Thread: Mexico's paradox: Wealthieer towns with fewer people

Mexico's paradox: Wealthier towns with few people


Migrants fund improvements back home, but rarely return
04:04 PM CDT on Saturday, June 17, 2006
Associated Press


BOYE, Mexico — Clementina Arellano grew up with her six brothers in a shack in this dusty Mexican hamlet. Now 42, she's raising her sons in a spacious, 10-room mansion with Roman-style pillars at the doorway and a garden full of flowers and singing birds.
How did she transform her fortunes so dramatically? By waiting tables and sweating in a furniture factory for about 10 years in Hickory, N.C., and sending home up to $500 a month.

AP


Her neighbor, Berta Olgin, lives under a leaky roof, with skinny sheep gnawing at sparse patches of grass in her yard. Her sons all decided to stay in Mexico to work as farmers or laborers, earning about $10 a day.


The two women are a vivid illustration of why so many Mexicans head north from this arid valley in central Mexico. Those who make it to the U.S. send dollars to carve out a Mexican dream between gnarled cacti and jagged rocks. Those who stay behind condemn another generation to a life deprived of material privileges.


This is the reason millions of men and women risk their lives crossing deserts and rivers to sneak into the United States, and keep at it even as lawmakers in Washington argue over a sweeping crackdown.


Olgin, 67, is growing old surrounded by family, a pleasure that may be denied to many whose children have left. But sometimes she regrets her own children didn't join the exodus.

"I see that some people around here have got money to burn," she said, looking enviously across a dirt street at a group of workmen finishing the home of a man working in Hickory.
Last year, Mexican migrants sent home a record $20 billion, making them Mexico's biggest foreign earner after oil. In the first four months of this year, the amount was $7 billion, a 25 percent increase over the same period last year.


Half of it flows into poor villages like Boye, a corn-growing community of 900 people founded by Otomi Indians long before Europeans came to the Americas.


The men and women of Boye began heading north around 1990, after farm prices slumped. The U.S. economy was soon to enter its longest peacetime boom, and over the next 15 years, Boye sent more than 300 people over the border, mainly to North Carolina.


Their dollars are seen everywhere in sun-soaked Boye. The schoolhouse, village church and even the paved main streets were built with funds from "el Norte," sent by migrant clubs in the U.S. that collect donations from former residents.


The most startling spectacle is the houses. Families of migrants have ripped away their corrugated-iron shacks and built ostentatious brick homes over their ancestral plots of farm land.


Nicolas Sanchez, 34, proud owner of a gated residence on the edge of Boye, first trekked over the Sonora desert and headed to Hickory when he was 21. He labored by day in a furniture factory, starting at $6 an hour. At night, he worked at Taco Bell.


"It's hard when you arrive in a strange country and spend all your time working," Sanchez said in English, sitting with his young son in a Ford pickup truck. "You have to be strong and keep your eyes on the prize."


Sanchez wired back at least $500 a month to his parents, who collected it in pesos at a nearby town. They used about half for their living expenses and invested the rest in building a new family home.


With free land, a wealth of raw materials in the region and an abundance of cheap labor, the two-story house was built for a little over $10,000.


Most young people leaving


Alfredo Martinez, 41, headmaster of the village elementary school, says up to 80 percent of Boye's schoolchildren drop out to sneak over the border.


"We could do with doctors and professionals here. All we get is migrants and builders," Martinez complained, watching children sink basketballs on a dollar-funded stone court.
Very few villagers come back to start successful businesses, he said. In fact, many of Boye's young men and women settle down north of the border and never return, leaving the town dotted by half-finished skeletons of lavish homes.


Sanchez moved back to Boye and his new house last year, and has opened a boxing and karate club in a nearby town. But it doesn't earn much and he may return to the United States, especially if Congress agrees to allow more legal migration.


"I prefer it here. It's quiet and you can do whatever you want," he said, looking at the deserted village square. "But in the United States, if you work hard, they pay you well. All this problem with the border and the soldiers and the walls — It's all just about the dollars. It's all just business."

