“Within globalization, a woman factory worker is like a commodity. And if that commodity is not productive, if she’s not attractive for globalization, because she starts to defend her rights, then they look for that commodity elsewhere”
– Lupita Castañeda (Promotora, Maquilapolis)
- Juárez
The Mexico-US border remains a contentious political and social divider. Proponents of a proposed “wall” to prevent the flow of migrants argue its construction on the basis of economic and personal security, while opponents criticize the US’s brutal treatment of detained migrants and maintain that “no human is illegal.”[1] On February 1, 2019, the US President referred to Mexico as “one of the most unsafe countries in the world” from which “we need a protective barrier,” and went on to say of Latin America: “it’s a disgrace what’s going on in those countries [Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala] […] they do nothing for us.” However, not just by nature of its proximity but also by economic participation, the US is indeed implicated in the level of safety along the Mexican side of the border. While cartel violence along the border cannot be discounted, Trump’s rhetoric attempts to absolve the US of influence on its neighbor, when in fact, many US corporations profit from the dangerous conditions their hired workforces face along this industrially-developed border region. Maintaining and reproducing constructed hierarchies of citizenship and gender, global corporations with factories in this region unevenly compensate and treat their workers. Confronting the unequal daily realities of these international geopolitical issues are the citizens of the border region’s cities. By zooming into the vantage point of the Ciudad Juárez/El Paso binational region, one might better understand exactly where and why injustice and inequality occur along this region, and how hierarchies of nationality, gender, and class status might be addressed.
The city of Ciudad Juárez has experienced an industrial makeover over the course of the past sixty years that has attracted migrant workers from other regions in Mexico and exploded the region’s economic capacities. César Fuentes and Sergio Peña, contributors to Cities and Citizenship at the U. S.-Mexico Border, note that by “2006, the maquiladora industry accounted for 45 percent of Mexico’s manufacturing exports.” [2] This “makeover” has also left Mexican citizens largely unprotected, as the national and state governments have trailed behind the rapid development of this manufacturing zone. Alongside these developments, the border city has experienced an onslaught of crime and violence. Fuentes and Peña also argue, “The city is the place where economic globalization is constituted.” Drawing from Friedmann (1986) and Sassen (1996, 2001), they refer to “global cities” as “command points in the organization of the world economy.”[3] However, they argue that “top-level control and management of the industry” is concentrated within a handful of “leading financial centers, including New York, London, and Tokyo,” while manufacturing occurs in spaces with high concentrations of cheap labor and friendly “regulatory environments.” [4] These authors suggest a paradigm of “core” and “lower circuits of globalization” to describe global economic activity.[5] Despite the precariousness presented by crises of capitalism (which frequently result in disruptive and devastating spatial fixes),[6] this paper seeks to move away from paradigms that reinforce hierarchies such as high-low, core-periphery, First-Third, and to instead describe Juárez’s current positionality, particularly in contrast to its binational sister city, El Paso (Texas, US). It is vital to consider the national and international agents and structures that shape the material conditions of life and work in Juárez. The turbulent, dangerous conditions in the core production and export-processing site of Juárez cannot be viewed in isolation; such conditions are related to the industrial development of the region as well as the geographic positionality along the border. Bluntly contrasting its sister city, El Paso, Juárez offers little space for citizens to realize or perform basic rights and duties.
