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Chapter 4 GENDER, NATIONALITY, AND ETHNICITY ON THE AMERICAN SIDE OF THE BORDER 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 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 BORDER IDENTIFICATIONS 144 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...

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