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US Mexico Border: Rife with Poverty
Mexican Immigrant Women Workers Fight for Genuine Homeland Security

Mexican Cultural Heritage as an Economic Motor in the US

On the US Mexico border, which has been the focus of virulent debate about homeland security and immigration control, women immigrant workers are demanding equal access to development resources to end the cycle of poverty that engulfs their communities. With virtually no response from either the governments who sponsored NAFTA and other international economic integration efforts, or the transnational corporations that moved the jobs to other countries, there has been no plan to rebuild, or invest in development for, the poverty stricken areas.

As La Mujer Obrera, a Mexican immigrant women workers’ organization in El Paso, TX, we have developed a plan to break the cycle of poverty. With over 25 years of experience combating the discrimination and poverty endured by our community, we have developed Plan Mayachen. Based in Mexican cultural heritage as an economic motor in the US, Plan Mayachen is a national model for development for, by and in defense of women immigrant workers, their rights and their families.

Dollars go to Law enforcement instead of Poverty solutions
El Paso is the 6th largest city in the state of Texas, the 22nd largest city in the United States and part of the largest international borderplex in the world. However, since the enactment of NAFTA in 1994, conditions have profoundly changed. NAFTA moved tens of thousands of jobs to countries with lower wages, with no plan for the women’s future. NAFTA programs did little for the displace women and nothing for a development strategy.

As a result, El Paso now has a poverty rate of 30% (El Paso Times), which is an increase by 1/3 since 1999. And women, with or without children, make up 57.3 percent of that population.

While hundreds of millions of dollars in federal, state and local resources are invested for Border Security, the women immigrant workers and their families, are simply “unfortunate casualties” in the global marketplace of job creation and destruction. Furthermore, with recent increasing public sentiment and political forces against undocumented immigrants, the women are becoming swept up by the growing backlash directed against any English Language Learning (ELL) person, regardless of legal status, simply because of their lack of English skills and their accent.

In the midst of this violence the debate continues to focus on whether immigrants are entitled to the same rights as everyone else. La Mujer Obrera upholds that women have the right to change inhumane conditions, to improve opportunities for the whole community, regardless of legal status.

Women Create their Own Solution
To break the cycle of poverty, women immigrant workers are proposing a national model for development rooted in historical Mexican cultural heritage assets. This model leverages the strengths of the Mexican immigrant women workforce while benefiting all communities with a large immigrant Mexican population. It serves as an example of creative economic solutions that highlight the Mexican cultural heritage as an emerging economic motor in the United States.

Through their experience with globalization, Mexican immigrant women have designed Plan Mayachen as a road map, a comprehensive and sustainable model of development that can unite and benefit communities with ties to Mexican immigrant population and culture by creating:
• Jobs and businesses
• Training and Education
• Cultural awareness and pride
• Revitalizing communities hardest hit by globalization

Plan Mayachen, is the fruit of more than 10 years of creativity and struggle. It arises from the urgency to incorporate the thousands of displaced workers and community members, principally women, who even now continue to pay the price for the impacts of the free trade agreements.

A key question for Hispanics in the US, is not just amnesty or legalization, but what kind of life will the more than 26.8 million Americans of Mexican heritage have in the future? Where is our place in “smart growth”? We certainly have been paying the price for the existing plans.

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