Masculinities and the Law: A Multidimensional Approach

7. Border-Crossing Stories and Masculinities

146 > 147 larger project involving approximately 100 interviews with male and female workers who discussed with us their work conditions, their migration patterns , and their involvement in organizing or grievance efforts in U.S. workplaces (Saucedo and Morales 2010). In Hidalgo, Mexico, we interviewed 32 male migrants who had worked in the United States and who had returned to their hometowns. Among the topics of conversation with these workers were discussions about their own migration and border-crossing stories. By focusing on their border-crossing stories, this chapter explores the behavioral responses of border-crossing migrants between the United States and Mexico to restrictive immigration measures and to economic and social conditions. The stories explain the migration pattern and the reasons for it, and correspondingly, the reasons that individual immigrants journey across the border. Border-crossing stories imbue migrants with decidedly masculine characteristics , in keeping with a tradition of mostly male migration to the United States since the implementation of the Bracero Program in the 1940s (Durand, Massey, and Zenteno 2001; Broughton 2008; Ngai 2004). The Bracero Program, the early version of a government-sponsored guest worker program, limited migration to those who could work in traditionally male occupations like farmwork (Ngai 2004). The Bracero Program spawned a set of narratives that characterized northward migration as a masculine activity (Schmidt Camacho 2008). That is still the case now. Today’s narratives demonstrate that restricting entry through immigration law does not necessarily stop the immigration flow, or even change individual behavior; instead, migrants perpetuate stories rooted in masculinity that allow them to take and endure increasingly greater risks resulting from border restrictions. The dynamic between immigration restrictions and migrant masculinities narratives raises important questions about the efficacy of a border policy that emphasizes strong enforcement. Ultimately, the border-crossing narratives illustrate a fundamental miscalculation of restrictive immigration policy, namely that more restrictive immigration laws will change human behavior. Restrictions do not exist in a vacuum and they do not alter human individual behavior in the context of historical, dynamic, collective movement . The paradigm of the rational actor, responding to legal cues, simply does not operate in this context. The narratives meet at the intersection of immigration and employment, signaling the importance of considering the effects of law in a multidimensional manner, so that the exploitation particular to migrants is more effectively addressed. The stories I review here, and their incorporation of 148 > 149 as well as incidents of abuse by law enforcement authorities, including extortion and excessive force (Amnesty International 2010). These dangers are incorporated into the stories of those who either seek to cross into the United States or who have returned to Mexico and are waiting for an opportunity to return to the states. Masculinities Narratives: Endurance, Persistence, Family Provider, Family Order The risks of death, trafficking, injury, capture and detention, and illness, and the high monetary and emotional costs of repeated crossing attempts, elicit border-crossing stories unique to the current social and economic conditions on both sides of the border. There are three main narratives that migrants use to describe border crossing and their motivations for it. Each of the narratives emphasizes the masculine character of the individual border crossers and their experiences. I term them the endurance, the family provider, and the family order narratives. The endurance narrative includes in its story a matter-of-fact bravery in enduring the risk and danger involved in border crossing. Persistence required is part of the narrative. The family provider narrative identifies the underlying rationale for border crossing, namely the need to earn money. The family order narrative, in turn, maintains the centrality of the migrant in the family as the head of household and keeper of moral values, discipline, and male authority. This story explains the motivation for circular migration. Migrants perceive they are needed at home to restore order so they make the periodic trek back home to reclaim their role in the household structure and to re-establish proper family relationships despite the risks and costs. Masculinities stories and norms perpetuate the border-crossing pattern, even as crossing becomes more risky and dangerous. The masculinities narratives we observed are fluid responses to the dynamic conditions that change daily and that continue to make border crossing more or less dangerous, depending on the latest pressures from either the Mexican or the U.S. side of the border. They are the product of men negotiating their...