This volume examines the effects of neoliberal reforms on daily life in Latin America and the Caribbean, as seen through the eyes of women. The authors situate women in their sociocultural milieus, so that women's perceptions and assessments are examined through a lens that includes the lives of other women, men, and other members of the women's families, work settings, communities, and political and religious organizations. Although women in this book are presented as social actors pursuing diverse personal goals, their experiences, views, and objectives are embedded within broader forces in the economy, polity, culture, and legal systems that organize their lives. Cecilia Menjívar, a sociologist, is Associate Professor in the School of Justice Studies at Arizona State University. She has written on the social processes of migration-social networks, gender relations, family dynamics, transnational spaces, and religious communities-among Central Americans in the United States, including the book "Fragmented Ties: Salvadoran Immigrant Networks in America" (UC Press 2000). She is co-editing a book (with Nestor Rodriquez) on state terror in Latin America and writing a monograph that examines comparatively the social networks of indigenous and ladina women in Guatemala.