Cyberbrides and Global Imaginaries

Abstract

Through interviews with Mexican women who attend “Vacation Romance Tours” in Guadalajara to meet, date, and perhaps marry U.S. men, the author argues that women’s participation in these international matchmaking industries cannot be understood within the framework of the trafficking of women. Mexican women are not merely commodities for men to buy and consume. The majority of women come from middle-class, professional backgrounds and are influenced by fantasies of “the American way of life.” Just as men imagine women to be ideal mothers and wives, women construct men as utopic commodities who represent their path to self-improvement. U.S. men embody the opposite of Mexican men and the Mexican nation: more equitable and communicative marriage partners, a stable middle-class lifestyle, more mobility, and access to education and sometimes careers. By defining Mexican men as macho, women degrade the Mexican nation to construct themselves as having a more cosmopolitan affinity with the U.S. nation.

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