Prior to the millennium, economists and coverage makers argued that loose exchange among the U.S. and Mexico would get advantages either americans and Mexicans. They believed that NAFTA will be a "win-win" proposition that might provide U.S. businesses new markets for his or her items and Mexicans the wish of dwelling in a extra constructed nation with the fashionable conveniences of wealthier countries. mixing rigorous fiscal and statistical research with drawback for the folks affected, Mexican girls in American Factories bargains the 1st review of even if NAFTA has fulfilled those expectancies through interpreting its socioeconomic influence on employees in a Mexican border town.

Carolyn Tuttle led a gaggle that interviewed 620 ladies maquila employees in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. The responses from this consultant pattern refute a number of the hopeful predictions made by way of students prior to NAFTA and show as a substitute that little has stronger for maquila staff. The women's tales make it undeniable that unfastened alternate has created extra low-paying jobs in sweatshops the place staff are exploited. households of maquila staff reside in a single- or two-room homes without operating water, no drainage, and no warmth. The multinational businesses who function the maquilas continuously holiday Mexican hard work legislation by way of requiring ladies to paintings greater than 9 hours an afternoon, six days per week, with out scientific advantages, whereas the minimal salary they pay staff is inadequate to feed their households. those findings will make a vital contribution to debates over unfastened alternate, CAFTA-DR, and the effect of globalization.