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Life and Labor on the Border: Working People of Northeastern Sonora, Mexico, 1886-1986
Contributor(s): Heyman, Josiah (Author)
ISBN: 0816532788     ISBN-13: 9780816532780
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
OUR PRICE:   $23.70  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: October 2016
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | Latin America - Mexico
- History | United States - State & Local - Southwest (az, Nm, Ok, Tx)
- Social Science | Emigration & Immigration
Dewey: 305
Series: Century Collection
Physical Information: 0.2" H x 5.9" W x 8.9" (0.80 lbs) 264 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - Latin America
- Cultural Region - Mexican
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
For thousands of Mexican laborers, life along the U.S. border represents an opportunity both to earn wages and to gain access to consumer goods. For anthropologist Josiah Heyman, this labor force presents an opportunity to gain a better understanding of working people, "to uncover the order underlying the history of waged lives."

Life and Labor on the Border traces the development of the urban working class in northern Sonora over the period of a century. Drawing on an extensive collection of life histories, Heyman describes what has happened to families over several generations as people have left the countryside to work for American-owned companies in northern Sonora or to cross the border to find other employment.

Heyman searches for the origins of "working classness" in these family histories, revealing aspects of life that strengthen people's involvement with a consumer economy, including the role of everyday objects like sewing machines, cars, and stoves. He considers the consequences of changing political and economic tides, as well as the effects on family life of the new role of women in the labor force. Within the broad sweep of family chronicles, key junctures in individual lives--both personal and historical crises--offer additional insights into social class dynamics. These life stories convey the positive sense of people's goals in life and reveal the origins of a distinctive way of life in the borderlands.