Awards

• Winner of Cowinner of the 2009 George Terry Book Award (Acad.

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9780801474224

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Transnational Tortillas is a fascinating in-depth look at the production regimes of two tortilla plants owned by the same Mexican corporation and both employing Mexicans, one on each side of the border. Carolina Bank Munoz emphasizes on the one hand the effects of globalization, neoliberalism, and changing U.S. immigration policy, and on the other hand the construction of race and gender. She deftly uses these analytical elements to explain the different power relations in the two settings, as well as changes over time in those relations. This book is required reading for those interested in work, immigration and gender in an increasingly globalized economy. -Chris Tilly, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Transnational Tortillas is a case study of two tortilla factories owned by the same company but located across the U.S.-Mexico border from each other. This transnational company organizes labor control differently in the two social and political contexts: The Mexican factory deploys a 'gender regime,' employing young women on the factory floor under the sexist supervision of men; while the U.S. factory uses an 'immigration regime,' employing undocumented Mexican men for the worst jobs and the night shift and Mexican American men (who are U.S. citizens) for the better jobs, some of which are unionized. -Christine L. Williams, Gender & Society Transnational Tortillas is a well-written and detailed portrayal of the interconnections between macro policies of governments and their effect on the micro policies of the shop floor. It should be of interest to those concerned with globalization and labor issues, the problems associated with immigrant status, as well as the sexuality and racialization of the workplace. -Paul L. Greider, Social Forces Ultimately, Bank Munoz has woven together admirably the macro, meso, and micro levels of state policies, labor markets, and workplace dynamics, producing a well-written, accessible, and fascinating account of exploitation and resistance among tortilla workers along the border. Transnational Tortillas should be of considerable value to scholars and students of labor, immigration, and global production. -Gretchen Purser, Contemporary Sociology Carolina Bank Munoz has written a passionate, polemical, but scrupulously objective volume on the intersection of race, gender, and class in two tortilla factories located on opposite sides of the United States-Mexico border in California. -Julio Cesar Pino, Enterprise & Society The ethnographic data presented in Transnational Tortillas are impressive. The authorobserved workplace practices in both factory sites and interviewed managers and workers, giving us an insight not only into the mundanities of workplace practice on the production lines of a transnational tortilla firm, but also providing a look at the everyday lives of the workers themselves. -Juanita Elias, International Studies Review Carolina Bank Munoz's rich ethnographic fieldwork in two tortilla factories, one in Mexico and the other in the United States, has produced an extremely well crafted, highly accessible book on the role of state policy, race, gender, and immigration status in the labor process and, more precisely, labor control. The author of this must-read book for labor and immigration scholars and activists, provides a well-researched and convincingly argued analysis of how managers employ an 'immigration regime' on one side of the border and a 'gender regime' on the other to discipline labor. The importance of this book lies both in the theoretical contributions that it makes to several literatures and the practical insights that it offers to organizers of low-wage and immigrant workers. -Hector L. Delgado, University of La Verne, author of New Immigrants, Old Unions: Organizing Undocumented Workers in Los Angeles Transnational Tortillas presents a fascinating analysis of the ways in which state policies, immigration status, gender, and race shape labor control at the factory level. Carolina Bank Munoz's study of the United States is particularly insightful and persuasively shows how immigration status has allowed employers to deploy methods of labor control that pit documented and undocumented workers against each other and that take advantage of undocumented workers' lack of citizenship status and fear of deportation to enact labor control on the shop floor. -Teri L. Caraway, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, author of Assembling Women Carolina Bank Munoz gives us a fascinating account of how management from one company with two plants on either side of the border tailors its labor control strategies according to the immigration status, race, and gender characteristics of the workforce, while drawing on opportunities made available through national laws and policies. Bank Munoz's acute observations of shop floor dynamics and her ability to elicit telling commentary from factory workers and managers alike have produced a fresh portrait of labor exploitation and resistance in today's global economy. -Maria Lorena Cook, Cornell University Transnational Tortillas is a fascinating in-depth look at the production regimes of two tortilla plants owned by the same Mexican corporation and both employing Mexicans, one on each side of the border. Carolina Bank Munoz emphasizes on the one hand the effects of globalization, neoliberalism, and changing U.S. immigration policy, and on the other hand the construction of race and gender. She deftly uses these analytical elements to explain the different power relations in the two settings, as well as changes over time in those relations. This book is required reading for those interested in work, immigration and gender in an increasingly globalized economy. -Chris Tilly, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Transnational Tortillas is a fascinating in-depth look at the production regimes of two tortilla plants owned by the same Mexican corporation and both employing Mexicans, one on each side of the border. Carolina Bank Mu oz emphasizes on the one hand the effects of globalization, neoliberalism, and changing U.S. immigration policy, and on the other hand the construction of race and gender. She deftly uses these analytical elements to explain the different power relations in the two settings, as well as changes over time in those relations. This book is required reading for those interested in work, immigration and gender in an increasingly globalized economy. -Chris Tilly, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Author Information

Carolina Bank Munoz is Associate Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College-City University of New York.

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