In Mexico, women can take increased roles in local politics in response to the ‘crisis’ of migration to the U.S.

Many communities in Mexico have been deeply affected by the large-scale emigration of workers to the U.S. Abigail Andrews examines the effects of migration on one such village, San Miguel. She finds that far from a source of “freedom,” for this community migration was a source of strain. She writes that with so many people having left the village to work in the U.S., the community’s system of participatory self-government was in crisis. Meanwhile, in the U.S., migrants from San Miguel faced persecution and abuse, since most of them were undocumented immigrants. This drove several migrant women of the village to return home. When the women returned, they took on central roles in local politics, in order to protect their communal way of life and sustain an alternative to living in the United States.