maquiladora
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of maquiladora
1985–90; Mexican Spanish, perhaps < Spanish maquilar extract a toll
Vocabulary lists containing maquiladora
Mexico - Middle School
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Mexico - High School
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Example Sentences
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Employees at the maquiladora, as the border plants are known, had long been represented by a union affiliated with the Confederation of Mexican Workers.
From Seattle Times ● May 31, 2022
Mexican and local U.S. officials hope the maquiladora vaccination program will encourage the United States to reopen the land border with Mexico.
From New York Times ● Jul. 26, 2021
This summer, the municipal government announced a new plan, called the Juárez Initiative, to repurpose an old export factory, or maquiladora, as a holding station for asylum seekers who are returned under M.P.P.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 1, 2019
Edita's daughter, Rosa, was working in one such maquiladora in 1995.
From BBC ● Mar. 11, 2019
An Arca Continental spokesman said its wages and benefits “were 48% to 120% better than the maquiladora industry”, while it offered “one of the best-paid jobs in the city”.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 17, 2019
“I didn’t hear a word about maquiladoras and factories and industries on the Mexican side and holding them accountable,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2025
For 10 years, they shared a room and worked long hours for low wages with no benefits in maquiladoras, the foreign-owned factories that dot the length of the U.S.-Mexico border.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 3, 2023
Mr. Colom had success in textiles and Guatemala’s entry into large-scale production through assembly plants known in Spanish as maquiladoras.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 24, 2023
Some economists, however, argue that the use of inexpensive parts produced in maquiladoras allowed the U.S. automobile industry to survive.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022
He had taken Celia’s tales about the maquiladoras and El Patron’s stories about Durango and mixed them with episodes of El Latigo Negro.
From "The House of the Scorpion" by Nancy Farmer
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.