International migration and remittances: socio-economic impact on the State of Guerrero

 

Migración internacional y remesas: impacto socioeconómico en Guerrero

 

Alejandro Díaz Garay* and María del Carmen Juárez Gutiérrez**

 

* Universidad Autónoma de Guerrero.

** Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

 

Abstract

In spite of not belonging to the historical region of the international migration of Mexico towards the United States, Guerrero experiences a remarkable growth of the international migration since the last decade of the XX century, becoming part of the emergent States of the country. The objective was to measure the social and economic impact of the international migration on both familial and collective remittances. One survey and 27 interviews were applied. Familial remittances mainly replace the basic necessities of the households. The collective remittances alleviate marginalization. In general, remittances are essentially destined to the consumption of basic goods and services, scarcely to generate productive investment.

Key words: international migration, migratory processes, social networks, communitarian organizations.

 

Resumen

A pesar de no formar parte de la región histórica generadora de migración hacia Estados Unidos, Guerrero experimenta un gran crecimiento de la migración internacional desde la última década del siglo XX, por lo cual ha pasado a formar parte de los estados expulsores emergentes del país. Se midió el impacto social de la migración internacional y el impacto económico de las remesas familiares y colectivas. Se aplicó una encuesta y se realizaron 27 entrevistas. Las remesas familiares suplen principalmente las necesidades básicas del hogar. Las remesas colectivas atenúan la marginación. En general, las remesas se destinan sobre todo al consumo de bienes y servicios básicos; marginalmente, a la inversión productiva generadora de empleos.

Palabras clave: migración internacional, procesos migratorios, redes sociales, organizaciones comunitarias.

 

Introduction

International migration is a worldwide phenomenon which has intensified in recent decades, upturning the economic and social spheres of the countries. In Mexico, migratory processes towards the United States date back to the XIX century, and nowadays they represent the largest global-scaled migratory circuit between any two countries.

Unlike the traditional migratory pattern between Mexico and the U.S. that involved a male population with rural background and an average stay of six months, nowadays we see flows of population of urban origin, in addition to the rural one, and a stay shorter than six months, greater feminine participation and of inactive demographic sectors (children and the elderly). The aftermath is the abandonment of communities, therefore a growing loss of work force; this loss of development potential -as human resources are exported- is the most important negative impact of the communities inherent the social phenomenon of international migration (UNDP, 2007). Partida (2006) has recognized a better qualification in the potential workforce that flees in relation to that which remains in the country.

In spite of not belonging to the states of traditional migration from Mexico to the United States, Guerrero experiences, as of the last decade of the XX century, an unprecedented growth in its international migratory flow, whose destination is in 99 percent of the cases the U.S. (INEGI, 2001b). On average, in every municipality in Guerrero, eight percent of the households receives remittances; nonetheless there are municipalities where up to 34 percent of the households receives remittances. The migratory index by CONAPO (2002) ranks Guerrero at a high migratory intensity degree, comparable to that of Jalisco and San Luis Potosi, which belong to the traditional region of Mexican migration to the U.S.

Zamudio (2004) points out that the migration from Veracruz to the United States is characterized by its youth, velocity and heterogeneity; these features are also observed in Guerrero. Both states belong to a group called emergent, due to their recent incorporation into the Mexico-U.S. migratory dynamics.

As from the 1960's decade the tendency of the mean annual rate of demographic growth has been negative. In the 1960's decade it reached 3.1 percent; in the 1970's, 2.7 percent; in the 1980's, 2.2, percent; in the 1990's, 1.6 percent; and between 2000 and 2005 it only grew 0.3 percent, being one of the lowest in the country (INEGI, 2001a; INEGI, 2005). The relative stability of the birthrates and those of mortality uncover the loss of population derived from migration.

The main reason of international migration in Guerrero is the lack of opportunities to work; nevertheless, social networks¹ (González, 2006) and better wages are elements that influence on the decision of migrating, so the geographic distances and economic costs of the displacements become second in importance. The theory that fits best Mexican migration is that of the social capital (Faret, 1998; Durston, 2000; Massey and Aysa, 2005). Migratory networks configure a complex system of social relationships that contributes to the preservation of the migratory process, according to Domingo and Viruela (2001).

