No Man's Land: The Women of Mexico

Immigration is dividing families and changing social structures in rural Mexico. As the men seek work in the United States, they leave behind the women, children and elderly. Women are doing the jobs of men and acting as both mother and father to sons and daughters. Due to riskier and more costly border crossings, the men stay in the North, some never to return home. Immigration is empowering women to step out of their traditional domestic role. Women are now in charge of the families and the finances, and in some cases, acting as sole breadwinners for the households. Machismo is giving way to a more matriarchal structure the women call “pura mujer,” or purely women. 

These are the stories of the women, produced by Dana Romanoff.