Here is a one-stop research resource on the assembly and manufacturing plants on the U.S.-Mexico border, termed Maquiladoras. A combination bibliography and directory, Las Maquiladoras focuses on various aspects of the American-owned companies that are located in Mexico and employ Mexican citizens. While the thrust of the items included in the select bibliography is on the industrial, commercial, and financial aspects of the phenomenon, including the actions of multinational corporations and their investments, there are also entries dealing with the matter of labor, United States and Mexican governmental undertakings, legal and urban problems, regional development and planning, population, technology transfer, sociocultural considerations, and the interdisciplinary field of border studies, which is concerned with a host of topics ranging form health and education to urban geography, economic matters, and the cultural impact on border residents of the establishment of maquiladoras. The impact of economic development, industrialization, and urbanization on border culture is also reflected. In the directory, readers can locate names and addresses of local, state, and federal level government agencies in the U.S. and Mexico; information centers; labor unions; professional associations; and research centers. The bibliography, comprised of books and book chapters, pamphlets, conference papers and proceedings, government publications, scholarly dissertations, videotapes of television programs, and magazine, journal, and newspaper articles, will be an indispensable tool for business people, bankers, journalists, government experts, economists, students, and librarians. The current interest in border studies and in Mexico, in particular, will make this unique book especially useful to scholars of folklore, geography, history, labor, political science, and sociology. Special features in the book include a list of experts in a variety of disciplines and a listing of U.S. and Mexican cities and towns on opposite sides of the border. Because the number of maquiladoras is expected to continue expanding rapidly, this volume should remain a highly valuable resource.

Here is a one-stop research resource on the assembly and manufacturing plants on the U.S.-Mexico border, termed Maquiladoras. A combination bibliography and directory, Las Maquiladoras focuses on various aspects of the American-owned companies that are located in Mexico and employ Mexican citizens.While the thrust of the items included in the select bibliography is on the industrial, commercial, and financial aspects of the phenomenon, including the actions of multinational corporations and their investments, there are also entries dealing with the matter of labor, United States and Mexican governmental undertakings, legal and urban problems, regional development and planning, population, technology transfer, sociocultural considerations, and the interdisciplinary field of border studies, which is concerned with a host of topics ranging form health and education to urban geography, economic matters, and the cultural impact on border residents of the establishment of maquiladoras. The impact of economic development, industrialization, and urbanization on border culture is also reflected.In the directory, readers can locate names and addresses of local, state, and federal level government agencies in the U.S. and Mexico; information centers; labor unions; professional associations; and research centers.The bibliography, comprised of books and book chapters, pamphlets, conference papers and proceedings, government publications, scholarly dissertations, videotapes of television programs, and magazine, journal, and newspaper articles, will be an indispensable tool for business people, bankers, journalists, government experts, economists, students, and librarians. The current interest in border studies and in Mexico, in particular, will make this unique book especially useful to scholars of folklore, geography, history, labor, political science, and sociology.Special features in the book include a list of experts in a variety of disciplines and a listing of U.S. and Mexican cities and towns on opposite sides of the border. Because the number of maquiladoras is expected to continue expanding rapidly, this volume should remain a highly valuable resource.

Looks at life on the Mexican border, including the ethnicity, attitudes, and place of residence of those who live there, and how they interact with other residents

From Matamoros to Tijuana, Mexican border cities have long evoked for their neighbors to the north images of cheap tourist playgrounds and, more recently, industrial satellites of American industry. These sensationalized and simplified perceptions fail to convey the complexity and diversity of urban form and function—and of cultural personality—that characterize these places. The Mexican Border Cities draws on extensive field research to examine eighteen settlements along the 2,000-mile border, ranging from towns of less than 10,000 people to dynamic metropolises of nearly a million. The authors chronicle the cities' growth and compare their urban structure, analyzing them in terms of tourist districts, commercial landscapes, residential areas, and industrial and transportation quarters. Arreola and Curtis contend that, despite their proximity to the United States, the border cities are fundamentally Mexican places, as distinguished by their cultural landscapes, including town plan, land-use pattern, and building fabric. Their study, richly illustrated with over 75 maps and photographs, offers a provocative and insightful interpretation of the geographic anatomy and personality of these fascinating—and rapidly changing—communities.

Latin America since 1780 provides an accessible introductory text aimed at Spanish linguists and historians taking modules in Latin American history. It provides a compelling continental-based historical narrative supported throughout by incisive evaluation, pedagogical features, and authentic source texts in the original Spanish. This book focuses on key events such as the Wars of Independence, the Mexican, Cuban and Sandinista Revolutions, and the recent shift to the left, as well as providing short inserts on the main political protagonists such as Simon Bolívar, Getulio Vargas and Hugo Chávez. The 3rd edition has been revised in line with crucial recent political, cultural and economic developments. It offers an entirely new chapter covering the key events and issues of the 21st century, fresh topics for essays and presentations, increased attention to literary, ethnic and social culture and a new e-resource offering English translations of Spanish sources.

Find a pool of cheap, pliable workers and give them jobs—and soon they cease to be as cheap or as pliable. What is an employer to do then? Why, find another poor community desperate for work. This route—one taken time and again by major American manufacturers—is vividly chronicled in this fascinating account of RCA's half century-long search for desirable sources of labor. Capital Moves introduces us to the people most affected by the migration of industry and, most importantly, recounts how they came to fight against the idea that they were simply "cheap labor." Jefferson Cowie tells the dramatic story of four communities, each irrevocably transformed by the opening of an industrial plant. From the manufacturer's first factory in Camden, New Jersey, where it employed large numbers of southern and eastern European immigrants, RCA moved to rural Indiana in 1940, hiring Americans of Scotch-Irish descent for its plant in Bloomington. Then, in the volatile 1960s, the company relocated to Memphis where African Americans made up the core of the labor pool. Finally, the company landed in northern Mexico in the 1970s—a region rapidly becoming one of the most industrialized on the continent.

Neoliberalism and Commodity Production in Mexico details the impact of neoliberal practice on the production and exchange of basic resources in working-class communities in Mexico. Using anthropological investigations and a market-driven approach, contributors explain how uneven policies have undermined constitutional protections and working-class interests since the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Detailed ethnographic fieldwork shows how foreign investment, privatization, deregulation, and elimination of welfare benefits have devastated national industries and natural resources and threatened agriculture, driving the campesinos and working class deeper into poverty. Focusing on specific commodity chains and the changes to production and marketing under neoliberalism, the contributors highlight the detrimental impacts of policies by telling the stories of those most affected by these changes. They detail the complex interplay of local and global forces, from the politically mediated systems of demand found at the local level to the increasingly powerful municipal and state governments and the global trade and banking institutions. Sharing a common theoretical perspective and method throughout the chapters, Neoliberalism and Commodity Production in Mexico is a multi-sited ethnography that makes a significant contribution to studies of neoliberal ideology in practice.