A particularity of migration through networks is its unidirectionality; Durand and Massey (2003) in their survey, Project of Mexican Migration, whose 73-community sample included four from Guerrero, found that 56.3 percent of the inhabitants of Guerrero have chose the state of Chicago, Illinois, U.S., as a destination city.

The objectives of the survey that makes room for this article were to observe the socio-territorial impact of international migration from the state of Guerrero towards the U.S., to measure the economic repercussion of individual and collective remittances, and contribute to the documentation and analysis of the phenomenon of international migration of Guerrero, particularly observing the organization of migrants who live in Chicago. Illinois. This information will work as a primary source for those interested in the migration of the State of Guerrero.

 

Materials and methods

The case study was carried out in the community of San Juan Union, municipality of Taxco de Alarcon, located in the northern region of the State of Guerrero, at 1350 m.a.s.1., 18° 25' 56'' N latitude and 99° 37' 47'' W longitude. Fieldwork began in February 2006 with participative observation; we registered demographic and geographic typical aspects. At the same time we conducted in-depth interviews (10/27) with key informers of the community: teachers, former migrants, the municipal deputy, housewives. In September 2006, we travelled to Chicago, Illinois, to go on to perform in-depth interviews (17/27). The interviews were held with leaders of community organizations from Guerrero, representatives of the Mexican and U.S. governments, as well as pioneer migrants. By means of the technique of participative observation in Chicago, we learnt the ways of communal organization of the migrants from Guerrero and their bi-national worldview.

Based on the methodological proposition by Yúnez-Naude and Taylor (1999) to study small rural populations, in February 2007 we applied a socioeconomic survey in San Juan Union; the measurement instrument was a semi-structured questionnaire. Out of a universe of 152 households comprised in AGEB 038-9 (INEGI, 2002), which represents a hundred percent of the community, a representative sample of 27 households was selected, using the technique of simple random sampling. Confidence level was 95 percent and the margin of error of ± five percent. The first questions (4/39) allowed identifying gender, age, schooling and marital status of the interviewed; the rest of the questions (35/39) provided information on the amounts, frequencies, ways of remitting and spending of individual remittances, other sort ofemployment, life level, migratory status, times of stay, among other analysis variables. The questionnaire was the thematic guide of the collective interview held with students (nine girls and ten boys) of sixth grade in the primary school in San Juan Union, so as to learn the perception of international migration from early ages.

A database was designed, whose analysis was performed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Each questionnaire was verified in the database by its consecutive numeration. The analysis of data consisted in the application of descriptive statistical analysis. Figures of the variables were elaborated to be shown in the results section.

 

Results and discussion

To analyze the territorial impact of migration from San Juan Union to the United States and based on the proposition by Durand and Massey (2003), four stages were identified; first attempts (1890-1941); Bracero Program (1942-1964), undocumented migration (1965-1986), legalization ofmigration and clandestine migration (1987-2007). The economic echo was measured through individual and collective remittances, according to the definitions by ECLAC in the 2000 Symposium and in Goldring Typing (2005).

 

First attempts (1890-1941)

The first migrations from Guerrero to the United States were detected by Foerster and Gamio in the second decade of the XX century, reaching 0.2 national percent (Durand and Massey, 2003). In San Juan Union, the first migratory movement dates back to 1941. As of its beginnings, the migration was of the labor sort; farmers who dare to leave the community were few, they worked in maintaining railway tracks and fruit and vegetable picking in the Border States.

