Fourteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Worldwide human migration and displacements are at the core of political discourse. In the Americas, in particular, there has been a steady increase in migration to the U.S. from Mexico and Latin America since the 1960s, much of which can be traced to the negative impact of global economic policies such as NAFTA resulting in the impoverishment of agricultural sectors and lack of employment opportunities, a combination known to produce the feminization of migration. In the past two decades, scholars have attempted to bring light to the unsaid, the invisible, the power of words on a society that sees Mexican immigrant women as a “threat” (Chavez, 2013) for the body politic that is the U.S. society. The narrative of the “hyper-fertile” and “hyper-sexualized” Mexican immigrant women is embedded in U.S. popular culture. This cultural violence has negative consequences on these women’s lived experiences. It is thus important to deconstruct anti-immigrant discourses in the U.S. to understand Mexican immigrant women in the context of cultural adaptation, transformation, and economic integration in the post-NAFTA era.