Theoretical themes: Late capitalism and neoliberal development projects in US and Mexico

1. Ronald L. Mize 2008, Interrogating Race, Class, Gender And Capitalism Along The U.S.-Mexico Border: Neoliberal Nativism And Maquila Modes Of Production. (excerpts)

2. Theoretical themes: • Late capitalism and neoliberal development projects in US and Mexico • US policies: "neoliberal nativism.” • border militarization, border crossings and citizenship, maquiladora circuits of production • Industrial production on the border did not improve Mexico’s development • Deepened gendered, raced, and classed US-Mexican labour relations • US nativism has intensified the border security and militarization between Mexico US consider Mexicans as criminal “illegal aliens”

3. NAFTA’s impact: • Labor process of U.S. distribution centers and the circuit of commodities in a post-NAFTA era: • In the Maquila workplace Mexican women are racialized. • Mexican women as disposable bodies: • 1993 -2005: 300 Mexican women were brutally murdered

4. IMF’s impact: Ravages of neoliberal restructuring fall on the residents who reside in nations subject to free trade agreements, structural adjustment and austerity programs • How do race, class, and gender articulate within capitalist social relations ? • How does neoliberalism shape lived experiences along the U.S.-Mexico border, and its articulation with nativism? • (three years of ethnographic research (from 1998-2001) in San Diego, California and its twin sister city of Tijuana, Baja California )

5. Militarization and Mexican criminalization and construction as 'aliens' describes the economic linkages in the border industrialization patterns • This view ensures production and distribution of maquila assembled products. • “Neoliberal nativism" shows how the free flow of commodities is eased in the era of NAFTA while the flow of people is restricted.

6. Nativism in US: • Military doctrine of low-intensity conflict (LIC) has been applied by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to 'defend' the southern US border • e.g.: Patrolling of the border (helicopters, night-vision equipment, electronic intrusion-detection ground sensors), operational tactics and strategies of border enforcement (combining police, military, and paramilitary forces) • Overall aim of social control of a targeted civilian population all embody the LIC doctrine that the U.S. military operated in Vietnam, Somalia, Libya, Kuwait, Panama, Iraq, and Grenada.

7. CRIMINALIZATION OF "ILLEGAL ALIENS”: Paramilitary and hyper-militarized situation along the U.S.-Mexico border intensified by citizen's militias that claim to defender "America."

8. DISPOSABLE LABOR AND ENGENDERING BORDER WORK IN MAQUILADORAS Maquiladora assembly plants: Mexican state's 1965 Border Industrialization Program created a free trade border zone where U.S. companies set up assembly plants most often in Mexican state-financed industrial parks.

9. These plants encouraged Mexico’s internal migrants to permanently settle in these cities. By 1969, U.S. corporations such as RCA, Motorola, Hughes Aircraft, Litton, General Electric, and other built 72 assembly plants. Before NAFTA: 1992 :2080 plants, with a half million workers. 2007: 5000 plants, with one million workers, maquilalabor in the 13 years since NAFTA was ratified.

10. Racialization of free-trade development strategies: • Mexicans who benefit as managers or as owners from neoliberalism are European or blancos, whereas • At the bottom of the workforce are maquilaoperatives who are mestizo and indigenous • With a federal minimum wage of US$5 per day, the Mexican state has entered into NAFTA to provide the cheap assembly labor and export agricultural commodities • NAFTA facilitates the movement of people due to the increased emphasis on export agriculture in particularly southern Mexico. • For U.S. and increasingly Japanese and other multinational corporations using the maquiladoras as the main source of cheap labor, assembly plants were established and expanded to capitalize on the labor of predominately Mexican women

11. Maquilas Del Norte: Distribution Centers and The Nafta Circuit Of Commodities U.S. border region was touted as the growth corridor of the post-NAFTA trade and distribution economy Female workers in a Tecate, Mexico maquiladora work for approximately eight dollars per day (10 hours per day, 6 days a week) to assemble school supplies products. In the distribution center, workers were sporadically employed and paid just above minimum wage with no fringe benefits. In the post-NAFTA era, the border region is favoured for a circuit of commodities that crisscrosses the border to maximize profits by reducing labor and duties costs

12. Unions and Teamsters: Top-down hierarchies reproduce the racialization of class relationships (regardless of whether the culprits are growers, capitalists, or labor elites

13. The Mexican-American labour contractor in charge of the work crew, berated workers using Spanish explicative to ensure that his workers, or "pendejosestupidos," would not make the same mistake again.

14. The managers were all male. Their secretaries as well as receptionists, order takers, and customer service agents were female. In the warehouse, all of the workers were male. • Mexicans as lazy or stupid and thus deserving of $5 per day, • Mexican women as easily controlled by male managers. • Militarization of the border and the lack of respect for maquila laborers leads to the callous view towards Mexican bodies as disposable. This marginalization can often serve as the basis for resistance.