Posted on 09/07/2001 7:31:21 PM PDT by shrinkermd
JALPA, Mexico (AP) - Surrounded by tropical fruit trees and lush mountains, this picturesque town of colonial churches and brightly painted buildings looks like the kind of place few would want to leave.
But since World War II, more than 70 percent of the young people from this seeming paradise in central Mexico have been heading north to work in the fields, factories and restaurants of the United States.
Experts say the only real solution to slowing the flow of migrants is providing jobs in towns like Jalpa, but that's easier said than done.
Five years ago, the first factory opened in this town in central Zacatecas state. Few people were willing to work for $5 a day when they could earn more in an hour in the United States, and the plant closed a year after it opened.
A second plant was abandoned during construction after it, too, failed to recruit enough workers.
"Why would I work for so little when I've made $6.50, $7.50 up to $9 an hour in the States?" said Jaime Saldivar, 30, sitting on a bench in the town's tree-lined plaza and wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap.
In a joint statement this week, President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox announced plans to form the public-private "Partnership for Prosperity" to find ways to spur economic growth in Mexico as a means to reduce migration.
Zacatecas has been struggling for years to develop rural towns like Jalpa. Because of the exodus of workers, more than half the state's municipalities have been reduced to communities of women, children and the elderly.
Mexico has long based its economic development on luring foreign companies to its impoverished regions by offering them cheap labor. But for many Mexicans jobs are not enough. They don't expect to earn as much as in the United States, but insist on enough for a decent standard of living.
That's especially true in states like Zacatecas, where migration dates back three generations and residents are long accustomed to U.S. wages.
Many, like Saldivar, are following paths blazed by their grandfathers, who were hired to work in U.S. factories during World War II to fill vacancies left by those who'd gone off to fight. The so-called Bracero program was disbanded in 1964.
Since then, families here have established underground railroads to get workers across the border, find them places to stay and secure them jobs.
The smugglers they hire are cousins, uncles, friends or neighbors in their hometowns - not the stereotypical shysters in dark sunglasses who wait on the border to take their money only to abandon them in the searing desert or freezing mountains.
Since the journey is inherently safer, many are more than willing to try their luck at crossing the line.
"It's rare that you hear a migrant from Zacatecas has been found dead in the desert," said migration expert Rodolfo Garcia Zamora.
Garcia Zamora said the solution to stemming migration is getting Mexicans who have built successful businesses in the United States to invest in projects in their hometowns that can be profitable and offer decent salaries.
Migrants send back more than $1 million a day to Zacatecas from the United States. Jalpa receives more than $100,000 a day. But most of the money is used to support families in Mexico and to buy land and houses.
In Jalpa, teen-agers don Nike clothes and ride skateboards. Shiny minivans line the streets.
But despite the town's healthy appearance, "our banks are practically empty," said Deputy Mayor Jesus Guerrero, 58, who worked in California for eight years. "People invest their money in the United States - not here."
Jalpa has no factories. The majority work in the guayaba fruit plantations, but often only long enough to save for their illegal odysseys north.
Garcia Zamora and a team of experts have drafted a plan to find U.S. markets for crops grown in Zacatecas and launch projects backed by entrepreneurs, the government, international financing institutions and migrants who've made their fortune in the United States.
In Jalpa, officials are mobilizing the women of the town who have been left behind.
In April, the city formed a cooperative of 167 women to make traditional, embroidered clothing for Mexican women in the United States. Thus far, they have no transportation costs: Returning migrants carry the merchandise with them. But how much of a dent these projects can make remains to be seen.
Saldivar, who returned a few months ago after his first child was born, says it wouldn't take much to keep him home to watch his daughter grow up.
"If there was a job around here for $2 an hour I would stay," he said.
AP-ES-09-07-01 1440EDT Subscribe to the Tribune and get two weeks free! Return to Top
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