Ciudad Juárez has been largely developed around its economic potential. The city lies within an Export Processing Zone (EPZ), a zone which focuses on the promotion of export industries, often in areas located near ports or borders, to lower transportation costs.[7] EPZs are typically found in “developing” countries, where governments are looking to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). While EPZs experience a growth in manufacturing jobs, this is frequently accompanied by “a declining share of service jobs”– a trend that generally runs counter to that of “highly industrialized countries.”[8] In this zone, FDI primarily comes from multinational corporations that are based in the US, South Korea, Canada, Italy, and Japan, making it a significant site of globalization. In Juárez, there are over 220 plants with an estimated 225,000 manufacturing employees (BorderPlex Alliance). These plants assemble parts from various countries to then export altogether new products.[9]
- Twentieth-Century Developments in Mexico
In the mid-twentieth-century, Mexico first turned its gaze inwards, to focus on internal development, but global economic players and conditions complicated these efforts. In the 1940s, Mexico utilized Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI), a policy that Michael Goldman cites as a common twentieth-century tactic for many Latin American infant industries who hoped to grow their economies internally before opening their doors to the world economy.[10] However, government programs directed towards Mexican production and national economic integration ultimately failed,[11]and the country began to look outwards. In 1965, the Mexican government instituted the Border Industrialization Program, which promoted industrialization in hopes of employing a vast labor reserve. The twenty-kilometer wide zone of “development” (EPZ) along the entire US-Mexico border was demarcated by BIP, and binational agreements offered US manufacturers incentives to relocate to this border region of Mexico.[12] This effort to industrialize laid the groundwork for the later rapid growth of the maquiladoras.
By the 1970s, business interests had gained force and strengthened foreign links to capital, creating an imbalance in class forces and resulting in a substantial flow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the region. However, Mexico was struck hard by the global crisis of the 1970s, and its government took command of the failing private sector and maintained its enterprises as employment sources for the working class. From 1970 to 1980, the number of state enterprises and their employees “more than doubled,” yet, they were losing money. To fund these enterprises, the state had to borrow; it turned to the US. Shortly after taking these loans, Mexico endured another series of blows to its economy that prompted it to declare bankruptcy in 1982.[13] When De la Madrid became president in that same year, he aligned himself with the cause of business, and held close ties to both domestic and foreign capital interests. The IMF, World Bank and US Treasury pressured De la Madrid to institute “broad neoliberal reforms, such as privatization, reorganization of the financial system […] the opening of internal markets to foreign capital, lowering tariff barriers, and the construction of more flexible labour markets.”[14] De la Madrid then opened Mexico to the global economy by joining the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1986[15] and putting an austerity program into effect that reduced public spending and tax increases.[16] Salinas’s presidency in 1988 “accelerated and formalized the process of privatization” and when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was pushed through in 1994 during his presidency, the floodgates were opened to international stakeholders.[17] David Harvey notes that in this same year, Forbes magazine publicized that the economic restructuring in Mexico had created twenty-four billionaires.[18] A transnational class was fortified when Mexico formally entered the world economy of capitalist players, and this elite class greatly influenced the growth and direction of the maquiladoras.[19] Members of this transnational class often profit from the low-wage, unsafe labor conditions of other Mexican cities, such as the maquilas of Ciudad Juárez. This divide highlights the class inequalities that exist not only between Juárez and El Paso, but also among Mexican citizens.
- Broken Mirrors – Unequal Reflections of Juárez/El Paso
There is an assemblage of hierarchies operating in the binational region of Paso del Norte, which is comprised of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and El Paso, Texas. Just as there is a hierarchy operating within this “interdependent” region that mirrors that of the oft-cited “Global South / North” hierarchy, there exists a hierarchy that is constantly being reiterated within the assembly plants that prioritizes men above women and Americans and Europeans above Mexicans. The “interior” manufacturing conditions of Juárez ultimately reflect and refract “external” political, economic, and social conditions of life in the area.
