Maquilapolis Movie Essay

We have read and watched a lot of information about the women and the way they are treated in their working area, specifically when we talked about the maquiladoras on the boarder. This week we are presented with another source of information about the maquiladoras and how maquiladora employees live their daily lives. The film, “Maquilapolis” by Vicky Funari and Sergio de la Torre uses a social art practice to contribute to the privileging of subalterns voices. In the film, the filmmakers start by telling the stories of a few women who worked for the maquilas and tell their experience as employees of those big corporations such as Sony, Panasonic, Sanyo, among many others. Some of these women explain how they started working since those maquiladoras opened in the 1960’s and they explain how it was a big deal to work

maquiladoras were required to locate within 20 miles of an international border or coastline, but to this day the regulation of the maquiladora industries have change a tremendous amount.. In 2000, 57% of the adult population lived in the capital region, in which Mexico City is located, or in surrounding central states. During the 1990s, the share of the population in the border region, in which most maquiladoras are located, rose slightly from 17% to 18%. This small increase in the border population is remarkable, given the dramatic growth in maquiladora employment and in the population of large cities, such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, that occurred in the region. Border employment has grown primarily through firms attracting workers from

The main point of the article is that changes are being made that are shifting the way the maquiladora plants are operating. This particular story takes place in Tijuana, however, the changes are affecting all of the maquiladora plants all along the Mexico - United States border. The maquiladora plants are having to make changes because the Mexican government “[cut] some of their tax breaks“ (Mexico’s maquiladoras). In previous years the maquiladora plants had lost a lot of business to Asia where lower wages could be found. Lately, the “rising pay in China“ was bringing jobs back to Mexico (Mexico’s maquiladoras).With the reduction in tax benefits, the maquiladora plants are once again loosing business to other locations.

The documentary problem in the story was that the employer was harsh, ruthless and did not give the workers a conducive environment as they were overworked and still paid low wages below the minimum and thus the workers merely survived (Encore Broadcast, n.p). The employer could not contend to overtime and unpaid wages which was a significant problem facing the employees. It was problematic that the workers worked for 10-14 hours without being given breaks for either eating or even going to the bathroom which had poor ventilation. Later on, after years of meager salaries, unpaid minimum and overtime wages and also domestic abuse, Maura Colorado, Maria Pineda and Lupe Hernandez come together in unison together with other employees in their struggle and campaigning for negotiable working environment and condition and also for self-empowerment which was a battle against their employer. The Latinos' workers were motivated by the three women and to the extent of the workers announcing a lawsuit for the garment company which was a problem for the company as its reputation become known to the public.

A clear factor in the staggeringly high number of femicides is the economic relationship between the multinational corporations who own the maquiladora plants and the economic policies in place that established this ownership at the same time as the femicides began to occur in the mid-90s. Neoliberalism spread so easily as it was a bipartisan movement that swept the United States. This lead to the signing of NAFTA, where now “Ciudad Juárez is also an emblematic place of economic globalization and neoliberalism, with its insatiable hunger for profit” (Fregoso and Bejarano 70). This hunger for profit is a neoliberalism view, where there is a disregard for the consequences of cheap labor and how that devalues someone. Juárez is now a symbol for what can happen when the interests of one particular market far outweighs the other.

than all of Mexico, but it came at a price. In Maquiladoras these factories are operated by

The maquiladora industry has had a major impact on the lives of its employees. A documentary from 2006 Maquilapolis, by Vicky Funario and Sergio de la Torre, show different women talking about the type of products they assemble, from filters, toys, batteries, and electrical parts to automobile parts. In 1960, when maquiladoras emerged in border cities, it changed people’s perspective for better opportunities and a better future. The majority of people working in the maquiladoras were women. The reason for that was because women were considered to have smaller hands and could assemble the parts faster and more efficiently than men. Some of the women in the interviews talked about having to work double shifts and even night shifts, leaving their children home alone without sufficient

When faced with inexplicable working conditions, one’s first consideration would be to quit their job and to find a new one. In the case of the factory workers at Hacienda Tijuana, a Mexican tortilla factory, that is certainly not the case. Throughout this article, there are many issues that are presented to the reader. This essay is structured to examine three of the main issues. It begins by looking at the exploitation of the women and their lack of rights as workers in the factory. It examines the analytical framework that would be most appropriate for this situation and then progresses to relate many sociological theories to this issue. Next, it examines the mostly negative effects of globalization, modernization and industrialization.