 

Bracero Program (1942-1964)

The Bracero Program was characterized by fomenting legal masculine migration, of rural background, and non-permanent. The community of San Juan Union complied with the profile; hence it was one of the first to enter the program in Guerrero. The pioneering migrations had the multiplying effect of spreading new migratory practices in rural communities where spatial mobility already existed but over shorter distances. So the experiences under a contract worked in the first place to extend the phenomenon to other neighboring communities. In the early days, the possibility of having a temporary job in the U.S. did not have the desired impact, as it occurred in Zacatecas or Jalisco, regions of international migratory tradition. To leave, the volunteers had to go to the nearest recruiting center, in this case in Chilpancingo, at 144 km. the expenditure to apply for the next recruitment was afforded by the interested, which represented an obstacle for those in a self-consumption economy; additionally, the uncertainty of travelling to another country that was on war was also a inhibiting factor.

An initial requirement to apply to the Bracero Program was to have been discharged from military service and be of legal age; the official contract was as follows: the Secretariat of Government sent the call to the deputy offices of the region, then the deputies gathered the people in an assembly and the interested in working in the agricultural fields in the U.S. had to write their names in a role, which in the case of San Juan Union never surpassed 20 members; once the documentation was complete, the secretariat issued the definite role of those who had been accepted into the Program.

The appearance in San Juan Union of the logics of temporary migration to the U.S. mainly responds to a set of factors of attraction from the place of destination, this is to say, the United States. That is the trajectory of the first migrants in the United States who really played the part of sketching the migratory chain that would be later developed.

In the local history of migration, the observed schema was the following: at a first moment, a migrant spurred by the Bracero Program or his relations with other people from other town in the region, such as Huahuaxtla, Icatepec, Huixtac, Zapoapa or Temaxcalapa (map 1), spreads in his environment the possibilities of working in agricultural activities in the U.S. the work was fundamentally the same as that in the Mexican fields, however better paid. At a second moment, that pioneer or some other person decided to quit their usual rural activities to try their chances abroad; the heavy demand of poorly-qualified personnel, willing to work for low wages and no guarantee of permanence, then opens a path for other community inhabitants. Some work pinching cotton and tomato; other in picking beet, celery and broccoli, in the agricultural fields of California, Arizona and Texas. The inhabitants of San Juan preferred to work in picking vegetables, as it was an activity close to their labor experience. The payment was 0.85 by the hour and the working day was about 10 hours a day; as of then the migratory system begins directly between the community in Mexico and the urban center in the U.S. (Faret, 1998).

Each of the applicants was subject to a first physical inspection; once this exam was passed in Mexico, they went on their trip, always on land, towards the city of Mexicali, Baja California, where they crossed the border to Calexico, California, where a second and definitive medical examination was carried out on the recruited Mexican laborers, whose result determined the temporary hiring in the agricultural fields in the southern U.S.

Once the sanitary inspection was over, a photograph of the migrants was taken for their ID cards which they would carry during their stay in the U.S. and then they went on to sign their contract. Depending on the activity to develop, up to three thousand workers were chosen to work in a single plantation. Among the advantages of the Bracero Program was the fact that the migration was legal, there was a secure job, as well as punctual payment for the labor concluded; the agriculturists had facilities for the migrant workers, where they slept, ate and clean; moreover, they had a shuttle service between these facilities and the fields. The migration was temporary; the contracts could be for only 45 days and if the worker satisfied the boss, the contract was extended beyond six months; in spite ofbeing a migration institutionalized by the governments of Mexico and the U.S., it had some biases. Some applicants for the following season travelled to Mexico searching for a 'coyote' to be included in the list of the Secretariat of Government for an amount of money which oscillated between 300 and 500 MXN, back then equivalent to a week of work abroad. It is necessary to point out nonetheless, that on the background there was also an illegal migration between these two countries.

 

Undocumented migration (1965-1986)

Although the Bracero Program concluded, international migration from San Juan Union to the United States continued then aside from institutionalism.

Data from the survey do not register displacements toward the U.S. between 1965 and 1969, and the interviews verify said evidence. As from 1970 migration restarts in San Juan Union after the Bracero Program; its main characteristic was being undocumented. The migrants who decided to cross the Mexican northern border sought to do it hiring the services of a 'coyote'.

In 1970 the cost of crossing the border illegally was 200 USD on average; by the end of said decade it was 500 USD. In the 1980's decade, the price was doubled, reaching 1000 USD per person. In the 1990's the cost of crossing illegally grew again twice as much, and reached 2000 USD per person (graph 1).