In December of 2014, it was reported that Juárez production workers’ average monthly wage was $422, whereas the average monthly wage for all Mexican workers was reported as $582. In contrast, the monthly wage for managers was a reported $2,238 a month, still higher than the reported average of $2,054 for managers in all of Mexico. In the words of Terrezas, who worked in a Lexmark facility making $6 per day, “It’s not possible to live on these wages. It’s not human […] They are creating generations of slaves.”[20] This stark contrast is attributed to the fact most maquiladora managers reside in El Paso and commute across the border. Furthermore, Melissa Wright’s research reveals that, in one of the plants she studied, not only was knowing English essentially a prerequisite for supervisor positions[21], corporate policy also dictated that management positions were held by individuals with either US citizenship or a US Green Card and that they reside in US territory.[22] Wright notes that in the exceptional cases in which Mexican and American employees hold the same title, the Mexican employee earns at least one third less in wages than their American counterpart, and is still subject to the American employee’s supervision. As such, she concludes that in these spaces, “to “Americanize” is to climb and to “Mexicanize” is to descend the social ladder of power and prestige.”[23]
Wright’s research seeks to demystify the myths of global capitalism, which preemptively define the identities – and subsequently inform the treatment – of its workers. She concentrates on the female plant worker, who faces especially brutal conditions. Workers are split by gender, such that not only do women work the “unskilled” jobs, they are also subject to greater supervision and their work evaluations are publicly posted by their individual stations.[24] Contrary to an idea that identity and capitalism operate in isolation, Wright reveals how myths of the Mexican worker as “intrinsically inferior”[25] to US and European corporate subjects and of the “disposable woman” worker conveniently fit into the needs and interests of capital production. According to Wright, assembly plants maintain an “optimal level of ‘labor turnover’” that feeds into the disposability of female assembly workers, such that it is more valuable for companies to replace these workers than it is to retain them.[26] In other words, over time, the maquila’s labor power declines, even though her labor continues to benefit her employers. Additionally, the declining value of her labor is in itself valuable, as a “flow of temporary labor”[27] is necessary to maintain total control over workers. Thus, the replacement of workers becomes inevitable, and fears of long-time workers–who might be more comfortable forming unions–are quelled. To ensure that they will be able to show up to work, corporations frequently surveil female workers’ reproductive cycles, and women applying to work in maquiladoras are often subjected to pregnancy tests – sometimes even while they are employed.[28] Turnover is so ingrained into the practices of maquiladoras, that a German general manager of one of the assembly plants Wright studied remarked, “We always try to cut down on turnover, but we don’t expect to get rid of it. That wouldn’t be realistic. Not in Juárez.”[29] Additionally, Wright reiterates the frequent claim that workers who express interest in organizing or voicing their grievances are “routinely subject to harassment if not immediate dismissal.”[30] Although there are technically unions in Mexico, they generally resemble “protection contracts, which are essentially collective-bargaining contracts signed between an employer and an employer-backed union, often without the knowledge of the workers.” Roughly one percent of Mexico’s workforce “is organized in independent unions that give more of a voice than protection contracts.”[31] The lack of opportunities and resources available for achieving workers’ rights restricts maquilas’ potential to create better lives for themselves – both in their places of employment and at home.
Wright seeks to expose the grave consequences to the constructed myths; hierarchical binaries of gender and nationality that are reiterated inside factories travel “outside of the global factory system and [interact], often in extremely cruel ways, with other stories that degrade women, especially those who work for low wages around the world.”[32] The material effects of these constructed hierarchies have generated immense polarization only a short distance outside of Juárez’s factories. In 2007, the Mexican Census Bureau (INEGI) showed “an overwhelming concentration of workers occupations in the production line (75%) followed by technical (14%), administrative (9%), and managerial (2%) occupations.”[33] These occupational dispersions correlate to income, deepening overall economic inequality in the region.[34] As Fuentes and Peña argue, the local governments lack the necessary “institutional tools” to mitigate the polarization of this workforce.[35] In place of local government, the market steers infrastructure and furthers its own interests. As such, it makes sense that transportation and other networking needs – roads, airports, and railways – would be promoted,[36] while access to affordable housing and utilities remain sparse. Juárez thus stands in stark opposition to its binational partner city, El Paso.
Fuentes and Peña characterize the setup of Juárez as being “closer to the typical speculative model that privatizes benefits and socializes costs,” while Mexican elites with political ties steer development in this EPZ by attracting capital facilities investment to their tracts. This setup is rather unlike that of the US, where property tax structure and other legal protectionisms generally minimize speculation. Local government officials in Mexico (Chihuahua) have little control over this “development,” for “eminent domain power” remains in the state’s hands.[37] In the absence of necessary regulation, Juárez’s income disparities are compounded with socio-spatial polarization.
