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Emigrating from Mexico to the United States requires three steps: going to the border, crossing it, and going to the final U.S. destination. This article attempts to measure the earnings benefits of each migration step, focusing particularly on the second step: crossing the border. Using U.S and Mexican microdata of workers living in Mexico and in the United States, this article compares wages of identical individuals on both sides of the border after controlling for unobserved differences between migrants and nonmigrants. On average, Mexican workers increase their wages 1.22 times by moving to the Mexican side of the border, 4.15 times by crossing it, and 1.12 times by moving to an interior location in the United States. Gains are larger for unskilled workers. Also, gains for crossing the border are larger for illegal workers, while gains for going to the U.S. interior are larger for legal workers. Emigrar de México a los Estados Unidos requiere tres pasos: ir a la frontera, cruzarla e ir al destino final en los Estados Unidos. Este artículo calcula las ganancias salariales en cada paso, enfocándose particularmente en el segundo paso: cruzar la frontera. Utilizando microdatos de México y de los Estados Unidos, este artículo compara los salarios de trabajadores idénticos en ambos países después de controlar por características no observables de los migrantes y los no migrantes. En promedio, los trabajadores mexicanos incrementan su salario 1.22 veces al migrar al lado mexicano de la frontera, 4.15 veces al cruzarla, y 1.12 veces al migrar de la frontera al interior de los Estados Unidos. Las ganancias son mayores para trabajadores no calificados. Las ganancias de cruzar la frontera son mayores para los trabajadores ilegales, mientras que las ganancias de ir al interior de los Estados Unidos son mayores para los trabajadores legales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The story of the drug war that continues to rend the social fabric of Cuidad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, is not only conveyed through images of the horrendous brutality and daily reports of grim statistics, but also through chronicles of commonplace lives. The Campos Ordinola family, whose attempt at establishing a new life in this northern border city after immigrating from Ejido Guadalupe in the southern state of Veracruz was thwarted by economic hardship and the random violence, is just one example of many. This essay looks at their daily life in chaotic Juárez and their return again to the security of the small town from which they set out nine years ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the American Southwest and along the US–Mexico border,‘Anglos’ and Mexicans are often viewed as the quintessential‘others’. This ethnographic study problematises the Anglo-Mexican opposition with ethnographic data from interviews with a Mexican farmworker family and an‘Anglo’ farmer family of the EI Paso Lower Valley. I argue that‘Anglo’ hegemony is not based exclusively on cultural separation but often involves hybridity(including‘Mexicanisation’) and patron-client relations entailing‘benevolent’ paternalism. I show how the concept of‘Anglo’ is a contested identity constructed through interactions between Mexicans and Euroamericans. Through this study of border crossings in situations of asymmetrical power relations, I advocate a‘complicit’ anthropology that presents competing ethnic groups in their full complexity rather than as stereotypes or caricatures of their‘others.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]