Preparado En Casa: Food Preparation, Migration, and Labor Among Indigenous Women in the US and Mexico (WITHDRAWN)

Background and Purpose

Mexicans and Mexican Americans are at significant risk of being overweight or food insecure. To better understand how migration affects health, this study compares the experiences of indigenous Mexican women who have lived in the US and returned to Mexico, to indigenous women currently living in California.

Further, research suggests time scarcity, or the feeling of not having enough time, may constrain one’s ability to prepare healthy food. In California, this may be more acute for the 150,000 to 300,000 indigenous (Zapotec and Mixtec) Mexicans, many from the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Indigenous Mexicans are more likely to work long hours and live in poverty, thereby constraining time for food preparation. Further, little is known about how social support and migration affect weight and obesity. This study fills the gap in the literature by exploring structural factors, including migration, labor, and time scarcity that affect well-being.

Methods

In total, twenty in-depth interviews were conducted (10 women in Mexico and 10 in the United States). Respondents ranged in age from 31 to 60 and were self-identified as Mixtec or Zapotec women from Oaxaca, Mexico. Recruitment in Oaxaca was conducted in partnership with a local university. In the US, women were recruited with a non-profit organization serving the indigenous Mexican community in Fresno, CA. Respondents were asked about their experiences of migration, work, and home life. Interviews were conducted in Spanish, transcribed and translated into English. Data analysis used the principles of constructivist grounded theory in which I used the constant comparative method to identify emergent themes across and between respondents.

Findings

Although this study was designed to understand how contextual factors, e.g., country of residence and migration, affect nutrition, women in Mexico and the US reported similar challenges. First, women in Mexico noted that they worked long hours to support their families, often due to the absence of male partners who left Mexico in search of economic opportunities in the US. They also noted that their eating patterns, i.e., the type of food they ate and how they prepared it, were relatively similar in both countries. Second, women living in the US also reported working long hours. However, they were able to maintain their indigenous food practices, including preparing beans, rice, and corn tortillas at home. Both groups of women noted that their most significant challenges were related to migration including marital disruption, lengthy separations from extended family and children, social isolation, and economic hardship. For women on both sides of the US-Mexico border, these social and economic factors were more salient than health concerns about weight/obesity.

Conclusion

These data suggest macro-structural factors like economic hardship and migration are particularly salient to low-income indigenous communities in the US and Mexico. Although women in both countries were able to purchase and prepare regional Mexican staple foods, they noted that migration to the US negatively affected family function. Future studies should consider the relationship between migration, family function, and health outcomes.