The pattern of urbanization in border cities has followed industry’s lead, creating serious issues for access to clean drinking water, adequate water sanitation services, affordable and quality housing, and waste management services.[38] As wide segments of the population are excluded from an inflated land market, poorer residents are displaced further from the (primarily industrial) core to the periphery. Fuentes and Peña observe that middle-high income residents, who would be in managerial and administrative positions, reside in “the flat, northeast part of the city where public services are readily available.”[39] Meanwhile, lower income residents, most of whom work as low-skilled positions in maquiladoras, reside “in the hilly, west part of the city in areas with low levels of public infrastructure. They argue that the “urban elite” created this spatial construction; “during the consolidation of the maquiladora industry program,” they argue, “the masses of poor residents” were excluded from the elites’ urban projects.[40] Ultimately, the “increasing delocalization and the deepening commodification of real estate property”[41] shapes the terrain for uneven housing and infrastructure development.
Juárez is also frequently cited as one of the most dangerous cities in the world, particularly because of the drug violence throughout this border region. The city is infamous for its devastating and shocking rate of femicide; it is reported that every day six women are killed in the city, and “signs of sexual assault or mutilation are common” among these cases (López 2018).[42] Despite this disturbing rate, “only 24 percent of the 3,892 femicides [the National Citizen Femicide Observatory] identified in 2012 and 2013 were investigated by authorities. And only 1.6 percent led to sentencing.”[43] Wright mentions that a “cultural erosion of values” is invoked as an explanation for femicide, conveniently detracting from the role of the state and the transnational corporations that operate in the area.[44] Invoking female promiscuity, or say, a prevailing climate of sexism or gang violence, effectively absolves the larger structures – the state and the corporations operating in the region – of any responsibility.
- El Paso del Norte – Binational Comparisons and Contrasts
Of particular interest to the present analysis is the “transfrontier metropolis” (Fuentes and Peña 12) of El Paso del Norte, which is comprised of El Paso (Texas) and Cuidad Juárez (Chihuahua), and divided by the Rio Grande.[45] The Juárez-El Paso Metropolitan State Area constitutes “the largest bilingual, binational community on the U.S.-Mexico border,” with heavy traffic between the two cities as “about 38,000 vehicles” and “nearly 20,000 pedestrians” cross their border every day.[46] However, Fuentes and Peña characterize the growth rates of Juárez and El Paso as having an “inverse” relationship, due to “the functions assigned” to Juárez as a manufacturing center within what they dub “the transnational urban hierarchy.”[47]
While Juárez has grown tremendously as a hub for assembly plants, El Paso’s economy is correlated to Juárez’s maquiladora industry, and even supplies raw materials and components to plants.[48] Estimates show “that 20 percent to 37 percent of the new jobs created in El Paso are related to” Juárez’s maquiladora industry.[49] Even the Borderplex Alliance, which seeks to attract investors and promote industry in Juárez, El Paso, and Las Cruces, notes that the success of Juárez is tied to that of the entire region “with one in four jobs in El Paso relating directly to the maquilas and millions of retail dollars pouring north of the border annually.”[50] From 1970-2000, “manufacturing employment grew 106.7 percent, while commerce (17.4%), services (68.8%), and government (62.6%) had negative growth rates”[51] in Juárez, indicating that maquiladora employment became increasingly central to economic life in Juárez. The observed “reduction of the commerce, service, and government employment” reflect Mexico’s “shrinking state.”[52]
Such uneven economic growth correlates to the contrast in the living conditions of the cities. The population density of the two regions serves to illustrate their differences: El Paso’s population density is .799 persons per acre, while Juárez’s is 22.4 persons per acre, and the urban boundary of Ciudad Juárez has increased at almost double the rate of El Paso’s urban boundary.[53] On the Northern side of the border, households are generally able to access housing and infrastructural services, but the Southern side of the border tails far behind in achieving the same level of adequate housing and infrastructure available to citizens. Notably, while Ciudad Juárez remains notorious for its reputation as a dangerous and violent city, in 2018 El Paso was recognized as the fourteenth (out of twenty-five) best places to live in the US for “quality of life.”[54] Per Fuentes and Peña, the vastly contrasting “urban structures of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez are the result of institutional frameworks that controlled the urban process.”[55] Both political and economic forces have produced a remarkably unequal binational region. While Ciudad Juárez and El Paso ostensibly ought to reflect one another, twentieth-century border developments, the persistent influence of economic elites on political decisions, and insufficient infrastructural and legal resources for individuals in Mexico have resulted in vastly different landscapes in the two cities.
