifies the attempt.4 Besides the Black Bridge, these interviewees select another photo to make their point that a geographical move is actually a social one: an inner tube like the ones used by many undocumented Mexicans to cross the river before the launching of Operation Blockade in 1993. Irene: . . . and this photo reminds me . . . again, the struggle . . . the struggle of the people trying to better themselves, because that’s what they use to cross [an inner tube] . . .

Here, the move from one country to another and from a situation of poverty to one of supposedly middle-class status is framed in terms of heroism, struggles, battlefields, and the like—that is, a heroic battle to improve an economic situation through illegal immigration. B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Photographs that depict scenarios linked to the physical migration from one country to the other are not the only ones used to point out the social upgrade of the Mexicans who cross the border. Other photos not directly related to immigration are used for the same purpose as well. Thus, Irene uses the photographs of some Mexican taxis to show the progress her uncle has made, a kind of paradigmatic route starting in Juárez that, if everything goes well, supposedly ends in a middleclass neighborhood in El Paso.

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Taxi stand, Ciudad Juárez

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Irene: And this photo reminds me of my uncle . . . he has a taxi stand in Juárez. I remember him . . . how hard or long he worked to be able to . . . succeed . . . Serafín: Yes, well, the good thing is that he’s over here now . . . Irene: He finally made it, he succeeded . . . and . . . with the pictures [of Juárez], I remember . . . where they used to live before. And now with his hard work and everything, my aunt lives on the East Side, over there in East El Paso . . . Pablo: From Juárez to the East Side . . . Serafín: Imagine! Sergio: A little bit worse . . . [laughs] Irene: And a very nice house! Serafín: And from where they used to live . . . I’ll show you. [he looks for a photograph] Irene: And with his three little cabs . . . he works and works and works . . . Serafín: They lived around here. [Serafín shows the poorest—by my standards of poverty—photograph in the entire package: photo 16] Irene: Oh, don’t be foolish! [she thinks Serafín exaggerates a bit] Saúl: That’s how it was when it rained, right? . . . The creek in the middle of the street. Serafín: That’s the way I remember it . . .

Here, Irene’s uncle did not move to the United States and then improve socially in El Paso (the typical scenario we had been discussing). Instead, he worked hard in Juárez, progressed economically there, and then moved to El Paso. The history of the uncle, framed in this way, claims that for one reason or another middle-class status and living in El Paso somehow overlap, regardless of the actual motive for the social progress of the person who now enjoys a middle-class situation on the American side of the border. Thus, the uncle did not move from poverty in Juárez to a middle-class environment in Juárez itself but to a middle-class neighborhood in El Paso. Maybe he made that move for family reasons (to be closer to his brothers) or health problems, but we really do not know because Irene and Serafín’s narrative does not mention anything about that. The way the narrative is structured attempts to show that the economic improvement of the uncle (he sobresalió; he made himself different, higher than other Juarenses) materialized in a geographical move from Juárez (poverty) to El Paso (middle-class status). Taking into account how these interviewees frame their narratives, it is not surprising that they cannot really understand why some people B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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working and living in the United States, who have the opportunity to remain and improve their lives, decide to go back to Mexico. Serafín: . . . but these people . . . sometimes they cross, and then they cross back [to Juárez]. How strange, right? Pablo: Why is it strange? Serafín: Well, because life is better over here, but they want to taste it only for a moment. If they’re going to cross for their entire life, then cross for life . . . but that way, going back to Juárez, it’s only for an instant . . .

Serafín cannot understand why, since the standard of living is better in the United States, some undocumented immigrants, after having crossed and survived the “fighting” experience, decide to go back to Mexico. He is unable to grasp why such immigrants decide to enjoy a better life for only a short time. While Irene used the photographs of Mexican cabs to show the progress her uncle had made, Joel5 (who mistakenly assumed that the photograph of the mobile home was taken in Juárez and used it as the epitome of Mexican poverty)6 uses a photo of poverty to propose a very similar message: Joel: You know, there are a lot of things I don’t agree with that they, . . . the Mexicans, do, you know. But, I guess that that [referring to another photo of poverty—taken in El Paso] says it all, why they do it [move to El Paso without proper documentation] . . . That’s the situation in Juárez.

Thus, Joel, displaying an extremely anti-Mexican type of discourse, can still empathize with the Mexicans who want to move to the United States in order to escape extreme poverty. In the same vein, his friend Ramón, a Mexican immigrant, draws a dramatic contrast between the economic situation in Mexico and the United States. We will see that Ramón does not lose any chance to dramatize Mexican poverty and compare it to American richness, even maintaining that poor people in El Paso would be rich people in Juárez: Ramón: . . . the people who are poor over here, they’re rich compared to [those in] Mexico, you know. You get food, what’s poverty? You get food, they give you clothes . . . Alvaro: There’s a Salvation Army for the clothes. Ramón: . . . yeah! They give you clothes, they give you food, they give you . . . those houses over there that you pay $50 for, or whatever . . . They have air conditioners, they have . . . P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E A M E R I C A N S I D E

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In order to make his comparison more dramatic, he uses his own experience of migrating to illustrate his point; using the photograph of a run-down outhouse, he claims that the outhouse is still a luxury compared to his condition of poverty in Mexico: Ramón: What’s this, a toilet? Mike: What the heck is this? Ramón: In Mexico, I didn’t even have that! I only had the hole. [laughs] Joel: [laughs] A cinderblock. [laughs] Ramón: When we needed to . . . go to the toilet over there, we’d just get a rock.

Later in the interview, the photograph of the outhouse reminds him of his long journey from extreme poverty in Mexico to working-class status in the United States.

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Outhouse in Ciudad Juárez

Ramón: . . . this is a Mexican toilet . . . the lid [laughs] . . . That picture . . . brings me a lot of memories. You know, I come from over there and I was very poor over there. The toilet! You know. When I go to Mexico and then I come back, I, I appreciate everything that I have over here.

To make his contrast between poor Mexico and rich United States more dramatic, he makes it clear that he is not comparing Mexico of fifteen years ago (when he was growing up there) with the United States of today, since he claims that Mexico today has the same level of poverty as when he left for the United States and economic improvement: Ramón: . . . it brought me a lot of memories because over there—all I’m saying is, when I come back I appreciate everything I have. I mean, if I have a bike, I appreciate it, I take care of it, or whatever. Because over there my grandmother, right now, ah, . . . they have to make holes, they have to make holes! They have to make their own little bathrooms—that’s their bathroom. When that thing fills up and there’s nobody to, ah, make another hole (let’s say, like my grandmother lives by herself, there’s no one that will go make another hole for her) . . . we used to go to the desert and go to the bathroom there. Thank God, we’re living over here and we have toilets, and sometimes we put blue things in the bathrooms . . . [laughs] You know, we have hearts for bathrooms, and all these nice things, and it just brings me memories of, and I thank God, because of the things that we have over here, that we don’t have to suffer anymore.

The image of his grandmother using the desert as her bathroom because there is no one who can dig another hole near her house is a very dramatic way to depict poverty in Mexico. With Mexican poverty so extreme that border crossers thank God “because of the things that we have over here,” it is not surprising that one of the interviewees in this group points out that many of his Mexican relatives would be more than happy if Americans invaded Mexico to improve their economic and social situation: Joel: . . . I have family that live over there, you know, and sometimes they say: “Ah! I wish America would come and take over this country and make it better.”

We can see in the above comments different variants of the “all poverty is Mexican/there is no such thing as American poverty” hegemonic discourse and the powerful images and metaphors it carries. Because of this context, it is not surprising that most of the people I interviewed on the American side of the border tried desperately to detach themselves P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E A M E R I C A N S I D E

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from the “Mexican” to whom the plot applies. The different ways in which El Pasoans attempted to do so are described in Chapters 3 and 4 of my Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. Thus, I will only summarize the most important cases presented there, adding some additional interview excerpts to clarify the point. The only poor people that many middle-class Anglos in my sample recognized were Mexicans, with the label understood as describing both an ethnicity and a nationality. Well-attuned to the script the acculturation-assimilation model has written for them, these interviewees blamed Mexican poverty on something in Mexican culture that supposedly predisposes Mexicans to laziness. Additionally, if by definition poverty is Mexican and not American, poverty in El Paso is the product of the presence of Mexicans in the United States; that is, poverty in El Paso is still Mexican. Of course, not all the middle-class Anglos we interviewed used the hegemonic discourse “all poverty is Mexican” (talking about Mexicans in general, as an ethnicity and as a nationality). At the same time, one does not need to be an Anglo to use that thematic plot to construct a valued identity. Thus, we found a very similar hegemonic discourse among middle-class African Americans and some Mexican Americans as well. This happened in an interview we conducted with a group of young, first-generation Mexican American El Pasoans. At the time of this interview, Cristy and Tom were UTEP students. Lucy was a teacher and Tom a truck driver. Susie was trying to complete her GED program and Arturo was a fifteen-year-old high school student. All of them were Catholics. In her comments, Susie is totally convinced that in the poor neighborhoods of El Paso you can only find Mexican Americans and homeless Anglos: Susie: The Second Ward . . . where . . . we were raised in El Paso, right? . . . We know that place is where the poor people live, where the cholos are and all that . . . Mexican Americans are there, definitely. You cannot see one Anglo. Well, only the homeless [Anglos] [laughs] that wander around there. [laughs]

Other Mexican Americans, however, use the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot in a different way, in which the Mexican to whom the poverty stigma is applied is the Mexican national. Thus, according to narratives of this kind the “all poverty is Mexican” plot really applies to “them,” the Mexicans living in Mexico. Therefore, the category “Mexican” is used by these interviewees not in ethnic terms but in national terms. However, the net effect of this variance in the plot is still that B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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poverty is not American but foreign. Such is the case in our interviews with Joel and his friends, and it was the main reason why Ramón, an immigrant himself, does not want to go back to Mexico: Pablo: Do you want to go back to Mexico? Ramón: No . . . because I wouldn’t have the things that I—see, I’m already used to the American way of living over here, you know what I mean? . . . I was poor over there. I’m not poor over here, and you know, you don’t want to go back to being poor again.

We have seen above that the hegemonic discourse that identifies poverty with Mexicans also works on the Mexican side of the border. Thus, it is not by chance that Mexican immigrants have to deal with this kind of discourse. One way many of the people I interviewed dealt with it was to claim that the Mexican to whom the discourse of poverty-dueto-laziness applies is the Mexican American who lives on welfare— not themselves, immigrants who cannot receive welfare benefits and have to work hard in order to survive. For many of the immigrants I interviewed, the lack of ethnic loyalty supposedly shown by many Mexican Americans in El Paso is the profound source of their laziness. The narrative here is that the lack of “Mexican morals and values” is the moral barrier these Mexican Americans have lost in the process of their Americanization, which predisposes them to laziness, drunkenness, drug addiction, and other social maladies. This was the narrative Norma and her friends used in their interviews. It was also present in the female (but not in the male) branch of the López family. As a group in transition from one country and one culture to another, it is not surprising that some of these Mexican immigrant interviewees mixed systems of classification and narrative plots to detach themselves from the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot. Thus for many, for different reasons, if the “all poverty is Mexican American” plot did not work, they always had the possibility of claiming that poverty in El Paso is related to Southern Mexicans, taking advantage of the regional construction of poverty that is pervasive in Juárez. That happened with Norma and her friends. In one of our interviews, Cristy, Susie, and Tom—people who consistently portray the poor Mexican in El Paso as the Mexican in general (both as a nationality and as an ethnicity)—point out that the poor without dignity in Juárez are recent immigrants from the South: Susie: And all the trash in this photo got my attention, and I ask myself how people can live like that, throwing trash around, right? . . . P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E A M E R I C A N S I D E

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Cristy: They are poor people because of the type of houses, which look . . . humble. But they are really lazy, because . . . someone who really wants to (they don’t care how they look or how they live), would try to clean up. Tom: You know, they’re people from the South [of Mexico]. Susie: Yes. Parachutists [squatters], that’s what my mother calls them [laughs].

For other Mexican immigrants living in poverty in El Paso, it is much more difficult to negate the existence of poverty (their own included) on the American side of the border. Therefore, since these interviewees cannot locate all poverty in Juárez, and since they have no other choice than to accept that poverty also exists in the United States, they begin to differentiate degrees of poverty. Thus, after having accepted (not without a struggle) that they are poor, they begin to separate their own poverty from extreme poverty. The first one—normal poverty—can be found on both sides of the border; the second—extreme poverty—only on the Mexican side. Their homes may “look like Juárez,” but they are not in Juárez. They are poor people but not extremely poor people. Here again, as happened on the Mexican side of the border, the discussion about social inequalities is framed in geographical terms, but at this point, not separating poverty and nonpoverty according to territorial lines, but “normal” from “extreme” poverty in national terms. That was the narrative Alex and Alicia used when they discovered that the photograph of the mobile home they initially put in Juárez was taken in their own backyard. According to this narrative, the reason for the absence of extreme poverty in the United States (and for its presence in Mexico) is American governmental assistance that makes temporary something that in Mexico is permanent: poverty. Therefore, according to these interviewees, most people who are poor in the United States, considering all the governmental assistance available, are poor because they have just started supporting themselves (young Mexican American couples) or they are new immigrants from Mexico. The narrative then points out that both groups, having enough time to get organized and settled and counting on assistance from the American government, are going to move to a better situation, something people in Mexico will not be able to do, due to the lack of governmental assistance. However, the plot goes, if American citizens and residents do not improve their situation, it is because a personality defect (laziness) restrains them. As we can see here, the “other” in relation to which a valued identity is constructed is, in most cases, Mexico and the different variants of Mexican identity B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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that diverse border narratives display (Southern Mexicans, Fronterizas/os, etc.). As mentioned above to explain the supposed absence of poverty in El Paso, the “trace” that explains the presence of poverty in the region is Mexico and the Mexicans. Poor Whites and the “All Poverty Is Mexican” Narrative Plot

If, as one of the most important hegemonic discourses of the region claims, “all poverty is Mexican,” how do poor whites construct their social identities? Obviously, the process of identity construction in this group is at least tricky, because they have to account for their poverty in the context of a hegemonic discourse that claims that whites are not poor. They live in poverty; therefore, they are something that is not supposed to exist. Still worse, they share their condition of poverty with a social actor—or, more properly, a variety of social actors covered by the umbrella term “Mexican”—who, in many different narrative accounts, is the epitome of all the foibles the construction of the despised “other” can imagine. In addition, the geographical metaphor of displacement I am arguing, which is behind many discussions about social mobility in the region, does not help this group either. Why? Because they are not immigrants but natives of the “land of opportunity” who nevertheless do not share the prosperity that supposedly comes naturally to those who live long enough north of the Rio Grande. During my fieldwork in the region, I had the opportunity of interviewing several groups of low-income Anglos. For the purposes of this chapter, I will concentrate my analysis on three groups of interviewees who, in various ways, summarize what I have heard here and there in many other interviews. Two of these groups were composed of people who, at the time of the interview, lived in a shelter for homeless people in El Paso (a shelter we will call The Savior’s House). In the third group, I interviewed people who, while renting their own houses, still relied heavily on the welfare system for their everyday survival. Several in the first group, from The Savior’s House, came to my office at UTEP for the interview. The interviewees included two sisters, Margaret and Elizabeth. Both women were in their late twenties, were unemployed at the time of the interview, and had lived most of their lives in El Paso. Both were single and had completed their secondary education. Harley, who was a janitor in his early twenties and had once been married to a Mexican woman, had lived in El Paso for five years prior to the interview. Bryan was a thirty-five-year-old plumber who, P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E A M E R I C A N S I D E

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at the time of the interview, had been in El Paso for only three months. Another participant in that interview was Henry, who lived, not in the shelter, but in his own house in an extended family arrangement. He was a twenty-five-year-old married mechanic who had been in El Paso for seven years and had completed his secondary education. All of them except for Keith (who was Catholic), were Protestants. I interviewed the second group—two others from The Savior’s House—at the shelter location itself. These were John and Howard. John was a warehouse worker in his late twenties who had lived in El Paso most of his life. He had completed his secondary education and was single. Howard was a maintenance worker in his late forties who had some college education and had been in El Paso for two years. Both of them were Protestants. The third group of low-income Anglos I interviewed included Cheryl, who lived on the east side of town. She was in her early thirties, a mother of one who cared for elderly people in their homes. Kathy was Cheryl’s friend. She was in her mid-thirties and usually worked at different factories in El Paso. She was married. Martha, who moved to El Paso from the East Coast, was in her late thirties and worked in El Paso. None of the interviewees were natives of El Paso, but they had lived there for more than fifteen years. All of them were Christians. The first thing that got my attention while interviewing these groups was their awareness that all poverty is not Mexican. With a consistency that I never expected, all the interviewees correctly identified all the locations of the photographs, without the bias of the “gaze” that was usually presented by most other types of interviewees (those who invariably used the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot). At the same time, these respondents did not claim that the reason for such poverty in El Paso was solely related to the presence of Mexicans in the city, but noted that poor Anglos such as themselves were included among those people who lived in poverty in the region. That did not necessarily mean that they did not have problems with illegal Mexican immigrants, the culture of El Paso, and the widespread use of Spanish as a quasi lingua franca in the city. My point is that, at least for the poor Anglos I have interviewed, the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot is foreign to their discourse. At the same time, the metaphor of geographical displacement in lieu of social mobility which we were discussing before does not work either. Let us start our analysis of this type of narrative with the shelter’s group that included Elizabeth and Margaret. At first, this group seems well attuned to the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot: B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Harley: . . . but just the living in Juárez . . . and you got a picture of the puente, and it’s just a totally different world . . . it almost looks like a totally different world when you compare the two to the other. It sets apart the cultures and things of that nature, as far as the people and just the whole living style—it’s just different, unreal . . . Henry: Juárez is like (this is my opinion) . . . they are twenty years behind us . . .

As we can see, the themes of the “totally different worlds” and the “time lag” that characterize many variants of the “all poverty is Mexican” narrative plot are present here as well.7 Nevertheless, from the beginning of the interview something different occurs with this group of poor Anglos. For instance, Harley, the guy who had been married to a Mexican woman, on several occasions mentions how much he loves Mexicans and Mexican culture, as in the following testimony: Harley: I like the Hispanics. I’ve learned to love them, as a matter of fact. They are a tight group of people that are just looking out for each other . . .

Or when Bryan shows his sympathy for the illegal aliens whom so many people despised in many of our interviews in El Paso: Bryan: I know of a thing that happened in 1994 . . . there was a guy that he got caught coming across the border from Mexico, because we wanted to make a better life for himself and his family. Start over here, but they wouldn’t give him citizenship, so he was coming over here illegal. They gave him ten years in prison for that! Because he was trying to better himself! He wasn’t running drugs or anything . . .

Therefore, although at the beginning of the interview Harley, Bryan, and Henry are using many of the common themes that typify the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot, they are doing so with a particular twist, so that the Mexicans do not occupy the role of the “despised other” that characterizes many of the narratives of the El Pasoans we have interviewed: Harley: I picked these two [photos] because this depicts Mexican life. Because not only is it like this in Juárez . . . when you go deeper into Mexico you still find the same kind of scenery . . . you know, it’s a poor . . . to me it’s a poor country, but they do the best that they can with what they have. And again I make this statement: There’s a million and a half people in a town probably half the size or three-fourths the size of El Paso, and you got them living on top of each other, or underneath each other, you know . . . The barrios out there aren’t that well developed, and you P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E A M E R I C A N S I D E

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hear comments of making houses out of pallets and cardboard boxes and stuff, you know . . . They’re an innovative people, but they are poor people and to me that’s what life on the border is . . . it’s a poor but, you know, struggling people . . .

As we can see, Harley does not use the readily available discourse of Mexican laziness to explain Mexican poverty. In fact, he praises the Mexicans for their inventiveness in making poverty livable. Therefore, when Harley discusses the photograph of an abandoned shack that most of the interviewees who used the “all poverty is Mexican” narrative plot in my sample located in Juárez, he places it straightforwardly in El Paso. At the same time, Harley goes directly to the point his narrative (the one that claims that “there is poverty everywhere on the border, and not all the poverty is Mexican”) calls for: Everyday life in some parts of El Paso is not very different from the life of poverty many Mexicans endure on the other side of the border. Harley: It’s a poor but, you know, struggling people, and we’re not (this is my third photograph) . . . we’re not as far behind them as we would like. This [photo 21] right here looks like my suegra’s [mother-in-law’s] house. [laughs]

Referring to the previous comment made by Henry that Juárez is twenty years behind El Paso, Harley points out that it is not always the case, and sometimes it is merely wishful thinking. To prove his point, he alludes to his personal experience, stressing that the photograph resembles the place where his mother-in-law lives a lot: Pablo: Where is it? Harley: In the Lower Valley. She lives between Clint and Fabens. Pablo: So . . . do you locate that photograph in El Paso? [I mean], do you locate that photograph in the U.S. or in Mexico? Harley: Do I locate this? . . . Yes, I locate this here . . . I’ve seen a lot of houses like this [on this side of the border] . . .

At this early point in the interview process, Harley is not consistently using either the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot or its opposite. As a matter of fact, he is mixing both in his remarks. He rapidly identifies the shack as belonging to El Paso, but the personal experience he brings up to prove that there is also poverty on the American side of the border refers to his suegra, who is Mexican. Therefore, at first it seems as if he is working out his narrative within the limits of the discourse that claims that the poverty of El Paso is somehow related to the B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Mexicans who live there. That seems to be the case when I ask him about his previous use of the metaphor of the “different worlds” to refer to Juárez and El Paso: Pablo: What about your comment that “we seem to live in worlds apart”? Harley: Yeah, we seem to live in worlds apart, but here in the border [those worlds] come together. He made that comment that they’re twenty years behind us, and in some things it’s not true. We still have housing that doesn’t have water . . . there’s housing here in the U.S., right here in El Paso, that doesn’t have toilets inside the house. Many different . . . many aspects of Mexico that have [been] brought over here.

However, what at first seems to be a variant of the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot (poverty in America is “brought over” by the Mexicans who have migrated to the United States) rapidly becomes a totally different discourse when Harley acknowledges that, not only Mexicans live in poverty in El Paso, but whites as well, including himself: Harley: And it’s not just among the Hispanic people, the Mexican people . . . there’s white people that live like this. I mean, it’s not just a racial thing, or an intercultural thing, or whatever. It’s just people doing with limited means the best, I guess, that they know how. And this depicts—between those three photos—that depicts border life living to me, because I’ve lived it. I’ve lived in houses like that.

Harley transforms a narrative that at first seems to rely on a racial/ethnic/national frame of reference to a different one that refers to poor people in general, regardless their ethnic, cultural, and/or national identities. Here we have a discourse about poverty without any other frame than the relationship people have with the means to carry out their everyday life. In this sense, the border, and all its possibilities to frame poverty differently, practically disappears for this homeless Anglo. Harley was a homeless Anglo, but he had been married to a Mexican woman and had traveled extensively all over Mexico. Could this direct exposure to Mexico and Mexican culture be the reason for his unbiased perception of the photographs and his nonethnic/nonnational frame to make sense of poverty? Perhaps, but even if this is so it does not explain why the other participants of the interview (none of them related in any personal way to Mexico) advance very similar arguments. Take the case of Henry, who not only rapidly identifies the photo of the shack as being in the United States, but also accurately recognizes its precise location: America, the poor colonia located in the far eastern part of town. P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E A M E R I C A N S I D E

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Henry: That’s probably in El Paso . . . When I first came here to El Paso, I met up with a couple of guys . . . The one guy’s name’s Roberto. Lives out on Culebra, way out past the city limits . . . and this looks like his place. Pablo: That photograph was taken in Culebra, maybe it is his place. [laughs] Henry: But it really does. [laughs] Pablo: It was taken there. [laughs] Henry: We just spent the night . . . one night out there. We didn’t see too much, but everywhere we went, every single one of them out here, it’s just like that.8

Something very similar occurs with Margaret and Elizabeth, sisters who, although they had lived in El Paso for more than twenty years, had visited Juárez only once when they were children. Margaret: When I saw these photos, the first thing I thought was, “Oh, it’s the Lower Valley—yeah, Lower Valley.” I know it’s not Juárez, and I notice if you go to the Lower Valley, like you do in Juárez, they have a church too, and . . . I thought that Juárez is almost like America, El Paso. Their housing and their streets . . .

