U.S. slowdown squeezes Mexico's migrant worker bounty





By Jason Lange
REUTERS

7:12 a.m. June 18, 2008

TONATICO, Mexico – The mountain of cash sent home by Mexicans in the United States is shrinking for the first time in over a decade, putting the dampers on Mexico's economy as a U.S. slowdown takes work away from immigrants.
In rural towns like Tonatico, in central Mexico, where about half the men are in the United States, rodeos and country dances are being canceled and restaurants, which play U.S. hip hop music brought home by returning sons, are languishing.



Migrant remittances have brought a major injection of dollars in Mexico over the last decade, and forced belt-tightening by the millions of families who depend on money transfers is hurting the economy's important retail sector.
“We have to be a lot more careful with our money,â€