In order for an individual to understand how this cooperative situation came to be, one must understand the origins and meaning behind the maquiladoras. According to Leslie Sklair’s, president of the Global Studies Association and International Advisory Board with a PhD in sociology, monograph series; In 1942, the United States was in need of workers due to its lack of men, since many of them were fighting in World War 2. The United States and Mexico came into an agreement to cooperate, hence the Bracero program came to be. This program allowed Mexico to send workers to alleviate the shortage of labor in the U.S. Throughout history, the need for workers decreased and the U.S had no need for them, so they began to plan new sources for work. As a result, the Mexican government instated the Border Industrialization Program, which later became known as the Maquiladora program. The maquiladoras, are maquila industries that began to appear in the mid-1960, which were typically located in Mexico’s side of the border, such as Baja

“How much they pay you?” “We was getting two hundred pesos a month.” “In Texas what do they pay for this work.” “Hundred a month” –page 164

The animated Walt Disney movie Pocahontas is based on a true life story of a young Powhatan Indian girl named Pocahontas who falls in love with John Smith. In the making of the movie, Walt Disney, attempts to relate to the early 17th Century historic event of Europeans settling in Jamestown; however, Disney did not portrait the true story. Disney rewrote the story by making it a beautifully romantic and animated love story like a Cinderella fairytale.

This documentary interviewed families from Mexico that have members who crossed the border to The United States to find better labor opportunities. The border has been set to protect illegal immigrants from crossing the border. Despite the protection of the borders, several Mexicans are able to cross by being smuggled in or finding their own way in. They prefer to go to The U.S because they get paid more per hour than they would earn in Mexico. They return after a couple of months and sometimes years, but they cross the border because there are factors in Mexico that drive them away. The economic factors that affects these families are NAFTA, government corruption, and lack of technology and resources. The North American Free Trade Agreement is a treaty between Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The trade agreement made costs of production higher for people in Mexico. Importation of goods such as meats, fruits, and veggies started to come in from the United States and caused loss of businesses in Mexico. The government in Mexico does not provide funding for businesses to grow. Local officials don’t share money provided by the government fairly. Subsidy for businesses are difficult to find because their government don’t notify people when funding is available. The mayor is corrupted in a way that he bribes others for votes and picks certain people to help. The government is also the reason why there is a lack of technology and resources for businesses to grow. The business owners could not afford the technology for fast production like the United States can provide. These economic factors affects the families that are left behind in Mexico while a member crosses the border. Families are torn apart for months and sometimes years just so they can make a better living from the money earned in the U.S. The children of families that cross the border have

The government of Mexico stated that time and investment into the maquiladora industries would represent “the first rung up the industrial ladder in many developing countries” and would allow them to develop these industries into more complex technologically advanced fields that would in turn create mobility and develop human

develop dangerous health consequences, an many people taken advantage of, causing social problems. According to the American Journal of Public Health, written by Sylvia Guendelman, PhD professor at University of California, Berkley graduate in health services and policy analysis, and Monica J. Silberg, high levels of pressure in maquiladoras have been associated with generic symptoms such as gastric disorder, depression, menstrual problem, and mass hysteria. Health problems depended on what industries the worker dealt with. “Pulmonary and eye problems, dermatitis, hand injuries, and musculoskeletal disorders have been like had been reported among textile and apparel workers. Eye irritation, visual acuity loss, headaches, nervousness, and allergies, and adverse pregnancy outcomes have been identified among electronic assembly plant workers. (Guandelman, Silberg 37)” Many people risk their health conditions for cheap salaries. Women were mostly abused, due to the fact that they were uninterested in joining unions (so they became an easy target). The Mexican government failed to protect women from pregnancy. In many maquilas they report to have screening to pick out the pregnant women out. These workers’ minimum wage has been so low that is insufficient to maintain a family. According to Richard D. Vogel’s , retires professor who focusses in social and political issues, article Stolen Birthright: The U.S. Conquest and Exploitation of the Mexican People, he quotes that, “wages

Exploitation and gendered labor is an ever-present issue that has presented itself in nations across Latin America as well as globally. One of the ways in which this is clearly visible is in the maquiladora industry, large-scale export-oriented factories that dot the landscapes of many Latino countries. Multinational corporations such as Nike, Panasonic, and Zenith, all set up shop in areas beyond the border as a means of avoiding many restrictions when it comes to taxes and trades. Furthermore it allows these large conglomerates to avoid having to pay more for labor than they would say if they were in areas of the United States or even parts of Western Europe. Mexico in particular, is one nation that is home to more than one-point-two million men, women, and children, all of whom work in these factories as a means of attempting to survive and make somewhat of a living . Maquiladora workers are infamous for not only their terribly harsh working conditions and extremely low wages, but also for the way in which the dynamics of these factories work, in terms of gender and treatment because of this. Approximately forty-three point six million women, seven-point-five percent of the world’s employed women, are paid domestic workers, a number that is most likely not accurate either because of the nature of the work . In maquiladora work alone, approximately eighty percent of the labor force is young women . Behind this gendered percentage is a series of causes and consequences as