Undocumented Lives: The Untold History of Mexican Migration

Undocumented Lives: The Untold History of Mexican Migration
Date
Fri February 15th 2019, 12:30 - 1:20pm
Event Sponsor
Center for Latin American Studies
Location
Bolivar House, 582 Alvarado Row, Stanford, CA
Speaker:

In the 1970s the Mexican government acted to alleviate rural unemployment by supporting the migration of able-bodied men. Millions crossed into the United States to find work that would help them survive as well as sustain their families in Mexico. They took low-level positions that few Americans wanted and sent money back to communities that depended on their support. But as U.S. authorities pursued more aggressive anti-immigrant measures, migrants found themselves caught between the economic interests of competing governments. The fruits of their labor were needed in both places, and yet neither country made them feel welcome.

The talk explores this unique chapter in the history of Mexican migration. Undocumented Lives draws on private letters, songs, and oral testimony to recreate the experience of circular migration, which reshaped communities in the United States and Mexico. While migrants could earn for themselves and their families in the U.S., they needed to return to Mexico to reconnect with their homes periodically. Despite crossing the border many times, they managed to belong to communities on both sides of it. Ironically, the U.S. immigration crackdown of the mid-1980s disrupted these flows, forcing many migrants to remain north of the border permanently for fear of not being able to return to work. For them, the United States became known as the jaula de oro—the cage of gold.

Ana Raquel Minian is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE).  Her book, Undocumented Lives: The Untold History of Mexican Migration will come out in March 2018. Her work has also been published in American Quarterly and the Journal of American History. She is currently working on a new book project on the growth of the Latina/o population in the United States.

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