OVERCOMING PATRIARCHAL CONSTRAINTS:

Abstract

This article examines how gender shapes the migration and settlement experiences of Mexican immigrant women and men. The article compares the experiences of families in which the husbands departed prior to 1965 to those in which the husbands departed after 1965 and argues that the lengthy spousal separations altered (albeit differentially for each group) patterns of patriarchal authority and the traditional gendered household division of labor. This induced a trend toward more egalitarian conjugal relations upon settlement in the United States. Examining the changing contexts of migration illuminates the fluid character of patriarchy's control in Mexican immigrant families.