FAMILIAS TRANSNACIONALES DE JEFATURA FEMENINA: MAYA YUCATECAS ENTRE CALIFORNIA Y YUCATÁN

Abstract

Since the 1990s, several studies of migration have documented the feminization of global migrations and more specifically, the feminization of Mexican migration to the United States. At the same time, Mexican demographers and other social scientists have found an increase of female heads of households in Mexico and in the experience of Mexican immigrant women in the United States. Based on these outcomes, in this work I analyze Yucatec maya migration to San Francisco, California with a special emphasis on the experience of lone-women, be they divorced, separated or widows, who are in charge of female-headed households. This study focuses on the following questions: Why did Yucatec maya women begin to migrate to the United States towards the end of the nineties? When, where and why did these women become heads of their families? What are the causes of their singleness? And finally, how are the family dynamics and arrangements in transnational female-headed households? Our findings show that the causes of female Yucatec maya migration are not only economic, but social too, and that the increase of female heads of households coincides with the socio-demographic changes of the Second Demographic Transition, modifications in the late migration patterns from Mexico to the United States and the social transformations in the intimacy in marriage and family among
Yucatec Mayas.