Mexican Women

Advocates say the women, who insist they suffered miscarriages, got caught up in Mexico's cultural wars over abortion. The seven women were accused of killing their newborn babies and handed long prison sentences. They insisted they had suffered miscarriages and should not be punished; one claimed she wasn't even sure she was pregnant. The women have finally been freed, after years in jail and only after their cause was taken up by human rights organizations here and abroad and by a handful of determined legislators.

The U.S. birthrate fell to a record low last year, coming in at its lowest level since statistics began being collected in 1920. The drop was largely driven by a reduction in births by immigrant women, who may have decided to have fewer children due to the tough economy, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center's Social Trends division . According to Pew, the birthrate was 63.2 babies per 1,000 women of childbearing age in 2011....

Carlos Ochoa is not a Mexican woman. But he remembers what life used to be like for Mexican women way back before the turn of the century seven years ago. "It was the house, the kitchen, taking care of kids," said Ochoa, a government press director for Mexico's delegation at the Pan American Games. "But now," he added, "it's totally different." That's because now their choices also include gold, silver or bronze.

In 1979, in my hometown of Riverside, my father came home one evening with news from the linen plant where he worked. A group of women whose job it was to wash, dry, iron and stack hospital linen had been taken away by immigration officials that day. They were undocumented workers from Mexico and would be deported. I was 18 when I heard this, and I couldn't stop thinking about the likelihood that the deported women had left children behind. What if one had been forced to leave her children with a neighbor she didn't like or trust, just for that morning, because she had no one else?

Women in the United States would do well to learn from the diets of recent Mexican immigrants, according to a University of California study. Women immigrants born in Mexico eat more meats, vegetables and beans and use less nicotine, alcohol and coffee--and it shows up in better health for themselves and their babies, researchers found. Sixteen percent of non-Hispanic white women smoke heavily during pregnancy--compared with only 1% of immigrants born in Mexico. And fat intake is well below U.S.

The schoolteacher says she wanted smaller breasts and was overjoyed when a highly recommended plastic surgeon told her that instead of surgery, a few injections would slim her down. Nearly 1 1/2 years later, Veronica Gonzalez, 32, has lost her job and her friends -- and may have to spend the rest of her life using a walker. Doctors plan to remove her breasts, gluteal muscles and calves because of damage from industrial silicone allegedly injected into her body.

In 1979, in my hometown of Riverside, my father came home one evening with news from the linen plant where he worked. A group of women whose job it was to wash, dry, iron and stack hospital linen had been taken away by immigration officials that day. They were undocumented workers from Mexico and would be deported. I was 18 when I heard this, and I couldn't stop thinking about the likelihood that the deported women had left children behind. What if one had been forced to leave her children with a neighbor she didn't like or trust, just for that morning, because she had no one else?

For a long time, Sylvia and Yolanda Singh wondered about their heritage. Raised in a Catholic home in Santa Ana where they spoke Spanish and English, the sisters were often asked about their last name, one common to all male members of the Sikh faith from India's Punjab province.

The U.S. birthrate fell to a record low last year, coming in at its lowest level since statistics began being collected in 1920. The drop was largely driven by a reduction in births by immigrant women, who may have decided to have fewer children due to the tough economy, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center's Social Trends division . According to Pew, the birthrate was 63.2 babies per 1,000 women of childbearing age in 2011....

A woman charged with smuggling Mexican women into the United States and forcing them to work as prostitutes at motels near Disneyland has jumped bail, officials said Tuesday. Maria De La Luz Menjivar, 43, of Wilmington failed to appear in court for a hearing last week, prompting a judge to issue an arrest warrant, Anaheim Police Sgt. Rick Martinez said. Menjivar was arrested Feb. 4 after three women reported the alleged sex-slave ring to police.

Advocates say the women, who insist they suffered miscarriages, got caught up in Mexico's cultural wars over abortion. The seven women were accused of killing their newborn babies and handed long prison sentences. They insisted they had suffered miscarriages and should not be punished; one claimed she wasn't even sure she was pregnant. The women have finally been freed, after years in jail and only after their cause was taken up by human rights organizations here and abroad and by a handful of determined legislators.

Carlos Ochoa is not a Mexican woman. But he remembers what life used to be like for Mexican women way back before the turn of the century seven years ago. "It was the house, the kitchen, taking care of kids," said Ochoa, a government press director for Mexico's delegation at the Pan American Games. "But now," he added, "it's totally different." That's because now their choices also include gold, silver or bronze.

In the so-called developed Western world, every generation of women seems to get the book it deserves, or demands, whether it's "A Room of One's Own," "The Second Sex," "The Female Eunuch," "The Bell Jar," "Fear of Flying," "Sex in the City" or, heaven help us, "Menopause for Dummies." But in Mexico, things haven't exactly worked that way.

When Maria Guadalupe Ramirez set up a snack stand a few years ago to help support her five daughters, they started eating most of their meals in the streets. "I used to cook at home for the girls every day," she said, "but working at the stand makes that hard to do." The girls have paid in extra pounds, fueled by a culture of street food awash in grease.

A federal grand jury indicted four people Thursday on charges that they smuggled undocumented Mexican women into the United States and forced them to work as prostitutes at a Los Angeles brothel. Investigators said that at least 12 females, including two girls ages 14 and 15, were forced to sell sexual services as a way of paying off the debts they owed for being smuggled into the United States.

A woman charged with smuggling Mexican women into the United States and forcing them to work as prostitutes at motels near Disneyland has jumped bail, officials said Tuesday. Maria De La Luz Menjivar, 43, of Wilmington failed to appear in court for a hearing last week, prompting a judge to issue an arrest warrant, Anaheim Police Sgt. Rick Martinez said. Menjivar was arrested Feb. 4 after three women reported the alleged sex-slave ring to police.

With his current wife looking on, bigamist Guy Newton Swezey on Wednesday attributed his six marriages in eight years to a simple case of "bad luck." The Southeast San Diego resident pleaded guilty in San Diego Superior Court to one count of bigamy, a charge his lawyer says was merely a marriage license technicality. Judge Charles R. Hayes sentenced Swezey to three years of probation.

When Belen Luevano de Ortega, 59, came to the border 12 years ago to support her dying husband, people told her that only women of dubious reputations worked at the maquiladora assembly plants. She settled for a miserable $3 a week as a live-in maid. But when her daughter, Alicia Ortega, 36, joined her two years later, the younger woman couldn't care less what people said. Ortega jumped at a manufacturing job--in spite of a husband who wanted her home with the children.

The task of promoting equal opportunities for women in Baja California may seem overwhelming, but not to Gabriela Navarro Peraza, a mother of three and former prosecutor. Navarro, the first director of the state's Institute of the Woman, views her job as both an opportunity and a challenge -- especially in a country that has not traditionally supported the advancement of women, and where many women don't see themselves as equal to men.

The schoolteacher says she wanted smaller breasts and was overjoyed when a highly recommended plastic surgeon told her that instead of surgery, a few injections would slim her down. Nearly 1 1/2 years later, Veronica Gonzalez, 32, has lost her job and her friends -- and may have to spend the rest of her life using a walker. Doctors plan to remove her breasts, gluteal muscles and calves because of damage from industrial silicone allegedly injected into her body.