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Reviews
| Transborder Lives: Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California, and Oregon. By Lynn Stephen. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. xxii + 375 pp. Maps, photos, tables, notes, bibliography, and index. $84.95 (cloth); $23.95 (paper).
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Lynn Stephen's book Transborder Lives is an important addition to the literature on transnational processes and Mexican migration. This detailed testimonial-cum-ethnography of families from two indigenous Oaxacan communities (one Mixtec and the other Zapotec) should be welcomed by readers familiar with work on Mexican migration by Douglas Massey, Richard Jones, and others, as well as migration by Oaxacans (including Michael Kearney, Laura Velasco Ortiz, and this reviewer). |
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Stephen argues that the migrations of indigenous Oaxacans are marked by many crossings, including "ethnic, class, cultural, colonial and state borders" (p. 6). In chapters 1 and 2, the author describes migration for indigenous Oaxacans and elaborates on the meaning of transborders and the many crossings that are involved. She also notes how her approach builds upon seminal work in transnational studies, arguing that "we have to look beyond the national [and the immediate] in order to understand the complete nature of what people are moving or 'transing' between" (p. 23). |
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Chapters 3 through 9 explore these borders and follow migrant families to California (Zapotec movers from Teotitlán) and Oregon (Mixtec from San Augustín) and focus on specific topics including labor (chapter 4); ethnicity, surveillance, and the embodiment of border crossings (chapter 5); the gendered nature of transborder movement (chapter 6); the racial and ethnic hierarchies that rural Oaxacans encounter as they engage the sociocultural systems within Mexico and the United States (chapter 7); and the ways indigenous Oaxacans organize in the U.S. and Mexico, with special attention paid to the evolution of the Frente Indígena Oaxaqueño Binacional, or FIOB (chapter 8). Chapter 9, perhaps the most interesting of the book, notes how migrants use the internet and web to organize and connect with their sending communities and participate in family and community life. |
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Outside the scope of the book is the subject of internal migration. Yet through the early 1990s, a majority of rural, indigenous Oaxacans migrated internally; for some Oaxacans, internal migration was a first step in a journey to the United States. Furthermore, the gendered nature and work opportunities of internal movement differ from those of U.S.-bound migration. Internal migration tends to be cheaper, safer, and balanced between men and women, while U.S. migration has been dominated by men and is dangerous and quite expensive. A second issue—and a critical one—is whether Stephen's model of transborder crossings is meaningful for most Oaxacan movers. For many Oaxacans, the U.S. represents labor opportunities, relatively high wages, and little else. However, Stephen does not elaborate on whether the experiences of her informants are common and on the differences and disagreements that might have occurred around the discourses she collected. Thus, I was left to wonder if the majority of Oaxacan migrants have time to worry about transborder issues as they work to feed their families. |
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These criticisms do not detract from the book's value. For advanced students and scholars of Mexican migration and transnational studies, Stephen's work is an important contribution that gives voice to rural Oaxacans in a way that is engaging and interesting.
Jeffrey H. Cohen
The Ohio State University
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