New York In Mixteca; Mixteca In New York
Smith, Robert
"XIX ANTORCHA PARA PADRE JESUS"-"29th Torch Run for Jesus Our Father," say the banners on the buses carrying 80 runners from a village in rural southern Puebla which I'll call Ticuani, to...
...On July 6, 1942 we crossed the border," Don Pedro told me, referring to himself and his brother Fermin...
...In addition, some restaurant owners (Greeks among them) are hiring Mexicans because they cannot find employees from their own ethnic group as immigration from their country has fallen off...
...One Mexican garment worker described the situation this way: "They (employers) give you what they want, less than minimum wage, and the people have to accept it because there is no other way to live...
...Such towns as Ticuani and El Ganado have become legendary as harbingers of the future...
...The priest in his sermon thanks the Ticuanenses in New York for their help, and asks God to protect them en el norte...
...Now, you already have to know or they don't give you work...
...El Gordo of Tortilleria Piaxtla made perhaps the most trenchant comment on the future of Mexicans in New York City...
...The extent of this explosion is only suggested by U.S...
...The "Antorcha para Padre Jesus" is an essential act in constituting Ticuani as a transnational community...
...About 30 of the 80 runners were born or reside in New York City...
...In both Ticuani and El Ganado, those in charge of organizing religious festivals have increasingly come from el norte because people there have more money...
...This converts roughly to $22.8 million per year, or $1,300 per person per year...
...and Robert C. Smith, "Los Ausentes Siempre Presentes: The Imagining, Making and Politics of Transnational Communities Between the U.S...
...Some have returned to Mexico for the first time in a decade after receiving amnesty through the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, while others are U.S...
...Since the late 1980s, street vending of flowers, oranges, jewelry, sugar cane, snow cones, and just about any other thing has spread throughout much of the city's public space...
...While remittances have enabled many to live better, those without remittances or good jobs have come to form a sort of transnationally created "underclass" in rural Mexican towns...
...New York in Mixteca 1. This article was written while the author was on a fellowship for dissertation research on the urban underclass from the Social Science Research Council with funds provided by the Rockefeller Foundation...
...JyImmigrati on Amc as Immigration of whom 15,000 to 20,000 arrived in the last two years alone...
...Within particular niches some Mexicans have achieved the immigrant success story: through hard work and long hours at low pay, immigrant dishwashers have become restaurant owners...
...There is more than meets the eye in this colorful scene of Mexican village life...
...They had moved out of Ticuani in the 1930s because of unrest related to the Agrarian Reform (their father had been a trusted lieutenant of Gen...
...This talk travels...
...Two rural townships in southern Puebla that share a post office received more than a million dollars in remittances in 1991 in postal money orders...
...in 1968, 251...
...and The Mobility of Capital and Labor (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988...
...in 1979, 208...
...and Jorge Bustamante, "Interdependence, Undocumented Migration, and National Security," unpublished ms...
...The $3,000 to pay for the buses was raised in a raffle in New York and the T-shirts were donated by a Ticuanense who owns a T-shirt factory in Brooklyn...
...The township has become as much an extension of its population in New York City, its alter ego, as an entity in itself-a truly transnationalized community...
...Before they would teach you [to use a sewing machine...
...They remain actively involved in local politics...
...Emiliano Zapata) and were running a car shop in Mexico City...
...In New York City, Mexicans were second only to Dominicans in the number of applications for amnesty they filed (approximately 9,000 and 11,000 respectively), thus providing a large base of support for newcomers...
...Javier's former boss agreed, and worked for his prot6g6 for free for two months...
...Townsfolk are saturated from birth with talk and images and evidence of life en el norte...
...she visits during school breaks in the summer and winter...
...In 1939, there were 142 births in Ticuani...
...Before it was not like this...
...a bottle of water that cost 2,500 pesos in Mexico City cost 4,000 pesos in Ticuani...
...See Portes and Robert Bach, Latin Journey (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985...
...Hence, it is more transnationalized than other more recent migrant-sending communities...
...8. This loss is underestimated...
...A local businessman who changes money and cashes money orders puts the figure much higher...
...Their market grew literally each time another Mexican arrived...
