Social Entitlements

In 1994, Mexico experienced two major economic events: the NAFTA implementation in January led to the free movement of goods and services, but not of labor, across the US-Mexico border, and the peso devaluation in December led to a severe recession in 1995. The extent to which these changes affected the well-being of maquiladora workers and their households needs to be understood in terms of the specific identities that could have been affected: as a male or a female Mexican, and as a maquiladora line worker. In effect, looking at the cultural origins of gender relationships, male and female maquiladora workers, as men and women, are “entitled to be perceived” according to the norms specific to the Mexican culture and history, which differ from other countries’ social entitlements. The richness and depth of the Mexican identity is the result of centuries of ancient indigenous beliefs and customs together with a relatively recent imposition of Christian values by the conquista- dores from 1519 onward. Published in 1950, the book from the 1990 Nobel Prize winner for Literature, Octavio Paz, entitled “El laberinto de la soledad,” is certainly the best description of the Mexican identity.