Once more Margaret is pointing out Juárez’s and El Paso’s similarity, not their difference (the preferred theme for most of the people who used the “all poverty is Mexican” plot); she notes that poverty is everywhere. Therefore, for Margaret it is quite natural to claim, not only that the photograph of the mobile home was taken in El Paso, but also

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Hut and mobile home in the colonia America, El Paso

that she and her sister once were going to live in a trailer like the one depicted by the photograph. Margaret: This one reminds me of poverty, but it can be on both sides of the border, because when me and my sister lost our house we were looking for another place to live and my brother . . . when they said, “We found a nice trailer for you,” . . . what we thought was a nice one, it was all broken, you know. It needed a lot of work. And we’re, like, when we walked in we said, “Well, there’s no way I’m going to live in a place like this.” But then we thought, “Well, if this is the only place we can get,” it’s going to be a place like this. You just get what you can and, you know, we were shocked. ’Cause we couldn’t . . . We were like, “We’re actually going to live in a place like this, after living in a house for so long?” . . . Pablo: And you see yourself going downhill? Elizabeth: Yeah, we’re here and then we’re going . . . all of a sudden we went downhill—we didn’t know what to do about it . . . Pablo: And you mentioned that you could locate that one on either side . . . Elizabeth: On both sides, you know. It doesn’t matter what part of the border you live on, you’re going to find poverty, people who don’t have money or . . . It’s everywhere, and not just where the border is, you know.

Therefore, in the narrative identities of these homeless Anglos poverty is not only found in Mexico or linked to the Mexicans who move from their country to the United States but is “everywhere” in the region. In that regard, when I finally push the sisters to make a decision and to locate the photograph either on the American side of the border or on the Mexican side, both of them locate the photo on the American side, either near Las Cruces or in Canutillo, that is, in the area surrounding El Paso. Margaret also starts a very interesting narrative about the unwillingness of El Pasoans to recognize poverty that is not Mexican: Margaret: And [a photograph like that] embarrasses El Paso, when they show stuff like this on the news. They go: “Oh my God, how can people live like that?” And they don’t understand people like us put them [the barrels of water] like that and they be trying to get the same rights, just like in Juárez. And you can tell just by looking at this photograph, this is the only version, their little version of a water tower . . . because they have like . . . barrels of water and tank for just to ration water so they can survive on it, and it’s the same way in Juárez.

The main rationale behind Margaret’s discourse is how similar Juárez and El Paso are in their poverty, not how different. Her narrative is about how poor people like her face similar problems and attempt P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E A M E R I C A N S I D E

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comparable solutions on both sides of the border. The “others” in this type of narrative—the ones that go, “Oh my God, how can people live like that?” and who cannot understand “people like us”—are middleclass El Pasoans (Anglos, Mexican Americans, and African Americans alike) who, using the “all poverty is Mexican narrative plot,” cannot imagine that poverty can be American as well. Not by chance, Henry, Harley, and Bryan also located the photograph of the mobile home in El Paso. When I share with them my findings that many people I interviewed in El Paso believe that only Mexicans can live in such poor environments, they are quite surprised: Pablo: I’ve had interviewees that claim only Mexicans can live like that, that you cannot find an Anglo who is living in those conditions. Harley: Well, you’ve found one!

The other photographs that many people used to buttress their use of the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot were those of the cemeteries. Here again, these poor Anglos do not have any problem correctly identifying their location: Elizabeth: It doesn’t matter what part of the border you’re on—you have a lot of death. And . . . I don’t think people should be buried in the pauper cemetery [Concordia Cemetery, photo 2]. I think everybody should be buried in the same way. It doesn’t matter if you have money or not. You should have the same kind of funeral that a rich man has or a poor man. You should have the same kind of funeral. You shouldn’t have to worry about having weeds on your grave or not being . . . your tombstone being knocked over by grave robbers. I think everybody should have that right. No matter what country you live in, or even if you live on the border, you should have that right.

What Elizabeth is pointing out in this statement is the right poor people like herself have to be buried decently. Again, as happened with the photographs of the shack and the mobile home before, for these homeless people the border disappears as a possible frame to make sense of the poverty they experience. Nevertheless, the border returns when I ask Elizabeth to compare the photo she has selected to advance her claim about the right to be buried decently with the photo that depicts Juárez’s Tepeyac Cemetery (photo 3), which is in much better shape than Concordia Cemetery. Elizabeth: I know in Mexico they keep their cemeteries up a lot better—that’s what they show in the news. Especially on the Cinco de Mayo B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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. . . that one day that they have that ceremony where they go visit the graveyards. They’re always kept up real nice. There’s no weeds—there’s grass . . .

Elizabeth rapidly assumes the photograph was taken in Juárez, while many of the people I interviewed, those who were using the “all poverty is Mexican” narrative plot, put that cemetery in El Paso for precisely the same reasons Elizabeth puts it in Juárez. The rest of the group agrees with Elizabeth about the location of the cemeteries and does not have any problem identifying the poor cemetery as the most centrally located cemetery in El Paso. They all use very similar narratives or introduce small variants, like Harley (the only Catholic in the group), who frames his religious discourse with a cultural/national logic to explain why certain countries/cultures (France, Germany, Latin American countries, which, according to him are “very religious people and part of their religion is caring for their dead”) take care of their dead while others (Americans, prominently) do not. It is important to remember here that for many interviewees who used the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot extensively, the photographs depicting upper-middle-class and middle-class environments were located, without hesitation, in El Paso. Once again, this group of poor Anglos does not use a similar narrative. Thus, for instance, Bryan confuses the photograph of a Juárez mansion with an El Paso one, and Harley intervenes to correct his mistake.

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Bryan: This one [photo] here . . . shows, to me, a rich American with a poor Mexican working the fields . . . Pablo: Do you locate this photograph in El Paso? Bryan: Yeah, I figure that one’s in El Paso. Harley: Well, that picture right there is in Juárez . . . Bryan: It is? Harley: I believe it is. I believe that picture [was taken] . . . like, over in Zaragosa, in Mexico, over by where Juan Gabriel and all of the rich people’s [homes are]. Because they do have houses like that over there.

Not only does Harley intervene, but Margaret steps into the discussion to claim that Juárez’s mansions are similar to El Paso’s. Bryan: Mmmm, . . . thought it was here . . . Harley: Beautiful, beautiful homes. Well, that comes with having been over there . . . Margaret: The construction there . . . if you look at it a little bit better, you can see houses similar maybe to the same . . . price range or whatever . . . would be like on Lee Trevino and up north in that area . . .

According to Harley, however, the mansions in Juárez are much better than the ones in El Paso. Pablo: That’s in El Campestre, near the golf club . . . It’s the richest neighborhood in Juárez . . . Harley: Mmm, Campestre, yeah, . . . beautiful . . . You’ve lived in Arizona [referring to Bryan’s mistake], that’s the reason . . . [but if you go to Juárez, you can] look at how the well-off in Mexico live. I mean, extravagantly. This house . . . there’s houses that are bigger than that. More elaborate and . . . it’s beautiful to see them. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to drive through them at one point in time and it’s, it’s unreal.

Summarizing the discussion around the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot that these interviewees are not inclined to use, Harley points out: Harley: Everybody equates poverty and stuff with Mexico and . . . they really don’t, you know. Like, you take a look at these pictures [the shack and the mobile home] and people can’t believe that that’s here. Or like that house in Mexico [the mansion], you know. There’s a lot, a lot of money that runs back and forth on both sides of the border here . . .

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by chance that they emphasize several issues that either were not addressed by other kinds of interviewees, or if they were addressed, it was in a very negative way. One of these issues is the use of Thomason Hospital by illegal aliens. In several parts of Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, there is a discussion of the resentment many El Pasoans (Anglos, Mexican Americans, and African Americans) expressed because the most important public hospital of the region was supposedly “invaded” by the “others,” that is, Mexicans in general and undocumented immigrants in particular, the people that “take advantage of it” at the cost of the law abiding Texas taxpayer. Interestingly enough, Margaret (who defines herself as an “indigent”), a heavy user of the hospital due to her homeless status, not only praises the hospital and its services, but can be sympathetic with the undocumented immigrants who also use it: Margaret: This is a picture of Thomason Hospital, and Thomason is the biggest hospital that takes care of indigent people from both sides of the border. And if you think that Thomason . . . first thing that comes to people’s mind is “There goes all the illegal aliens again having their babies.” But they don’t understand indigent people like us go there too . . . A lot of people get mad . . . when they see Thomason. They think right away: “They take care more of the illegal aliens than they do with their own people.” But they don’t understand Juárez doesn’t got the same facilities that we have . . .

Interestingly enough, all the other members of the group (with the exception of Bryan, who was new in town and a veteran) refer in different parts of the interview to their constant use of the hospital. Another issue on which these interviewees completely depart from what most Anglo, Mexican American (regardless of class), and African American El Pasoans told us was the constant use they make of the Mexican side of the border to somehow overcome their poverty. The only other group of people in our sample who also mentioned something similar were the poor immigrants who had recently arrived from Mexico. However, in their case, the references to the different things they did on the other side referred more to habits of the past they had not yet changed than to a conscious attempt to ameliorate their economic situation in the present (although this issue was not totally absent from their narratives either). To most El Pasoans we interviewed (those who constructed their narrative identities around the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot), such a behavior would be considered “abnormal.” That is, why would anybody prefer medical goods and services offered by a Third World country to those offered by El Paso? P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E A M E R I C A N S I D E

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This kind of “abnormal” behavior appears in the comments the poor Anglos I interviewed make about the photographs that depict the hundreds of dentists’ offices that overflow Juárez and the abundance of pharmacies that pervade the city. We have to remember here that these photographs were available to all the groups involved in the research, and that all interviewees had the liberty to choose the photos they wanted to talk about. Therefore, the fact that this particular group of poor Anglos chose these photographs to talk about while most of our other groups did not is interesting in itself. Let us take the case of Harley, who does not have any problem mentioning the heavy use he makes of the Mexican side to provide his family with medicine and diapers: Harley: We would always go to Casetas to get medicine over there, ’cause a tube of medicine here costs four or five dollars, and over there you can get it for seventy-five cents, you know . . . [and also] diapers, and all kinds of things . . .

While Elizabeth has not crossed the border since her childhood, a friend of hers provides her with the medicines she needs: Elizabeth: If I had to pay my own medicine that I take, it would cost me over two hundred dollars. And where my friend goes, you can get it over in Juárez a lot cheaper than what you ever pay here.

Margaret, for her part, likes the idea of having her teeth fixed in Juárez, something that would have been taboo for many of the nonpoor whites and Mexican Americans we interviewed in El Paso who construct their identities around the “all poverty is Mexican” narrative plot. Something similar happens with Henry, who comments that he has an appointment in Juárez the week following our interview to get contact lenses. After all these remarks, Elizabeth makes the following comment, followed by nervous laughs of the whole group: Elizabeth: I’m on the wrong side of the border!

This is quite remarkable if we remember the tremendous effort many of the people I interviewed in El Paso (those who consistently used the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot) made to separate themselves from Juárez and the unwillingness of many Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans even to consider the possibility of returning to live in Mexico. The fact is that these poor Anglos know many people (poor

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people like themselves, but also middle-class people) who have actually done that: Harley: I mean, just living there. There was a fellow in Casetas that ran the clinic [el consultorio] and he had a two-bedroom, kitchen, living room, cleaning . . . bathroom, acre of land with a fence and paid one hundred dollars a month rent. I mean, there’s a lot of people here that are moving over there to live and they want to come over here and work.

Something very similar occurs with the other group of homeless Anglos (John and Howard). Both of them locate correctly all the photographs (poverty, middle-class scenes, mansions, and cemeteries) and explain their reliance on Mexican dentists and the like. Consider the following exchange, for instance: Pablo: And this other one, for instance, this is another poverty photograph. Where do you locate this one? Howard: I think that would be Juárez. I don’t think they would allow . . . on this side the Health Department would allow houses like that to stand . . . At least I hope they wouldn’t, but [laughs] who knows . . .

Howard “hopes” this particular photo was taken in Juárez! He is not so sure about it because, like most of the poor Anglos in our sample, he is mainly using a thematic plot that states that “poverty is everywhere on the border, not only on the Mexican side.” This becomes obvious when he considers other photographs of poverty as belonging to either side of the border, missing some geographical or architectural clues many locals (if their plot allowed them to do so, of course) rapidly recognized, because he has been living in the area for only two years. Therefore, talking about a view of Puerto Anapra, Howard points out that it resembles Juárez but could have been taken in El Paso as well, something John does not consider possible because he rapidly recognizes a big sign written on the mountain. Also, with the photograph of an outhouse with a prominent sign that identifies it as a baño (a linguistic clue used by many interviewees to locate that photo in Juárez), Howard straightforwardly puts the photo in El Paso. John, on the other hand, correctly thinks that the outhouse shot was taken in Juárez. When Howard discusses the photo of the mobile home he has selected to make comments on, he once more considers that view as being possible on either side of the border. John, in turn, not only correctly identifies the photo as belonging to El Paso but also locates it precisely where it belongs, that is, the outskirts of the city.

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As we can see, these interviewees, like the other homeless Anglos I interviewed, do not have any problem with the “poverty is everywhere on the border, not only on the Mexican side” thematic plot. Accordingly, they not only correctly locate the cemeteries but also commit a couple of perceptive mistakes with some middle-class photographs, locating them on either side of the border instead of straightforwardly in El Paso. Also, like our previous poor Anglo group, Howard and John praise the dentists of Juárez and point out their willingness to use the dentists’ services: Howard: There are a lot of dentists over there that, for some reason, can’t practice over here, but they are qualified (they probably went to American dental schools) . . . Pablo: You can have your entire dentures done for one hundred dollars. Howard: Yeah, a lot of people from El Paso go over there, because the dentists are qualified and it’s a lot cheaper. John: I might go there to get my teeth cleaned.

In our interview with Cheryl, Kathy, and Martha, some of the same issues appear as well. These interviewees, also poor Anglos but in a much better economic position than the shelter’s interviewees, also do not work with the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot, using instead the “poverty is everywhere on the border” narrative theme to make sense of the photographs. They also locate the photographs of poverty and the cemeteries correctly, do not have any problem locating the

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Dentists, Ciudad Juárez

photographs of rich houses in Juárez, and report on their heavy use of Mexican dentists. Using most of the time the plot that stresses that “poverty is everywhere on the border,” these interviewees do not have any problem identifying the photograph of the mobile home as belonging to El Paso, perhaps because Kathy’s sister used to live near El Paso in a trailer: Kathy: Well, this one is the one I said looked like Chaparral. That looks like my sister’s trailer. ’Cause she used to live there.

In another photograph depicting extreme poverty, the interviewees think it was taken either in Juárez or in the colonias that surround El Paso, because, once more, for them poverty can be found everywhere, not only in Mexico: Martha: These [photos] are over in Juárez, because you’re not allowed to live in conditions like this on this side of the border. Unless it’s one of those little colonias . . . Cheryl: I think you’d be surprised, but . . . Martha: Well, maybe out in Chaparral and some places. Kathy: . . . if you open your eyes, you could see them everywhere. Not just in El Paso . . . I mean, in different parts of [America as well], like Alabama . . .

These interviewees do not have any doubt (and do not make any perceptive mistakes) regarding the location of the cemeteries and praise the beautiful houses rich people have in Juárez. They also, like some of the other poor Anglos I interviewed, do not have any problem congratulating some of their Anglo friends who have decided to live on the other side to improve their economic situation: Martha: I picked this [photo] ’cause this looks like that apartment where that friend of mine lived in over in Juárez . . . She moved over there . . . because she said: “Hey, I could pay everything with what money I’m getting and . . . it wouldn’t be a bankroll” . . . She moved over there because . . . it was so much cheaper. She said: “I can feed everyone and pay the rent, and do everything with what money I’m getting, and it works out so . . .”

These interviewees are not as poor as the ones in the shelter I interviewed, but they rely heavily on Juárez’s goods and services to ameliorate their economic position. That is the case, once more, regarding how they take care of their teeth: Martha: I had to have a root canal and crown done. And I had it done over this side of the border—seven hundred and thirty-five dollars! P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E A M E R I C A N S I D E

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Pablo: And how much does the same treatment cost there? Martha: Over in Juárez, it would have been like two-fifty. Kathy: Jeez, maybe I should go there for my crowns. I need two crowns and two bridges. Martha: Let me see if I have the [doctor’s] card. You could write down the address . . . because I need to keep my card, so I can remember exactly where it is . . . ’cause if I need to ask directions, I just point. I mean, I took Spanish this semester and flunked it!

Of course, some of the experiences they had had with Mexican dentists (like many experiences with dentists all over the world) were not the best ones in their lives. Thus, Cheryl points out (after referring to how painful her wisdom teeth extraction had been): “I heard there was good ones [dentists] and bad ones, and I went to a bad one.” Clearly, this is not a racist comment about Mexican dentists but an expression

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Apartments for rent, Ciudad Juárez

she probably could have used to describe her experiences with some American dentists as well. However, I do not want to offer a rosy picture of poor Anglo interviewees. In El Paso, where the figure of the “other,” the “Mexican,” is so symbolically charged, there is no group that does not take a position (positive or negative) in relation to this figure. In that regard, I have no doubt that these interviewees had negative feelings regarding Mexicans, Mexican culture, and Mexican Americans. But my point is that such prejudices did not keep them from detaching their narratives from the hegemonic discourses of the region and offering a more nuanced version of border life. Thus, while praising Mexican people for many things and avoiding transforming them into a contemptible other, many of these interviewees still held various stereotypes about them, their culture, and their society. For instance, in the interview they express insecurity about going to Juárez because of the thousand horror stories (and some personal experiences) they have heard about criminality, police brutality, legal harassment, and the like: Cheryl: I remember a friend telling me: “Don’t spit on the sidewalk, because they’ll find any reason, and if you spit in the sidewalk, that’s a good enough reason for them to arrest you.” Or they can take your money. Martha: Don’t wear a lot of jewelry. Don’t wear any jewelry you’re that attached to, ’cause you might not get it back if they decide to arrest you . . . Harley: Within the distance of thirty feet, you lose all your rights. Everything over there is different, I mean, I’ve known people that they’ve done electroshock and, I mean, all kind of things. I’ve heard all the horror stories and things of that nature—nothing that a five dollar, twenty dollar bill . . . the corruption inside the police department, things of that nature.

Their image of Mexico is that of a lawless society, a country in which sometimes you have to be more careful about dodging the police than avoiding criminals. Because Mexico is a foreign country with different laws (many times portrayed as “primitive”) from those of the United States, some of these interviewees are scared of going there, to the point of preferring not to cross the bridge: Elizabeth: I’ve only been there once, and that was when I was a little girl, and I’ve been here twenty-four years. I would like to go back over there, but I’m afraid of going over there because . . . everything you hear about what goes on over there, what you see on the news. And you’re like, well, if I cross the border, am I going to get jumped or something, for my money, or something? . . . P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E A M E R I C A N S I D E

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John: [I have heard that in Juárez] they take you in [to jail] for spitting on the sidewalk and keep you in there for ten days . . . beat you, take all your money. Then, after ten days, they send you back home . . . That’s why I don’t go to Juárez.

Another topic on which these interviewees—especially Bryan, an El Paso resident for only three months—have problems with the “others,” the Mexicans in El Paso, is the complaint (shared to different degrees by many middle-class Anglos, African Americans, and Mexican Americans) that El Paso is so closely related to Mexico, and Mexicans are so prominently present in the city, that sometimes they feel they are living in Mexico and not in the United States—something that, of course, they do not enjoy. Talking about his experience at the veterans’ hospital in El Paso, in which he encountered only Mexican and Mexican American people, Bryan comments: Bryan: . . . even the people working there, of course, there is [sic] mostly Spanish speaking or Mexican. But even the ones that receive attention. My wife had made that comment . . . “This is more like Mexico. We’re in Mexico in every way. We should be in Mexico, ’cause that’s all this is, nothing but Mexico.” Well, there are a couple of Caucasians here. She says: “Yeah, maybe one out of fifteen.” [laughs] Henry: We’re a little outnumbered there.

One of the most important aspects of the feeling of “invasion” these interviewees share with many other nonpoor interviewees is the language barrier: Bryan: I already called a couple of places to rent, and [they’ve said to me], “I don’t speak . . . no inglés, no inglés, no inglés.” You don’t speak English, why are you having it advertised in the newspaper in English? Why are you here? This is America, we all speak English. Sorry. Henry: Well, you know, my father used to say, which I don’t totally agree with him, but oh well. He used to say they need to have a sign in all the international airports [on] all the borders [between] Canada and the U.S., [between] Mexico and the U.S., he says: “If you don’t speak English, go back where you come from.” Bryan: Well, that’s true . . . when I was in the Navy . . . we go over to their country, like say Italy, they all speak Italian. It’s up to us to be able to learn their language . . . if they’re going to be here, they must learn our language.

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being a social actor (a poor Anglo) that is not supposed to exist, according to the “all poverty is Mexican” hegemonic discourse, made some of them uneasy as well. This uneasiness was more evident in Cheryl, Kathy, and Martha—that is, among those who were not at the very bottom of the social scale—than among the homeless respondents I interviewed. Therefore, at certain point in the interview, Martha jokingly comments: I used to work in a garment factory, and I was the only Anglo in the entire factory.

More important, Cheryl makes a remark about how uneasy it makes her to ride buses in El Paso, where public transportation, in the view of many people, is mostly used by poor Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Therefore, whereas Kathy and Martha enjoyed riding buses (making a virtue out of necessity, because either they did not have a car or did not know how to drive) and did not pay any attention to the person riding alongside them, Cheryl hated it: Martha: I always take a bus [to go to downtown]. Hop on the 42, you’re there in twenty minutes. Cheryl: Ooooohh, no way! Not me. The bus? Kathy: Oh, yeah. The bus is cool . . . You don’t have to worry about park[ing] . . . Cheryl: Buses here in El Paso make me feel uncomfortable . . . I used to take the bus when I lived in San Diego and we’d all go to the beach, but you know, everyone was in a bathing suit. Everyone was going to the beach, so, you know . . . Martha: It was like a party. Cheryl: Right. Kathy: It was a family! Pablo: Well, maybe you don’t like the kind of people who are riding . . . Cheryl: Right. Kathy: You don’t like the people on the bus? Cheryl: I feel uncomfortable. I feel out of place. I feel like the only white person on the bus.

