Latina activists across borders - Milagros Pea

Over the past twenty-five years, nongovernment organizations (NGOs) run by women and devoted to advancing women's well-being have proliferated in Mexico and along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. In this sociological analysis of grassroots activism, Milagros Pea compares women's NGOs in two regions-the state of Michoacn in central Mexico and the border region encompassing El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Jurez, Mexico. In both Michoacn and the border region, women have organized to confront a variety of concerns, including domestic violence, the growing number of single women who are heads of households, and exploitive labor conditions. By comparing women's activism in two distinct areas, Pea illuminates their different motivations, alliances, and organizational strategies in relation to local conditions and national and international activist networks.

Drawing on interviews with the leaders of more than two dozen women's NGOs in Michoacn and El Paso/Ciudad Jurez, Pea examines the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and liberation theology on Latina activism, and she describes how activist affiliations increasingly cross ethnic, racial, and class lines. Women's NGOs in Michoacn put an enormous amount of energy into preparations for the 1995 United Nations-sponsored World Conference on Women in Beijing, and they developed extensive activist networks as a result. As Pea demonstrates, activists in El Paso/Ciudad Jurez were less interested in the Beijing conference; they were intensely focused on issues related to immigration and to the murders and disappearances of scores of women in Ciudad Jurez. Ultimately, Pea's study highlights the consciousness-raising work done by NGOs run by and for Mexican and Mexican American women: they encourage Latinas to connect their personal lives to the broader political, economic, social, and cultural issues affecting them.