ABSTRACT
Mexico’s northern frontier underwent considerable transformation beginning in the 1970s with the initiation of the Border Industrialization Program, which sought to boost the country’s economy and lower unemployment rates by securing foreign investment in the manufacturing sector. Mexico would provide tax benefits and inexpensive labor to companies that wished to establish manufacturing ventures inside its borders. The new assembly plants—maquilas—overwhelmingly employed women who traveled to the border region from across the country to seek employment. As well as confronting exploitative working conditions in the maquila industry, these women and their families were exposed to the environmental hazards created in the deregulated atmosphere of the border region. Maquila workers have sometimes managed to successfully confront many of these issues.
