In the Mexican border city of Reynosa,
the government regulates prostitution
in an area called “La Zona,” where
Sarah Luna, a University of Houston
professor, conducted an immersive 12-
month study she discussed at a lecture
Monday.
The UT Department of Mexican
American and Latina/o Studies hosted
Luna, where the professor said
prostitution in Mexico is
decriminalized and under government
supervision. Many Mexican states even
regulate prostitution, Luna said.
“Because the sex workers in Reynosa
were subject to regulation, they were
seen as less dangerous,” Luna said.
Started in 1949, the Reynosa
prostitution zone — called “the boy’s
zone” by American tourists who make
up a significant portion of the clientele
— was created to keep prostitution
away from the city’s center.
“Symbolically, the prostitution zone,
surrounded by walls, seems to acts as a
cell for vice,” Luna said. “It’s an
illusion of control.”
Although the pimps often employ
violence and coercion, Luna said they
sometimes used “love and obligation”
to make sex workers obey using
gendered roles, whether it be wife,
mother or daughter.
“I find it interesting how
anthropologists study these
interactions,” biology junior Brent
Arcayan said. “They use different
lenses to understand them.“
Luna conducted research not only on
the sex workers in La Zona, but she also
studied the missionaries that worked
there and the dynamic of the
relationships between them.
Luna said she interviewed several
missionaries whose goal was to have a
more authentic relationship with God
through living with the poor.
“I appreciate the dual analysis of the
sex workers and the missionaries,” said
Chad Alvarez, Mexican American and
Latina/o studies assistant professor.
“It’s an interesting perspective.”
Luna said the missionaries care for the
sex workers, often paying for their
health inspections and trying to
convince them to leave La Zona.
While the government operates La
Zona, Luna said it is controlled by the
cartel, where sex workers have to pay
for their protection.
Even though the sex workers were
required to pay them for protection, it
was the cartel they feared the most,
Luna said.
Most of the sex workers in La Zona are
“Veracruzanos” — migrants from
southern Mexico. Luna explained that
Veracruzanos generally have darker
skin and are often the subject of
racism, comparing their situation to the
discrimination Mexican immigrants
face in America.
“Now that the Veracruzanos are here, I
understand how Americans feel about
Mexicans invading their country,”
Luna said, quoting a Reynosa native.