Kathryn Kopinak

Maquiladora industrialization of the Baja California peninsula: the coexistence of thick and thin globalization with economic regionalism

This article assesses the shape of industrial growth at the western end of the US-Mexican border, analysing the degree to which globalization has diminished and/or restructured this international division. Baja Californias connection to external economies is highly variable in tourism, agribusiness and export processing, with electronic maquiladoras clustering and garment production fragmenting. Most recently, dynamism has been driven by Asian investors meeting NAFTA deadlines, and impeded by recession and increased border security. The polarizing effect of globalization is demonstrated by the unprecedented emergence of a powerful group of Mexican-state and private-sector technocrats, at the expense of the majority of workers whose jobs remain poor. The state government has facilitated the development of capital intensive electronics industries, has neglected small and medium domestic suppliers, and been unable to provide public security. Low extensity, or the concentration of maquiladoras in an east-west corridor adjacent to the border, and the location of most of their owners in Southern California, indicates the strongly regional character of the maquiladora economy. However, a small number of very large capital intensive plants originate in Asia, contributing to globalization via intercontinental linkages. The findings support transformationalist and sceptical models of globalization. Copyright Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2003.

The Maquiladorization of the Mexican Economy

While the significance of maquiladoras has changed over time, Angulo (1990, p. 139) says that “the modern meaning of the word evolved in practice from its use to designate any partial activity in an industrial process, such as assembly or packaging effected by a party other than the original manufacturer.” Changes in U.S. and Mexican law that permitted the emergence of maquiladoras in 1965 allowed for machinery, vehicles, and parts to be imported into Mexico duty free, for assembly to take place there, and then for the product to be returned without duty to the United States. Mexico taxed only value added, which was almost all labor. The program was limited to northern border regions, where the Mexican government had experimented with free trade zones in the 1930s.

Too Close for Comfort? The Proximity of Industrial Hazardous Wastes to Local Populations in Tijuana, Baja California

This article assesses the location within Tijuana, Baja California, of those industrial hazardous wastes reported in compliance with the law in 1998. Although only a little more than 10% are high risk and very high risk, the plants generating the riskiest wastes hire the most employees and are clustered next to areas of population density and the highest concentrations of children younger than 14. Patterns of proximity are explained in terms of the decisions of key people such as maquiladora managers, engineers, and urban developers. The majority of workers prefer their workplace located close to home, although parents with children at home express much less preference. Longtime residents and those with better jobs live farther away. The actions of civil society groups to inform and empower affected communities are reviewed, especially in the case of abandoned hazardous waste. Policies for avoiding and reducing risks and directions for future research are recommended.

Types of Migration Enabled by Maquiladoras in Baja California, Mexico: The Importance of Commuting

This article analyzes a relatively new stream of labor migrants from Mexico to the US, those who have worked in export-processing industries, or maquiladoras, in Mexico before or at the same time as crossing the border to work. The focus is on what kind of migrants they are, addressing how those with maquila work experience compare with the traditional migratory stream of agricultural workers. The methodology is Grounded Theory and use is also made of typology theory, showing how the emergence of particular ideal types of migrants are dependent on Mexican job, labor market, place of origin, documents and social and human capital. We find that former and current maquila employees most often begin as a recurrent type of migrant, especially commuters, which is one of its subtypes. Many tend to transform over time into immigrants. Maquila employees are more likely to be commuters than agricultural workers due to differing origins. More skilled maquila employees become immigrants and recurrent migrants through a diaspora process in which the multinational corporation plays a key role, providing an organizational structure through which they move. The return type of migration is not strongly represented due to borderlander identities and less opportunity in Mexico.

From “Khadema” to “Zemegria”: Morocco as a “Migration Hub” for the EU

The converging processes of globalization, political and economic integration in the region (in the form of the EU specifically) and growing securitization in the region have created significant change in Moroccan migration over recent decades. First, with the growth in export processing and growing numbers of free trade agreements reaching new heights over the last decade, the considerable expansion of export processing (predominantly for EU markets) in the Northern regions of Morocco (most notably the port city of Tangier) has drawn internal migrants from Morocco and beyond, seeking employment in one of the many under-regulated textile, electronics, and automotive factories. Second, in recent years Morocco has become an important gateway to Europe (primarily through Southern European member states). While Moroccan emigration is not itself a new phenomenon – for example, Morocco has had longstanding bilateral migration agreements with many European states, including Spain, France, and Italy – Morocco’s contemporary migration management terrain has changed considerably. Third, as the country has responded to growing immigration (as both a destination and a transit country), there has been mounting pressures from the EU to control their borders in the face of growing emigration from Africa. The result of these processes has been the emergence of a multi-tiered and messy migration management system made up of national, bilateral, regional, and international policies, conventions and agreements involving administration by numerous government departments and agencies, as well as numerous intrastate and non-state governing bodies and actors. Caught somewhere in the middle – are the migrants, whose rights (both as migrants and as workers) are neglected. Ironically, this myriad of migration and security policies, and the expansion of export processing in Morocco, were in part intended to reduce migration through increased employment opportunities, stay-at-home development, and tightened borders. Yet, this messy migration management system, coupled the global export processing zone with under-protected workers, poor wages and job security, and escalating securitization, has actually served to create the conditions that encourage migration (particularly irregular migration), rather than curb it.

