Bury Me with My People: Migration from a Mexican Rancho

Abstract

This dissertation draws on ethnographic fieldwork to analyze contemporary Mexican migration to the United States. It focuses on a single rural community—a rancho—in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. The first part addresses the historical context of this study, which occurred at a moment in which intensified border enforcement had driven the cost of border crossings to unprecedented levels. An expansion of temporary work visas offered prospective migrants some hope of legal passage, but this hope was dependent on the random luck of ties to US employers. This first section outlines how young people in the rancho grew up seeing the US as their only path towards social mobility, as it was for their parents. This perception was confirmed not just by their parents’ previous successes through migration, but also by low local wages, constant comparisons to friends and family who’ve migrated, and the expansion of cartel violence and the drug economy. Given the dangers of crossing the border, an older generation encouraged young people to wait for work visas. However, many grew tired of waiting and took on debts to cross into the US. The second part of the dissertation focuses on the experiences of migrants who’ve crossed. It follows undocumented migrants who, due to the cost and danger of border crossings, had lived in the US for years and built lives in a country often hostile to their presence. It also follows young people who said goodbye to home indefinitely, crossed the border with a coyote, and began a new life in the US, as well as temporarily documented farmworkers with H-2A visas, who divided their lives seasonally between the US and Mexico. It examines their lives as they navigate family relations and jobs in fields, factories, dairies, and slaughterhouses. In so doing, this dissertation illustrates the range of experiences that characterize contemporary Mexican migration: young people in Mexico dreaming of migration, undocumented migrants leading lives far away from loved ones in Mexico, and perpetually temporary H-2A farmworkers. It considers what parenthood, social mobility, and home mean in the context of this migration.