© 2007 WFAA-TV



Americas Features

Mexico migrant town fears fallout from U.S. slowdown

By Jason Lange May 4, 2007, 22:14 GMT

BOYE, Mexico - A U.S. economic slowdown and tighter border security threaten a lifeline for millions of Mexicans who rely on money sent by relatives in the United States to pay for everything from food to town fiestas.

The flow of dollars, which reached a record $23 billion last year, is in danger of declining for the first time in at least a decade.

That worries residents of Boye, a farming town in arid central Mexico, where four out of five men work in the United States.
'They don't have jobs or the work is not as steady as in the past. They still send money because they have to send money but from what we're hearing there is going to be less money,' said Mayor Fernando Hernandez.

He fears an annual collection of money earned in the United States and given to the town hall and church will come up short this year, forcing the town to pave fewer roads and tone down traditional celebrations of its patron Saint Anthony of Padua in June.

'My husband can't send as much as he did before because there isn't as much work for him,' said Angela Ocampo, whose husband works legally most of the year in Florida.

Lately, higher-paying construction jobs have been harder to come by and Ocampo's husband is picking lettuce, broccoli and other crops. She may not have enough money to finish the second story of the house the family is building.

Some homes in Boye boast neat U.S.-style front lawns and satellite television dishes, thanks to cash from up north.
After years of spectacular growth, remittances from Mexicans in the United States now make up Mexico's second-biggest source of foreign currency after oil exports.

SIGN OF TROUBLE

But with the U.S. economy cooling, remittances grew at an annual rate of 3 percent in the first three months of 2007, down from a 28 percent rise during the same period last year.

'We could go into negative territory. It's certainly possible if the slowdown continues in the United States,' said Gray Newman, an economist at Morgan Stanley in New York.
The first sign of trouble came early last year with a slump in the U.S. housing industry. Most new construction jobs in the United States were filled in 2006 by foreign-born Latinos, according to a study by the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center.

A longer-term concern for Mexicans who rely on remittances is tighter U.S. border security.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says last year's deployment of National Guard troops to secure the border has cut the flow of illegal immigrants by more than 40 percent in the second half of last year.

The United States is also building a 700-mile (1,120-km) fence along parts of the U.S./Mexican border to curb illegal immigration. Around half the 11 million Mexicans in the United States are there illegally.

Economists say less cash from immigrants in the United States would probably not hit Mexico's economy as a whole that hard, instead hurting small towns like Boye, nestled in brown cornfields.

But less money from workers abroad would be a big blow to poorer Central American and Caribbean nations.

For El Salvador, the money orders and wire transfers of workers abroad are equivalent to about a fifth of gross domestic product.

And even if Mexico's economy doesn't take a big hit, many millions of people could be affected. A recent survey showed almost one in two people has a relative in the United States.
Irais Hernandez receives $300 to $400 a month from her husband in New Jersey, who does gardening work there and installs drywall in new homes but who is now working just three or four days a week on average.

'Life is hard here,' she said, holding an umbrella to shield herself from the sun. 'There are no jobs, not in factories or in the countryside.'

(c) Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.



Dear Contacts,


I do not know if HIF has a program in Boye. It should be evident however that the same situation faced by Boye is to be found all over Mexico and if the number of men in a particular town working here in the United States is not four out of five there are likely to be some men of whatever town here. Probably Boye has a hometown association and a few successful emigrants someplace up here in the United States who could fund a HIF program if HIF works there.


This article from Reuters also highlights the real roots of the problem. Instead of conceiving that remittance income from the people working up in the United States as a limitless resource and using unwisely as in buying manufactured food in a village in an agricultural area. Fiestas are a competition of conspicuous consumption that a town does not need as much as self sufficiency in food.


Instead of expanding the living area in the house their funding should have gone into a barn. In an isolated area like Boye farm income from the barn is far more likely to enable later building of a house than the other way around. The lawns might convey prestige but their land and time could have been expended in more productive fashion on a victory garden.


It is surely not the fault of the Americans if the Mexicans or other immigrants here legal and otherwise do not insist that the remittance monies that they send get used wisely. The citizens of the United States should not be expected to have unlimited flows of labor migrate to compete with them due to the disregard with which they are held by America's political elite.


