Synopses & Reviews
By the acclaimed author of the bestselling Mexican Lives, a surprising, behind-the-headlines look at the lives of Mexican migrants, in the tradition of Oscar Lewis's classic Five Families
Either you work, or you work. Those are the two choices --Sara, a street vendor in East Los AngelesIn her groundbreaking book Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman profiled fifteen Mexicans, both poor and rich, each of whom was struggling to survive the radical economic and political shifts of Mexico in the 1990s.
The World of Mexican Migrants looks at the aftereffects of these changes through the eyes of those who, no longer able to eke out even a modest living in their homeland, have come to the United States. In New York and Los Angeles, we meet, among others, construction workers, restaurant staff, sweatshop laborers, and street vendors. We encounter deliverymen who race through the streets to bring us our food. We hear stories of astonishing border crossings--including one man's journey riding suspended from the undercarriage of a train, and another's deadly three-day trek across the desert. Back in Mexico, Hellman visits family members of migrants who live on remittances from their husbands and relatives al Norte,
Drawing on five years of in-depth interviews, Hellman offers a much-needed humanizing perspective on the estimated 6 million undocumented Mexican migrants living in the United States, people whose voices are rarely heard in the din of angry political debate and talk-radio rhetoric on immigration.
Synopsis
Widely praised as a splendid addition to the literature on the great wave of post-1970 immigration from Mexico—as a result of which an estimated 6 million undocumented Mexican migrants now live in the United States—The World of Mexican Migrants, by acclaimed author Judith Adler Hellman, takes us into the lives of those who, no longer able to eke out even a modest living in their homeland, have traveled north to find jobs.
Hellman takes us deep into the sending communities in Mexico, where we witness the conditions that lead Mexicans to risk their lives crossing the border and meet those who live on Mexico’s largest source of foreign income, remittances from family members al Norte. We hear astonishing border crossing tales—including one man’s journey riding suspended from the undercarriage of a train. In New York and Los Angeles, construction workers, restaurant staff, street vendors, and deliverymen share their survival strategies—the ways in which they work, send money home, find housing, learn English, send their children to school, and avoid detection.
Drawing upon five years of in-depth interviews, Hellman offers a humanizing perspective and “essential window” (Booklist) into the lives and struggles of Mexican migrants living in the United States.
About the Author
Judith Adler Hellman is a professor of social and political science at York University, Toronto. She is the author of
Mexican Lives and
The World of Mexican Migrants: The Rock and the Hard Place, both published by The New Press, as well as
Mexico in Crisis and
Journeys Among Women: Feminism in Five Italian Cities. Hellman’s fieldwork and writing on Mexico date back to the 1960s, when she first interviewed peasants in the countryside and social movement activists in the cities. She lives in Toronto, Canada.