The increase in the charges of coyotes were due to a larger demand to cross the border illegally, as women and complete families entered into the undocumented migratory flow who crossed through the bridge with counterfeit identifications, as well as the increase in the vigilance and control of the border patrol in the U.S.

For women, the lowest cost of crossing the border illegally in 1990 was a thousand dollars and the highest cost in the year 2003 was two thousand USD.

Half of the surveyed people said they crossed in Mexico-U.S. border for the first time in the period from 1965 to 1986. The two main crossing points were Nogales and Tijuana; other points of lesser flow were Laredo, Piedras Negras and Matamoros.

In San Juan Union there is still register masculine migration, yet the average age has descended in relation to the previous stage; they are the children of migrants in the Bracero Program who also reclaim their right of "trying their luck" and as they go "visit the North" which is always talked of as the panacea.

Between 1980 and 1986, the appearance of a flow of temporary workers marked a key phase in the whole migratory movement of San Juan Union; ever since the dynamics of flows were more intense. In this stage migration was still circular (departure and return); however with a tendency to remain longer in relation to the Bracero Program. The total of inhabitants of San Juan Union who decided to migrate in this period already regularized their migratory situation; 53 percent had residence and 47 percent citizenship; their ages range between 40 and 62 years of age, with an extreme case of 71 years of age, who decided to return to San Juan Union to spend their last days.

In 1986 the Immigration Reform and Control Act was proposed; its objective was to put an end to undocumented migration and regularize the migratory situation of unauthorized immigrant workers; 2.7 million immigrants were regularized, most of them Mexican (Durand and Massey, 2003); nevertheless, said measure had side effects contrary to the stated goals, for instead of slowing the migration down it broadened. The impacts on San Juan Union were the growing abandonment of the fields and the loss of individuals in the most productive ages and complete familial units.

 

Legalization of migration and clandestine migration (1987-2007)

Data from the survey indicate that 40.7 percent of the undocumented migrants arrived in to the U.S. as of 1987, once the amnesty was over. After 20 years they have not regularized their migratory situation. On the other side, those who managed to become regular with the amnesty had brought more members, had married, had had children and that made a critical mass that in the 1980's decade was fundamentally undocumented; now a days they are documented, but there are also many undocumented who require a new amnesty that puts an end to the uncertainty of two decades.

San Juan Union is fully framed in this reality; migrants who arrived in to Chicago before 1982, were given their residence in 1986, appealing to IRCA. As from 1991 they began to become U.S. citizens; this stage is called clandestine as in some cases they resorted to counterfeit identifications or to alter dates to be able to demonstrate their entrance in the U.S. before 1982.

Enter and leave the United States illegally was for them a great achievement; the right to reintegrate their nuclear families increased the flows noticeably; this migratory logic unlocked by the amnesty accelerated the international migration in the 1990's decade, thus strengthening the familial and communal networks.

The collective interview verified that all of the sixth grade students have at least a relative working somewhere in the U.S. The perception of migration varies according to gender; while boys waited to be 15 to go to work to "the North", the girls were not interested in going to work abroad. The main reason is their parents' prohibition to leave their households as single women and to marry someone from other community, state and even other country and never return to their hometowns, besides they were not expected to send remittances. Not with standing, the survey reveals that as from 1990 there is a feminine illegal migration from San Juan Union, being observable a continuity in the flows from 18 years of age, despite their parents' resistances. An in-depth interview with a young woman confirms the data in the survey; she coursed tele-secondary, she remained for three years without studying or working, she was decided to migrate to the U.S. before the end of 2007.

Secondary is the highest schooling a student can reach in San Juan Union. To go on to high school, youths must migrate to Iguala or Taxco (both cities in Guerrero). If they want to continue to higher education, the migration has to be towards Chilpancingo or Acapulco, cities which concentrate the offer of this sort of education in Guerrero. The truth is, youths prefer to migrate to the U.S., as they do not see schooling as an option to overcome their current life levels. Successful experiences of some migrants is the only labor referent of the adolescents and children in San Juan Union, even if there have been cases of casualties and disabilities of migrants who went to work in the U.S. (Don Macario Guzmán, interview, February 24^th, 2007, San Juan Union, Taxco de Alarcón, Guerrero; former migrant in Bracero Program).