The Mexican miracle will begin to happen when the expatriates stop waiting for institution of some top down change. It will happen when people from towns like Boye no longer prioritize funding conspicuous consumption and instead start funding their own family food self sufficiency and invest in the modernization of local enterprises like the Olgins. So the life may well be hard in Boye but as long as the remittances are being spent so foolishly then they can expect things to remain equally grim indefinitely into their future.

Richard

Alfredo Martinez, 41, headmaster of the village elementary school, says up to 80 percent of Boye's schoolchildren drop out to sneak over the border.

With figures like this 80% how can any sane person think we only have 12 million illegals in the United States?

Mexico migrant town fears fallout from U.S. slowdown By Jason Lange
Fri May 4, 3:14 PM ET



BOYE, Mexico (Reuters) - A U.S. economic slowdown and tighter border security threaten a lifeline for millions of Mexicans who rely on money sent by relatives in the United States to pay for everything from food to town fiestas.

ADVERTISEMENT

The flow of dollars, which reached a record $23 billion last year, is in danger of declining for the first time in at least a decade.

That worries residents of Boye, a farming town in arid central Mexico, where four out of five men work in the United States.

"They don't have jobs or the work is not as steady as in the past. They still send money because they have to send money but from what we're hearing there is going to be less money," said Mayor Fernando Hernandez.

He fears an annual collection of money earned in the United States and given to the town hall and church will come up short this year, forcing the town to pave fewer roads and tone down traditional celebrations of its patron Saint Anthony of Padua in June.

"My husband can't send as much as he did before because there isn't as much work for him," said Angela Ocampo, whose husband works legally most of the year in Florida.

Lately, higher-paying construction jobs have been harder to come by and Ocampo's husband is picking lettuce, broccoli and other crops. She may not have enough money to finish the second story of the house the family is building.

Some homes in Boye boast neat U.S.-style front lawns and satellite television dishes, thanks to cash from up north.

After years of spectacular growth, remittances from Mexicans in the United States now make up Mexico's second-biggest source of foreign currency after oil exports.

SIGN OF TROUBLE

But with the U.S. economy cooling, remittances grew at an annual rate of 3 percent in the first three months of 2007, down from a 28 percent rise during the same period last year.

"We could go into negative territory. It's certainly possible if the slowdown continues in the United States," said Gray Newman, an economist at Morgan Stanley in New York.

The first sign of trouble came early last year with a slump in the U.S. housing industry. Most new construction jobs in the United States were filled in 2006 by foreign-born Latinos, according to a study by the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center.

A longer-term concern for Mexicans who rely on remittances is tighter U.S. border security.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says last year's deployment of National Guard troops to secure the border has cut the flow of illegal immigrants by more than 40 percent in the second half of last year.

The United States is also building a 700-mile (1,120-km) fence along parts of the U.S./Mexican border to curb illegal immigration. Around half the 11 million Mexicans in the United States are there illegally.

Economists say less cash from immigrants in the United States would probably not hit Mexico's economy as a whole that hard, instead hurting small towns like Boye, nestled in brown cornfields.

But less money from workers abroad would be a big blow to poorer Central American and Caribbean nations.

For El Salvador, the money orders and wire transfers of workers abroad are equivalent to about a fifth of gross domestic product.

And even if Mexico's economy doesn't take a big hit, many millions of people could be affected. A recent survey showed almost one in two people has a relative in the United States.

Irais Hernandez receives $300 to $400 a month from her husband in New Jersey, who does gardening work there and installs drywall in new homes but who is now working just three or four days a week on average.

"Life is hard here," she said, holding an umbrella to shield herself from the sun. "There are no jobs, not in factories or in the countryside."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070504/us_nm/mexico_usa_dc

Their dollars are seen everywhere in sun-soaked Boye. The schoolhouse, village church and even the paved main streets were built with funds from "el Norte," sent by migrant clubs in the U.S. that collect donations from former residents.

And meanwhile our streets and schools continue to deteriorate because of over usage from the horde of invaders.....

"We could do with doctors and professionals here. All we get is migrants and builders," Martinez complained,

Gee, that sounds just like here.