This monograph presents the results of research that studies the role of employment opportunities in maquiladoras (“assembly plants”)—which are a key element in the Mexican government’s Border Industrialization Program along the United States-Mexico boundary— as factors encouraging Mexican labor migration to the border as well as to the United States. The data, from a 1978 survey of 839 maquiladora workers, show that the opportunity for maquiladora employment was not an important factor in causing migration to the border and that few maquiladora employees had worked in the United States, or had plans to do so. These findings provide evidence to refute the conventional wisdom that the maquiladoras serve as a magnet, attracting to the border Mexican workers who then use the area as a staging ground to migrate to the United States. On this basis, the authors conclude that migration to work in the maquiladoras should not be considered influential in United States-Mexican relations.
The detailed survey questionnaire enabled the authors to examine personal, social, economic, and political characteristics of the maquiladora workers, and to compare them, using 1970 Mexican census data, with the total population. (The results show that maquiladora workers are generally better off than other workers.)
The authors present considerable, but readily digested, tabular material that is woven into an interestingly written discussion. Where possible, they compare their results with those of other studies. The authors could have done more statistical analysis with their abundant data. Nonetheless, this is an important work that should be read by all serious students of the United States-Mexican Borderlands, migration, and maquiladoras.