- Breaking Myths and Claiming Rights – Limitations and Possibilities
As Aihwa Ong (1999) describes in an Asian context, it cannot be assumed that “transnationality has been liberatory, in both a spatial and political sense, for all peoples.”[56] Ong argues that one must consider the political economy and cultural politics that work to produce specific political and economic subjects in a capitalist, globalized frame of reference. The starkly different transnational identities that exist in Juárez and El Paso help to illustrate Ong’s claim; while the same form of industry dominates the entire region, most low skilled workers come from Juárez and almost all managers and administrators commute from El Paso. Per Ong, “An understanding of political economy remains central as capitalism–in the sense of production systems, capitalism accumulation, financial markets, the extraction of surplus value, and economic booms and crises–has become even more deeply embroiled in the ways different cultural logics give meaning to our […] sense of how we are to conduct ourselves in the world.”[57] The processes of capitalism and the production of culture and identity overlap in ways that are messy, often-unpredictable, and unable to be crisply delineated, especially as one’s scope of analysis increases. Ong would likely characterize residents of Chihuahua as “flexible citizens” who continue to adapt to the “changing political-economic conditions” that spring from the “cultural logics of capitalist accumulation.”[58]
If one considers – as Ananya Roy compels readers to do in her essay “Dislocating the Centre” – the processes that create and shape a hierarchy of global cities, perhaps a graduated understanding of the “materialization of such a hierarchy”[59] can be achieved. In Juárez, the (re)production of hierarchies is inextricably linked to both capitalism and reductive identity constructions; as Melissa Wright proclaims, each informs one another. Melissa Wright’s research in factories in China and Mexico reflects a similar perspective to Ong’s. Wright describes how female workers under the regime of global capitalism are differentially constituted within a hierarchy. Per Wright, they are formulated and treated as “disposable women.” The factories that employ them recognize an ideal turnover time for workers that simultaneously reifies their disposability and adds value to it; if they are to be fired anyway, the company need not invest in the worker, who, after working for an extended period at the plant, may seek benefits or forms of unionization.
Considering the shockingly unequal and degrading workplaces and living conditions that capital interests have constructed in Juárez, it is unsurprising that directors Vicky Funari and Sergio de La Torre titled their documentary on the maquilas and their living conditions Maquilapolis.[60] Presumably, they drew inspiration from the 1927 German science-fiction film Metropolis, which portrays a utopian society run by an underworld of mistreated workers. At the same time that one draws out Juárez’s placement within a capitalist, global hierarchical structure that categorizes nations as “developed” and“developing,” one can see Juárez’s placement within Mexico, where elites profit from the maltreatment of low-wage workers. Finally, one can maintain an understanding of Juárez’s living and working conditions, which sharply contrast those of El Paso, just across the border. In a sense, these three comparative layers reveal the complications regarding “to whom” Juárez’s citizens ought to appeal; should workers’ protests and rights campaigns be directed at a global (capitalist), national (Mexican), or regional (binational) level?