Data from AGEB 038-9 (INEGI, 2002), which comprises 100 percent of the territory of San Juan Union, show that workforce is only 12.7 percent; the prevailing activity is the primary, which comprehends 59 percent of the workforce; nonetheless the abandonment of the fields is evident.

The constant migratory flows have altered the demographic structure of the community; the aftermath has been a greater infantile and elderly presence. The index of masculinity is 85.1 percent, which reaches its most critical value (64.2 percent) taking into account the segment of population of18 years and older; on the other side, as youths emigrate there is a loss of potentiality of development (UNDP, 2007).

The survey carried out in San Juan Union details the information from the collective interview in relation to the places of arrival and stay of the migrants.

The main destination for San Juan Union in the U.S. is Phoenix, Arizona, however the main city where they live is Chicago (graph 2); other arrival cities are Florida, Michigan, Los Angeles, Dallas and New York. In relation to the cities to live we found: Florida, Michigan, Los Angeles, Dallas and Carolina. Worth mentioning is that 22 percent of the interviewees lives in San Juan Union; all of them are in advanced ages and opined that they are no longer considered to work in the U.S.

 

Familial remittances

Recognizing that there is not a consensus on the concepts and definitions related to remittances, aspect that causes discrepancies both in the methodology used to measure these flows and in the very official data from said measurements, the World Bank summoned in 2005 the interested in the topic including the compilers and users of that information to reach an agreement (CEMLA, 2006). Tuirán, Santibáñez and Corona (2006) criticized the methodology of the Bank of Mexico to calculate the familial remittances, stating that not all of the resources are familial remittances, not overlooking that by means of this sending it would be possible to have some other sorts of private transferences, even of illicit nature.

Nevertheless, for the effects of this work we will use the concept of remittances reached by the scholars in the Costa Rica Symposium (2000) organized by ECLAC. We will understand as remittances those sent by migrants to their families to support them; when these remittances are used in investment, they are generally destined for improving the conditions of the household, buying lands, working capital and fixed actives of small familial business or small agricultural units. On their own, collective remittances have their origin in the contributions of the migrants in the U.S. through their organizations, so as to sponsor some collective action, project, event or festivity in their hometowns. Three generic destinations may be recognized: sponsoring civic or religious festivities, communal works and projects of entrepreneurial nature (ECLAC, 2000).

Familial remittances substantially increase the aggregated demand of the country; because of their amount and being one of the main sources of currency they might be a booster factor of development; nonetheless, a strategy based on remittances is not the best scenario for the development of Mexico (UNDP, 2007).

Guerrero received in 2003, from familial remittances, 688 million USD, in 2004, they amounted 826 million USD; in 2005, 957 million USD, and in 2006 they reached a historical record of 1157 million USD. The inter-annual positive variations oscillate between 16 and 21 percentage points; these evidence the increasing migratory flows from Guerrero in recent years (Banco de México, 2007).

In 2003, familial remittances sent to Guerrero reached 688 million USD, for 2007, they grew 77.4 percent, reaching 1240 million USD.

It is noticeable to appreciate the uninterrupted ascension of familial remittances from 2003 to 2007. However, where as from 2005 to 2006 they grew at a rate of 23.5 percent, for the period from 2006 to 2007 they lost 20 percentage points. This diminution in the rate of growth of familial remittances is a national reality. The Bank of Mexico (2007) points out that the annual growth of remittances closed at 1.4 percent, whilst in 2006 the annual growth reached 20.4 percent in Mexico. The causes of said diminution are due to the hardening of the measures to attenuate illegal migration to the United States, the deceleration in the sector of the construction and the expectations of slower growth in the economy of that country.