In the last sentence she finally verbalizes the reason for her reluctance to ride buses: the feeling of being “out of place,” of being “the only white person on the bus.” That is, she was being something she was not supposed to be in a city that worships like a religion the “all poverty is Mexican” hegemonic discourse: a poor Anglo. The commonsense discourse that claims that only poor Mexicans ride public P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E A M E R I C A N S I D E

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buses in El Paso is so entrenched that there is already an ethnic joke about it: Martha: When they used to call it [the public bus system] “Sun City Area Transits,” SCAT, that stood for “Shuttling Chicanos’ Asses to Town.” [laughs] Cheryl: Oh, my goodness!

Aware of the ethnic dimension of her joke Martha rapidly intervenes to “solve” the problem: Kathy: That’s bad. Martha: Hey, the guy was Hispanic who told me that. Kathy: Okay, . . . it’s allowed. It’s okay to say it.

She firmly believes that the fact that a Hispanic was the author of the joke serves as a guarantee that the joke will be permitted, because it is not derogatory to the people it targeted. At that point in the interview, I was wondering which of the many Hispanic narratives I had encountered in my fieldwork could have been behind a joke like that. Regrettably, my provisional answer was that many of them could have been. However, while some of these interviewees—above all, Bryan, a veteran and new arrival in the city, and Cheryl, who is much better off than the rest—advance many of the same negative comments we found among other groups, they express either some doubts about the accuracy of those comments or show some kind of empathy for the citywide despised “others.” Once again, it is quite clear that the fact they are not using the hegemonic plot that establishes that “all poverty is Mexican” profoundly modifies the process of identity construction for these poor Anglos. Thus, for instance, regarding their fears about criminal activities in Juárez and their distaste for how law enforcement seems to work on the other side of the border, some of these interviewees either do not experience any fear going to Juárez or doubt about the accuracy of the horror stories told in El Paso about what goes on in Juárez: Martha: I’ve walked around in Juárez a bit. I had a friend who lived over there. And I lost her address, but I could remember her directions, so I wandered around the neighborhood, so I found it. Cheryl: Oh, I wouldn’t do that. Pablo: Why not? Cheryl: I’d get lost and . . . Martha: I’ve never had trouble. Cheryl: I’d be afraid that something would happen, and you’d never know. Martha: I’ve never had any trouble over there. B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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Margaret: ’Cause it scares you, ’cause you don’t know exactly what you’re gonna expect over there. Elizabeth: A lot has to do with the news itself. The news has a lot [to do] with what [happens in] the cultures of El Paso and Juárez, and the minute people hear something about Juárez, first thing: “Oh, my God . . .” Margaret: “. . . I’m going to get killed over there. I’m going to die. Someone is going to stab me and then . . .” And same thing when they come over here: “Oh, my God I’m going to get killed. I’m gonna get robbed!” It’s the news—the news has a lot to do with it.

Not only are these interviewees claiming that the picture of reckless Juárez violence and brutality is perhaps not true, but also—and more important for our argument—these poor Anglos are not constructing the “Mexican” as the absolute “other” that stands for all the things they are not. Margaret and Elizabeth correctly think that many Juarenses themselves (if they believe the news) could be quite afraid of coming to El Paso for the same reasons some El Pasoans want to avoid going to Juárez: Margaret: The police brutality . . . we get police brutality over here too, but they don’t emphasize it as much over here as . . . they do in Juárez. Put the money in their pockets, yeah, you have cops that do the same thing [here]. And they still take you to jail like they do over in Juárez. So, it’s about basically the same.

Regarding the claim Bryan makes about El Paso being actually part of Mexico, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Harley once again show a totally different perspective. They ridicule one of El Pasoans’ most absurd attempts to separate the two countries and cultures (when many El Pasoans requested the destruction of a beautiful mural because the artist who painted it committed the “crime” of putting the American and Mexican flags together). Margaret: I don’t know if you remember. In the Northeast they painted a mural in the employment office. Pablo: Oh yeah, depicting the American flag and the Mexican flag caused a big controversy. They made a lot of people mad: “Well, how do they dare put something from their country [the Mexican flag] above something from our own country [the American flag]? Who do they think they are?” What do you think about the debate? Margaret: It didn’t bother me. It was, you know, bringing two cultures together. But they were playing it like “Oh, they hide illegal aliens” and stuff. P RO B L E M AT I C C L A S S D I S C O U R S E : T H E A M E R I C A N S I D E

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Harley: It’s what NAFTA and being a border town is about, is a meeting of two [cultures and countries] . . . Margaret: . . . the gentleman that did it, he didn’t . . . do nothing wrong, he just tried to bring both cultures together, but people blew it out . . . the wrong proportion.

For these poor Anglo interviewees, the prominent presence of Mexicans and their culture in the city is not a liability (like it was for many of the middle-class Anglos and Mexican Americans I interviewed)9 but an asset. Something similar occurs regarding the language barrier so prominent for people like Bryan and Henry. For other poor Anglos like Martha, Kathy, Harley, Margaret, and Elizabeth, although Spanish initially was a barrier, at the time of the interview they are trying to learn Spanish to overcome the problem. Elizabeth: Me and my sister are taking a course at the shelter, where we’re learning Spanish . . . And I just wished I learned Spanish a lot earlier than what I’m learning it now.

As a matter of fact, Elizabeth not only does not have any problem with the widespread use of a foreign language in El Paso, but she also enjoys the possibility of interacting with people who speak as many different languages as people do in El Paso: Elizabeth: My next photograph is at the plaza downtown, with the different people in it. I noticed there are not just Hispanics. Sometimes you run downtown and there’s like Orientals . . . or Germans, or you hear the accents and you kind of know what part of the world they’re from . . . I think it’s neat to hear someone from another part of the world here . . . There are so many people from different cultures that live in El Paso . . .

These interviewees showed a lot of empathy regarding Mexican nationals and Mexican Americans on other issues as well. For instance, take the case of Henry, who plainly acknowledged that if he were living in Mexico he would “be jumping that border every day.” This is a completely different discourse from that of Rosario, a Mexican immigrant, for instance (analyzed in depth in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders), who did not want any further Mexican immigration and recommended that prospective Mexican immigrants should accept their fate and remain in their country. It is also different from Harley’s comments about the photograph showing the activities of cerrajeros (Juárez’s flea markets), praising Mexicans’ ingenuity in getting out of poverty and their B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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willingness to ameliorate their lives in Mexico without the recourse of crossing the border illegally. Harley: . . . this is a Mexican thing to me. A lot of people . . . are in business for themselves. Because you can’t live on twenty dollars a week. Which is what they make, and the Mexicans have learned to get up on their feet and . . . they’ll buy and sell things . . . that’s how they make money— extra, spare money. And that’s just a photograph that brings to mind enterprising to me, because . . . they’re not just sitting back, not all of them are just sitting back whining or coming across the border illegally or whatever. They’re trying to make do in their own culture, buy and sell things—that’s what you see.

In most of the interviews I had with poor Anglos like Elizabeth, Margaret, Harley, John, Howard, Kathy, and Martha, they showed the same kind of empathy (not without contradictions and inconsistencies, of course) regarding Mexicans and Mexican Americans that only people who did not use the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot could allow themselves to show. Let us end this chapter by quoting Elizabeth once more. Talking about the different photographs showing El Paso’s murals, a clear and prominent example of El Paso’s Mexican culture, Elizabeth comments: Elizabeth: . . . to me it feels like if they’ve been through a lot of pain and the way they release it is by painting and [it] lets someone else see what

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Mural in Segundo Barrio, El Paso

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they feel. A lot of times people don’t know how to express themselves to someone else, especially to another culture, when they’ve been raised differently or from another country. So I like the murals because you can look at them and think: “Well, what did the person look like? What was he like?” or “What’s his culture?” or “What did they believe in?” It kind of makes you think yourself: “What would I do if I was in that person’s shoes for a little while? Would I do the same thing he did or she did?” You know?

I think that Elizabeth summarizes in this brief testimony the spirit of the plot some of these poor Anglo interviewees used during the interviews: “We are very similar to them. I can easily think of myself being in their shoes.” As we can see, it is a plot that is located at the antipodes of the “all poverty is Mexican” hegemonic plot that most of the middleclass Anglo, African American, and Mexican American interviewees (regardless of class) used.

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Chapter 7

This book is the culmination of more than ten years of research and thinking about the U.S.-Mexico border, in particular, the border between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. I arrived at the border in the summer of 1991. During the final years of my Ph.D. program, I was highly influenced by the border studies approach. As a matter of fact, I was a close witness and a minor participant in its initial developments, because in 1989 I took a seminar at the University of Texas at Austin with Néstor García Canclini. The seminar was structured around a discussion of his manuscript “Culturas híbridas,” which later became his very influential book (García Canclini 1990). Néstor’s teachings and the readings for that seminar and for Ana Alonso’s seminar (especially Gloria Anzaldúa’s (1987) and Rosaldo’s (1989) path-breaking books), not only provided me with important insights about border issues, but changed completely the way I understood the relationship between culture and identity. I was totally fascinated by the border itself, and by some of the images those border scholars proposed: the notions of border crossings, hybridity, “third country,” and the like, and was quite eager to validate through ethnographic works the ideas of García Canclini, Anzaldúa, and Rosaldo—ideas that were mostly developed within a literary criticism framework, not an ethnographic one. With those ideas in my mind, I went to the border for the first time. However, as soon as I arrived in the region, it became obvious that the border—or at least Ciudad Juárez /El Paso—was a little different from the way it was portrayed by the most prestigious border scholars. The bottom line is that while doing my fieldwork I discovered that the narratives of Anzaldúa, Rosaldo, García Canclini, Gómez-Peña, and the like only partially addressed the much more complex process of identity construction I found in the Ciudad Juárez–El Paso area. Their work was invaluable to me as a point of departure to understand the border, but once there, interviewing people and getting their narratives, I severed my ties with the literary narratives of Anzaldúa, Rosaldo, Gómez-Peña, and the like and started to pay attention to the narratives of my interviewees. Out of that ethnographic endeavor came a theoretical interest in the processes of identification that most people undergo to understand who they are in terms of ethnicity, race, nationality, region,

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gender, religion, class, age, and the like. I want to conclude this book with some theoretical ideas I have developed over the years regarding the complicated processes that are behind the construction of the self. Final Theoretical Reflections

I want to address here some theoretical questions I have been dealing with lately, using my fieldwork as an example. I will concentrate on the splendid work of Holstein and Gubrium, who attempt to bridge several originally unconnected traditions in a very interesting way. At the same time, I will be using the work of Laclau and Mouffe, as well as some works by Zizek (1989, 1990, 1997, 1999a,b, 2000), to try to better understand how the process of offering a possible identity works. In a nutshell, to my knowledge Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek offer the best explanations for understanding why particular interpellations appear in a discourse and not others, the process by which people deal with “options” in their process of identification, and how power is involved in any process of identity construction. However, what is missing in their approach (because it is not their most important concern, not because they are not aware of it) is an analysis of the actual practices by which people, in interaction, construct their identifications. These practices, usually but not always narrative ones, are precisely what Holstein and Gubrium superbly highlight, but their approach also suffers from the underdevelopment of other parts of the process (again, not because they do not know, but because they want to emphasize the actual practices of identity construction), because using Foucault (1970, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1983, 1988) as their major source for the understanding of discourses-in-practice, they lose the fine nuances that Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek add to a theoretical approach (Foucault’s) where resistance to the institutional discourse is not fully developed. At the same time I do not think that Holstein and Gubrium’s introduction of Garfinkel (1967) and Goffman (1959, 1961, 1963, 1967) to mediate with Foucault is enough to explain why people accept hegemonic discourses and construct narrative identities about who they are. Additionally, I think that both of these path-breaking theoretical approaches miss something else that appears prominently when one conducts ethnographic research in settings like, for instance, the U.S.Mexico border. In the case of Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek, that “something” is missing for the obvious reason that it is beyond these authors’ intentions: they do not do any ethnographic work at all. In the case of

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Holstein and Gubrium, the lack I am referring to is due to their focusing on institutions as their preferred site for fieldwork. My point is that in contested local cultures like the border, you have to add some additional components to understand any process of identification. First, there is the “filtering” power of the narrative plot in relation to the discursive formation in general (not only the interpellations, as I proposed in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders). That is, one must go beyond Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek using the insights of narrative theory and, continuing in the direction already proposed by Holstein and Gubrium, move further away from institutions into the realm of local cultures like the border. Second, there must be some conceptualization of “trajectory” and “nodal points that are more central than others which, over time, organize experience,” or something similar, to address the issue that in any new social encounter, people do not start their process of identity construction from scratch.1 That is, it is necessary to go beyond Holstein and Gubrium’s ideas of “local” processes of identity construction. I think that with these additions, the proposals of Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek, on the one hand, and Holstein and Gubrium, on the other, could be made compatible (something they are not right now—they do not mention each other in their writings) and be productively applied to understanding a very complex setting like the border.2 At the end of Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, I pointed out that in principle I agree with Althusser and Foucault that individuals are constituted as subjects through the discursive formation; however, I also pointed out there that the theory of interpellation comes to a halt when it is time to make sense of the particular processes by which subjectivities are constructed; that is, those processes that construct us as subjects that can be “spoken.” In other words, the understanding of the process of identity construction requires, not only that the subject be “hailed,” but that the subject invest in the position (Hall 1996, p. 6). The theory of interpellation as proposed by Althusser (1971), or the similar Foucaultian notion of the subject as produced “as an effect” through and within discourse, accounts for the “hailing” or the construction of subject positions within discourses, but leaves unanswered why the subject invests in one particular version of a subject position and not in another. As Stuart Hall points out (1996, p. 12): “. . . there is no theorization of the psychic mechanism or interior processes by which these automatic ‘interpellations’ might be produced, or—more significantly—fail or be resisted or negotiated.”

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As I stated in the Appendix of Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, I believe that it is precisely here that narrative theory can help us to understand how interpellations function in the real life of concrete social actors and to explain why some interpellations (ethnic, racial, regional, gender, class, religious, and national ones, in the case of the border) succeed where others fail. And it can help through stating something that, at first glance, is clearly a tautology, that is, people seem to accept a particular interpellation (namely, a proposal of meaning linked to a particular social position) whenever that interpellation has meaning to their construction of identity. This tautology, however, hides a very intricate back-and-forth process between interpellations and plots, where both modify each other constantly. My idea is that social events are constructed as “experience,” not only in relation to discourses that confer them meaning in general, but also within plots that organize them coherently. Accordingly, it is precisely the plot of my narrative identity that guides the process of selectivity toward the “real” that is concomitant to every identity construction. In this selection of the “real” is also included the relationship that we established between our plot and the multiple interpellations and tropes that culture in general (and the classificatory systems, in the case of interpellations in particular) offer us for identification. My point is that the multiple interpellations and tropes that surround us are somehow evaluated in relation to the plot of our narratives, in such a way that such evaluation triggers a complex process of negotiation between narratives, interpellations, and tropes. After my book was published in 2000, I had the pleasure of reading Holstein and Gubrium (2000), and I discovered that they pursue a similar (and much more developed) project: they try to understand how the subject positions people are offered through discourses (their most important source for this being Foucault and their terminology for this offer of identity being discourses-in-practice) are willingly incorporated into the identity repertoire of real social actors. Their most important sources in dealing with this last part of their project are Garfinkel and Goffman and Sacks, with narrative theoreticians mixed in here and there, and their terminology for this part of the process is discursive practice. Their point of departure is Lyotard’s idea of the subject as a practical project of everyday life: Its authenticities are situated and plural—locally articulated, locally recognized, and locally accountable. Self no longer references an experientially B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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constant entity, a central presence or presences, but, rather, stands as a practical discursive accomplishment. (Which, of course, could include the accomplishment of a sense of central presence in our lives.) (Holstein and Gubrium 2000, pp. 70 –71)

I like the idea of the self as a “practical project of everyday life.” In the particular setting of the border, that means, among other things, that the presence of the “other side” has to be taken into account to “locate” the self, at least in space. Holstein and Gubrium (2000, p. 70) point out as well that the self is “locally articulated, locally recognized, and locally accountable.” On the border, this also means that the different constructions people make of the international divide (as a barrier, a set of opportunities, a metaphor for other, more important personal borders, etc.) enter the common sense of the region in the variety of narrative plots people develop to understand who they are and who the “others” are. In other words, the processes of construction of the self and construction of the border are, in most cases, highly intertwined. In this regard, the border, as well as its cultures, is a “setting” (to use a Holstein and Gubrium concept). This setting, however, is not an institutional one but a regional one, a local culture. Nevertheless, if we leave behind the highly homogenizing picture portrayed by mainstream border studies, the border is not really one, but multiple, in the sense that not only do different people construct distinct borders and disparate identities around those borders, but those different borders acquire a distinct weight in relation to the different subject positions (and the different narratives within those subject positions) that people decide to identify with. For instance, in the course of my research it became quite clear that, for different reasons, the border is a highly valued resource for several border actors: undocumented workers who search for the almighty dollar “en el otro lado” [on the other side]; Juarenses who take advantage of the price differentials and buy electronics and clothes in El Paso; Fronterizos/as who use the border to “upgrade” their social standing in Mexico because they live near a First World country; El Pasoans who take advantage of the very affordable leisure industry in Juárez; American retirees who buy Mexican medicines because they cost three or four times less than the same brands in the United States; poor Anglos, regardless of age, who continuously use the medical and dental system in Mexico because it is much cheaper than the American one, and so on. At the same time, the presence of the border is also a nuisance, for a variety of reasons, for some other people: Juarenses who feel invaded by Southern Mexican C O N C LU S I O N S

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immigrants who also want to take advantage of border opportunities; El Pasoans who believe “all the social problems and poverty of the city are related to Mexicans”; and the like. Not infrequently, the same person, in different settings, could construct the border in the various ways portrayed above. However, those “borders of opportunity or borders of despair” (to make simple something that is much, much more complicated), are not lived as such in toto by the different border actors but are highly mediated by the several subject positions those actors occupy beyond the paradigmatic “border actor” of mainstream border studies. What I want to stress here is that the construction of the border in itself, as well as the different border identities such a construction entails, is mediated by the different regional, ethnic, national, class, gender, age, and/or religious (to name only the most important) identities people also construct in the border setting—identities that, of course, are themselves constructed in particular ways for the presence of the border itself. In this way, for instance, in the gender chapters of this book it became clear that women from Juárez have to deal with the highly stereotypical image of having “loose morals and values” at best, or of being “prostitutes” at worst, for the mere reason that they are from the border. In this example, a gender position is crisscrossed by a peculiar gender border discourse, that is, following Holstein and Gubrium (2000), a gender identity that is “locally articulated, locally recognized, and locally accountable” (but, I would add, is “nationally articulated, nationally recognized, and nationally accountable” in Mexico). This peculiar gender border discourse applies to Ciudad Juárez (and perhaps to a handful of other border cities such as Tijuana), but it does not make any sense applied to many other border towns like, for example, Agua Prieta. If we move from gender to the subject position we usually identify as “class,” the class chapters of this book made it clear that an upper-middle-class Mexican American cannot be unaware that his class identity has to deal with the well-developed “all poverty is Mexican” discourse that plagues the region. At this point, I find some limitations in Holstein and Gubrium’s approach to discourses-in-practice and turn to the work of Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek for help in understanding some of the complexities I found on the border. As I mentioned above, one of the most important theoretical sources Holstein and Gubrium use to understand the “offering” of identities is Foucault, an updated version of Foucault, one that has passed through the fine sieve of a Garfinkel/Goffman-oriented practitioner. That is the reason why Holstein and Gubrium talk about B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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“panopticism revisited.” Advancing their criticism of the original Foucault approach, Holstein and Gubrium (2000, p. 225) ask: “What degree of choice does panopticism leave for self-construction? The grand view of panopticism, in which discourse is seen as a totalized deployment of subjectivity, leaves actors with little or no separate moral will. In a totalized panopticism . . . what we do, say, or feel isn’t a matter of choice . . .” I totally agree with Holstein and Gubrium that in such a version of panopticism “the self is massively indebted to a prevailing discourse and has no recourse to alternative vocabularies of subjectivity.” For very good reasons, Holstein and Gubrium give us another possible scenario of panopticism working through the particular, in which the institutional discourse is “practically applied” by the actual guards, and “practically performed” by the real prisoners. Of course, there is a variable distance between the discourse and its practical applications and performances in particular settings, and that distance is the space for the construction of a concrete self, in a variable tension with the self that the general discourse of the Panopticon prescribes. As Holstein and Gubrium (2000, p. 226) point out: “a sited panopticism . . . deploys local, not universal, knowledge and power.” . . . there are features of everyday talk and action that limit the experiential penetration of totalized discourses and their pervasive moral orders . . . The everyday talk of institutional participants indicates that some are keenly aware that local discourses are not etched in stone but provide useful moral options for defining, judging, and cataloging conduct and identity . . . As Goffman has indicated . . . one can manage to “go through the motions” without thoroughly succumbing to the operating gaze of a going concern. Discourse-in-practice is seldom perfect. (Holstein and Gubrium 2000, p. 226)

We are talking here of prevailing discourses put into practice and, in so doing, being altered, negotiated, contested, and the like: The ability to dramaturgically navigate a discursive environment provides a moral space that can be exploited for other purposes, such as the recovery and reproduction of another self. The simple awareness by participants of alternative discursive strategies opens the moral horizons of gazes and discourses-in-practice . . . the awareness of alternatives is a basis for resisting the degree to which the categorical imperatives of a going concern can penetrate experience . . . the dramaturgic possibility indicates that the panoptic presence of everyday life is more variegated and disjoint that it is uniform and total. (Holstein and Gubrium 2000, p. 228)3 C O N C LU S I O N S

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Here lies the crucial part of the argument for me: the existence of alternative discursive strategies. Here is where we need another theoretical framework that goes beyond Holstein and Gubrium’s own choices and opens up the work of people like Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek. I think that in order to see in an actual identity formation process how “the alternatives can be weighed and worked against each other,” we need to rely on what these post-Marxists propose with their theory of hegemony (see also Gramsci 1971, 1975, and Forgacs 2000). Therefore, I agree with Holstein and Gubrium (2000, pp. 228 –229) that self construction takes place in relation to diverse moral vectors; its moral environment is layered with options, sometimes compatible, sometimes countervailing . . . it . . . provides conditions that are ripe for interpretive slippage and artful, situationally accountable practical reasoning which, while complicated, can be morally empowering at the same time.