Citizenship may offer one framework for seeking better living and working conditions through the language of rights. While it is ultimately limiting under a system of global capitalism, citizenship still offers a layer of protection when enforced by government. Nonetheless, as Miraftab and Kudva note, formal political arenas do not always “offer an adequate site to renegotiate rights and duties associated with citizenship.”[61] Furthermore, they remark that mere “membership in a national community is insufficient in determining the rights and duties associated with citizenship,” suggesting that the fact that maquilas may be Mexican does not afford them access to realize their rights and duties as citizens of the Mexican national community. Reminiscent of Harvey, Miraftab and Kudva note that this state of diminished citizenship is particularly true in a “post-1970s neoliberal era” when “state and government agencies began to dedicate their services and powers” to prioritizing capital interests over those of their own citizens.[62] After all, as Tony Payan notes, “the maquiladora industry of the U.S.-Mexico border is dependent on decisions made away from the border, rather than on decisions made at the border by local residents,” as residents have insufficient power over their living and working conditions.[63]
Miraftab’s and Kudva’s ideas of “urban citizenship from below”[64] provoke a line of questioning regarding reform in Chihuahua: how might workers consolidate their power and fight for a right to their city from below? When the state shifts welfare “onto citizens” to benefit the interests of capital and private companies,[65] as is the case along the Mexican border EPZ, individuals become responsible for their own necessities. The zeitgeist encapsulated in examples of “urban citizenship from below” in other parts of the world indicate a new possibility for community organization. Citizenship occurs ‘from below’ in places where citizens – even if unable to make formal claims to or upon their citizen status – better the infrastructure and networks of their communities through new forms of and direct action and participation. Along the Mexico-US border, Maquilapolis showcases community networking and support through the relationships amongst maquilas, local pro-bono lawyers, and community activists known as promotoras. These individuals work together to fight for rights to safer and more livable workplace conditions and wages. Such efforts exemplify grassroots innovation, and expand notions of citizenship beyond its traditional and rhetorical boundaries. As the state shirks its infrastructural and regulatory responsibilities to its citizens, individuals are forced to take up individual- and community- led battles for their welfare. Furthermore, Holston and Appadurai’s seminal 1996 essay “Cities and Citizenship” asks the question: how can rights take difference into account, such that claims to both better working conditions and better living conditions articulate differences of context and uneven developments?[66] Like Wright, Holston and Appadurai point out the difficulties of coalition building with a distant other that often (re)produce vague or stereotypical representations of identity. In an environment in which “good crossborder governance”[67] is absent and corporate players profit from a lack of access to (a realization of) rights in this major border city, there is little clarity regarding to whom (the city, the state, or international organizations) should citizens and workers make claims for basic needs and services.
Above: Map of border region
Below: Map identifying percent employed in manufacturing in Ciudad Juárez , MX and El Paso, US. Indicates that Juárez has a substantially higher percentage of manufacturing workers than El Paso.
***
[1]Tom O’Connor, “Donald Trump Attacks Nations Supporting Him on Venezuela: ‘They Do Nothing for Us,’” Newsweek, February 1, 2019, www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-attacks-nations-us-venezuela-1315275.
[2] César M. Fuentes and Sergio Peña, “Globalization, Transborder Networks, and U.S.-Mexico Border Cities,” in Cities and Citizenship at the U.S.-Mexico Border: The Paso Del Norte Metropolitan Region, Kathleen Staudt, Julia E. Monárrez Fragoso and César M. Fuentes, eds., (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 10.
[3] Fuentes and Peña, 6.
[4] Fuentes and Peña, 7-8.
[5] Fuentes and Peña, 14.
[6] Andrew Brooks, Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-hand Clothes, (Zed Books, 2015), ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1953287.
[7] Fuentes and Peña, “Globalization, Transborder Networks, and U.S.-Mexico Border Cities,” 8.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Michael Goldman, “Development and the City,” in Cities of the Global South Reader, eds. Faranak Miraftab and Neema Kudva, (New York: Routledge, 2015), 54-65.
[11] Lawrence D. Hansen, “The Origins of the Maquila Industry in Mexico,” Comercio Exterior 53, no. 11 (November 2003): 8. http://studylib.es/doc/4832179/the-origins-of-the-maquila-industry-in-mexico.
[12] Fuentes and Peña, “Globalization, Transborder Networks, and U.S.-Mexico Border Cities,” 16.
[13]David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 99.
[14] Harvey, 100.
[15] Leslie Sklair, “The Maquilas in Mexico: A Global Perspective.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 11, no. 1 (1992): 91.
[16] Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, 101.
[17] Harvey, 102.
[18] Harvey, 103.
[19] Sklair, “The Maquilas in Mexico,” 102.
[20] Alana Semuels, “Upheaval in the Factories of Juárez,” The Atlantic, January 21, 2016. Accessed May 07, 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/01/upheaval-in-the-factories-of-juarez/424893/.
[21] Melissa Wright, Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism, (Routledge, 2006), 131, ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.library.nyu.edu/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1111708.
[22] Wright, 101.
[23] Wright, 101.
[24] Wright, 33.
[25] Wright, 46.
[26] Wright, 28.