...Georges, Eugenia, The Making of a Transnational Community: Migration, Development and Cultural Change in the Dominican Republic (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990...
...4 The upshot for recent Mexican arrivals are working conditions and wages that are considerably worse than those of previous immigrants...
...5 Some non-Mexican immigrant employers apparently identify with their Mexican immigrant employees in a way that they do not with native-born blacks and Puerto Ricans...
...In 1986," the businessman told me, "the amount remitted was double...
...On the Bracero Program, see Manuel Garcia y Griego, "The Importation of Mexican Contract Laborers to the United States, 1924-64: Antecedents, Operation and Legacy," Working Paper #11 (San Diego: Center for US-Mexico Studies, 1981...
...Meanwhile, parts of New York become more "Mexicanized" every day...
...There are too many people...
...While many of these migrants went to the city of Puebla or Mexico City, at least 13 of these townships have significant populations in New York...
...The runners climb the steep, cobbled hill to the church, and make a path for the newly-elected Reina de la Misa (Queen of the Mass), 18-year-old Nancy Mora...
...Mixteca in New York...
...They had been trying unsuccessfully to get "bracero" contracts to emigrate as agricultural workers when a friend introduced them to David Montesinos, a New Yorker who vacationed every summer in Mexico...
...See Waldinger's "The Social Networks of Ethnic Entrepreneurs," unpublished mss...
...However, more money is remitted through cash and money orders carried personally...
...Never in all of my dreams did I dream of this," El Gordo told me, pointing to his tortilla factory, which sometimes runs 24 hours a day, in three shifts...
...and Zamora, Mich: El Colegio de Michoacan, 1988...
...2. There were West Indian bracero workers in New York and New Jersey, but very few if any Mexicans...
...From both sides of the border in the intervening 50 years, Don Pedro has watched the migration that he started become a defining feature of life in Ticuani and the region...
...Javier learned the ropes, and has been serving up Mexican fare for more than a year now...
...One Greek restaurateur told me that he preferred Mexican workers because they worked hard, the way he did when he came to the United States 30 years earlier...
...amnesty programs offered a powerful incentive for family reunification, whether or not the new immigrants were documented...
...The Ticuanenses, who have been organized for more than 20 years in New York, for example, are currently gathering funds for a potable water system in the town...
...One local teacher told me, "To have a family here, you must have family there...
...New York's economy has become polarized, the city populated increasingly by high-income individuals who manage global businesses and low-income workers who serve them...
...and G. and M. Kiser, eds., Mexican Workers in the United States (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977...
...and Italians and Jews own small factories...
...With a population of less than 9,000, this means that each inhabitant received $118...
...Alarcon, R. "El Proceso de 'nortenizaci6n': Impacto de la migraci6n internacional en Chavinda, Michoacan," in Thomas Calvo and Gustavo L6pez, eds., Movimientos de Poblacidn en el Occidente de Mexico (Mexico, D.F...
...in 1969, 31...
...in 1989, 120...
...Transnationalization has become a regional phenomenon as more and more migration emanates from the Mixteca...
...My research leads me to believe the 1992 Mexican population is closer to 96,000, Robert Smith has studied Mexican communities for four years and is a doctoral candidate at Columbia University...
...How communities experience transnationalization and dollarization can vary according to economic experience of migrants...
...and Through the Eye of the Needle: Immigrants and Enterprise in New York's Garment Trades (New York: New York University Press, 1986...
...Mexican migration to New York was not a product of the 1942-1964 bracero program that brought millions of Mexicans to work in the United States as contract laborers in agriculture, mainly in Texas and California...
...Dominicans and Koreans own corner stores and green-groceries...
...6. Work on the enclave theory of incorporation is commonly associated with Alejandro Portes...
...Much economic activity in New York City is organized along ethnic lines: Greeks and Chinese own restaurants...
...He said, "What's $10,000...
...in 1978, 39...
...7 While migration now emanates from the entire Mixteca Sur, the nucleus of migration to New York City is southern Puebla, where 22 of 45 townships experienced absolute net losses in population ranging from 5% to 40% between 1980 and 1990...