We need to expand Holstein and Gubrium’s theoretical framework, however, to fully understand how such a process works. The limit of their otherwise splendid approach is the absence of the hegemonic struggles over meaning that Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek propose. Although in principle I can agree with the argument that “[a]lternative discourses for the self are present throughout contemporary society . . . the possibilities for competition are seemingly endless” (Holstein and Gubrium 2000, p. 230), I also firmly believe that if, in theory, competition appears to be endless, in real practice there are some discourses that are hegemonic and followed by innumerable social actors and others that are not. I think there is a real power that stems from a successful hegemonic project, that is, power that comes from constructing a hegemonic discourse that closes, for some time, meaning from a particular point of view. In this regard I agree with Laclau (2000, p. 53), who points out that “[w]e gain very little, once identities are conceived as complexly articulated collective wills, by referring to them through simple designations such as classes, ethnic groups, and so on, which are at best names for transient points of stabilization. The really important task is to understand the logics of their constitution and dissolution.” As “transient points of stabilization,” class, race, religions, ethnic groups, and the like (i.e., those group identities that mediate the border) offer different subject positions people can identify with following the (in dispute) local available discourses that conflictively try to make sense of them. Here we find the language of conflict and power that somehow is missing in Holstein and Gubrium’s formulation: the “local culture” B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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that makes identity “locally accountable” does not come from thin air and stay there forever but is constantly being shaped and reshaped by symbolic struggles whose goal is to close meaning in a particular way. Such a process of closure is provisional, because, by definition, meaning cannot be closed forever. That is, there is always a “surplus of meaning” that continuously threatens to dislocate the structure of meaning that, through struggle, has been constructed to make sense of reality. To complicate matters further, to the consideration that the social construction of the border per se is complexly intertwined with the myriad of identities people perform in everyday life, we have to add the fact that those different identities mediate each other and the way people experience the border. The most extreme case in my research occurs among Pentecostals, where the border practically disappears from the scene—at least the geographical border most people use as an excuse to construct their own gender, religious, class, ethnic, and national identitarian borders. Let us go back to my previous example of the woman from Juárez who is interpellated elsewhere in Mexico as a “prostitute” because of the particular overlapping of her gender and regional identities. If such a woman happens to construct “locally” her identity also in a Pentecostal church anywhere in Mexico’s interior, it is much more possible that she will be interpellated simply as a “saved soul,”4 regardless of her gender and regional identities. To make my example even more extreme, if my exemplar Juarense in fact used to be a prostitute in Juárez, not only will she still be addressed simply as a “saved soul” in her congregation, but I am sure that she will be asked by her pastor to tell the story of her awakening and redemption over and over again to show how powerful and merciful God is. As we can see throughout Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders and Border Identifications, some racial, ethnic, regional, religious, gender, and class identities seem to have more “geographical borders” within them than others, indicating that the socially constructed border has different weight for different types of identity. Thus, as I tried to show in the chapters about religion in this book, while for people who define themselves as “Pentecostals” the geographical border impinges less on their multiple border identities (as fathers, males, Mexicans, Northerners, poor people, and the like), for people who define themselves as “Catholics” the geographical border highly influences their other nonreligious social identities.5 Another example along the same line is the Juarenses who address themselves as “Fronterizas/os” in regional terms, versus El Pasoans who do not have such a regional adjective in their own vocabulary. C O N C LU S I O N S

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I also think that what my research does is to increase the complexity of one of Holstein and Gubrium’s most important theoretical sources. I am referring here to Sacks’ (1992) image of culture as an “inferencemaking machine” in practice. In this regard, my research is in line with Sack’s, because I show in my work how the categorization system most people share because they belong to the same culture or similar cultures (for instance, in terms of class, gender, age, nationality, and the like, most Mexicans and Americans have a very similar system of categories based on a shared Western culture) is nuanced, in its actual operation, by local elements that transform its effectivity (Holstein and Gubrium 2000, p. 91). However, as I have pointed out above, my research also shows how those already locally nuanced subject positions complexly condition each other in the process of constructing a locally coherent self. In addition, in the border situation, the continuous interaction with the culture of the “other” (which brings to the interactional process a set of categories some people do not share with others—for instance, in terms of regional and religious identities, many Mexicans and Americans do not share the same system of classification) complicates the process of identity construction even further, in the sense that people have to locally nuance a system of categories that they are barely aware of. Therefore, because I agree with Laclau’s formulation (1983, 1985, 1995) that social identity is a construction, the complex and negotiated product of hegemonic practices of articulation that provisionally fix the meaning of social identities by inscribing them in the differential system of a particular discourse, I think that on the border those discourses multiply and become intertwined to extremes that Sacks, Holstein and Gubrium, and Laclau can only dream of. As Sacks points out, the classification systems proposed by available discourses are articulated in practice, but the “practice” of border dwellers becomes a very complicated one—one in which “available discourses” multiply and present puzzles that are nonexistent in other, more institutionalized settings. This happens, for instance, when a Mexican man who is interpellated as a chilango (the Mexican regional category that addresses a man who is an inhabitant of Mexico City as a clever rascal) on the Mexican side is interpellated as a Mexican American as soon as he crosses the border, which transforms the person’s image into the opposite of what it was in Mexico. The person is no longer seen as being smart, arrogant, and sharp; on the contrary, many perceive him as being a person without ambition, because this is the image that repeatedly appears in many narratives in the United States linked to the category “Mexican.” B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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This is the reason why I don’t see many connections between my approach to understanding the identities the border culture promotes and the typical Mexican intellectual debate between “more” mexicanidad (Bustamante 1988; Lozano Rendón 1990, etc.) versus “less” mexicanidad (Monsiváis 1978, 1981; Rodríguez Sala 1985) on the U.S.-Mexico border. It is also the reason why the “border crosser” image promoted in American border studies is only one of the many possible identities I have found in the region. In the three books I have written about the border, I have tried to show how much more diverse the border situation is than the way it is usually portrayed in the American border studies approach or in Mexican debates about the border. That does not mean that we do not have a debate in the region about the degree of mexicanidad among Fronterizos/as, or how the border is an opportunity many people use to transcend limits and/or barriers. Of course, we have such debates on both the Mexican and American sides of the border, but such controversies are mediated by the different subject positions people identify with in the region, such as their religious identities (because being more Catholic is generally equated with being more Mexican), their gender identities (since being more machista is equated by many people with being more Mexican), their class identity (as being poor is usually equated with being Mexican), and the like. Many people construct the border as a genuine possibility for transcending limits, but at the same time it can be used to reinforce them. However, people either cross or reinforce those borders, not as paradigmatic border crossers or border reinforcers, but through the myriad different identities they perform in the region. In this regard, the narrated self I found on the border reflects, due to its complexity, the postmodern self that Holstein and Gubrium (2000, pp. 56 –57) talk about—a self that corresponds to a postmodern world that explodes with images and representations of who we are. Using this kind of imagery coming from the vocabulary of the “saturated self” (Gergen 1991), we can claim that on the border people live in an environment where there are too many identity messages about what kind of people they can be, too many self signifiers people can identify with. My problem with this formulation, however, is that I consider this “playground” to be not quite uniform, because not all the identity offers are equal. That is, not all of them have the same weight in the common sense of the region and thus their capability to “reach” and “conquer” people is uneven. Here is where the struggle for the meaning of the different subject positions (e.g., does one necessarily have to be a machista to be a real Mexican in gender terms? is Catholicism C O N C LU S I O N S

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intricately linked to the idea of Mexicanness? to be an American, do I have to be a frantic consumer?), the struggle over the hierarchy of those positions in the border setting (is my identification as a Fronteriza/o more important than mine as a Mexican?), and the struggle over the construction of the border itself come, situationally and provisionally, into play. Here is where Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek come onstage once more. In this regard, I have problems when Holstein and Gubrium (2000, p. 60) claim that postmodernity is “a life condition characterized by the consumption of myriad self signifiers, none of which is privileged over the other, but all of which are allegedly genuine, each competing for the self we can be.” I do believe that on the Ciudad Juárez–El Paso border that I studied during the time period of my study, the 1990s, there really were privileged signifiers. Some of these signifiers appeared to be, for commonsense appropriation, more genuine than others. In the course of my research, those signifiers were defined as the hegemonic interpellations, metaphors, and narrative plots that had conquered (provisionally and unevenly, because the battle for the closure of meaning was still open in many fronts) the common sense of the region.6 Obviously, I do not believe people are “trapped” by local interpellations, metaphors, and narrative plots. I believe that throughout my books I have presented a great enough variety of plots, metaphors, and interpellations to put to rest any concern in that regard. At the same time, I agree in principle but have similar reservations when Holstein and Gubrium (2000, p. 99) point out that [m]embers of particular settings selectively call upon, and make use of, the language games available to them to produce their subjectivities, but in the process they specify meanings locally and contingently. At the same time, the identities that members use, apply, and produce in the course of constructing who they are, are not conjured out of thin air. Culturally recognizable discourses come into play. We select from what’s available and tailor it to the interpretive task at hand.

Although in principle I agree with Holstein and Gubrium that we select from the language games that are available and tailor them to the interpretive tasks at hand, I still think that such local language games are not equally accessible and do not have the same power to successfully address people. Some of them are hegemonic, or at least have the upper hand in the struggle for the construction of hegemony. Consequently, they are much more locally available, have much more local prestige, and look much more locally genuine than others. B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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My second problem with Holstein and Gubrium’s formulation of the language games people selectively call upon is that we have to go a step further than Holstein and Gubrium’s otherwise splendid book to fully know what is behind such a process of “selection,” that is, why people select particular language games and not others. In Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, I advanced my own ideas in this regard, trying to go beyond the usual (teleological) answer “because they are hegemonic.” My provisional proposition (partially revised below in this book) was that particular narrative plots are sedimented enough in some people’s identity repertoires to function as a kind of “filter” regarding other, more localized, narrative identities, interpellations, and metaphors. The sedimented narrative plots, although not used as templates, still have the power to actively participate in the selective process of meaning construction. They (provisionally and contingently) guide people in their (at least initial) usage of social categories, tropes, and more circumscribed narratives.7 Here I am trying to detail (using narrative theory to complicate Laclau’s argument) what the specificities of complex settings like the U.S.-Mexico border are. I especially agree with Laclau’s (2000, pp. 70 –71) formulation, that [t]here is, certainly, an anchoring role played by certain privileged discursive elements—that is what the notion of point de capiton or “Master-Signifier” involves . . . the fact that in some political contexts [“Mexican”8] can operate as a Master-Signifier organizing a whole set of discursive positions does not mean that [Mexican] has an ultimate signified independent of all discursive articulation. It functions, rather, as a pure signifier, in the sense that its signifying function would depend on its position within a signifying chain—a position which will be determined partly through “meaningful” associations [Mexican with poverty versus Mexican with hard work for instance] . . . and partly through verbal bridges . . . The relatively stable set of all these positions is what constitutes a “hegemonic formation.”

According to Laclau and Mouffe (1985, 1987), every discourse tries to dominate the field of discursivity by expanding signifying chains that partially fix the meaning of floating signifiers. “The privileged discursive points that partially fix meaning within signifying chains are called nodal points or, in Lacan, points of capiton (literally: quilting points). The nodal point creates and sustains the identity of a certain discourse by constructing a knot of definite meanings” (Torfing 1999, p. 98). The nodal points are in charge of the process of articulation that characterizes a particular discursive formation that struggles for hegemony. C O N C LU S I O N S

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As I have mentioned several times in this work, I firmly believe that the narrative plots people are accustomed to using perform a very important function in any process of identification. I have also advanced several times my contention that particular narrative plots are hegemonic on the U.S.-Mexico border. Therefore, the question to ask here is, What is the relationship between nodal points, floating signifiers, happenings, events, and narrative plots? The relationship, as usual, is a very complex one. First of all, a narrative is a discourse in itself. As such, its construction follows all the steps Laclau and Mouffe have identified with discourses in general. That is, in any narrative a certain privileged discursive element (the master signifier, nodal point, or point de capiton) plays an anchoring role that retroactively articulates the meaning of a variety of floating signifiers. Let’s consider one of the narratives I discuss in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders as a way to illustrate what I am talking about. In one interview with a group of female immigrants in El Paso, one of the interviewees tells us the following story: Norma: A girl who lives here in the alley once got in a fight with a guy. She has a little boy and the guy has another little boy. They were there on the park slides. So, the guy goes over and gets the girl’s little boy so that his kid can get on and he tells him, “Get out of here, scoot aside so my kid can get on.” And she asked him, “Why are you taking him off?” He said, “You know what? This park belongs to those of us from here. You’re from Juárez; you don’t have anything to do here in the park.” She said, “You know what? If I live here, all what I eat I pay for it . . . it’s at a dear price, but not for you. The government supports you and your brat. I pay taxes, I pay everything and you pay for nothing.” And it’s true because everyone here has this many kids and food stamps for all of them! Look, they’ve never been able to give me any because I have this pittance of a house. My husband works. My husband’s sixty-seven years old and he still works and I work and that’s why they don’t give us any. And I tell him, “You should quit working now. You are elderly, and can no longer work.” I say to him, “There are many young people and they are resting in the park,” and I say to him, “They are the ones that the government is helping and maintaining, people who are strong, and people like us who give more and more to the government are the ones who have more taken away through taxes.” Listen, why is it that way?

This is a complete narrative with plot, characters, a sequence (a beginning, middle, and end), and a moral stance about what is being told. At B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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the same time, it is discourse with a nodal point that articulates a series of floating signifiers. As a particular discourse, it has implicit another possible discourse rendered by the “bad guy” of the story. In Norma’s (and her absent friend’s) discourse, the nodal point that quilts the floating signifiers is the idea that rights come when people work. Out of this nodal point the floating signifiers “taxes,” “government,” “here,” “Mexican,” and the like acquire a particular meaning: some people generate taxes by their work but are not able to get services from those taxes; some people do not work but still get services from the taxes paid by others; the government is not fair in the way it taxes and distributes the services that come from those taxes; “here” is where I live, work, and pay taxes; a Mexican is any person of Mexican heritage, regardless of nationality, etc. In the discourse of the “bad Mexican American guy,” the nodal point that retroactively gives a totally different identity to the same floating signifiers is the idea that rights come with citizenship. Out of this nodal point the same floating signifiers quilted by Norma’s discourse mean different things: some people deserve to receive governmental services from taxes (regardless of who pays them) because they are citizens of that country; the government is fair in the way it uses taxes, because it protects its citizens; “here” is where you are born and the country you are a citizen of by nativity; a Mexican is a person who was born in Mexico, regardless of ethnicity, etc. However, when we analyze the same discourse as a complete narrative, our inquiry has to change gears. This is so because the discursive formation is introduced into the narrative through the actions of particular characters (as recounted by the plot). In the narrative we are analyzing here, those actors are the “hero” (Norma’s friend, who is portrayed as the hard-working Mexican immigrant who cannot rely on welfare due to her immigration status) and the “bad guy” (the lazy Mexican American who doesn’t want to work and relies on government assistance). As soon as we move, with the introduction of actors, from a general discourse to a personal narrative, we have to concentrate our analysis on narrative plots (instead of nodal points) and happenings transformed into events (instead of floating signifiers being conferred a particular identity by the articulatory power of the master signifier).9 Therefore, confronted with the physical aggression of the Mexican American guy, Norma’s friend has to construct a story to understand what is going on and establish a system of reciprocities. That she constructs a story in ethnic/national terms is, of course, not mandatory. She C O N C LU S I O N S

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could have easily constructed a different story in terms of gender, for example, using some kind of feminist discourse (also available in the region) that stresses that “all men” are authoritarian, regardless of nationality and ethnicity. A religious story could have been possible as well, one that could have claimed that “real Christians” don’t behave that way. Theoretically, the possibilities of framing the event into a story are endless. However, she decides to frame the story in ethnic/national terms instead, showing that for some people such stories are particularly endorsed on the U.S.-Mexico border. That is, when Mexican interviewees like Norma have a confrontation with Mexican Americans, the national/ethnic narrative plot seems to be preferred to other possible discursive formations for both types of actors. The fact that she frames her story in ethnic/national terms rather than using a gender or a religious discourse also shows that, in certain situations, the different discursive formations that struggle for hegemony in a particular setting are locally defined and win the battle for meaning at a different level than Laclau and Mouffe claim. My point here is that both the selection of an ethnic/national discourse and the selection of the discursive formation that articulates the floating signifiers “taxes,” “government,” “here,” “Mexican,” etc., through the nodal point that claims that rights come when people work, are introduced into Norma’s narrative through the mediation of a narrative plot that “constructs” a particular kind of character (the hardworking Mexican immigrant) that “asks” for those specific discursive formations instead of others to support its existence. In short, what creates the identity of a particular discursive formation is, as Laclau and Mouffe claim, the articulatory power of the master signifier or nodal point, but what creates the identity of the social actor is the narrative plot of the story being told. The nodal points, retrospectively, give a particular identity to the floating signifiers. The narrative plot, however, creates the characters of the story and transforms happenings into meaningful events. The discursive formation that relates rights to work helps Norma and her friend to buttress a particular character in their story—a character that they have displayed innumerable times before—and tends to filter their further encounter with any new reality (interpellations, nodal points, and entire discursive formations included). That character, as I mentioned above, is the hard-working Mexican immigrant who is not entitled to receive welfare because of lack of citizenship and who must work hard for everything that she or he gets. Such a character has as its “other” the supposedly lazy Mexican American who does not like to work and who depends on the American welfare system to which he or she is entitled because of nationality. These are the different characters B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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who in the story “ask” for the very different discursive formations I refer to above. At the same time, the transformation of happenings into events by the narrative plot not only requires the quilting of floating signifiers by a master signifier, but also heavily biases Norma and her friend’s perceptions of the actual occurrence. Once more, we have to change the level of analysis to understand how discursive formations “win” the battle for common sense in a particular setting; we must shift from Laclau’s and Mouffe’s preoccupation with discursive formations in general to the workings of particular narrative plots. Norma and her friend have to presuppose many things in order to construct a coherent story out of the factual occurrence. They have to be very observant regarding some things and totally blind regarding others. For instance, how do they know that the Mexican American does not work and relies on welfare? It could be the case that the guy is a highly skilled worker who is on vacation and is taking advantage of his free time by being with his son. Is there any mention in the story of the time the guy waited to seat his kid on the slide? If the guy had waited there for five minutes, that’s one thing, but if he had waited there for more than three hours for Norma’s friend’s kid to get off, that is a completely different story! We don’t learn any of these details because of the particular narrative that is being constructed. That is precisely the selective power of the narrative plot. In this regard, transforming happenings into events through the biasing process of using a narrative plot to account for an occurrence severely limits the floating signifiers that the nodal point has to quilt. In limiting the floating signifiers, the narrative plot performs a very important task: it helps the master signifier to more easily do its quilting job. Here again we have modified the now familiar argument of the narrative plot behind the construction of the story, the construction of the characters, and the selection of interpellations (Juarense, Mexican American, kids, etc.) and metaphors. This was my claim in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. Here I want to add something else. After writing this second book, I not only think that the narrative plot (through the construction of the characters at play) is behind the selection of particular interpellations and metaphors that buttress the story being told, but I also think that the narrative plot is behind the selection of the entire discursive formation that will perform the same supportive task. That is, the character developed by the narrative “asks” for particular discursive formations to buttress its own coherent construction. Norma’s friend, for example, “asks” for a very particular discursive formation (one that is based on the idea that rights come when people work) to support a C O N C LU S I O N S

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very well developed character (that of a “hard working Mexican immigrant who is not entitled to receive welfare because of her nationality and who has to work hard to get every thing she gets”). In short, what I am advancing here is the idea that the function that at the level of the discursive formation is played by master signifiers, nodal points, or points de capiton, is played by the narrative plot at the level of the construction of stories and characters by particular social actors. That is, the function of “quilting” the nodal point performs at the level of the discourses-in-practice is performed by the narrative plot at the level of discursive practice. Let’s consider the following example of “ideological quilting” offered by Zizek (1989, p. 102): “[I]n the ideological space float signifiers like ‘freedom,’ ‘state,’ ‘justice,’ ‘peace’ . . . and then their chain is supplemented with some master-signifier (‘Communism’) which retroactively determines their (Communist) meaning . . .” A very similar process of quilting occurs when a plot is used to retroactively transform happenings into meaningful (from the point of view of the plot and the character created by that plot) events. The happenings have always been out there, but they only become “meaningful events” when they are incorporated into a particular narrative, when they are organized by a particular plot. The same happenings would have been emplotted differently (or not emplotted at all) by a different narrative plot. In sum, the narrative plot performs at the level of discursive practice the same articulatory function the master signifier performs at the level of discourses-in-practice. Nevertheless, the narrative plot has still another connection with the articulatory function of the nodal point. That is, not only certain narrative plots have the upper hand in the struggle for common sense in a particular setting and organize people’s construction of meaning locally, but also the sedimented narrative plots of local people work as a sieve in relation to the different discursive formations organized by particular nodal points. I have already mentioned how the narrative plot “helps” the master signifier reduce (through the biasing power it exerts regarding perception) the number of floating signifiers the former has to quilt. However, I also believe that for the person who is using it, the selective character of the narrative plot has the power of, among other things, allowing or not allowing master signifiers to perform their task of unifying a certain discursive field. That is, a particular master signifier (“Communism” in Zizek’s example) cannot work as the nodal point that partially unifies a particular discursive field if the narrative plot of the actor who is confronted with this particular discursive formation does B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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not allow it to perform such a role or, more probably, if it only allows it to perform such a role with some floating signifiers but not others. In this sense, I think that narrative plots have the potential to “dismantle” discursive formation through the mechanism of not allowing the articulatory process to proceed any further. That occurs, for instance, when the narrative plot of the imaginary social actor in Zizek’s account cannot “quilt” the floating signifier (let’s say, “freedom” or “consumption”) to the master signifier “Communism.” In other words, while the nodal point confers meaning to a vast array of floating signifiers in general, in particular (i.e., in the case of the person who is using that discursive formation to buttress her or his identity claims), the narrative plot, first, somehow “decides” which of those floating signifiers will finally be quilted into the discursive formation and which ones will not, and, second, also has a say in the “quality” or “strength” of the quilting. In real situations, the interaction between master signifiers, floating signifiers, and narrative plots is therefore very complex. The interaction between the narrative plot and the discursive formation being offered can lead to two (highly improvable) extreme outcomes: total acceptance or total rejection of the discourse that is struggling for hegemony, that is, total acceptance or total rejection of the “quilting” performed by the nodal point. More often than not, what occurs is that, for a particular social actor, “some” of the floating signifiers cannot be quilted by the nodal point because of the sievelike character of the narrative plot that the actor is situationally using, while others can be easily quilted. The number of floating signifiers that a particular narrative plot allows to be quilted, together with the “quality” of the quilting (some master signifiers can be much more successful in quilting than others), will determine the quality of the acceptance of the discursive formation by a particular social actor. Therefore, any discursive formation that wants to struggle for hegemony has to do so on the field of the different stories people construct to understand who they are. Of course, such stories are partially the product of previous quiltings and former discursive formations—those formations that have crystallized in particular stories but that are themselves the sediment of other stories. I think that on some occasions the nodal point that quilts particular floating signifiers into a coherent discursive formation coincides with the narrative plot a particular social actor uses to transform happenings into events. Even in this case, however, the narrative plot has the power to decide which nodal point will be central and which one secondary in the construction of the character in the story. That most of the people I interviewed on the border C O N C LU S I O N S

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used the nodal points that organize meaning and identity in terms of region, ethnicity, race, and nation as their central narrative plots was the reason why I started my ethnographic account in the first book of the series by following those narrative plots. Many people of the region organized their religious, gender, and class identities around the master signifiers region, ethnicity, race, and nation, and that is the reason why this second book deals with these subject positions. At other times, however, the narrative plot functions as an important mediator between many different discursive formations (not only those organized around the master signifiers region, ethnicity, race, nation, religion, gender, and class) that struggle for hegemony and the different identifications people are capable of. In my own study, many interviewees mediated available discourses through their narrative plots, as did Norma and her friend. Other interviewees instead used particular nodal points—above all, the idea that poverty is Mexican only—as their straightforward narrative plot. In the latter cases, the “Mexican equals poverty” nodal point, for instance, actualized through the connotations the category “Mexican” has for many people on the border and through the use of a variety of metaphors concerning Mexicans, is playing both the anchoring role that Laclau claims certain privileged discursive elements play at times and the organizing role that narrative plots perform in transforming happenings into events. Therefore, my claim is that on the Ciudad Juárez–El Paso border, the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot anchors a stable set of positions in a particular discursive formation that, in the 1990s, was hegemonic within the region. At the same time, however, that hegemonic formation was always already threatened by alternative border discourses (with alternative master signifiers and/or articulations, i.e., with different interpellations and metaphors) and fundamentally different narrative plots that tried to open up again what the system of equivalences based on “all poverty is Mexican” tried to fix forever (Laclau 2000, p. 71). For all these reasons, I think that the theoretical framework advanced by people like Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek, when mediated by narrative theory, is critical for improving upon some of the issues Holstein and Gubrium cannot address, given their mostly Foucaultian theoretical approach. As Torfing (1999, p. 42, emphasis added) points out: “The starting point of any analysis of political subjectivity is difference. Identity is a result of the hegemonization of a field of differential subject positions, rather than an embodiment of a pregiven, paradigmatic interest under which a whole lot of other interests and identities can be subsumed.” B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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This statement is crucial in understanding the findings of my research. I understand the different border identities I have found in the region as being provisional points of identification that are the product of hegemonic practices which struggled and won (at least for the time being) the battle for closure of meaning in particular going concerns. In this regard, the regional (Southern Mexican, Northern Mexican, Fronterizo/a, Juarense, El Pasoan, Texan), ethnic (Mexican, Mexican American, Chicano, Hispanic, Latino), racial (Anglo, Black), and national (Mexican, American) systems of identitarian categories I analyzed in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders are not linked in any way to Torfing’s “pregiven, paradigmatic interest under which a whole lot of other interests and identities can be subsumed.” On the contrary, they are pure, empty signifiers that function as nodal points in diverse discursive formations constructed through the struggle over, among other things, a meaningful way to divide regions, nations, races, and ethnicities. The pivotal identity categories I introduce in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders are nothing more than the product of the hegemonization of a field of differential subject positions of the type that Laclau refers to. Through a different process of quilting they can eventually construct other kinds of discursive formations. Ultimately, the signifiers “region,” “nation,” “race,” and “ethnicity” can lose their status as master signifiers, be transformed into floating signifiers, and be hegemonized by other articulatory principles that construct them differently and develop a different system of categories within them (or make them disappear altogether). For the time being, however, these nodal points articulate many of the other identity categories of the region, such as religion, gender, and class. As I point out in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, signifiers such as “region” are very important nodal points in the Mexican discursive context. As a pure signifier, “region” does not have any clear geographical anchor, and different people understand “region” differently. According to Zizek (1989), master signifiers of this kind are empty, pure signifiers without the signified. “As such, nodal points like ‘God,’ ‘Nation,’ ‘Party,’ or ‘Class’ are not characterized by a supreme density of meaning, but rather by a certain emptying of their contents, which facilitates their structural role of unifying a discursive terrain” (Torfing 1999, pp. 98 –99). As Zizek points out (1989, p. 99): This then is the fundamental paradox of the point de capiton: the “rigid designator,” which totalizes an ideology by bringing to a halt the metonymic sliding of its signified, is not a point of supreme density of Meaning, a kind C O N C LU S I O N S

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of Guarantee which, by being itself excepted from the differential interplay of elements, would serve as a stable and fixed point of reference. On the contrary, it is the element which represents the agency of the signifier within the field of the signified. In itself it is nothing but a “pure difference”: its role is purely structural, its nature is purely performative—its signification coincides with its own act of enunciation; in short, it is a “signifier without the signified.”

