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REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS
| Milagros Pena, Latina Activists Across Borders: Women's Grassroots Organizing in Mexico and Texas (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press 2007)
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| SCHOLARS FROM a variety of disciplines have examined under what conditions individuals mobilize into grassroots organizations that address social problems. Extensive case studies exist but a systematic gender analysis of grassroots organizations and mass movements represents a major gap in this research specialization. Similarly, studies of feminist movements, both at the national and global levels, have often overlooked the role of women from marginalized sectors of society, and this is certainly the case for Latin American women and women of colour in the United States. Pena's Latina Activists Across Borders is an important contribution because it successfully fills both gaps. |
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Pena examines the participation of two groups of women as they navigate through their local, regional, and national communities in search of social justice. Latina Activists Across Borders is a case study of two women-focused nongovernment organizations (ngos) in two different locations: Michoacan, Mexico, and the border region of Juarez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas. Pena argues that such ngos transform women by creating a pivotal space within which they truly learn that the personal is political. Through their mobilization into ngos, women in Michoacan and the us-Mexico border come to see that their own specific struggles are inextricably tied to larger struggles for social activism that may or may not be explicitly women-centred. These mobilization spaces nurture women's consciousness of their gender struggles and their need to engage in resistance strategies. Participation in ngos also has the potential for women to expand their social justice causes by creating coalitions with other feminist groups at the national and global levels. Women in the two case studies formed alliances with other women's groups such as faith-based Catholic women's groups. This is a key finding and fills a gap in the general study of feminist movements. Women's religious groups have often been seen as non-political. In Latin America such a belief blocks a full understanding of social activism on the continent. Pena also found that women who participate in other organizations, such as labour unions, bring their feminist sensibilities to such organizations and, as a result, raise women-centred issues within these organizations. In sum, participation in ngos transformed women in ways that altered their lives as well as those of men. |
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These Latin American women faced a series of obstacles including the mysterious disappearances and murders of women along the us-Mexico border, immigration, domestic violence, and exploitation in the labor force. As these women came together through a variety of grassroots organizational methods, their understanding of their interconnectedness increased. The women carved out a safe space for themselves that ultimately led them to engage in political action. The women in Michoacan moved slowly but surely from a position of marginalization to one of self and communal empowerment. At the same time that their ngos addressed local issues such as education and health, the organization's "movement towards Beijing" for the 1995 World Conference on Women sponsored by the United Nations enabled them to reach out not only to marginalized indigenous and peasant women but also women from diverse race and class backgrounds. Together they deepened their recognition of the importance of collective action by gaining a consciousness of gender. |
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Turning her attention to women living in the border region and their organizational strategies Pena argues that an understanding of differences in sociopolitical and economic factors provides the best method of comparison and contrast. Surprisingly, the chapter dealing with these differences is the weakest in Latina Activists Across Borders. Pena provides an analysis of women's marginalization and mobilization successes in the border region with examples comparable in kind and degree to those in Michoacan, but does not adequately contextualize one with the other. This is indeed ironic because the research literature on the us- Mexico border – la frontera – is extensive. Her case study, nevertheless, succeeds in its analytical focus on the organizational structure of these ngos, particularly in setting up similarities with those in Michoacan, both of which worked towards "reaching" Beijing. Their experiences at Beijing brought women together in ways that would have been otherwise difficult, if not impossible. In addition, the border women deepened their ties with faith-based organizations, particularly those based on Liberation Theology and as a result reached out to women from diverse backgrounds. |
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Pena's qualitative research methodology involves oral history interviews and is a logical choice for her study. Her extensive role as an ethnographer proved invaluable in gaining inroads into the lives of the women she interviewed. Her success in capturing the everyday life circumstances of her informants is clearly evident in the in-depth information found in Latina Activists Across Borders. |
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Latina Activists Across Borders provides the reader with an understanding of the world from "the bottom up" by documenting the triumph of spirit of women who had lived on the margins of society. Pena lets their voices be heard and in so doing enriches the lives of the reader. The two case studies stand as a testament that the personal is truly political. Pena concludes that "the experiences Latinas have and the work they do in ngos not only broaden feminist discourse but create a space for the chispa, the spark or passion of women's politics, to become a flame." (152) |
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ALMA M. GARCIA
Santa Clara University |
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