Undocumented Mexican immigrant women's direct sales work in New York City

Abstract

In the last two decades the feminization of migration has prompted an increase of research on women migrants across the globe. Putting women at the center of migration theories and using feminist migration frameworks to understand the work that women do has proved to be an insightful vantage point. This article has two main goals, the first one is to describe the work undocumented Mexican migrant women engage with at a nutritional company; the second argues that undocumented Mexican migrant women engage in teaching and learning with peers who work with them at a nutritional company. It argues that the spaces that are part of this company are little recognized by researchers, and that there are multiple ways in which migrant women construct and negotiate their informal learning through socializing with other women in different informal modes. The findings presented in this piece illuminate the ways in which the nature of the indirect sales model of work brings in a space for teaching and learning for these women that otherwise may not exist. This article focuses on results from interviews and participant observation with forty-six women in New York City who sell products for the nutritional company Más Vida. The findings reflect how women go through language barriers, math knowledge and marketing experience in order to work. The article points out to a different facet of the work that immigrant women do in the United States and analyses how and why women are part of it.