This is the way “region” works in Juárez. However, as a nodal point that works as an empty signifier whose task is the articulation of different floating signifiers that acquire their identity retrospectively after such process is completed, “region” on the border does not coincide with a fixed geographical area. Instead, it marks a symbolically understood space that can be as large or as small as the speaker requires. In my sample, for instance, for some Mexican interviewees “region” meant “Northern, Central, and Southern Mexico” (although they did not agree about the precise limits of those areas), but for others it meant “the border” or, even more circumscribed, “Ciudad Juárez.” However, for some of the people I interviewed, “the South” starts only fifteen miles south of Juárez, and anyone who lives south of that point is a chilango—the highly stigmatized inhabitant of Mexico City, a city located a thousand kilometers south of the border! What we have here is (1) a discursive formation that has been victorious in advancing “region” as a nodal point around which a meaningful identity can be constructed on the border; (2) a discourse that has been successful in proposing a particular set of categories that are viewed as rightfully deploying the possible identities linked to that master signifier, that is, a discourse that proposes certain specific interpellations (sureños, chilangos, norteños, etc.); (3) a discourse that is prosperous in advancing a system of equivalences between the categories of the system and certain “characteristics” of the people who occupy those positions (Southern Mexicans are lazy, female Juarenses are prostitutes, etc.); and (4) a discourse that does not have a particular “owner” but is used by a variety of Mexican actors, not just Juarenses, to make sense of their particular identities. Finally, it is a discourse that, among Northerners and Fronterizas/os, is open to contestation around the topic of who “belongs” to the nonstigmatized, stigmatizing category of “Northerner” or “Fronterizo/a.” All of this is possible because, as Laclau (2000, p. 66) points out, “The non-transparence of the representative to the represented, the irreducible autonomy of the signifier vis-à-vis the signified, is the condition of a hegemony which structures B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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the social from its very ground and is not the epiphenomenal expression of a transcendental signified which would submit the signifier to its own predetermined movements.” This discussion of the irreducible autonomy of the signifier vis-à-vis the signified and how it is the very condition of any hegemonic process introduces us to another important contribution that Laclau and Mouffe have made to an understanding of the processes of identity construction. The discursive identities are inscribed both in signifying chains that stress their differential value, and in signifying chains that emphasize their equivalence. The tension between differential and equivalential aspects of discursive identities is unresolvable, but political struggles may succeed in emphasizing one of the two aspects. Emphasis on the equivalential aspect by the expansion of chains of equivalence will tend to simplify the social and political space by delimiting the play of difference. The collapse of difference into equivalence will tend to involve a loss of meaning since meaning is intrinsically linked to the differential character of identity . . . the expansion of chains of equivalence is always related to the construction of a constitutive outside. (Torfing 1999, p. 97)

In the case of the border, how this tension works can easily be illustrated by taking a look at how the regional identity works in the area. Thus, a “Fronterizo” identity in Juárez is constructed in a signifying chain that emphasizes its equivalence to other situations in which Mexico and the United States meet (Tijuana–San Diego; Juárez–El Paso; Piedras Negras–Eagle Pass; Matamoros-Brownsville, etc.). Such an identity is also inscribed in a signifying chain that stresses its differential value regarding both other types of identities (such as national ones) and other, different border encounters (the Ciudad Juárez–El Paso border encounter is different, for instance, from the Tijuana–San Diego–Los Angeles one). In the case of the Ciudad Juárez–El Paso area, it seems that there has not yet been a hegemonic project that, through political struggle, has been able to emphasize one of the two aspects. Consequently, many Juarenses use both equivalence and difference in the construction of their identities. At the same time, and showing how important Holstein and Gubrium’s proposition about the local use of the classification system provided by a particular culture is, the category “Fronterizo/a,” first, exists only on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border (Americans do not have an equivalent category), and second, barely exists on the Guatemala-Mexico frontier. Here is where Laclau’s proposition of the C O N C LU S I O N S

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tension between the logic of equivalence and the logic of difference requires the complexity provided by the “discourses-in-practice/discursive practice” approach advocated by Holstein and Gubrium. The same process of articulation, partial closing of meaning, and the like occurs with any of the other master signifiers/nodal points I analyze in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. Of course, some of those discursive formations seem much more “closed” than others (the discourse constructed around the nodal point “nation” would be the example here). This only illustrates, not only that the discourse of “nation” is much more hegemonic than that of “region,” but also that the system of classification derived from such a discourse has many more kinds of “material sedimentation” than the former (physical frontiers, constitutions, armed forces, flags, hymns, and the like). In this regard, the nodal point “ethnicity” is closer to “region” than to “nation.” However, all of these nodal points, regardless of their rigidity, play the same articulatory role. The relation of mutual negation and substitution between a series of signifieds that, one after the other, are attached to the same signifier is captured by Lacan’s notion of the sliding of the signifieds under the signifier. The incessant sliding of the signifieds can only be arrested by the intervention of a hegemonic force capable of fixing the meanings of the floating signifier in relation to a greater number of social signifiers organized around a nodal point. (Torfing 1999, p. 62)

In relation to the identifications I deal with in this book, Border Identifications, the process of articulation and closing of meaning functions similarly. On one hand, on the border religion, gender, and class function as floating signifiers that in many of the narratives of the people I interviewed are articulated by a few very widespread master signifiers working in the area, that is, region, ethnicity, race, and nationality. On the other hand, religion, gender, and class also function as nodal points in relation to other kinds of floating signifiers. In this regard, the religious, gender, and class identities organized around those signifiers are also the result of the hegemonization of a field of differential subject positions (Catholic, Protestant, etc.; male, female; poor, rich, middle class). However, in this particular case, we have much more “sliding of the signifieds under the signifier” for religious and class identities than for gender identities. As Laclau and Mouffe (1985) point out, subject positions are not totally dispersed but, instead, are articulated into relatively consolidated ensembles through hegemonic struggles. It is precisely for that reason B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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that in the first book of the series, Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, I start with the identifications that I think are the ones that offer an “anchor” to construct the ensembles Laclau and Mouffe talk about: region, ethnicity, race, and nation on the Ciudad Juárez–El Paso border. In this second book, I examine how particular identities (religion, gender, and class) follow a regional, ethnic, and national logic in the construction of a system of categories that differentiate the diverse subject positions people identify with. I also, however, analyze why some particular identities—those organized around Pentecostalism, for instance—do not “accept” the grounding offered by the hegemonic anchors of the region. We have to remember that for Laclau and Mouffe hegemony is the articulatory practice that institutes nodal points that partially fix the meaning of the social in an organized system of differences. If this is so, “[t]he discursive system articulated by a hegemonic project is delimited by specific political frontiers resulting from the expansion of chains of equivalence” (Torfing 1999, p. 109). This is precisely the reason I have focused in both Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders and this book on hegemonic discourses (in relation to discourses-in-practice) and hegemonic narratives or plots (regarding discursive practice), because those are the ones that, for the time being and in the case of the Ciudad Juárez–El Paso border, close meaning through the establishment of particular chains of equivalence. The most important nodal points I have encountered on the Mexican side of the border are region and nation, where diverse narrative plots point out that Southern Mexicans are lazy, religiously backward, and more traditional in terms of gender behavior; Fronterizas/os supposedly are more work oriented and more modern in terms of religion and gender; Mexicans would be more family oriented, more religious, and less obsessed with work than Americans; Americans supposedly are more liberal in gender terms, less religious, and obsessed with work. On the American side, ethnicity/race and nation seem to play the role (at least for the people I have interviewed) of the nodal points that organize specific chains of equivalence. In both countries, as my examples above show, other possible identifications, such as religion, gender, and class, are articulated around those nodal points. Once again, because hegemony is never complete, I also show in this book how some religious discourses—more prominently the ones used by Mexican Pentecostals—do not accept the hegemonic articulatory process of region, nation, and ethnicity but construct their validity using different nodal points coming from a completely different articulatory principle. C O N C LU S I O N S

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At this point, I want to make it absolutely clear that I do not claim Holstein and Gubrium are unaware of the local underpinnings at work in the process of identification. They are aware, and as a matter of fact this awareness is the basis of one of their most important theoretical contributions: If [according to Foucault] . . . the discourses of particular sites and institutions establish conceptual limits for storytelling, the local and the particular continually insinuate themselves to construct diversity and difference in the stories that emerge. In practice, the technology of self construction extends beyond the institutional apparatuses that designate subjectivities into the integral everyday interpretive work done to locally construct who and what we are. (Holstein and Gubrium 2000, p. 104)

My formulation differs from Holstein and Gubrium’s in that for me the “everyday interpretive work done to locally construct who and what we are” is also traversed by local hegemonic struggles over the meaning of such practices. In that regard, the “interpretive work” is not only local but also (and more important) contested, and what the researcher finds in the field as “everyday interpretive practices” are the provisional outcome of a struggle to fix meaning, in this particular case, the meaning of a practice called “locally constructing identity.” Therefore, what I still yearn for in Holstein and Gubrium’s conceptual apparatus is a vocabulary of struggle and violence to address the ruthless process of meaning closure. We need, once more, to bring back Laclau, above all his claim that undecidability precludes the definitive suturing of any structure and that therefore subjectivity can only be formed through acts of identification: [The structure] is not fully reconciled with itself . . it is inhabited by an original lack, by a radical undecidability that needs to be constantly superseded by acts of decision. These acts are, precisely, what constitute the subject, who can only exist as a will transcending the structure. Because this will has no place of constitution external to the structure but is the result of the failure of the structure to constitute itself, it can be formed only through acts of identification. If I need to identify with something it is because I do not have a full identity in the first place. (Laclau 1993, pp. 284 –285)

What is the relationship between this manner of understanding acts of identification (i.e., as the way the subject tries to accomplish the impossible task of having an identity) and the pervasive presence of power and violence in local practices of self-construction? The relationship comes easily when, at the level of the discursive formation, we relate B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

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those acts of identification with the hegemonic articulations that allow them to take effect; that is, all identifications are contingent upon the processes of hegemonic articulation that are behind their appearance. It is precisely here where we can claim, following Torfing (1999, p. 120), that “[h]egemonic articulation ultimately involves some element of force and repression. It involves the negation of identity in the double sense of the negation of alternative meanings and options and the negation of those people who identify themselves with these meanings and options. The negation of identity tends to give rise to social antagonism.” In this sense, I think that not only are Holstein and Gubrium’s “discourses-in-practice” (hegemonic discourses in my jargon) the product of a violent closure of meaning and negation of alternative possible identifications, but also the “discursive practice” they promote is ripped by symbolic violence as well. The ethnomethodologies used by people to locally construct meaning are also traversed by struggle. What ethnomethodologists usually find and investigate are the victorious methodologies, not the ones that have lost the battle for meaning construction. Further, if at the level of the discursive formation any hegemonic articulation always involves some element of force and repression—that is, if it involves the negation of alternative meanings and options—at the level of people’s personal stories the narrative plot performs a very similar function, that is, it selectively transforms happenings into events, repressing some happenings that never become emplotted into the narrative. Another way in which my work departs from what Holstein and Gubrium propose is in my different emphasis on the concept of “setting.” While “[i]nstitutional settings of all sorts provide the narrative auspices under which selves come to be articulated in distinctive ways, deploying the storytelling mandates and constraints that characterize a particular going concern” (Holstein and Gubrium 2000, p. 104; see also Linde 1993), I am much more interested in the border culture as a setting (with its own “narrative auspices” and “coherent structures”) than institutions as settings (Holstein and Gubrium’s main interest).10 Therefore, in the particular case of my fieldwork on the border, I think that the idea of “going concerns” also applies, for instance, to being a female living in a city (Ciudad Juárez) with a very well articulated discourse of rampant prostitution, being an upper-middle-class Mexican living in a city (El Paso) with a very developed identity plot that claims that “poverty means Mexican,” and the like. We are talking here about local hegemonic discourses and interpellations that are the product of struggles over meanings played locally. I think that this last possibility C O N C LU S I O N S

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is only partially addressed by Holstein and Gubrium (2000, p. 105) when they claim: While we tend to focus on the formal organizational or professional auspices of storytelling . . . , self construction also orients broadly to the interpretive mandates, controls, and constraints of group membership more generally . . . membership in racial, ethnic, or gendered groups carries with it distinctive auspices that some call “standpoints,” which significantly shape storytelling . . . Along with membership in such social categories come the identity implications of being embedded in particular relationships for which the categories are practically consequential . . . race, class, and gender are deep reservoirs of self-construction resources comprising influential conditions for self-narration.

I added the qualification that they “only partially addressed [local and/ or regional going concerns, hegemonic discourses, and interpellations]” in my endorsement of their point above because I think the “going concern” and the “interpretive mandates, controls, and constraints” go well beyond either institutions or group membership. For instance, going back to my previous example, I think that the mandates, controls, and constraints on the storytelling practices of my emblematic woman from Juárez come, not only from the repository of possible gender identities linked to available gender discourses, but also, and perhaps more important, from the repository of possible border identities linked to available border discourses. All that being said, I agree with Holstein and Gubrium (2000, p. 167) that self construction is a complex process that responds to multiple “layers” of interpretive constraint and narrative resources. While discursive practice is always local, those contingencies that are brought to bear at any particular place and time coalesce from a vast array of possibilities, including those taken from broader cultural understandings such as might be drawn from race, gender, class, and myriad other configurations of meaning. This, of course, invites narrative slippage and innovation, as stories are locally crafted from a variegated range of standpoints and resources.

The different variety of discourses that struggle to close meaning around the going concern of “living on the border” and the practice of how to “locally construct identity” complexly intertwine with broader (regional, national, and international) cultural understandings (also in conflict among themselves) of the particular subject positions organized around

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signifiers such as race, ethnicity, region, gender, class, age, religion, and the like. To summarize my argument, I truly think that to fully understand the complexity of people’s identifications on the U.S.-Mexico border, we not only have to combine the approaches of Holstein and Gubrium with those of Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek, but we also have to extend both to take into account what I propose about the relationship between narratives, interpellations, and metaphors and how some narrative plots are crystallized enough in some people’s identity repertoires to function as a kind of “filter” regarding other, more localized narrative identities, interpellations, and metaphors. We also have to consider the mediating role played by the narrative plot in relation to the workings of particular nodal points, that is, how the different locally available discursive formations are introduced into people’s narratives through the actions (as accounted for by the plot) of particular characters. Thus, what Holstein and Gubrium (2000, pp. 176 –177) propose— that is, to combine “discourses-in-practice” with “discursive practice” to fully make sense of the process of construction of the self—is, with the modifications proposed above, very appropriate for my endeavor on the border: The intersection of discursive practice and discourses-in-practice is the operating space within which self construction takes place. How the self can be storied, the means by which self construction is interactionally accomplished, what types of stories are locally preferred or most accountable, the dimensions of self that are locally salient, and what language of the self is situationally employed simultaneously converge in interpretive practice to articulate and form our identities.

Throughout Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders and Border Identifications I try to show precisely the different ways the self can be storied on the border between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. I pay particular attention to the types of stories that are locally preferred and performed, and I have termed them the hegemonic narrative plots of the region: “all poverty is Mexican,” “all social problems of Juárez are due to the immigration from Southern Mexico,” “Mexican Americans are becoming Americanized,” and the like. Within these stories, interpellations and metaphors occupy center stage in my analysis: Southerners, Fronterizos/as, Northerners, chilangos, pochos, gabachos, gringos, “sister cities,” “First World against Third World,” and so forth. The dimensions of the self that were locally salient are also addressed: the regionalized

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character of gender and religion, the ethnicization and nationalization of class differences, and the like. All this is done taking into account that all social relations are, among other things, power relations. As Torfing (1999, p. 161) points out, “Dislocation reveals the undecidability of the social—an undecidability that calls for an ethico-political decision, which necessarily involves the exclusion of a constitutive outside. The act of exclusion is an act of power.” Thus, according to Laclau (1990, p.32), power constitutes social identity in an act of exclusion, and the persistent repression of what is banned is the condition of possibility of the essence of the social identity in question. Going back to the idea of the “constitutive outside,” Mouffe (1996, p. 247) also claims that such outside is the possibility of any identity as a construction done through an act of power (see also Mouffe 1985, 1988). “As the constitutive outside is present within the inside as its always real possibility, the constructed identity is revealed as a purely contingent identity” (Torfing 1999, p. 161). In this regard, any social relation is involved in a number of power relations and contingency penetrates the very heart of the social (Laclau 1990, p. 31). Therefore, the struggle for meaning we found on the border can be, because of the peculiar characteristics of the setting, a little more complex than others, but such a struggle is characteristic of any setting in which processes of identification take place.

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Introduction

1. A brief note on nomenclature is important here. Following Riessman (1993, p. 18), I am aware that not all narratives in interviews are stories in the linguistic sense of the term: Individuals relate experiences using a variety of narrative genres . . . When we hear stories, for instance, we expect protagonists, inciting conditions, and culminating events. But not all narratives (or all lives) take this form. Some other genres include habitual narratives (when events happen over and over and consequently there is no peak in the action), hypothetical narratives (which depict events that did not happen), and topic-centered narratives (snapshots of past events that are linked thematically).

In Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders and the present book I have shown a variety of these different types of narratives. 2. A brief disclaimer is pertinent here: I do not pretend to anthropomorphize narratives, i.e., I am not giving them an agency that, implicitly, I am taking away from social actors. Social actors have the capacity, within certain limits, of choosing among a variety of conflictive narratives and nothing is mandatory about choosing one or another. I want to thank Eduardo Barrera for making me aware of this issue. 3. I am referring here to the (for the time being) subordinated position of certain signs with respect to master signifiers or nodal points. Eduardo Barrera (personal communication, December 6, 2002) prefers to call them “peripheral, subordinated or satellite signifiers.”

1. Catholicism and Mexicanness on the U.S.-Mexico Border

1. Interestingly enough the relationship between Catholicism and the Chicano movement is also emphasized and popularly constructed around the Virgin of Guadalupe. However, we have to remember here that two out of the four most important Chicano leaders in the 1960s (Rodolfo “Corky” González, a member of the Presbyterian Church, and Reies López Tijerina, a Pentecostal minister—the other two being César Chávez and Miguel Angel Gutiérrez) were Protestants (Sylvest 1991, p. 127). 2. These are census figures. Most people agree that the Mexican Census tends to underestimate the general population; therefore, the total number of Protestants, according to some people, should be much higher. According to Bowen (1996, p. 61): “In 1993 the most commonly cited figure, put out by the Foro Nacional de Iglesias Cristianas Evangélicas, put Evangelicals

NOTES

at 16 million, or 17.5 per cent of the total population.” However, as Bowen points out, this figure seems a little bit exaggerated. 3. As we will see more in depth in the next chapter, the difference between religion and faith can also be understood as the difference between metaphoric and metonymic religious thinking. The latter is characteristic of charismatic Christians like our Pentecostal interviewees, for whom experiences become signs that express the concerns and activities in the individual’s life in the Holy Spirit (Poewe 1989). 4. For an explanation of such a lack, see Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000a, 2000b. 5. That Catholicism among Hispanics remained a popular religion outside the institutional channels of the American Catholic Church was compounded, according to Olson (1987, pp. 166 –167), by the lack of attention the Catholic hierarchy dedicated to Hispanics. For instance, not until 1970, when Father Patricio Flores was ordained auxiliary bishop of San Antonio, was there a Hispanic bishop in the United States. 6. According to Elizondo (1994, p. 120): The Catholicism of the United States and the Catholicism of Mexico accept the same creed, ecclesiology, sacraments, commandments and official prayer. But the ways these are interpreted, imaged, and lived are quite different . . . The written and spoken alphabetic-word (dogmas, doctrines and papal documents) are most important in U.S. Catholicism while the ritual and devotional image-word have been the mainstay of Mexican Catholicism. The United States has been parishcentered while the Mexican Church has been home, town and shrine centered.

