This book illuminates the reality of border women's lives and challenges the conventional notion that women need not work for wages because they are economically supported by men. It offers insight into the lives of undocumented women.

Introduction -- Labor, Migration, and Relations of Production -- Women's Work and Unemployment in Northern Mexico -- Female Mexican Immigrants in San Diego County -- By the Day or the Week: Mexicana Domestic Workers in El Paso -- Maquiladoras in Mexicali: Integration or Exploitation? -- Consciousness, Organization, and Empowerment -- Gender Identification and Working-Class Solidarity among Maquila Workers in Ciudad Juárez: Stereotypes and Realities -- Tortuosidad: Shop Floor Struggles of Female Maquiladora Workers -- Programming Women's Empowerment: A Case from Northern Mexico -- Culture, Creativity, and Relations of Reproduction -- Shipwrecked in the Desert: A Short History of the Mexican Sisters of the House of the Providence in Douglas, Arizona, 1927-1949 -- Changes in Funeral Patterns and Gender Roles among Mexican Americans -- Oral History and La Mujer: The Rosa Guerrero Story -- Conclusion