...5. This "musical chairs" theory was put forth by Roger Waldinger and Thomas Bailey...
...as well as Thomas Bailey, Immigrant and Native Workers: Contrasts and Competition (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987...
...I examined the township's birth and death records from the 1900s to 1989...
...The fundraising for Ticuani's "Antorcha para Padre Jesus," for example, migrated north seven years ago with one of its primary sponsors, now the owner of the T-shirt factory...
...Ernesto Galarza, Merchants of Labor...
...citizens, the children of Ticuanenses visiting on vacation...
...The extra income allows him to buy things he cannot afford on his teacher's pay and to save a little-something he says is usually impossible without a connection en el norte...
...2 The flow to New York City, never institutionalized by government, responded to a wide variety of labor markets and conditions, and proceeded more slowly, at least until the mid1980s when it suddenly exploded...
...Once the money is gone, it's gone...
...Goldring, L. Development and Migration: A ComparativeAnalysis ofTwo Mexican Migrant Circuits, Commission forthe Study of International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development, No...
...in 1951, 60...
...Economic polarization has also spurred the city's informal economy...
...He worked in a Dominican-owned restaurant for five years, and got along well with the boss, who always praised Javier's work habits...
...The reasons for this explosion lie both in New York and in the Mixteca Sur...
...One town's population decreased from 3,837 in 1980 to 2,483 in 1990, a net loss of 35%.8 The mayor told me that during the late 1960s they had 700 students...
...Census data...
...One Mexican success story is Javier, an immigrant from the state of Guerrero, who now owns a restaurant on Manhattan's Upper West Side...
...1992...
...A third way Mexicans have joined New York's economy is through the traditional "ethnic enclave," most notably in tortilla factories but also in restaurants...
...For ages these festivals have helped forge a communal identity based on dedication to both Mexico and Padre Jesus, the nation's protector...
...For Ganaderos, the less institutionalized nature of the New York community has led to more sporadic participation in Mexico...
...The way in which Ticuanenses and Ganaderos participate politically also differs...
...Yet Ticuani is emblematic of a profound transformation occurring in southern Mexico as migration integrates this region with the New York area...
...Ticuanenses are more likely to work for someone else...
...Meat that cost 18,000 pesos per kilo in Mexico City in the summer of 1991 cost 30,000 pesos in Ticuani...
...El Guero just opened a business in Puebla exporting chiles to the New York area...
...Then, U.S...
...A third reason has to do with the nature of New York City's economy, which has led many employers to prefer hiring Mexicans for the burgeoning service economy...
...He gratefully acknowledges that support...
...Race, Class, Ethnicity and Nationalism Reconsidered," at the Research Institute for the Study of Man, New York, NY, May 3-5, 1990...
...1990...
...Deaths follow a similar trend: in 1939, 30...
...Jorge Bustamante and Cornelius, eds., Flujos Migratorios Mexicanos hacia Estados Unidos (Mexico: Comisi6n Sobre las Relaciones M6xico-Estados Unidos, 1989...
...A second aspect of the "dollarization" of the Mixteca is its effect on local prices...
...37, May 1990...
...The Mexican Bracero Story (Charlotte: McNally and Loftin, 1964...
...Many subsist entirely on remittances from New York, and others, even professionals, depend on periodic remittances from relatives or on work-stints in the United States...
...Most of his family lives in the United States, and he works there every summer...
...This year remittances are down, due to the recession...
...Her parents are from the town and a neighboring village I'll call El Ganado...
...POLARIZATION DOES NOT, HOWEVER, TELL the whole story...
...Indeed, Anibal, a New York resident from nearby Xochihuehuetlin, Guerrero, which began sending migrants to the United States only eight or ten years ago, told me that he took his video camera to Ticuani's feast of the patron saint in January in order to record "Xochi's future...
...See Wayne A. Cornelius, "Los Migrantes de la Crisis: The Changing Profile of Mexican Labor Migration to California in the 1980s," (San Diego: Center for USMexican Studies, 1988...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 40HE DRAMATIC INCREASE IN THE MEXICAN population of New York City corresponds to a great emptying of much of southern Puebla...
...in 1989, 20...
...More Ganaderos than Ticuanenses have opened their own businesses in New York, for example...