7. It seems that most current research on the matter is much more sensitive in addressing issues of internal national and ethnic conflict between people who are usually considered “the same” (Hispanics, Mexican Americans, and the like) than was the case in the past. Thus, in ethnographic work done on Hispanic religious practices in the United States in the early 2000s, the issue of internal conflict is explicitly addressed: “Even in congregations (Protestant as well as Catholic) where the entire membership is Hispanic, tensions arise among national origin groups, between established immigrants and the newly arrived, and between people of different regions of the same home country” (Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000a, p. 20). In this regard, Sullivan (2000b, p. 147), in her research among Hispanic Protestants in Houston, found a very distinctive regional clustering process going on: Despite the apparent lack of inter-ethnic problems, the six weekly domestic prayer and Bible study groups tend to divide along both national (Honduran and Salvadoran) and Mexican regional (Guadalajaran, Tamaulipan, Morelian, Juanajuatan) lines. This allows for a heightened awareness of national /regional identities, the more so because traditional, regionally/nationally distinctive foods are usually served at these meetings.

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To my knowledge, my research on the different ways Mexican and Mexican American Catholics practice their Catholic faith is the first study of its kind ever published (Vila 1996). 8. In that trade union I interviewed a group of young people working at different maquiladora plants in Juárez. The participants (all of them Catholics) are males and females from different regional backgrounds: Aurora came from Veracruz four years ago; Secundino is from San Luis Potosí; Felipe and Jesús are native Juarenses. All of them have completed (but not finished) some secondary education. 9. This is a very interesting and common language mistake. Aurora used the verb adoptar [to adopt] instead of adaptar [to adapt], overlapping two different but related meanings. One can adopt a foreign custom and adapt one’s behavior to that custom. In Aurora’s sentence, the parents were adapting their children’s behavior to the newly adopted American customs. 10. It is interesting to point out here that according to Southern Mexicans, the “true” way of practicing Catholicism is the “Indian” way, because the cult of death, Southern style, is reminiscent of some pre-Hispanic religious rituals that were incorporated by the Catholic Church in the process of Evangelization. Thus, it is not by chance that many Juarenses reject that practice as a true Catholic one and reframe it as a “traditional” or “primitive” one. Here again, the myth of white Northern Mexico, addressed at length in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, plays a very important role. 11. The interviewees were in their twenties and came from a lower-middleclass background. All of them were studying at a vocational school (to pursue careers as typists or secretaries) and currently living in poor neighborhoods. They work in different types of low-paid clerical positions. All were born in Juárez, of migrant parents who came from other northern states (Durango, Coahuila, etc.), and all profess the Catholic faith. Their profound “anti-Mexican Southerners” stance is analyzed in Chapter 1 of Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. 12. Robustiano and Margarita came to Juárez from Parral, Chihuahua, more than twenty years ago. They live in an extremely poor colonia in East Juárez and both are self-employed. Margarita, who is illiterate, runs a small shop in the family house. Robustiano, who never finished primary school, raises chickens on a small plot of land near his house. He used to work in the United States illegally. Feliciano is Margarita and Robustiano’s son. He is fifteen years old and was born in Juárez. He has some high school education and works at odd jobs. 13. Brotherhood [hermandad] in this context means Protestantism. 14. To use the word “drugs” for “debts” is very usual in Juárez. For an explanation of this usage, see my Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. 15. This kind of narrative seems to be very common among Mexican immigrants. Sullivan (2000a, p. 131) found something very similar going on in Houston, where “[m]any immigrant converts found Protestant churches more N O T E S T O PAG E S 3 2 – 4 2

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willing than the Catholic Church to assist them in finding jobs and housing, developing the local knowledge, and making the connections needed to be successful in their new home.” At the same time, some Hispanic Catholics (9 percent) in Marín and Gamba’s study (1993, p. 364) also believed that one of the most important reasons people would convert to a Protestant denomination is the financial aid offered by those denominations. 16. This position, of course, is not oblivious to the documented importance of American support of Protestant sects all over Latin America. As Hernández Castillo (1994, p. 92) points out: The development of a more complex analysis of the dominant and resistant processes does not imply a denial of the fact that the Protestantism that has arrived in Mexico and Central America had its origins in the United States and reproduces in its religious discourse many of the values of North American society. The interest of different American governments in supporting the work of some of these religious groups goes back to last [nineteenth] century and, in the last decade, these positions have been upheld. The Santa Fe Document— elaborated in 1980 by advisers to then candidate for the presidency Ronald Reagan— exposes the necessity to counteract the work of the nascent Theology of Liberation, a sector of the Catholic Church, through the beefing up of Protestant sects. (my translation)

The Santa Fe document avers that [t]he United States must seize the ideological initiative. . . . The war is for the minds of mankind . . . U.S. foreign policy must begin to counter (not merely react against) liberation theology as it is utilized by the “liberation theology” clergy. The role of the Church is vital to the concept of political freedom. Unfortunately, Marxist-Leninists have used the Church as a weapon against private property and productive capitalism, infiltrating the religious community with ideas that are less Christian than Communist. (Deiros 1991, p. 177)

At the same time, Martin (1990, p. 204) points out that Protestantism in Latin America does bring people from all kinds of backgrounds into contact with North Americans, and with their expectations, and provides channels along which American ideas and ideas of America may move. The brothers and sisters communicate and pick up influences traveling from another world, mostly the joys of heaven but also the promise and power of the United States. Pentecostalism, after all, is about spiritual power and empowerment, and it would be surprising if some believers were not impressed by the United States as a fount of power. It may even be that Protestants from Puerto Rico, and elsewhere in Latin America, like Protestants in Korea, are more likely to migrate to the United States.

This kind of subtle cultural influence is also stressed by Deiros (1991, p. 178), who claims that a “God is an American” message of sorts was central in the fundamentalist Evangelical message in the region: N O T E S T O PAG E S 4 2 – 4 3

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. . . it served to undermine any challenge to North American hegemony as the work of the devil. Some very popular televangelists in Latin America reinforce with their preaching the idea that the American way is synonymous with Christianity. Preachers such as Pat Robertson and Jimmy Swaggart were quite successful in the 1980s in promoting the notion that “the American system is the expression of Christian ideas,” and that the formation of the United States was the “single most important” event since the birth of Christ.

17. While I could not find in Mexican literature references to the entrenched religious regionalism I found on the border, I have recently found some limited references to this issue in the literature that deals with Catholic immigrants in the United States: The primary ethnic identity among parishioners [of the St. Mary’s Catholic Church] is regional, as one parishioner described: . . . we are from Tamalipas [sic] and our home state is quite different than Guadalajara. We are from a long line of border crossers while my neighbors only arrived here in Houston about 20 years ago. While we may be Mexicans, our states and experiences are miles apart. Still, we can relate along national lines . . . when discussing sports or politics. My wife always says that their food is different and some of their regional expressions are distinct . . . (Sullivan 2000a, p. 134)

The same author has also encountered in her fieldwork in Houston some of the same resentment I found in El Paso between Mexican American/old Mexican immigrants and new Mexican immigrants: The most meaningful point of differentiation among groups occurs along lines of immigration date. Those who immigrated earlier, and their American-born offspring, differ culturally from recent immigrants, even enjoying different sports (e.g., golf vs. soccer). The earlier arrivals seek to distance themselves from “those whose backs are still wet.” Some feel that the new immigrants “have come to take the jobs from their own children,” while others think they use tax money for welfare and food stamps. Newer arrivals resent their exclusion from lay roles within the Church, which are monopolized by long-time parishioners. These differences also spill over into a debate over language, English vs. Spanish masses . . . (Sullivan 2000a, p. 135)

As we can see, her interviewees express many of the same concerns I have described in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. 18. Nora and Pilar were born in different Northern Mexican states; they are housewives and in their middle thirties. Nora has been in the United States for the last seven years and Pilar for more than fifteen years. Nora has completed more than one hundred college hours of education, while Pilar only went through three years of secondary education. Francisca is Rosalba’s mother; she is sixty-five years old and was born in Durango. She is illiterate. Rosalba is in N O T E S T O PAG E S 4 3 – 4 6

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her forties and is a custodial worker for a department store. She was born in Jalisco and has been living in El Paso for more than fifteen years. Quica was born in New Mexico in 1944 but moved to El Paso when she was seven years old. She is a housewife, a first-generation Mexican American who has completed high school. All these interviewees are Catholics. 19. The participants in this set of interviews are Aníbal, Yolanda, Micaela, Agustina, and Coquis. All of them came to El Paso from Juárez at different times in the last ten years. Aníbal at the time of the interview was unemployed, Coquis worked in a plastic factory, and the other participants were housewives. All of them live in a government project and define themselves as Catholics. Aníbal has some college education done in Mexico. The other interviewees have some secondary education but did not finish it. 20. The standard procedure for marrying in the Catholic Church, even for couples who have been married de facto for many years, entails a six-week preparatory course, two and a half hours per week. Plus a weekend retreat. Plus a 165-question test. Pablo Luna, personal communication, June 16, 1993. 21. For an analysis of why many people want to detach themselves from lo mexicano [that which is Mexican], see my Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. 22. As Eduardo Barrera correctly points out (personal communication, December 6, 2002), some Chicano groups (e.g., cholos [a working-class youth subculture], muralistas [painters of murals], danzantes [folk dancers], etc.) are much more public in their practice of religion than Mexican nationals, especially when it refers to Guadalupanismo. 23. He is a twenty-six-year-old native El Pasoan, third-generation Mexican American, who works as a clerk in a small store. He holds a high school diploma. She is a twenty-four-year-old Mexican immigrant born in Ciudad Chihuahua, with six years of residence in the United States. She also holds a high school diploma. Regardless of her short residence in El Paso, she is very Americanized and already uses a lot of code-switching, among other reasons because Alex is not fluent in Spanish. They live in “America,” one of the poorest neighborhoods in El Paso, at the time of the interviews without a sewer system or running water. They are both Catholics. 24. The Antunes family has been living in El Paso since the 1970s. Elena, who is thirty-nine years old, works taking care of old people at their homes. She was born in Torreón, Coahuila, and finished her primary education in Mexico. Beatriz, who is fifty-one years old, Elisa, who is forty-nine years old, and Catalina, who is forty-two years old, are housewives. All of them were born in Chihuahua and have completed some secondary education. Carlos is a warehouse employee who is forty years old and also was born in Chihuahua. Adriana was my UTEP student who helped me to arrange this interview. She is in her late twenties, first-generation Mexican American born in El Paso. All of them have lived part of their lives in Ciudad Juárez and define themselves as Catholics. 25. In these meetings with the López family, we interviewed Horacio, who is a fifty-two-year-old native of Parral, Chihuahua, who moved to El Paso N O T E S T O PAG E S 4 6 – 5 3

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twenty-five years ago. He is a plumber and completed his elementary education in Mexico. Mónica is Horacio’s wife. She is also in her fifties and was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico. She is a housewife who has also completed her elementary education in Mexico. Rosenda is their daughter. She is a twentytwo-year-old clerk who has a high-school diploma and was born in Juárez but moved to El Paso more than twenty years ago. Rick is one of the Lópezes’ sons. He is a twenty-three-year-old native El Pasoan who is a freshmen at UTEP. Guillermo is the other son. He is also a native El Pasoan, is fifteen years old, and is finishing his high school education. Finally, Laura is the other daughter. She is twenty-four years old, was born in El Paso, and works as a clerk. All of these interviewees are Catholics. 2. Mexican and American Protestants

1. A note on terminology is appropriate here. Most of the Protestants I interviewed, on both sides of the border, addressed themselves as “Christians.” In this regard, the term used by the people I interviewed differs from the preferred label Bowen found among his interviewees, “Evangelicals” (Bowen 1996, p. 5). At the same time, however, both the Pentecostals I interviewed and Bowen’s, for various reasons, tried to avoid the term “Protestant.” In relation to his sample, Bowen points out (1996, pp. 5 – 6), “They are conservative Protestants. They regard the liberal Protestant agenda of religious tolerance, ecumenism, and social action as misguided in its neglect of personal salvation and as heretical in its condoning of Catholicism.” According to Stoll (1990, p. 4), the term “Pentecostal” refers to “ecstatic forms of Protestantism defined in terms of special gifts bestowed by the Holy Spirit.” Writing about Mexican Pentecostals, Garma Navarro (1998, p. 353) states: Although there exists a large number of Pentecostal churches, they can all be characterized as believing in the existence of gifts given by the Holy Spirit, which are basically those which the apostles received on the day of the Pentecost . . . In Mexican Pentecostalism, the emphasis is both on speaking in tongues and on faith healing.

At the same time, for Wilson (1994, p. 94), Pentecostalism appears as a tendency within a conservative Christian framework for believers to arrogate some measure of power. Stated theologically, Pentecostal groups carry the doctrine of immanence accepted by all Christian believers beyond the usually accepted boundaries, since the grace, gifts, and power attributed to the church are believed to be accessible, at least on occasion, to every believer.

For reasons of style I use “Christians,” “Evangelicals,” and “Protestants” interchangeably in this chapter. In this regard, I am mixing what Deiros (1991, p. 149) separates in his typology of Latin American Protestantism, i.e., N O T E S T O PAG E S 5 3 – 5 7

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Evangelical Protestantism from mainline Protestantism; but I keep Pentecostals as a different group just as he does. I do so because of the way some of the people I interviewed sorted out themselves. 2. The traditional Protestant denominations (Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists, to name the largest) are now a minority among Mexican Christian denominations. According to Bowen (1996, p. 45), they now account for only 24 percent of Mexican Protestant denominations. This is the result of a very different annual growth rate among Pentecostals and the traditional Protestants: Pentecostals grew at almost double the rate of the traditional Protestants in the 1980s (Bowen 1996, p. 69). Most Mexicans and Mexican Americans nowadays belong to Pentecostal churches. 3. In Chapter 3 of Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, there are several examples of fierce anti-Mexican sentiment expressed by Mexican American self-defined Christians. 4. Research done on Mexican American Protestants in other parts of the United States tends to confirm our findings: Because Mexico is an overwhelmingly Catholic nation, Iglesia de Dios members secularize their national identity. Because responsible citizenship is a central tenet of the religion, church members can focus on the civil structure rather than the religious culture of nations. In turn, they can see themselves as Mexican— or Mexican-American—without experiencing any contradiction because they are non-Catholic. (Sullivan 2000b, p. 146)

5. According to Eduardo Barrera (personal communication, December 6, 2002) the differential use of the Bible by Protestants is crucial, particularly the privileged use of the New Testament in a hierarchical order: (a) Paul’s letters, (b) the Gospels, (c) Psalms and Proverbs, and (d) prophetic books of the Old Testament. 6. Anselmo obviously is not a person of Mexican descent; therefore, the analysis of his narratives will not help us to understand how Mexican Protestants construct their identity on the border. Nevertheless, I still consider his testimonies very important and, having made this disclaimer, will make them part of the following analysis. 7. As it will become apparent below, this will be prominent in the class chapters of this book as well, where class differences are both regionalized and nationalized. 8. Without the explicit characteristic of being pro-American discourses, similar arguments were made against the cult of the Virgin Mary in many other interviews. 9. Interestingly enough, a similar kind of discourse can be found among charismatic Catholics on the American side of the border (see the seminal study of Guillermina Valdés-Villalba 1996). 10. Research done on Hispanic Protestants in other parts of the United States tends to confirm our findings: N O T E S T O PAG E S 5 8 – 7 6

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All members of Iglesia de Dios are Hispanic . . . about 95 percent are Mexican or Mexican-American, with the remainder coming from Central America. The Central Americans apparently feel no need to define themselves in terms of a national identity . . . Instead, all church members define themselves, first and foremost, in religious terms. Therefore, differences in national background is not a problem. (Sullivan 2000b, p. 146)

11. Sullivan (2000b, p. 148) reports a very interesting case she found in her research among Hispanics in Houston that clearly illustrates how the metaphor of the letter of recommendation sometimes can materialize into a real one: “One young man, shot five times in Houston, was sent by church members to Guadalajara to recuperate. Armed with a letter of introduction from the Houston pastor, he had a ‘passport’ into the homes of Mexican church members.” 12. The importance of conversion to Protestantism for a poor family’s well being in Latin American has been widely documented since the seminal work of Bryan Roberts (1968). Roberts, “one of the first scholars to notice the growing popularity of Protestant churches among the urban poor in Guatemala City,” made the suggestion that “when men give up drinking and spend more time with, and money on, their families, society’s most basic unit is strengthened” (Garrard-Burnett 1993, p. 204). Robert’s findings were confirmed more recently by Brusco 1993. 13. As we will see in Chapter 4, there are several reasons why machismo is linked to being Catholic and being a Mexican. Among those reasons, the cult of the Virgin occupies center stage, i.e., the Virgin Mary as the exemplary believer, who obeys even when she does not understand and who is an ideal for women who should learn to aguantar [endure], show paciencia [patience], and have faith in God. According to Bohman (1984, p. 306): These ideas sustain the notion that women and men are basically very different kinds of human beings. Men and women should complement one another, but they could never “be the same.” The barrio priest, in his “classes for married couples” elaborates on this view and teaches that “the man is the head of the family, the woman is the heart.” Although each organ is said to be equally essential for the functioning of the body, the head is the superior one for “it reasons and decides.”

14. The preferred concept by Marty and Appleby (1991, 1995) and Nagata (2001). 15. While Deiros is using the label “Evangelicals” here, he is really referring to Pentecostal fundamentalists, because the former have a different interpretation of the “accuracy” of the Bible than the latter: . . . evangelicals tend to view the Bible as “authoritative” or “inspired” (i.e., parts of which may be considered metaphorical), while fundamentalists are more likely to insist that the Bible is “infallible” or “literally true” without exception. (Bartkowski 1996, p. 260)

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16. Of course, different scholars have claimed that such an inerrancy stance is misleading. For instance, Bartkowski (1996, pp. 269–270) claims: Several studies have demonstrated that viable conservative Protestant scriptural readings are not generated through individual study of the Bible, but via the interpretive community in which the individual evangelical is situated . . . From this perspective, the interpretive community—under the leadership of its interpretive authorities such as pastors and theologians— determines the “ground rules” for scriptural interpretation.

17. The “experiences” David is referring to in his testimony are experiences of “faith healing.” According to Bowen (1996, p. 111): “Faith healing, or ‘divine healing,’ as Evangelicals called it, was another of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Through prayer, it is believed, God enacts or causes miraculous healings to occur that cannot be explained by modern scientific medicine” (see also Garma Navarro 1998, p. 356). I have several testimonies of faith healing in my interviews, but, for obvious reasons of space, I will not analyze this aspect of the Protestant culture on this occasion. Something similar occurs with “millennialism” (the doctrine that Christ will return and that there will be a time of suffering or tribulation here on earth when Christ returns [Bowen 1996, p. 116; see also Garma Navarro 1994 for a discussion of premillennialism] and glossolalia (speaking in tongues), two other important parts of the repertoire of the Mexican Evangelical process of identity construction that will not be pursued in this chapter. For an excellent discussion of glossolalia among Mexican Pentecostals, see Garma Navarro 1998. 18. As Booth (1995, p. 378) also points out: The stories that claim truth tend to deny all artifice: “this is exactly how it happened.” The resistance in many traditions to all fictions, and the late arrival of novels in traditions like Christian fundamentalism, can be partially explained as caused by a sense that only true stories can carry the truth. The Bible, the Qur’an—these are legitimate stories to listen to, for believers. But save us from the liars.

19. Wilson (1994, p. 104) found very similar narratives among Latin American Pentecostals: Typically, such people testify to the resolution of some specific need as a result of prayer . . . Such claims to physical healing become the basis for establishing a new life with recovered health and energy, altered perspectives, a new set of associates, and widened expectations and opportunities . . . The stories become the climactic episode in the teller’s otherwise difficult and demoralizing existence. The healing of a child or other family member whose illness was the cause of profound concern becomes the repeated reminder of divine intervention for the entire community and, not infrequently, the reason given for the conversion of non-Pentecostal members of the family.

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20. As Nagata (2001, p. 482) points out: It may be no coincidence that fundamentalism has been added to the academic and public lexicon at a time when the global (dis)order, with its attendant transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, pluralisms, relativisms, and movement of people and ideas across the world has contributed to an obsessive concern with identity, authenticity, and ultimate values—the fundamentals of existence. These conditions, characterized by paradox, creolizations, crossing of once forbidden boundaries in the face of bewildering choice, it may be argued, precipitate a renewed quest for guiding principles, for greater ideological certainty. For those with low tolerance for ambiguity, the attractions of a prescriptive fundamentalist solution are evident.

3. Regionalized Gender Narratives on the Mexican Side of the Border

1. For Tijuana’s case, Castillo, Rangel Gómez, and Delgado (1999, p. 398) point out: [In] Tijuana . . . geographic and moral marginality have always been tightly linked. Because of the “Black Legend” of Tijuana’s development as an outpost of Mexican culture and a gigantic brothel at the service of the United States, both its population growth and economic development have gone hand in hand with activities that are stigmatized or prohibited in other places, and in Tijuana the tight imbrication of (provincial) identity and (deviant) female sexuality is particularly pronounced.

2. Quoted in Monsiváis 1981, p. 292. 3. This statement does not intend to ignore the visible presence of prostitution and transvestism in the city. It is only meant to point out the surplus of meaning that is always necessary to transform a fact in an element of a narrative that attempts to advance a particular validity claim about reality. In other words, you need prostitutes to have a discourse about prostitution, but prostitutes alone do not guarantee the presence of this particular and widespread discourse about Juárez being the city of vice. 4. Malintzín Tenépal was the family name of this personage. The Spaniards called her Doña Marina; the term Malinche is her more common appellation but is now strongly associated with treason. For this reason, the Chicana movement calls her by her original name, Malintzín, because “Chicanas wish to reclaim Malintzín as a historical precursor of Chicanas and a victim of male chauvinist attitudes, which often culminated in holding her almost singlehandedly responsible for the conquest of Mexico. Chicanas generally offer positive depictions of Malintzín” (Chabram Dernersesian 1993, p. 55). 5. It is interesting to point out here how the problem of national identity in Mexico seems to be a problem of male identity, “and it was male authors N O T E S T O PAG E S 1 0 9 – 1 1 6

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who debated its defects and psychoanalyzed the nation. In national allegories, women became the territory over which the quest for (male) national identity passed” (Franco 1989, p. 131). Additionally, for the Mexican male writers the originating rape is of paramount importance because it places in question their legitimacy as sons . . . Paz, as far as I can discern, was the first writer to advance forcefully the metonymic relations between three terms—Malintzin, La Chingada, and rape. Though pillage and rape are almost by definition factors of conquest and colonization, there is no trace of evidence that Malintzin suffered the violent fate of other indigenous women . . . One may even argue that she performed as she did to avoid rape and violence upon her body, to “choose” negatively between lesser evils . . . There is irony in Paz’s insistence that Malintzin should also serve as the figure for “our” rape, since it may well be that she saved herself from such a fate through diligent service (Alarcón 1989, p. 82).

6. Interestingly enough, the issue of how pollution resignifies the dangers of the Mexican social system’s borders seems to work for the prostitutes themselves. In that regard Castillo, Rangel Gómez, and Delgado (1999, p. 414) point out the following: . . . all [prostitutes] vehemently deny that they ever agree to anal sex. When that inquiry is made, one woman says she typically responds, “Soy mujer, no maricón” [I’m a woman, not a fag]. Another hints that such unnatural perversions could come only from foreigners or contagion by foreign practices: “Todavía soy muy mexicana, ¿verdad? Yo sexo anal no lo realizo por ningún concepto” [I am still very Mexican, right? I don’t perform anal sex under any circumstances].

