Life along the Nafta Highway

Abstract

This article examines the transnational living strategies utilized by women on the US/Mexico border while critically exploring the contradictory coexistence of successful transnational corridors, such as the NAFTA highway, and the poor residents who live alongside them. The article focuses on the transnational living strategies they use in order to improve their living conditions in Starr County, Texas. The author argues that transmigrant women and their families use migration and settlement in the Lower Rio Grande Valley as a way of improving their standard of living. However, the contradiction is that they end up living in an area known for its poor living conditions and high unemployment rates.This article is an ethnographic study of the ways in which women and their families negotiate poverty in a poor, rural border community while also showing how a poor and rural border area can both exacerbate and alleviate woman's poverty.

Latino Health Access

“…[17][18][19][20][21][22][23] These challenges are counterbalanced by important assets observed in Latinx communities in the United States (US), including strong social cohesion [24][25][26][27] and informal, multigenerational networks that share information and resources that have been vetted by trusted gatekeepers. 5,18,24,[28][29][30][31] Community-initiated promotor/a programs capitalize on these assets by identifying and elevating these trusted gatekeepers that are knowledgeable of trustworthy (and untrustworthy) resources that peers in their community can access. 5,32,33 In this way, these programs may be optimally situated to address the challenges that perpetuate diabetes disparities in Latinx communities.…”