Border-Crossing Stories and Masculinities

In 2008, sociologist M. Cristina Morales and I visited Hidalgo, Mexico, the sending state of many of the workers in residential construction in Las Vegas, Nevada. This trip and the interviews we conducted were part of a larger project involving over 100 male and female workers who discussed with us their work conditions, their migration patterns, and their involvement in organizing or grievance efforts in the U.S. workplaces (Saucedo and Morales 2010). In Hidalgo, Mexico, we interviewed 32 male migrants who had worked in the United States and who had returned to their hometowns. Among the topics of conversation with these workers were discussions about their own migration and border crossing stories. By focusing on their border crossing stories, this chapter explores the behavioral responses of border crossing migrants between the United States and Mexico to restrictive immigration measures and to economic and social conditions. The stories explain the migration pattern and the reasons for it, and correspondingly, the reasons that individual immigrants journey across the border.