This interviewee frames anal sex in terms of gender, and in identifying herself as “female” she excludes herself from a practice she associates with males. In addition, the statements in her narrative acquire a national framework. Such a “deviant” sexual practice is something that only the “national other” practices. Therefore, for the prostitutes “pollution” is something to be avoided, that is, not refusing sex with Americans but rejecting their “foreign” sexual practices. Thus, these women insist that contamination is not localizable on their bodies or in the geographic space of the Zona Norte, nor can it be ascribed to Mexican national identity; it resides outside, across the border, in the other culture against which they must be vigilant . . . the delimitation involves a construction of borders against a threat that must be kept out—to protect body, community, nation . . .

7. Most of these attorneys are highly involved in politics in the city. Gerardo, now in his fifties, was born in a small town in Chihuahua but moved to Juárez when he was fifteen years old. Esther is a thirty-year-old native of Camargo who also moved to Juárez when she was fifteen. Dolores and Carmen,

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who are in their twenties, were born in Central Mexico and moved to Juárez eight years ago. 8. Griselda Luna (personal communication, February 3, 1997) told me her problems with finding lodging in Chihuahua when she went there to study. Anytime she answered the question “Where are you from?” with “From Juárez” at the several boardinghouses she went to, she was not permitted to rent a room. 9. Interestingly enough, Castillo, Rangel Gómez, and Delgado (1999, p. 412) found a very similar discourse among prostitutes in Tijuana: Another woman comments that . . . “los hombres andan sueltos como las mujeres de las maquiladoras” (men run around loose like the women from the assembly plants), which causes all the [health] problems because, unlike responsible sex workers, unprofessional women and men who act promiscuously tend to spread disease.

In this kind of narrative, from the prostitute’s point of view, maquiladora workers are worse than prostitutes: maquiladora workers supposedly have sexual relations for a price, but without the responsible sexual behavior that, they claim, characterizes “real” prostitutes. 10. In addition to Ciudad Juárez, I have heard commonsense discourses in Mexico that mention Guadalajara and Veracruz as the other places where male homosexuals abound. 11. The “nada menos” [can you believe it?] here is another example of the regional way of classifying people some Northern Mexicans use. Torreón’s people are considered very backward, “slow” people (“mensos” is the slang word used to describe them). Thus the comment “nada menos” highlights the fact that a slur was addressed to a Juarense (a smart guy) from a person from Torreón (a dumb one). 12. Many of our interviewees referred to the case of young Juarenses who visit two particular nightclubs, where they regularly meet with middleaged and old women from El Paso and New Mexico who buy their sexual services. 13. One must take into account that recent studies of gay life in Mexico show that “traditional points of view” are a bit of social fiction, like the patriarchal family mentioned above. I thank Howard Campbell for bringing this point to my attention. 14. I want to thank Angela Escajeda for making me aware of this “commonsense” Juárez interpretation of Juan Gabriel’s presumed homosexuality (personal communication, June 25, 1993). It is interesting to note that such explanations once more play with geography and time to make sense of a particular identity. 15. For lack of space I won’t be able to address two other gender narratives that are important in the region. The first is the discourse which stresses that the isolation of Juárez, the distance that separates it from the political N O T E S T O PAG E S 1 2 3 – 1 2 9

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centers of both countries, has contributed to the existence of different kinds of liberal gender behaviors. As part of this regional liberal culture, many interviewees claim that women in Juárez enjoyed an earlier feminist liberation than those in other cities of Mexico and the United States. Interestingly, that liberation is not depicted as their early entrance into the labor force or their sharing household responsibilities with their husbands, but as their capacity to enjoy alone, without male supervision, the leisure activities of the city. Some interviewees extended their comments about Juárez’s liberal culture beyond women to include homosexuals as well. In this kind of narrative, instead of explaining male homosexuality by its relationship to the “city of vice” discourse (like Alejandro, Esteban, and their friends did above), the openness of homosexuality is linked to the liberal tradition of the city; that is, it is not the case that Juárez has more homosexuals than other Mexican cities, but instead that its liberal culture allows them to leave their closets without fears of repression—something that they cannot do in other, more repressive cities elsewhere in Mexico. The other narrative that for reasons of space I will not analyze here tries to make sense of the different gender and sexual orientation many Fronterizas/os recognize as characteristic of Juárez by pointing out the American influence over its inhabitants. This narrative has at least two variants, a negative and a positive one. In the negative one, Americans are depicted as totally lax in their morality, encouraging, for instance, little children to use drugs and have sex. These children, according to the argument, cross the border and spread their lax attitudes in Juárez and are the cause of violence against women in the city. In the second, positive variant, Americans are described as being more “liberal” than Southern Mexicans but not necessarily more “libertine.” 16. A mandilón is a male who wants to be commanded. The term comes from mandil [an apron] and translates literally as “aproner,” meaning that some males do the household chores that “really” are their wives responsibility. According to Gutmann, the meaning of mandilón is “stronger than the English ‘henpecked’ but not nearly as vulgar as ‘pussy-whipped’” (1996, p. 232). 17. In a nutshell, this narrative claims that Americans have lost control over their lives due to their predisposition to consume beyond their means. This vision of Americans is nicely captured by the word endrogado, a play on words based on drogarse (to drug oneself ) and endeudarse (to go into debt). By combining the meaning of droga (drug) and deuda (debt) to draw an implicit parallel between debts and drugs, the entire weight of meaning of the word “drug” (which, especially on the border, has connotations of illegal drugs) critically modifies the meaning of the word “debt.” The repeated use of this word to refer to the American way of life is a powerful criticism of American culture as a whole. In this word, American culture is implicitly condemned as one without real roots, one that prefers immediate pleasures to those that are more profound if less intense, and one that uses whatever means necessary to achieve immediate gratification. Therefore, the word endrogado on the border acquires N O T E S T O PAG E S 1 3 1 – 1 3 6

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its full meaning in a narrative plot that points out “Americans are slaves of consumerism and their work attitudes.” 18. Hirsch (1999, p. 1338) found very similar comments in her research among Mexicans both in Mexico and the United States: When Doña Elena criticized María and her other daughters in Atlanta for answering back to their husbands, she said that María explained to her, “No, mom, here the woman is the boss, it’s not like back in Mexico where the men are the boss . . . No, here they don’t hit you . . . Here, the men are the ones who stand to lose.”

4. Gender, Nationality, and Ethnicity on the American Side of the Border

1. Catarina is Marta and Humberto’s daughter. She is in her early twenties, was born in El Paso, and is a UTEP student. Alejo is their son; he was also born in El Paso, twenty-four years ago, and went to a professional middle school in Juárez. Alejo was working as a manager in El Paso at the time of his interview. 2. One of the more important points made by these authors refers to the fact that many Chicano families do not practice exclusive mothering. Instead, daughters often have several female attachment figures responsible for the teaching of gender-related cultural behaviors, while boys must repress their identification with and attachment to many women and simultaneously attempt to achieve a masculine gender identification with their fathers and many other men. Thus, in the case of daughters, unlike European-American girls, Chicanas may not develop an inner psychic “triangular object relational constellation” of daughter/mother/father but, rather, a multi-object relational configuration of daughter/mother/aunt /grandmother/ godmother/father. To re-create this internal psychic world as an adult, having children may be even more important to Chicanas than to European-American women, and maintaining relationships with other women in the compadrazgo system may be particularly crucial for Chicanas to fulfill their relational needs. (Segura and Pierce 1993, p. 77)

And in the case of the sons: Chicano’s repression of several female objects instead of one, however, suggests that they may develop masculine identity differently than do European-American men . . . In Chodorow’s model, boys’ repression of their early identification with their mothers engenders a highly ambivalent stance toward women. With more women caring for the Chicano boy, the ambivalence could be greater, suggesting that Chicanos might be even more likely than European-American men to experience strong feelings of longing and disdain for women. This scenario

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directly implicates machismo, the politically loaded notion that Chicanos are in some sense more dominating or macho than European-American men. (Segura and Pierce 1993, p. 79)

3. Nonetheless, it is important to point out here that, according to BacaZinn (1994, p. 75), [t]hese studies refute the stereotype of macho-dominated Mexican-origin families, but they do not dispute that gender is still a major determinant of family activities . . . Employment of women by itself, however, does not eradicate male dominance or transform women’s subordinate roles. This is one of the main lessons of the Zavella (1987) landmark study . . . Cannery jobs did give women some leverage in the home, but as seasonal, part-time work, their jobs were defined as an extension of their household responsibilities and did not fundamentally transform family roles.

4. A full analysis of their ethnic/national construction of identity and the stories of discrimination they told us is developed in Chapter 4 of Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. 5. I think that it is not by chance that the word “macho” has been incorporated into the English language but not maricón or joto [homosexual]. Its incorporation follows the same logic Jane Hill (1993) found in relation to other Spanish words in the Southwest, that is, that the limited Spanish many Anglos in the region manage is totally biased in the sense that most of the words are associated with poverty (we know the name in Spanish of poor people’s food—tacos, tortillas, burritos, etc.—but not of rich Mexicans’ foods), social problems (calaboose and vigilante are part of the English language now, but not juez [ judge]), and the like. 6. The only significant sociological differences between the two groups were five more years of experience in the United States for Nora, Rosalba, and her friends, and current contact with Juárez for Norma’s group. I think that the last difference is much more important for understanding the origin and development of their gender narratives than the former. 7. In 1995 I had the opportunity to interview a group of female activists who were deeply involved in the process of bringing water and sewer systems to the colonia America. Leticia was born in Northern Mexico forty-two years before the interview. She had a high-school diploma and took some classes at El Paso Community College. She was a factory worker for many years and at the time of the interview was the director of the grass roots organization at the colonia America. Rosario was a fifty-year-old native of Ciudad Chihuahua who had completed only half of her elementary education in Mexico. Sukis was born in El Paso twenty years before the interview. She was a housewife and had lived in Juárez a great part of her life. She held a high-school diploma. While Leticia and Socorro identified themselves as Catholics, Sukis was a Jehovah’s Witness. N O T E S T O PAG E S 1 5 2 – 1 6 6

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8. Tragically, one year after the interview, Leticia was killed by her commonlaw husband. At turning points like these, one might wish that discourses and practices were not so connected. 5. The Problematic Class Discourse on the Border: The Mexican Side

1. By “relative” I mean the usual lack of importance of class narratives among most of my interviewees on both sides of the border. Therefore, while discussions about nationality, race, ethnicity, religion, and gender occupy center stage in most of the narratives of the people I have interviewed, discourses that employ terms such as “bourgeoisie,” “proletariat,” and the like were totally nonexistent; those which address people as “working class” were scarce. Those discourses that pointed out the difference between “poor” and “rich” people, and the supposed nonexistence of a Mexican “middle class,” were a bit more common but not prevalent. It appeared obvious from the beginning of my research that the interviewees preferred to use the photographs to discuss a variety of issues that were not class-related. 2. Reading an early version of this chapter, Howard Campbell pointed out: “Given the ‘social reality’ in the area, this seems like a very logical viewpoint.” I think that this is precisely what is at stake: what is a “logical” viewpoint depends on how “open” or “closed” the situation is perceived as being. In this sense, for many Fronterizos/as it seems much more “logical” to struggle individually against American discrimination, loneliness, uprootedness, and the like on the American side of the border than to collectively struggle for better wealth distribution in Mexico. 3. Ana was an active participant in a series of interviews I conducted with a group of women in a very poor colonia in Ciudad Juárez. These women lived quite precariously in a newly formed colonia without running water and sewage. They were “invaders” who had no legal title to their lands and always lived with the fear of being evicted. Leonor was forty years old at the time of the interview, and Ana twenty years old. The former had moved to Juárez from Coahuila three years before, and the latter from Madera, Chihuahua, fourteen years before. Leonor had completed two years of high school, while Ana had completed only elementary school. Isabel was a forty-three-year-old housewife who had some high school education, was born in Zacatecas, and had been in Juárez since 1973. 4. Jesús Montenegro, personal communication, June 23, 1992. 5. Rafa was one of the dental students I interviewed in Ciudad Juárez. All these students were in their twenties. Tomás and Rafa were native Juarenses. Agustín was born in Mexico City but had lived most of his life in Juárez. Chela and Lola (who were sisters) were born in Mexico City and migrated to Juárez only two years before the interview. 6. The use of arreglar—“to arrange” or “to fix”—in Juárez is striking. When used, the object is always implicit. Exactly what is being arreglado is never made N O T E S T O PAG E S 1 6 7 – 1 7 3

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explicit. It is so culturally obvious that the main thing that needs to be arranged/fixed is the legal papers to cross to the “other side” that mentioning the object is thought unnecessary. 7. Here what “everyone knows” is wrong. According to the statistics available, Juárez immigrants come from the North (from the state of Chihuahua itself or from neighboring northern states). Only a small portion of the total migration (less than 15 percent) comes from Southern or Central Mexico. This is also true in the case of the maquiladora workforce. 8. According to a report released in February 2001 by the Texas state comptroller, Carole Keeton Rylander (San Antonio Express-News, February 6, 2001, pages 1A and 6A), “[I]f the [border] region were viewed as a separate state, it would have the highest poverty rate—including the highest percent of schoolchildren living in poverty—and the lowest per capita income in the country.” According to Rylander, “[I]f the relatively wealthy Bexar and Nueces counties were removed from the comparison, the per capita income of residents in the remaining 41 Texas border counties would be $14,740 in 1998—26 percent less than residents of the poorest state, Mississippi, who had an average per capita income of $20,013 . . . In 1999, the border region still led the nation in unemployment with a rate of 7.5 percent, while Texas [has an unemployment rate of ] 4.6 percent . . .” 9. Of course, one must not forget that overall and per capita, there is much more income, as well as many more resources, on the U.S. side of the border than on the Mexican side. What I want to stress here once more is the power of some plots to produce a “surplus of meaning” that in turn structures the social perception of people, so that, in this case, they forget that El Paso is not precisely Beverly Hills. 10. This particular photograph (photo 21), was the epitome of Mexican poverty for many of the people I interviewed on both sides of the border. The photo, as I explain and analyze in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, was taken in “America,” one of the poorest colonias in El Paso.

6. The Problematic Class Discourse on the Border: The American Side

1. As the president of the Consejo Empresarial de Ciudad Juárez expressed in 1985: Nada más hay dos sopas: o luchamos por ese modelo de país vecino que vemos apenas prendemos la televisión y luchamos dentro de la vida cívica y política para establecer una democracia en el país . . . o tendremos un enfrentamiento fraticida como ocurrió durante la revolución porque las estructuras socioeconómicas están crujiendo. [There are only two choices: either we fight for a model like that of the neighboring country we see as soon as we turn on the TV, and we do so within the limits of our civic and political life to establish democracy in this country . . . or we will have a fratracidal encounter as occurred during the Revolution,

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because our socioeconomic structures are cracking.] (quoted in Lau 1986, p. 62; my translation)

2. The Black Bridge was an infamous migration spot before Operation Blockade. It was one of the preferred sites of undocumented workers trying to cross to the United States. However, it was a very dangerous place for crossing; many people fell off the bridge, and in addition, a gang known as the “Black Bridge Gang” attacked many of the immigrants as soon as they had crossed. Oscar Martínez (1978) does a very fine job of providing the history of immigrants’ attempts to cross the bridge. 3. This group included, among others, Serafín, a forty-one-year-old secondgeneration native of El Paso, who held a high-school diploma and ran a small shop in El Paso. Sergio, a first-generation Mexican American native of El Paso, had finished high school and was working as a mechanic at the time of the interview. Saúl, a forty-two-year-old teacher born in El Paso, was pursuing his master’s degree in education. His wife, Irene, who was then thirty-nine years old, had completed her secondary education and was a clerk working with Serafín in his shop. She was born in California but moved to El Paso when she was two years old. All of them were Catholics. 4. The number of people who die in the attempt to cross the border is really high. In El Paso, the Border Patrol continuously finds corpses floating in the river. 5. Joel was part of a group of first-generation Mexican Americans who worked in a variety of manual and semiskilled occupations and who belonged to a Christian church group. Joel, Mike, and Bob were native El Pasoans in their twenties. At the time of the interview, Joel was in college and Mike and Bob had finished their high-school education. Ramón and Mary were born in Juárez but moved to El Paso more than fifteen years before the interview. Both held high-school diplomas. Alvaro (Ramón’s brother) was born in Chicago but had moved to El Paso with his brother more than fifteen years before. 6. The reaction of these interviewees to the photograph of a mobile home in El Paso was very similar to that of many of the people I interviewed on both sides of the border: they mistakenly assumed that the photograph was taken in Juárez. In addition, following the “all poverty is Mexican” theme, they considered it the epitome of Mexican poverty. 7. These themes are analyzed in depth in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. However, it is worth remembering that the time lag that many of the Anglos I interviewed who were not poor referred to was “forty or fifty years” instead of the “twenty years” that Henry refers to. 8. We have to remember that the people who lived in the colonia America could not recognize a scene they constantly saw that was near their own backyard due to the centrality of the “all poverty is Mexican” thematic plot in their narrative identities. Henry, on the other hand, did not have any difficulty in N O T E S T O PAG E S 1 9 5 – 2 1 0

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recognizing a place he had only gone to once, at the beginning of his stay in El Paso. 9. The idea of Mexico (its people and its culture) as a liability for many Mexican Americans in El Paso is analyzed in depth in Chapters 3 and 4 of Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders. 7. Conclusions

1. Without totally accepting Perinbanayagam’s account of the self, I still consider his criticism regarding some current theories of identity that do not take into account the continuity of the self over time to be very valuable. According to this author: In recent years the individual as an amnesiac has become the favored version in some theoretical perspectives. In ethnomethodology the individual is viewed, as a matter of policy, always in his or her situated capacity and accomplishing a reality in the situation itself all by himself or herself . . . the “subjects” are not the selves of interactionist and constructionist theories, which magically conjure themselves into existence in the process of speaking or communicating . . . rather, each individual remembers his or her past “desires” and remembers the meanings they elicited and gives presence to them as his or her self . . . To deny the presence of a remembered self is to commit one’s theories to a position that can only be described as solipsistic fascism: every man and woman his or her own dictator constructing a world without attending to his or her own memory and the memory that is shared with others in the shape of institutions and history. (Perinbanayagam 2000, pp. 217–218)

Because I consider the process of “remembering” as being guided by the plot the particular character being displayed in interaction requires to buttress its identity claims, I cannot fully accept Perinbanayagam’s formulation. Nevertheless, I agree with him that processes of identity construction never start from scratch every time people engage in interactions. If perhaps there is not a “remembered self” in general, there are without doubt “remembered characters” in particular that are actualized (and eventually negotiated and modified) in such encounters. 2. I am fully aware of Grossberg’s criticism regarding these kinds of “logocentric” approaches to identification processes (Grossberg 1992, 1996). Using his vocabulary, I am, like “most of the work of contemporary critical and cultural studies” (Grossberg 1992, 103), dealing only with “differentiating machines”—machines that “attempt to produce naturalized correspondences between economies of value and systems of social difference” (Grossberg 1992, p. 103)—and not with “territorializing” ones, machines that “do not construct identities, nor do they erase the real (in favor of the ideological), nor do they operate by creating normalizing systems [like the differentiating machines]” (Grossberg 1992, p. 104). This is so because, among other reasons, “affect” N O T E S T O PAG E S 2 2 6 – 2 3 1

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(1992, pp. 79, 104–105) does not have a clear role in my understanding of identity (a defect that my approach shares with those that Grossberg criticizes). According to Grossberg, “[I]t is affect which enables some differences (e.g., race, gender, etc.) to matter as markers of identity rather than others . . . in certain contexts” (1992, p. 105). As a matter of fact, I find very interesting similarities between his analysis of the effect of “affect” and my own use of narrative plots to understand why people “invest” in a particular identification and not in some other one. Consider, for instance, the following statement: . . . affect is the missing term in an adequate understanding of ideology, for it offers the possibility of a “psychology of belief” which would explain how and why ideologies are sometimes, and only sometimes, effective . . . People actively constitute places and forms of authority . . . through the deployment and organization of affective investments. By making certain things matter, people “authorize” them to speak for them . . . People give authority to that which they invest in; they let the objects of such investments speak for and in their stead. They let them organize their emotional and narrative life and identity. In this way, the structures and sites of people’s investments operate as so many languages which construct their identity. (Grossberg 1992, pp. 82 – 84)

The ways in which Grossberg’s approach is compatible and incompatible (above all, his proposal of replacing “theories of difference” with “theories of otherness”—Grossberg 1996, p. 93) with mine will be discussed in my future theoretical work on processes of identity construction. 3. Perinbanayagam (2000, p. 6), in his seminal book about the self, advances a very similar position: The individual, subject though he or she may have been in the socialization processes to these same discursive formations, nevertheless has enough independence from them to be able to view them critically and analytically, compare them with other discursive formations, and select one over the other or select elements from each and from one’s own discursive formation and a discursive self with it.

In other words, the individual can always choose “among various alternative implications of the available forms of discourse” (p. 30). As a matter of fact, for this author the mere emergence of the self is linked to the exercise of choice and selectivity among given alternatives (p. 22). Therefore, according to Perinbanayagam, the constitution of the subject is achieved “not by the mere fact that certain discursive formations are available in a general sense but by the active deployment of discursive acts in which these formations are featured” (p. 78). 4. I agree with Perinbanayagam (2000, p. 143) that “the ‘soul’ is a very serviceable metaphor with which a sense of continuity and differentiation can be achieved. It encompasses duration: The soul remains constant over time as the body changes . . . and . . . eternally. Further, each soul had a unique N O T E S T O PAG E S 2 3 5 – 2 3 7

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destiny . . . The soul, then, is a metaphor for identity that allows an individual to objectify his or her self and confer on it a sense of continuity and difference.” 5. At the same time, as I show in those chapters, Pentecostals have many more “religious borders” than Catholics, making the issue still more complex. 6. Although I originally wanted to talk about the relationship between tropes and identity claims in both Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders and the present book, I ended up talking only about metaphors. However, I firmly believe that metaphors are only one possible trope people use to buttress the characters they want to display in any social encounter. I totally agree with Perinbanayagam (2000, p. 139) that “the process of identification involves acts of composition . . . and identities of individuals are results of such poetic exercises.” For this author, “tropes are the instrumentations with which the logic of identity is given shape, form, concrete expression” (p. 138). Among the most important tropes that help in the process of constructing identities, this author mentions four major ones: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony (p. 136). While Perinbanayagam analyzes how different theories use tropes to construct particular identities, his ideas can be easily translated to the way people’s characters guide the process by which particular tropes are privileged in relation to others: The choice of the tropes with which particular identities are to be constituted is, however, not a matter of whimsy; rather the choice is dictated by the aims that the theory is meant to serve. For example . . . Freudian poetics of the self serve to support a psychobiological view of humans. In each case a theory of knowledge and world accompanies the poetics selected to define the self. (p. 137)

As a product of my overemphasis on metaphors at the expense of other tropes, for instance, I missed the opportunity to analyze national and ethnic identities on the border as dependent on metonymic processes, because in “metonymy something that is convoluted, or evanescent and unsubstantial, is transformed into something simpler and substantial” (Perinbanayagam 2000, p. 164). Additionally, my lack of attention to synecdoche prevented me from analyzing how, among the many synecdochic identification processes, one that works constantly in any process of identification on the border is when the whole is represented by a part when a single term that summarizes a complex whole is used to identify an individual. According to Perinbanayagam: Claims to being a “Christian” . . . are really synecdochic forms of identification. In these single terms and simple words, an individual’s religious life, ritual life, values, the food he or she may eat, whom he or she is likely to marry or eat with, when he or she may eat, perhaps where he or she lives in some cases, and various other characteristics are denoted and an identity conferred on him or her. Conversely, insulting and belittling terms use synecdochic processes to identify individuals . . . Ethnic insults too often reduce an individual’s complexity to particular racial characteristics. Stigmatizing identities of every kind are in fact synecdochic identifications: homosexuality, criminal acts from the past, or insane N O T E S T O PAG E S 2 3 7 – 2 4 0

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episodes confer an identity on an individual that obliterates all other attributes of his or her self, and he or she becomes reduced to being a “queer,” a “con,” or a “nut.” The essential quality of this process of identification is the use of a selected singular aspect of the individual to overshadow the rest of his or her self. (2000, pp. 168 –169; italics in the original)

Many of the categories I analyze in Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders and this book (sureño, Juarense, norteño), as well as some of the ethnic and national insults many of my interviewees used to address the “other” (chilango, juareño, gabacho, pocho), would have benefited from this kind of analysis in terms of its synecdochic character. 7. As I assume it has become quite clear by now, one of the “sedimented” narrative plots that is obviously working behind my understanding of the border situation is that the struggle for power is constitutive of the social. Therefore, many times I caught myself using the language of war to describe my actions and those of the “other.” 8. Laclau refers to “black” in the South African context. In brackets, I have substituted “Mexican” for “black” in reference to my own border context. 9. As a matter of fact, the real process is the other way around: it is the narrative that constructs the actors and not vice-versa. However, for analytical purposes, I started from the point of view of the introduction of actors in order to clarify the complex relationship between discursive formations/nodal points/floating signifiers and narratives/plots/happenings transformed into events. 10. While Holstein and Gubrium define “going concerns” as a “way of characterizing relatively stable, routinized, ongoing patterns of action and interaction” (Gubrium and Holstein 2000, p. 102), therefore allowing the theoretical possibility of local cultures being going concerns as well, they restrict their scope to social institutions when they point out that to talk about going concerns is “another way of referring to social institutions” (p. 102). I think that they limit the reach of the concept in such a way because they conduct their research on institutions, not because they are unaware of the role of local cultures in promoting “an ongoing commitment to a particular moral order, a way of being who and what we are in relation to the immediate scheme of things” (p. 102).

