Published originally as La flor mas bella de la maquiladora, this beautifully written book is based on interviews the author conducted with more than fifty Mexican women who work in the assembly plants along the U.S.-Mexico border. A descriptive analytic study conducted in the late 1970s, the book uses compelling testimonials to detail the struggles these women face.

The experiences of women in maquiladoras are attracting increasing attention from scholars, especially in the context of ongoing Mexican migration to the country's northern frontier and in light of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This book is among the earliest accounts of the physical and psychological toll exacted from the women who labor in these plants. Iglesias Prieto captures the idioms of these working women so that they emerge as dynamic individuals, young and articulate personalities, inexorably engaged in the daily struggle to change the fundamental conditions of their exploitation.

Norma Iglesias Prieto teaches at the Centro de Estudios Fronterizos del Norte de México in Tijuana. Translator Michael Stone is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Hartwick College in New York. Gabrielle Winkler holds an M.A. from the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

• Foreword
• Translators' Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Meeting the Demand
• 2. The Realm of Work
• 3. We Women Are More Responsible
• 4. Maquila Muchachas: Pretty Young Maids
• 5. Who I Am, Where I Come From, and Where I'm Going
• 6. Most Beautiful Flower of the Maquiladora
• 7. Solidev: An Embattled Maquiladora
• 8. By Way of Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index