Multi-site Comparative Studies and Mixed Research Designs in the Study of the Glocal

We explain the research methodology developed to compare the causes and consequences of processes of industrial relocation in border areas in northern Mexico and Morocco. We have chosen a combined qualitative/quantitative methodology with the aim of emphasizing the discursive dimension of the structural reality of the contexts. We compare the two spaces on two levels: First, we carry out a macro-structural comparison to see if there are differences in the process of relocation of export firms in Tangier with the process followed by firms in Tijuana, highlighting the regularities found in migratory strategies; secondly, we do a micro-structural comparison, comparing the life trajectories of Mexican women and men who have emigrated to the United States with Moroccan women and men who have emigrated to Europe.

Moving to Stay or Staying to Move? Borderlanders & Internal Migrants Negotiating Work and Mobility in Export Processing Areas of Tijuana and Tangier-Tetouan

This chapter investigates the link between the transnational production of goods and migration in the context of export industries in border regions. Recognizing that labor migration in these areas represents a complex interaction between local and global labor markets, commodity chains, as well as internal and international migration networks, this chapter examines the motivations for migrating, options, obstacles and opportunities as experienced by workers in Border Export Industries (BEIs) in two case studies: Tijuana (Mexico) and Tangier-Tetouan (Morocco). Providing a comparison of these two cases, the chapter provides a conceptualization of the phenomenon of migration to and from export-processing areas in border regions based on the concept of migration hub. Further, this chapter outlines a rough typology of migration/migrants from such migration hubs.

Working Conditions in Border Export Industries and Migration

This chapter assesses working conditions in Tijuana and Tangier-Tetouan border export industries, comparing wages, freedom of association, forced labor, harmful child labor, job safety, and discrimination. The evaluation is carried out across four levels of analysis: supra-national regulations (International Labor Organization), national policies, local arrangements, and what was reported by employees. Managers’ mistreatment of Tijuana workers increased during the crisis from 2000 to 2009 and is especially prevalent in Korean factories. We conclude that working conditions are worse in Morocco because there is a constant surplus of labor, making the informal negotiation for improvement which occurs in Tijuana during boom times impossible. Export industries in these border locations have historically drawn migrants from the interior who can over time escape very bad working conditions by emigrating.

Seeking Refuge: Central American Migration to Mexico, the United States and Canada By María Cristina García University of California Press, 2006. 289 pages.

illness is not in Smith’s text or index. The Mexicans also cope effectively with return visits to Ticuani where divorce and organized crime are now part of the cultural landscape thanks to the baleful influence of the United States. Few Mexicans abroad mix gender strategies becoming macho today and egalitarian tomorrow. It’s one or the other, and the prime justification for embracing gender egalitarianism is still the money it brings. Discussing gender ideologies, Smith introduces the gender relationships of Mexican immigrants of the first and second generation in the Spanish terminologies the immigrants themselves employ. For example, the Mexicans’ concept of vergüenza referred to a female’s laudatory incapacity for action in the face of badgering men folk.(97-98) Americans who have read Smith’s text acquire the capacity to talk to Mexican immigrants about gender in their own vernacular. Survey research does not yield this capacity. Relations between the generations receive close examination. Smith’s novel concept here is the “immigrant bargain.” This bargain is the parental generation’s concern that the children for whom they sacrificed actually obtain the better life for which their parents struggled. This parental expectation imposes a huge burden on the second generation young people, who react in different ways to the stress. Some resist; others try to make their parents happy. Trying and failing is thus doubly painful for the young people. Related to the immigrant bargain is what Smith calls “the immigrant analogy” that helps Mexicans understand their place in American society. Subject to denigration, abuse and exploitation because they are new in the city and few in number, Mexican immigrants nonetheless pride themselves on their community’s strong work ethic, its commitment to matrimony, and its resistance to public welfare and crime. In all these dimensions, the Mexican immigrants deem themselves superior to the native-born blacks, Dominicans and Puerto Ricans who torment and humiliate them.(166) This invidious comparison, says Smith, offers a basis for upward mobility of the whole Mexican group, and suggests graphically that Mixtecans in New York City have not joined the underclass yet.