Fires on the Border: The Passionate Politics of Labor Organizing on the Mexican Frontera

Title Page, Copyright Page

Fires on the Border This page intentionally left blank Fires on the Border The Passionate Politics of Labor Organizing on the Mexican Frontera Rosemary Hennessy University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis • London The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges financial assistance provided for the publication of this book from the Office of the Dean for Humanities at Rice University. An earlier version of chapter 4 was previously published as “Open Secrets: Class and the Culture of Organizing on Mexico’s Northern Border,” in Researching Gender, ed. Christina Hughes (London: Sage, 2013). An earlier version of chapter 6 was previously published as “The Value of a Second Skin,” in Intersections in Feminist and Queer Theory: Sexualities, Cultures, and Identities, ed. Diane Richardson, Janice McLaughlin, and Mark Casey, 116–35 (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2005). An earlier version of chapter 6 was previously published as “Bio-deregulation: Bodies, Jeans, and Justice,” in Kapitalismus Reloaded: Kontroversen zu Empire und Hegemonie, ed. Christina Kaindl, Christoph Lieber, Oliver Nachtwey, Rainer Rilling, and Tobias ten Brink, 278–304 (Hamburg: VSA-Verlag, 2007). An earlier version of chapter 7 was previously published as “Gender Adjustments in Forgotten Places: The North–South Encuentros in Mexico,” in “Invisible Battlegrounds: Feminist Resistance in the Global Age of War and Imperialism,” ed. Susan Comfort, special issue, Works and Days 29, nos. 1–2 (Spring/Fall 2011): 181–202. Portions of chapter 8 were published as “Notes toward the Political Valence of Affect,” in Gesellschaftskritik nach Marx. Philosophie , ­ Ökonomie, politische Praxis, ed. Rahel Jaeggi and Daniel Loick (Berlin: Akade­ mie, 2013), and as “Bread and Roses in the Common,” in Love: A Question for Feminism in the­Twenty-first Century, ed. Ann Ferguson and Anna G. Jónasdóttir (New York: Routledge, 2013); copyright 2013 and reproduced by permission of Taylor and Francis Group, LLC, a division of Informa plc. Copyright 2013 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hennessy, Rosemary. Fires on the border : the passionate politics of labor organizing on the Mexican frontera / Rosemary Hennessy. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8166-4758-3 (hc) — ISBN 978-0-8166-7962-1 (pb) 1. Offshore assembly industry—Employees—Labor unions—Mexican–American Border Region. 2. Labor unions—Organizing—Mexican–American Border Region. 3. Women offshore assembly industry workers—Mexican–American Border Region. I. Title. HD6534.O33H46  2013 331.89'1209721—dc23 2013030706 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer. 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Martha, fogata de amor y guía This page intentionally left blank When we do and think and feel certain things privately and in secret, even when thousands of people are doing, thinking, whispering these things privately and in secret, there is still no general, collective understanding from which to move. Each takes her or his own risks in isolation. We may think of ourselves as individual rebels, and individual rebels can easily be shot down. The relationship among so many feelings remains unclear. But these thoughts and feelings, suppressed and stored-up and whispered, have an incendiary component. You cannot tell where or how they will connect, spreading underground from rootlet to rootlet till every grass blade is afire from every other. Adrienne Rich, What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics This page intentionally left blank ...