Familial remittances represented eight percent of the gross domestic product in the year 2004 (INEGI, 2006). By 2007, said incomes equaled 53 percent of the income budget of the state of Guerrero for said year (Banco de México, 2007; Cámara de Diputados, 2007).

In 1995, Guerrero held the fourth place at national level as for incomes from abroad by familial remittances, after Michoacan, Jalisco and Guanajuato, states of the traditional region of Mexican migration to the U.S.; by 2005 Guerrero fell to the ninth place, due to a larger flow of familial remittances toward other emerging states, such as the State of Mexico, Federal District, Veracruz, Puebla and Oaxaca, which hold from the fourth to the eighth place respectively (Banco de México, 2007).

The jobs taken by migrants from Guerrero in the United States are: worker, waiter, builder, layer and farmer; and to a lesser extent: cleaner, operator, baker and storekeeper. The wages from their labor vary from 500 to 4000 USD; the average income was 1800 USD a month.

Remittances are sent through bank transfers in 37.5 percent of the cases; 25 percent via bureaus of exchange; 12.5 percent, through telegraphs; and 12.5 percent through grocery stores. The frequencies of sending are highly variable; from every week up to a year. Those who send weekly are the husbands who send money to their wives and children, who may depend on these remittances. Those who receive money every week represent 5.3 percent; every fortnight 36.8 percent; once a month 26.3 percent; every two months 5.3 percent; every six months; and those who only receive money once a year represent 15.8 percent. By and large, those who send remittances once a year do so because they have gathered their nuclear families in the United States and they live there definitely; their beneficiaries in Mexico are relatives whom they do no longer have direct dependency relations.

There is a greater contribution from those who have been living in the U.S. for long, however their frequency is lower along the year.

Out of the total of remittances received, 91 percent is destined for the basic needs of the household, food and health, mainly; to a lesser extent, for clothing, as well as improving the household. 4.5 percent is destined for savings in views of a heavy expenditure in the future and another 4.5 percent for investing on a business, commonly general stores.

Sending remittances to the families, similarly to the use and final destination of these incomes is a private decision, where none of the three levels of government has the authority to intervene on how those dollars will be spent.

In relation to the impact of remittances have had no familial economy, 59 percent of the surveyed manifested that they have improved their quality of life, 27.5 percent mentioned that they have scarcely done it and 13.5 stated that their life level remains the same.

In 68.9 percent of the cases the mother is the one who decides on what the money from remittances will be spent; in 12.5 percent both spouses decide; a brother decides in 12.5 percent; and 6.1 percent of the cases only the father makes said decision.

 

Collective remittances

Through collective remittances three relevant facts are achieved; cohere the hometowns and recipient cities abroad; involve the three levels of government; and finance social works in regions previously excluded (García, 2005; Goldring, 2005). In the same sense, ECLAC (1999) stated that collective remittances are important because they materialize a spontaneous and solid bond between civil society groups; unlike familial remittances, they are resources fundamentally destined for social investment, they are more susceptible than familial remittances to be used as productive financings or in works that require certain accumulation of capital.

The fact that collective remittances are not used as income, but as saving, encourages the governments to orient migrant communities to invest their resources on infrastructure for their communities, because in a system of mixed economy where private agents orient their investments with criteria of profitability and risk, and with a state financially weak to fulfill its most elemental social obligations, the State opts to pass the bill on the "traitors" of the past and "heroes" of the present (Durand, 2005).

The migrants from San Juan Union who live in Chicago, Illinois, created in 2001 a non-profit social organization so as to support their community; at first it belonged to the Federation of Guerrero People, which was created in 1995, then the Association of Guerrero People, created by the end of the 1980's, was merged to it. In spite of being a self-managed and voluntary organization, the projects were conditioned by political interests of the state government (Erasmo Salgado, interview, September 22^nd-24^th, 2006, Chicago, Illinois; General Coordinator of United Clubs of Guerrero People Living in the Midwest).

