•
Ciudad Juarez is a northern
border town
•
Beginning in the 1960s, “twin
plants” begin to move there
and explode with the passing
of NAFTA in 1994.
•
Between 1993 and 2005, more
than 370 women – mostly poor
maquiladora workers, mostly
young women – were
murdered.
•
There have been almost no
arrests or convictions
“In Ciudad Juarez, a territorial power normalized
barbarism. This anomolous ecology mutated into a
femicide machine: an apparatus that didn’t just
create the conditions for the murders of dozens of
women and little girls, but developed the
institutions that guaranteed impunity for those
crimes and even legalized them. A lawless city
sponsored by a State in crisis” (7)
“By placing the maquila, or assembly industry, at the center of the border
model, Ciudad Juarez became a city-machine, whose tensions entwined
Mexico, the United States, the global economy and the underworld of
organized crime. These tensions were inscribed both in the overall
operations of the city and in the concentric, ultra-contemporary terrain of
its environment: The Collective and personal tempo of Ciudad Juarez is
linked to the simultaneous, ubiquitous reach of the global economy and
its information and communication technologies.
The 1991 announcement of the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) between the US, Mexico, and Canada would accelerate the citymachine’s funcitoning and its recharged iteration: the femicide
machine” (8-9)
“The history of sexual violence and genocide among
Native women illustrates how gender violence
functions as a tool for racism and colonialism among
women of color in general. For example, African
American women were also viewed as inherently
rapeable. Yet where colonizers used sexual violence to
eliminate Native populations, slave owners used rape
to reproduce an exploitable labor force”
-Andrea Smith, Conquest
“He settle in and buckled up […] His arms and
elbows claimed instant ownership of both
armrests [...] Ivon couldn’t help noticing the bush
of white-blond hair on his forearms or the watch
he wore on his right wrist: a gold Patek Philippe
chronograph with three dials. Ivon collected
watches. She knew the price of a piece like that.
Ten grand, at least. The five-hundred-dollar
titanium Tissot that Brigit had given her for their
fifth anniversary seemed cheap in comparison” (4)
Talk about representation of class and gender in
bathroom graffiti! Violence against women, the
economic exploitation of the border, even the
politics of religion. She could use Juarez as her
third case study. With Cecilia’s murder and Elsa’s
story about medical testing and illegal insemination
at the maquilas, the chapter could write itself ” (98)
“A bilateral assembly line of perpetrators, from the
actual agents of the crime to the law enforcement
agents on both sides of the border to the agents
that made binational immigration police and trade
agreements. The cards fell so perfectly into place,
it was almost nauseating. This thing implicated
everyone. No wonder the crimes had not been
solved” (335)