In mexico gender roles were very rigid. Women tended to the homes by cooking and cleaning. However when during the Mexican Migration of 1920 mostly men were migrating to the United States, while women were left behind.
ROLE OF THE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
Before migration became, for a lack of a better word, popular women were expected to live with her family in law do that her “suegra” could teach her how to
- Cook and clean, the way her husband likes it
- Dress
- Wash Clothes
- Other household chores
However, because the husbands were mostly in the United States these women became an unpaid workforce. They were instructed by their “suegra” to perform much of the manuel house labor. With the fields for example, they were forced to plow the land, plant the seeds, weed out the weeds, and lastly pick the final products.
SNEAKY SUEGRA
Not only was the mother in law forcing these young girls to peform hard manual labor, she was basically a menacing dictator.
Threats were often given to the young girls stating if they didn’t follow every command of the mother in law then the husband will get an earful of lies and ultimately end the relationship. These women (mother-in-laws) were completely controlling the lives of their son’s wife.
LIVING ALONE
Some women, however, if already mothers were allowed to live alone. And they would then, basically raise their children as single mothers while trying to instill and preserve their Mexican Culture.
This was a cause of great struggle for these mothers. Not only were they raising children alone, with only financial help, they were basically married to a stranger. Men would leave at really soon after the wedding and be gone for months even years at a time.
Dolores, a case study displayed in The World of Mexican Migrants, by Judith Hellman, was a women who, in the 1940’s, was going through a rough time as her husband tried to make a living in the United States. She claimed:
“You live your life like a widow, you see your children grow up without a father, you depend on someone thousands of miles away, your in-laws dump on you, you have people gossiping about you and passing rumors that you’ve been unfaithful to your husband. You see your own friends migrate while you stay behind. These are painful things to endure.”