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abortion, 59, 145 African Americans, 54, 202, 215 Alarcón, Norma, 116 –117, 132 alcoholism and drug abuse, 81– 82, 119–120 Alonso, Ana María, 229 Althusser, Louis, 231 Americanization, 36, 41, 49 and democratization in Mexico, 194 as the way to end poverty, 191 American “liberalism,” 46, 144–145, 159 American missionaries perceived as proselytism, 42 American prohibition, 171 Americans and consumerism, 41, 240 criticized for not keeping the family together, 52 hard-working, 53 and lack of compassion for others, 49 as less faithful, 52, 54 as materialistic, 52, 58 more prepared to be the “saved ones,” 9, 72 as obsessed with race and ethnicity, 55 perceived as “liberal,” 14, 46, 143 –145 portrayed as believing in money, 55 relationship of, with the deity, 41 and violence, 137 Anglos. See Americans Anzaldúa, Gloria, 229 Apostles of Christ Church, 77, 89 arreglado, 173 –174, 193 assimilation, 29

INDEX

Baca-Zinn, Maxine, 274 Bartkowski, John, 268 Bible and claim of “inerrant character,” 101, 108 and class issues, 71 and gender, 97–98 importance in daily life of Protestants, 93 –97 as a “life manual,” 94, 101 “source of self,” 11, 67, 92, 101, 104, 108 use in identity plots, 95 use in Protestant rituals, 93 Bohman, K., 267 Booth, Wayne C., 85 – 86, 107 border crossers, 4, 17, 201, 239, 268 Border Patrol agents, 10 borders as the garbage disposal of a country, “el resumidero de un país,” 6 historical, 77 internal versus external, 67– 68 separating “reality” from “fiction,” 85 social construction of, 237 border studies approach, 229 Bowen, Kurt, 21, 26, 42, 59– 60, 65, 77–78, 85, 93, 100, 104–107, 266, 268 Brah, Avtar, 111–112, 121 Bruner, Jerome, 19 Brusco, Elizabeth Ellen, 99 Bustamante, Jorge, 6 Butler, Judith, 114–115, 127 Camp, Roderic, 22–23, 36 Castillo, Debra A., 269, 271

Catholic Church attempts to avert potential Protestant expansion, 23 emphasis on the family, 121 innovations in, 24 Catholic customs/practices interchangeable with Mexican customs, 21 of making the sign of the cross when passing a church, 53 –54 private vs. public, 48 Protestantism as perceived cause of regional differences in, 47, 50 Southerners claiming Fronterizas/os do not follow, 34 used as “measure” of Mexicanness, 43 used to stress differences between Southern Mexicans and Fronterizos/as, 8 Catholicism Mexican vs. American way of practicing, 51 and national identity, 21 and national security, Mexican, 36 perceived by Pentecostals as “Christo-paganism,” 25 and the santos, 27 as synonymous with Mexicanness, 7, 21–22 used to create differences between Mexicans and Mexican Americans, 55 and the Virgin, 27 Catholics demographic data, 22 Catholic sacraments, 47 Catholic symbols use in construction of identity. See construction of identity use in construction of “sameness,” 8, 30 Centro de Orientación de la Mujer Obrera, 170, 172 B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

294

cerrajeros, 226 Chabram Dernersesian, Angie, 269 Chafetz, Janet Saltzman, 26, 260 Chicano movement, 133, 151, 154 Chicanos/as and construction of identity, 146, 149–150 and gender relations, 149 malinchistas, 149–150 as the “other,” 149 Chihuahuans, 76 –77 chilango, 116, 238 Ciudad Chihuahua, 171–172 class, 23, 28 –29, 48, 71, 73, 97, 169–170 class discourses, absence of, 15 –16, 169–170 “cleanliness,” importance of, 90 –91 Communism, 246 –247 Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos, 170 “constitutive outside,” 24, 169, 178 construction of identity through Catholicism, 22 through conversion, 78 through the family, 150 through religion, 22, 49 and the selection of the “real,” 232 use of Catholic symbols, 30 use of multiple mirrors, 177 use of the “other,” 151, 161 use of power, 230 conversion abandonment of Catholic traditions, 64– 67 characteristics of Protestantism that make it appealing to Mexican Catholics, 27 as a “circular migration,” 89 and identity change “from a lazy to a hard-working person,” 83 illness and death, 106 as a move from the “world” to the world serving God, 90 –91

process of identity construction, 64– 67 seen as border crossing, 77– 84 “conversion experience,” 7, 79 “conversionist sects,” 78 conversion narratives containing dramatic tangible events, 107 following a defined structured format, 106 and narrator undergoing serious consequences, 107 structured as “before and after,” 86 as “true stories,” 107 and the use of the Bible, 93 –101 and the use of an “event,” 106 –107 and use of the very poor and messy household metaphor, 86 – 87 converts construction of narratives, 78 – 82 demographic data, 26, 77 and inflexibility of narrative plots, 11 process of identity change, 82 and use of photographs in construction of narrative plots, 11–12 Cromwell, Ronald E., 131 crossing the border for medicine, 17, 216 Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders, 1– 4, 14, 17–18, 30, 60, 68, 71, 74, 87, 92, 202, 215, 226, 231–232, 237, 241–242, 245, 249, 252–253, 257, 259–264, 266, 274, 276 –277 D’Antonio, William V., 28 –29 Deiros, Pablo A., 25, 66, 84, 101–103, 262, 265 Del Castillo, Adelaida, 113, 134, 140, 168 Delgado, Bonnie, 269, 271 dental care, by Mexican dentists, 219–220, 233 Destacamento del Pueblo, 170

Día de los Muertos, 21, 34–35, 38 – 41, 44, 49, 64 di Leonardo, Micaela, 147 discourses of the “American dream,” 179, 191 of “before and after,” 90 of the “bossy American woman,” 129, 132, 138, 143, 146, 153 of “class,” 169–177, 209 hegemonic, 1–2, 11, 16, 19, 115, 163, 179, 186, 201–203, 205, 221, 223, 228, 236, 240 –241, 244, 247 of homosexuality, 114–115 of machismo, 133 –141 of a poor Anglo, 223 of prostitution, 114 of race, 61, 202 of region, 2, 90, 172, 186, 221 of social inequalities, 172 discursive practice, 232 domestic violence, 100, 139 dominant culture, 29 Douglas, Mary, 114 Ebaugh, Helen Rose, 26, 260 Elizondo, Virgilio, 22, 25, 28, 32, 260 El Paso associated with middle-class status, 197–198, 212–213, 217–218 as a border town, 226 and discourse of “rich El Paso,” 71 having two cultures, 225 –226 and Mexican culture, 226 and Mexicans, 226 parts “looking like” Juárez, 186 and “poverty is all Mexican Americans and homeless Anglos,” 202 use of Spanish in, 16, 226 whites’ sense of invasion, 222 endrogado, 136 –138, 272 Ethnography at the Border, 4 “Evangelical persuasion,” 85 Evangelical Protestantism anti-Catholicism, 24–25 INDEX

295

definition, 24 strengthening Mexican culture, 28 Evangelical “stories,” 85 familia, la, 150, 154 family, Mexican, 113, 133 –137 feminist theory, 132–133 Figueroa Deck, Allan, 22–23, 26 –28 Forgacs, David, 236 Fortuny Loret de Mola, Patricia, 21, 43 Foucault, Michel, 232 Franco, Jean, 115, 270 Fromm, Erich, 113 Fronterizos/as criticized for abandoning their Mexicanness, 44 difference in how they deal with the concept of continuity through history, 34 as hard-working, 36, 59 as the “libertine Fronterizo/a,” 14, 36, 59, 112 as more Catholic than Mexican Americans, 32– 43 as more modern, 9, 36, 59 as obsessed with region, 55 –56 perception of, by Southerners, 34, 36 –38 as practicing a more modern and Americanized version of Catholicism, 37–38 use of the border to upgrade their “social standing,” 233 Gabriel, Juan, 126 –127, 129 Gamba, Raymond, 27, 60 gambling, 84, 100 García Canclini, Néstor, 229 Garfinkel, Harold, 230, 232 Garma Navarro, Carlos, 66, 265, 268 Garrard-Burnett, Virginia, 57, 74 gender and the Bible, 97 B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

296

and the border, 98 “radicalization of,” 111–112 and regional discourses, 112 relations, 99 geographical hierarchy, 56 geographical “us,” 60 Gergen, Kenneth J., 239 Goffman, Erving, 230, 232 Gómez-Peña, Guillermo, 229 Gonzales, Felipe, 131 Gramsci, Antonio, 236 Greeley, Andrew M., 26 Gubrium, Jaber F., 11, 231–236, 238 –240, 254–258 Gutmann, Matthew C., 127, 130 –131 Hall, Stuart, 169, 177–178, 231 Hanratty, Dennis M., 36 Hernández Hernández, Alberto, 4, 24, 26, 43 hierarchy of Catholicism, 41 Hirsch, Jennifer S., 111, 272 Holstein, James A., 11, 67, 231–236, 238 –240, 254–258 homelessness, Anglos, 211, 217–218, 223 homosexuality, 114–115, 126 –127 identities Chicana, 146, 149 “coherent,” 30 contradictory, 2 diverse, 1 ethnic, 77, 150 –151, 153, 209 gender, 77, 97, 112, 122, 128, 130, 145 –146, 151, 153, 161–163, 234 and “geographical borders,” 237 “guaranteed,” 108 –109 national, 39, 64, 77, 146, 209 overlapping, 39, 128 previous, 88 religious, 39, 64, 77– 84, 97, 145 –146

identity plots use of the Bible, 95 use of photographs, 78 – 83 illegal immigrants and the Black Bridge, 196 gender of, 166 in search of the almighty dollar, “en el otro lado,” 233 struggle of, 195 –196 trying to make a better life, 196 imperialist conspiracy, 25 interview dynamics, 104 Juarenses as agringados, 36 criticized for allowing American customs to replace Mexican ones, 35 feeling of invasion by Southerners, 233 as less Catholic, 8 perception of Southerners, 43 – 44 as prostitutes, 12, 113 –120 Juárez American customs replacing Mexican ones, 32 American influences, 32, 35 –36 and cantinas, 62– 63 as the “city of vice,” 14, 61, 79, 113, 118 –120, 122–124, 127–128, 269, 272 and culture of feminicidio, 13 as egalitarian, 172 and image of criminality, police brutality, and legal harassment, 12–13, 221 “lack of Mexican culture,” 32–33, 36, 44 “lack of morals,” 118 –122 and “leisure industry” to provide pleasure for the U.S., 113 –118 as liberal, 123 as “more Catholic” than El Paso, 46

and poverty, 184–186, 213, 224–225 and sexual behavior, 14 and U.S. military facilities, 113 Kristeva, Julia, 1 Laclau, Ernesto, 2, 231, 234, 236, 238, 240, 248, 250 –252, 254, 257–258 Lamphere, Louise, 131 Latin American culture, 21 Latin American Pentecostalism. See Pentecostals Leon, Luis D. G., 28 Levine, Daniel H., 23 –24, 79 Lewis, Oscar, 113 Lyotard, Jean-François, 232 Maccoby, Michael, 113 machismo abandonment by Mexican Protestants, 66 and Americanization, 165 –166 and gender identities, 130 and Mexican American males, 165 and Mexicanness, 66, 98 –99, 129–130, 132, 163 –164 perceived as a moral defect, 62 machistas, 98 –99, 117 Malintzín, 115 –117, 132–133, 149, 154, 269 mandilones, 10, 78, 98, 272 maquiladoras equated with prostitution, 12, 116 exploitation of labor, 172 maquiladora workers, 12, 38, 116, 124, 134, 173 –177 Marín, Gerardo, 27, 60 Martin, David, 24, 26, 79, 104, 262 Mary Magdalene, 93 matachines, 21 matrimonio de confianza, 161 “McCarthyism,” 170 INDEX

297

metaphors of “border crossers,” 5 of the cross, 160 of crossing the bridge to the U.S., 195 –196 of the factual world as a movie, 85, 89 of geographic mobility understood as social mobility, 188 –189, 191, 196 of the hierarchy of Catholicism, 41 of “identity cleansing,” 88 – 89 of mandilones, 162, 272 of moving the saints from public to private spaces, 48 –50, 53 of the U.S. and Mexico being “different worlds,” 207, 209 Mexican American Catholics criticized for being ashamed of religious practices, 49–50 being less Catholic, 8, 41 Mexican Americans anti-Mexican narratives, 62 discriminatory toward Mexican nationals, 187, 189, 191 perceived as having a sense of superiority, 193 –194 Mexican Catholics criticized for idolization and superstition, 74 as more faithful than American Catholics, 52 Mexican flag and “national identity,” 64, 67 mexicanidad, 5 – 6, 22, 238 Mexican immigrants and acceptance of American culture, 150 as agringado, 192 as anti-immigration, 226 blamed for poverty in El Paso, 202 and conflicting identities, 153

B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

298

conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism, 26 as “hard-working,” 244, 246 and identity construction, 153, 161–163 and the migration process, 152 and patriarchy, 148 and poverty, 186, 187, 202 and the “process of negotiation,” 157 Mexican immigrants criticized for bragging about their “success” in U.S., 188 –190 disdain toward/feeling superior to Mexican nationals, 187–191 Mexican Pentecostals. See Pentecostals Mexican Protestants anti-idolization, 60, 74 avoided by Catholics, 50 and construction of “us” as “saved ones,” 60 and Mexican identity, 64– 67 as more modern, 49 and other identity categories, 2 perception of Catholicism, 66 and religious borders, 10 and religious discourses and religious identity, 76 salvation, 7, 10, 60 as something “unexpected,” 57–58 threatening Mexico’s national sovereignty, 36 viewed as “less Mexican,” 64– 65 Mexicans commonsense assumptions about, 22 as compassionate, 49 “natural laziness,” 83, 202 Mexico and commonsense assumptions, 22 demographic data, 22, 25 image of “lawless society,” 221, 224 and an “impure origin,” 74

as a “nation of virgin worshippers,” 73 minimum wage, American, 193 modernization, 38, 51 Molina Hernández, José Luis, 22, 23, 25 Monsiváis, Carlos, 5, 269 Moraga, Cherríe, 117, 132, 150 Mouffe, Chantal, 2, 230 –231, 236, 240, 248, 252, 257 NAFTA, 5 – 6, 226 Nagata, Judith, 3, 267 narrative plots as advancing arguments, 85 and construction of a particular character, 30 filtering process, 18, 231 and multiple interpellations and tropes, 232 and perception of photographs, 78 – 87 and signifiers, 245 narrative plots, most important “All poverty is Mexican,” 3, 16 –18, 52, 62, 146, 171, 178, 180 –181, 184, 189, 191, 201–202, 205 –216, 218, 223 –224, 227–228, 234, 248, 277 “All poverty is Mexican American,” 203 “All the social problems and poverty of the city are related to Mexicans,” 234 “American missionaries seduce or buy converts through offers of food, clothing, and other material benefits,” 42– 43 “Being Catholic means being a Mexican,” 31 “[Being Christian is like having] a letter of recommendation,” 76 –77

“Being Mexican means being Catholic,” 8 “Catholicism is different in the U.S. because in the U.S. one does work,” 41 “Los hombres nomás quieren una cosa,” 167 “The husband here is a mandilón,” 153, 154 “Juarenses are less Catholic than Southern Mexicans,” 7, 30 “In Juárez there are only fags,” 126 “Mexican Americans are less Catholic than Mexican nationals,” 8, 30 “Mexicans keep their elders at home, while Americans put them in nursing homes,” 61 “Mexico is a Marian country,” 73 –74 “In order to be Mexican you have to be a Catholic,” 3 “Our traditions are much more deeply ingrained in Central and Southern Mexico . . . in those parts of the country we have a great deal of respect for our dead, for their resting places . . . Here we see that many people don’t care anymore,” 34–35, 38 – 41, 44, 49, 64 “Over there the woman really wears the pants,” 138 “Poverty is everywhere on the border, not only on the Mexican side,” 217–218 “The scriptures are like a manual, a manual for our life,” 94 “Southern Mexicans equal laziness, backwardness, and Indianness,” 2 “There is no such thing as American poverty,” 201

INDEX

299

“There is no such thing as Juarense poverty,” 52, 175 –176 “This is not a Mexican church,” 31 “This kitchen needs to be cleaned, amen. In the same way, our hearts need to be cleaned,” 88 – 89 “Weak American husband,” 155 –156 “We have to move to the other side to make more money,” 171 “Well, I have seen some . . . but maybe in two or three houses only, but not as many as they have in the South . . . this is not a small backyard village,” 37–38 “ ‘We’re from Juárez’ . . . We’re the drug addicts and prostitutes (males and females alike)! We’re the worst!” 127 “We will be Mexicans until we die,” 64– 65 “When Christ arrives and changes us, even machismo goes away,” 98 narrative theory, 78, 232 native tribes, 73 northern border and the historical enemy, 114–115 and prostitution and homosexuality, 114–115 Northern Mexico perceived as egalitarian, 171 perceived as hard-working, 173 perceived as more Protestant and Americanized, 25 –26 Olson, James, 22, 27, 260 the “others” as Americans, 62, 81, 128 and bad “moral” habits, 81 construction of, 49, 126 as Fronterizos/as, 32 as Juarenses, 81, 123 B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

300

as Mexican, 81, 215, 221, 224 as Mexican American, 224, 244 as “non-saved ones,” 68 as Protestants, 8, 21, 36 as Southerners, 32, 62, 81 as undocumented immigrants, 215 panopticism, 235 Partido de la Revolución, 170 patriarchy, 131–132, 137, 139, 141, 149, 151, 167–168 Posadas, Las, 21 Paz, Octavio, 116 –117 Pentecostals and gender roles, 99 and identities as “guaranteed,” 108 –109 and sexuality, 99 and “signs,” 102–103 Poewe, Karla, 84, 260 the “poor” as having a priority in order of salvation, 96 poor whites and awareness that all poverty is not Mexican, 17, 206 –207 construction of identities, 205, 224 and employment, 223 and Mexicans as not the “despised other,” 208, 221 as natives from the “land of opportunity,” 206 and problems with Mexican immigrants, 206 –207 as something that is not supposed to exist, 205 “popular Catholicism,” 23, 27 post-Marxists, 236 post-modernization theory, 6 poverty, 41, 96 in America brought over by Mexicans, 209 denial of existence in America, 171, 180 –184, 189

ending through democratization, 194 framed in regional/national terms, 170, 175 as Mexican, 146, 171, 179, 189 as more “beautiful” or “clean” in America, 186 as nonexistent in El Paso, 179–180, 182 non-extreme, in America, 184 not American but foreign, 203 as permanent in Mexico but temporary in the U.S., 204 and religion, 51–52 as Southern Mexican, 175 –176 premarital sex, 144–145 prostitution, 114–123, 127, 176 Protestant growth, explanations for, 42– 43 Protestant work ethic, 189

as more traditional, 9, 59 perceived as lazy, idle, and drunkards, 2, 173, 253 and “workers” as synonymous, 177 sports, 89 Stevens, Evelyn, 130 Stevens-Arroyo, Anthony, 23, 28 Stoll, David, 22, 24, 265 stratification and the church, 28 –29 Sullivan, Kathleen, 260 –261, 263, 266 Sylvest, Edwin E., Jr., 259

Rangel Gómez, María Gudelia, 269, 271 religious homogeneity, 22, 24 Rethinking Protestantism in Latin America, 57 Riessman, Catherine Kohler, 259 Rivalry between cities, 75 Rodríguez Sala, Ma. Luisa, 5 Rosaldo, Renato, 229 Rubel, Arthur J., 28 –29 Ruiz, Rene A., 131

United Nations, 36 unity through religion, 52 urbanization, 38

Sacks, Harvey, 232, 238 Segura, Denise A., 273 shared Mexican identity, 34 Shultze, Quentin, 69, 79 Smilde, David, 68, 99–100, 130 Southerners “despised,” 58, 76, 174, 189 as “fanatics,” 9, 36, 59 as immigrants, 176 and maquiladora workers, 174–177 as more Catholic than Fronterizos/ as, 32– 43

Taylor, Charles, 31, 67, 93 teenage pregnancy, 145 television, negative influence, 71– 72 Torfing, Jacob, 241, 249, 253

Valdés-Villalba, Guillermina, 266 vergüenza, 48 Vélez-Ibáñez, Carlos G., 131 Vila, Pablo, 92, 229 Virgin of Guadalupe, 21, 53, 259 Weigert, Andrew, 28 –29 welfare and Mexican Americans, 203, 244 Mexican immigrants not eligible for, 244, 246 as a reason for temporary poverty in the U.S. vs. permanent poverty in Mexico, 204 Williams, Norma, 148 Wilson, Everett, 42, 69, 87, 265, 268 women and the Bible, 97–98 INDEX

301

and employment, 133 –137, 151–152, 161–163 and equality, 97–100, 133 –141 and “good woman” versus “bad woman” images, 14 and the household, 133 –141, 151–152, 163 –164, 167–168 and linkage of morals to their behavior, 122 and Marian image, 130, 161 and Pentecostalism, 98 –100

B O R D E R I D E N T I F I C AT I O N S

302

Protestantism improving the situation of, 57 and sexuality, 144 Yamane, David, 78 Ybarra, Lea, 132 Zacatecas, 63 Zavella, Patricia, 111, 131, 136 Zizek, Slavoj, 230, 234, 246 –249, 257