...Come and teach me how to run a restaurant and that will help me more...
...4. See Saskia Sassen, The Global City (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992...
...The Mexican-origin population in New York City grew from 7,364 to 21,623 between 1970 and 1980, and to 61,722 by 1990...
...XIX ANTORCHA PARA PADRE JESUS"-"29th Torch Run for Jesus Our Father," say the banners on the buses carrying 80 runners from a village in rural southern Puebla which I'll call Ticuani, to the Basilica of the Virgin just outside Mexico City, a fivehour trip.' Starting the next day at dawn with a mass and a blessing at the Basilica, the runners-joined half-way by 80 more-participate in a 30-hour relay race in honor of Padre Jesus, finishing with ajog down the town's main street, and five laps around the town square while jubilant Ticuanenses shower them with flower petals...
...In addition to the economic and demographic aspects of transnationalization, there are cultural and political effects as well...
...To gather funds for the Antorcha or other investments in Mexico, Ticuanenses go from house to house in New York asking for donations of $100 or less, while Ganadero fundraising is usually restricted to a small group of restaurateurs and owners of tortillerias who give several thousand dollars apiece...
...Mexican migration to New York City dates from the summer of 1942...
...He estimates that more than half and perhaps as many as 80% of the townspeople now live in New York...
...Three million dollars a year is a more likely total, equivalent to $350 per inhabitant...
...7. Regarding transnationalization, see Basch, I. et al., "Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration...
...The relocation of much of the fundraising activities to New York means Padre Jesus is being asked not just to protect Ticuani or El Ganado, and Mexico, but also to protect Ticuanenses and Ganaderos in New York or wherever they may be...
...The Reina is a college student in New York City, who was born in Brooklyn and has never lived permanently in Ticuani...
...and Mexico," Working Papers, Institute for Iberian and Latin American Studies, Columbia University, 1992...
...Land is now said to be more expensive in the center of Ticuani and El Ganado than in the city of Puebla, and one must wait several months to have a house built in the township since few day laborers have not migrated to New York...
...The well-being of many, if not a majority, of households depends at least as much on what happens in New York as on what happens in the Mixteca...
...Massey, D. et al., Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration From Western Mexico (Berkley: Univ...
...Based on conversations with money-changers in other towns, he estimates that about $1.9 million is remitted each month to three townships which together have just under 18,000 inhabitants...
...These differences are reflected in the social organization of each town's immigrants in New York...
...When the employer sold his interest in the restaurant to his partner, he offered Javier $10,000 to start his own restaurant...
...Richard Craig, The Bracero Program: Interest Groups and Foreign Policy (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977...
...in 1959, 218...
...The Mixteca was hit especially hard by the extended economic crisis of the 1980s, the effects of which were heightened by the liberalization of agricultural and trade policies...
...This figure still underestimates the outflow because it excludes the considerable number who left prior to 1980...
...3. The explosion in out-migration from this region has also been detected by scholars on the Pacific coasts of the United States and Mexico...
...Montesinos drove them to New York, put them up in a hotel, and found them restaurant jobs within two days...
...of California Press, 1987...
...For example, F61ix ("El Guero") and Fernando ("El Gordo") Sinchez, cousins from Piaxtla, Puebla, cultivated an ethnic market by going house to house with tortillas in the late 1970s...
...Javier was flabbergasted, but recovered quickly...
...In ten years, he predicts, you'll see a taco stand on every corner...
...Assuming a 3% rate of population growth for the 1980s, Ticuani's population would have been 3,952 in 1990, and hence the adjusted net population loss for the 1980s would be 1,469, or 38...
...6 Through ethnic solidarity, immigrants create an internal economic logic that allows them to pull themselves up by their collective bootstraps...
...Ticuani was probably the first community in the Mixteca Sur (a region composed of parts of the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Puebla) to send migrants to New York City, beginning in the 1940s...
...those who remain are mostly the elderly, children, students or young women...
...They are given seats in the church and listen intently as the Reina invokes the help of Padre Jesus in uniting Ticuanenses everywhere...
...today they have only 350...
Vol. 26 • July 1992 • No. 1
