Mixtec Transnational Migration - The Role of Women

The Role of Women

Women play a significant role in maintaining Mixtec cultural identity. This is true for Mixtec families who remain in traditional areas, as well as for those who have migrated. Nonetheless, their influence in a transnational context seems to be even stronger. Similar to other immigrant groups, transnational Mixtec communities undergo a process in which they adapt to American society and urban life. For the Mixtec community in Linda Vista, San Diego for example, native families adjust to living in apartment complexes, learn to utilize domestic appliances such as the gas stove and the refrigerator, make use of public transportation, buy their produce at a grocery store, and send their children to American public schools. However, as much as possible, they seek to reproduce traditional communal life, in part because cohesion is a protection strategy against an unknown and aggressive urban environment (Clark-Alfaro 2003).

In immigrant Mixtec communities, several families can live in one apartment. Usually, there is one family per bedroom, sharing bathroom and kitchen with other relatives. It is common for a Mixtec extended family to include three or more generations the same household: grandparents, parents and grandchildren.

Mixtecs practice a gendered division of labor, in which women are in charge of the house and the children, and men are the breadwinners. However, due to the high cost of living, many Mixtec women in transnational communities are forced to join the labor force either next to the men, working as agricultural laborers in the fields or as domestic workers in the homes of middle and upper class American families. Despite women's progressively increased participation in salaried work, Mixtec communal tradition still dictates that domestic chores (cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, dishwashing, childcare, healthcare and religiosity) remain woman's work (Maier 2005).

Mixtec female sacrality is reflected in everyday ordinary activities such as cleaning, food preparation, bathing, childcare, parenting and communal interaction, as well as in more formal rituals such as Day of the Dead, Temascalli (vapor) baths, the anniversaries of patron saints, and celebrations of births, baptisms, weddings and funerals. For the Mixtec people, community is the highest expression of divinity (Dahldren De Jordan 1966); therefore, any activity that promotes communal life implies some level of Mixtec sacrality, and it is typically Mixtec women who uphold collective tradition. In the private sphere (the home), women are the primary transmitters of native language: they maintain unity by bringing family together during meals, sharing oral stories about their ancestry and the homelands, teaching Mixtec traditional values to the children, and keeping alive Mixtec customs such as altar display, herbal medicinal healing and hospitality. In the public sphere, Mixtec women play a major role in organizing civic festivities. Women are in charge of preparing traditional feasts during any type of communal celebration. They organize among themselves to decide who will prepare what but also, they participate from logistical arrangements such as decorating, dance performances and religious processions.

Men's responsibilities, on the other hand, are usually limited to their jobs outside the home, and holding on too tightly to their cultural identities can be seen as a form of cultural resistance. Mixtec women often carry the burdens of a double shift between the workplace and the home, but nevertheless make every effort maintain their traditions and core values alive. Thus, in a sense, it could be said that transnational Mixtec women are most invested in preserving their culture.