Thread: Migrants , facing hardship in U.S. sending less home

MEXICO
Migrants, facing hardship in U.S., sending less home
Migrants in the United States, facing rising prices and tough economic times, are sending less money back to Mexico.
Posted on Thu, Jun. 12, 2008reprint print email


UCACUARO, Mexico -- More than a decade has passed since Petra Chavolla's children began leaving. Like most kids from this impoverished patch of Michoacán, they followed friends and relatives to Texas, where jobs and a better future awaited.

But she knew times had changed this past Mother's Day. Instead of the extra cash she almost always received from her children, she got a phone call. Hit by hard economic times, rising gas and food prices, and a dwindling number of jobs for undocumented workers, Chavolla's children in Fort Worth said they couldn't scrape together any extra money this time.

''I could tell they wanted to cry,'' said Chavolla, 62, fighting back tears herself. 'I told them, `If you can't, well, you just can't.' ''

FINANCIAL CRISIS

The challenges the Chavollas face tell of a looming financial crisis that reaches across Mexico, where families who depend on money sent from relatives in the United States -- called remittances -- are opening up lighter envelopes or waiting longer to get them.

Remittances to Mexico hit $23.7 billion in 2006, more than double the amount reported in 2002 and the country's second-largest source of foreign income, behind oil.

But after years of double-digit increases, the cash sent back home dropped 2.9 percent in the first quarter of this year. The Bank of Mexico, which tracks the international transfers, predicts that remittances will register a 1.5 percent decline by the end of this year. That would be the first annual decrease since modern recordkeeping began in 1995.

Jesús Cervantes, the director of statistics for the central bank, attributed the drop to reduced migration to the United States, a crackdown on illegal laborers there and rising unemployment among those in the United States, where construction jobs -- which employ nearly a quarter of Mexican migrants -- are in short supply.

Those problems are compounded by what Mexicans living in the United States say is a run-up in prices, led by increases in gasoline.

Graciela Mendoza works in a mattress factory in Fort Worth, making $7.75 an hour. She said she tried to send $300 every other week to her mother and 14-year-old son, but that often she could afford to send only $150.

EXPENSES DOUBLED

Mendoza said the expenses of raising her four children had doubled in the past year while her salary had remained the same.

''These are hard times for everybody, but it is worse for us because we have the responsibility to take care of people that don't have anything else but our money to survive,'' Mendoza said.

Michoacán, the south-central state where Chavolla lives, receives more remittances than any other Mexican state -- more than $500 million in the first three months of this year.

But that's down 3 percent, about the national average, compared with the same period last year.

In the town of Zamora, where an Elektra store handles Western Union wire transfers from the States, manager Manuel Basurto said it had gotten so bad that he'd seen families sending cash to struggling relatives in the United States.

''It's only a handful of cases, but in the three years I've been working here, I've never seen that,'' he said.

Martin Valdez, who owns a tortilla shop in Ucacuaro, said he'd seeing a growing number of young Mexicans returning to the village. Some have been deported. Others couldn't find decent jobs in the United States. Others found the search for work just wasn't worth the hassle.

''Personally, I know 10 people that haven't gone or . . . came back from the States,'' said Valdez, who graduated from Arlington Heights High School in Fort Worth. ``A lot of them prefer to stay here and just tough it out here in Mexico.''

Valdez said business at his tortilla shop was way down.

''People that were buying three kilos are buying two. The people that were buying two kilos are buying one,'' Valdez said. ``You know, everybody is cutting down.''






http://www.miamiherald.com/news/america ... 67157.html

Graciela Mendoza works in a mattress factory in Fort Worth, making $7.75 an hour. She said she tried to send $300 every other week to her mother and 14-year-old son, but that often she could afford to send only $150.

EXPENSES DOUBLED

Mendoza said the expenses of raising her four children had doubled in the past year while her salary had remained the same.

Here's a clue Graciela, STOP HAVING MORE KIDS! She has a 14 year old back home and 4 kids here...DEPORT them and reunite the family!

''Personally, I know 10 people that haven't gone or . . . came back from the States,'' said Valdez, who graduated from Arlington Heights High School in Fort Worth. ``A lot of them prefer to stay here and just tough it out here in Mexico.''

Those are the smart ones.

Mendoza said the expenses of raising her four children had doubled in the past year while her salary had remained the same.

''These are hard times for everybody, but it is worse for us because we have the responsibility to take care of people that don't have anything else but our money to survive,'' Mendoza said.

Worse for them? Like American citizens aren't helping out their family members? Like they aren't paying ever rising taxes and medical bills and all the rest. Mexicans have it worse? Please. We have countless elderly people spending their retirement savings caring and trying to keep a float un-employed children and grandchildren struggling to get along. We have countless parents who are still taking care of their children and grand-children long after they should be on their own because they can't get work that pays enough to leave. We have families caring for their elderly because they can't afford or even have alternate places for help or assistance. I'm so sick of this attitude that they have it so much harder than any of the rest of us and that we don't have "responsibilities" as well. In one breath they are part of the human race and in another they are so much different than everyone else.

All these bleeding heart stories about the money being cut off just irks me.

Mexicans, et al are no different from Americans. If they have more money coming in, they waste it. They are not growing savings accounts in Mexico..., they are painting their houses and buying luxary items, like TVs.

Dixie

It's always worse for them than anyone else....How about how bad it is for the people in their own country...like U.S. citizens.