By 2003, the club of migrants from San Juan Union quits its Federation membership and creates together with other 23 clubs the organization Guerrero People United Clubs of the Midwest. As of 2004 they foster the construction of a potable water system, a project associated to the Three by One for Migrants Program, which due to its high cost has had to be carried out on stages. Worth mentioning, the club of migrants from San Juan Union is the only in Guerrero that has proposed a project every year (Sedesol Guerrero, 2007).

As San Juan Union, other neighbor communities such as Huahuaxtla, Huixtac, Icatepec, Tecuiciapa, Temaxcalapa and Zapoapa (map 1) take part in the Three by One Program, financing diverse projects; the municipality of Taxco de Alarcon is the most benefitted from this sort of remittances in Guerrero. At the same time, in the northern region of the state we find 73 percent of the 151 projects carried out between 2002 and 2006 (SEDESOL, 2007).

Most of the migrants organized through clubs live in Chicago, Illinois. As a matter of fact, inn 2005, Guerrero held the first place by number of clubs it represents above the states of migratory tradition (table 1).

Durand (2005) mentions that the Three by One Program for migrants reveals the new role of the Mexican neoliberal government, which tries to discharge its obligations taking advantage of the migrants' generosity to undertake infrastructure works in rural communities, works whose only obligation corresponds to the State; what is more, it is intended to make the migrants co-responsible of the urgent need of generating employment, investing their remittances on the creation of enterprises in their communities.

For the migrants, contributing with resources in benefit of their hometowns demonstrates the love for their land and the eagerness to preserve a bond with their people; their actions lack double pretensions. Canales (2005) mentions that remittances, in addition to pose a monetary value, are a means to reproduce and support social, cultural and symbolic relations of the migrants and their communities.

Even if the incomes from collective remittances in 2006 only represented 0.2 percent of the familial remittances for said year, their impact is translated into basic infrastructure works and services in the communities of origin in Guerrero, whereas the impact of familial remittances fundamentally echoes on the familial core of the people from Guerrero.

 

Conclusions

The behavior of San Juan Union is similar to that of other communities that have transformed the migratory system of Guerrero to the extent of becoming part of the group of states called emergent as they entered the Mexico-U.S. migratory process late.

Due to the temporariness of the employment in the fields and the low productivity of agricultural activities, the mobility of the population of San Juan Union has lasted more than sixty years. With the insufficiency of revenues from agriculture, demographic growth has made the inhabitants look for other complementary activities outside the community; after some time, the families from San Juan Union have succeeded in progressing thanks to employment in the U.S.; the experiences of the adults encourage the illusions of children and youths in the community, who only await to be legal age to migrate. What is worrisome about this migration is the loss of potential workforce and the tendency to non-returning migration. Out of all the interviewed migrants, both in Chicago and San Juan Union, none expressed their desire to return to Mexico immediately; some say they rather spend their last days in their hometown, once they cannot work in the U.S. any longer.

It is true, migration from San Juan Union is not going to cease, as in the community there are no alternatives of employment and the fields are abandoned; this is the reality of the rural Guerrero, despite the U.S. anti-immigrant policies.

The efforts of the organized migrants impact at communal scale; the eagerness to carry out basic infrastructure works reveals the spirit of solidarity and the deep commitment to their hometown, which allows them to reaffirm their identity and preserver their culture, uses and customs. In the annual celebration of the patron saint the migrants participate not only displacing from the places they live, but also making important economic contributions to the religious festivities, that include musical performances and jaripeos (rodeos). The members of the San Juan Union club living in Chicago are seen in the community as people who have managed to overcome the conditions of poverty they lived in, hence they are regarded as examples to follow; being no factors that attenuate this worldview.

Finally, sending familial remittances, as the use and final destination of these incomes is a private decision, where public power lacks authority to intervene on how these incomes are to be used and to promote their productive investment. Trying to pass the State responsibility on the migrant community is to avoid the constitutional responsibilities of the government to guarantee social wellbeing to the Mexican people.

 

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Note

¹ A datum thus far unknown is the role migrants from Guerrero have played in the shaping of a social migrant organization, to the extent of being a pioneering community altogether with the migrant communities from Zacatecas and Michoacan (Soto, 2006).