[27] Wright, 72.
[28] Wright, 85.
[29] Wright, 87.
[30] Wright, 84.
[31] Semuels, “Upheaval in the Factories of Juárez,” 2006.
[32] Wright, Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism, 72.
[33] Fuentes and Peña, “Globalization and its Effects on the Urban Socio-Spatial Structure of a Transfrontier Metropolis: El Paso, TX-Ciudad Juárez, Chih.-Sunland-Park, NM,” in Cities and Citizenship at the U.S.-Mexico Border: The Paso Del Norte Metropolitan Region, Kathleen Staudt, Julia E. Monárrez Fragoso and César M. Fuentes, eds., (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 10.
[34] Fuentes and Peña, 103.
[35] Fuentes and Peña, 95.
[36] Semuels, “Upheaval in the Factories of Juárez,” 2006.
[37] Fuentes and Peña, “Globalization and its Effects on the Urban Socio-Spatial Structure,” 107.
[38] Fuentes and Peña, 93.
[39] Fuentes and Peña, 95.
[40] Fuentes and Peña, 95.
[41] Fuentes and Peña, 93.
[42] María E. López, “Femicide in Ciudad Juárez Is Enabled by the Regulation of Gender, Justice, and Production in Mexico | LSE Latin America and Caribbean,” USAPP, February 15, 2018. Accessed May 07, 2018.
[43] López, 2018.
[44] Wright, Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism, 75.
[45] Kathy Velikov and Geoffrey Thün, “How the Rio Grande Came to Separate the U.S. and Mexico,” Archpaper.com, The Architect’s Newspaper, July 31, 2018, archpaper.com/2018/07/politics-etched-concrete-el-paso-ciudad-juarez-rio-grande-border/.
[46] Patrick Timmons, “Border Wait Times Expected to Increase at El Paso,” UPI, November 14, 2018, www.upi.com/Border-wait-times-expected-to-increase-at-El-Paso/9051542221417/.
[47] Fuentes and Peña, “Globalization and its Effects on the Urban Socio-Spatial Structure,” 99.
[48] Fuentes and Peña, “Globalization, Transborder Networks, and U.S.-Mexico Border Cities,” 12.
[49] Fuentes and Peña, “Globalization and its Effects on the Urban Socio-Spatial Structure,” 100.
[50] “The Borderplex Alliance – A BiNational Economic Alliance – Juárez, El Paso, Las Cruces,”
https://borderplexalliance.org/borderplex/our-region/cd.-juarez, accessed May 17, 2018.
[51] Fuentes and Peña, 99.
[52] Fuentes and Peña, 100.
[53] Fuentes and Peña, 105.
[54]Devon Thorsby, “The 25 Best Places to Live in the U.S. for Quality of Life in 2018,” U.S.
News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, June 20, 2018,
realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/slideshows/the-best-places-to-live-in-the-us-for-quality-of-life? slide=13.
[55] Fuentes and Peña, 107.
[56] Aihwa Ong, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality, (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 11.
[57] Ong, 16.
[58] Ong, 6.
[59] Ananya Roy, “The 21st-Century Metropolis: New Geographies of Theory,” Regional Studies 43, no 6 (2009): 824.
[60] dir. Vicky Funari and Sergio De La Torre, “Maquilapolis,” YouTube video, 68 min, 2006, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUQgFzkE3i0.
[61] Faranak Miraftab and Neema Kudva, “Urban Citizenship,” in Cities of the Global South Reader, eds. Faranak Miraftab and Neema Kudva, (New York: Routledge, 2015), 271.
[62] Miraftab and Kudva, 271.
[63] Tony Payan, “Crossborder Governance in a Tristate, Binational Region,” in in Cities and Citizenship at the U.S.-Mexico Border: The Paso Del Norte Metropolitan Region (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 223.
[64] Miraftab and Kudva, “Urban Citizenship,” 272.
[65] Miraftab and Kudva, 271.
[66]James Holston and Arjun Appadurai, “Cities and Citizenship,” Public Culture 8, (1996): 193.
[67]Payan, “Crossborder Governance in a Tristate, Binational Region,” 225.