The Effects Of Migration On Central American Communities

by Katherine Zavala, IDEX Program Fellow

This article is from the International Development Exchange IDEX UPDATE Fall/Winter 2006.  Last year YPW partnered with IDEX on a Guatemala School Building Project with The Institute for Overcoming Urban Poverty (ISMU).

This year, the immigration debate has become a hot topic in the United States. The Pew Hispanic Center (a non partisan research center supported by the Pew Charitable Trust), estimates there are twelve million undocumented workers currently living in the U.S. today, with another 850,000 arriving each year. Citizens from the two countries that are the focus of IDEX’s Latin America Program, Mexico and Guatemala, make up over half of these undocumented immigrants.

As IDEX’s statement on immigration emphasizes, not enough attention is being drawn to the underlying issues that drive people to migrate. The public rarely hears about the impact of foreign policy decisions or multi-national corporations on the day-to-day lives of people in rural communities around the world. Even less frequently do we learn about the communities themselves and how they are developing the resources and skills to mitigate the effects of migration and reduce it in the long term.

IDEX, with our partners in Mexico and Guatemala, operate projects that address the root causes of poverty that migrants are trying to escape. IDEX has discussed with our partners the views held by our partners the effects of migration within their countries and what can be done to improve living conditions and create greater economic opportunities that in turn build strong communities and families that would ultimately reduce migration.

Well understood by many US citizens is that most people’s primary incentive to migrate is to seek employment in another country because they cannot find work in their own. What much of the public may not appreciate is that migration also has a dramatic effect on the communities they leave, including family disintegration, increased levels of violence amongst youth, greater family debt and loss of cultural identity. This seems ironic given that migration is intended to bring money to the families.

Unlike migrants from other countries, those coming to the US from Mexico and Guatemala are disproportionately male, leaving a heavy burden on women to maintain the home, raise their children and to work locally while they wait for their husband’s money to arrive. Due to limited income, women are often forced to take their children out of school, using the money once allocated for school fees to feed their family. Inevitably this means the next generation will continue to face limited employment options and economic hardship.

In Guatemala, IDEX supports The Institute for Overcoming Urban Poverty (ISMU) Youth Scholarship Program, which is one of ISMU’s many programs designed to prevent vulnerable children from ending up on the streets, exploited by gangs or prostitution rings. “In our communities, we have seen 120 families that have been affected by the husbands migrating to another place. The mothers have had to take their children out of school and this has sadly made it easier for local gangs to recruit these children, giving them a grim future,” says Elvira Sanchez, ISMU coordinator from Guatemala City, Guatemala.

Training for indigenous women is critical to ensure they have the skill set necessary to provide for themselves and their families as heads of households. IDEX supports training workshops for indigenous women in communities in Chiapas, Mexico and Guatemala, to gain skills that broaden their employment possibilities.

Based on decades of experience working in these regions, there is no question that migration is linked to poverty. Thousands of people would not leave their communities each year if it were not necessary to survive. That begs many questions: why are some communities becoming poorer? Why are soil quality and agricultural yields worsening as farmers adopt the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers promoted by U.S.-based multinational corporations? And how will some communities fare when commodity prices drop as competition stiffens? We can’t help but speculate that globalization has benefited some people but greatly harmed others and that immigration cannot be untangled from the changes in the economy that subsistence farmers in these regions experience – sometimes gradually and sometimes overnight.

Partnering with community groups to promote grassroots initiatives and generate greater economic opportunities is an effective way to reduce the need to migrate. After Hurricane Stan struck Central America in September 2005, we learned that the communities most able to survive the aftermath were those that had developed sustainable, organic agriculture with support from IDEX. In stark contrast to farmers who relied on poor soil, and were dependent on income from seasonal employment on corporate farms which had been severely damaged by the hurricane. The lesson is that they had found ways to support themselves over the long haul; their families and communities would remain intact as a result.

IDEX and our partners are keenly aware of the both the root causes and ill-effects of migration on Central Americans themselves. We are working steadily with communities to find solutions to challenges they face. Moreover, we know that an immigration debate that lacks a discussion of globalization and the causes of poverty is one overlooking fundamental issues driving the trends.

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