Women and Migration: The Rise of Women Leadership in Rural Communities in Guanajuato, Mexico as a Result of NAFTA and U.S. Free Trade Policies
Seema Kakad, Trinity '06
ABSTRACT
NAFTA was passed in 1993 by the US, Canada, and Mexico with the idea that there would be an increased flow of trade benefiting each of the three nations. However, as a result of NAFTA and an already weak Mexican economy, Mexico has become increasingly linked to the US economy. Drastic effects can be seen in rural communities, where farmers struggle to sell crops because they are competing with American corporate farmers with significantly lower prices. As American statistics reveal, the number of Mexican immigrants has soared, in part because families who have done agriculture for generations no longer have a source of income. As a result, Mexican men from rural areas, mostly between the ages of 16-50, are forced to come to the US to work so that they can send money back to their families.
Because of these migration trends, rural communities, particularly in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico are becoming 80%-90% women; women, who are suddenly being forced to take leadership in the governance of their villages. How will the money from the remittances be used? What will be done about the river that continues to flood the village every spring? How do women whose husbands never return from the US continue to support their families? From local savings groups, to a local bakery that sells to the surrounding villages, to delegadas – women delegates who serve as the mayors or leaders of their village, women in the state of Guanajuato are responding in unique and creative ways to their own growing need to be independent and to sustain the rural villages where they live.
Irapuato, Guanajuato, MEXICO – May 2003.
SENDING COMMUNITIES• Mexico’s second largest source of income (after tourism) is remittances – money sent back by family members working in the US.
• Sending communities, who are generally made up of women and children, depend on those remittances.
• Remittance money can go towards investments and the build-up of the infrastructure of the sending communities.
• Remittance money is the second largest source of income for Mexico, after tourism.
• Many organizations are being created to help women learn trades.
• Other organizations are introducing women to parts of American culture, so that when the men return, the women will have a better understanding of their new “Americanized” practices.
Karina Arias of the organization Sin Fronteras, speaks to Students of the World members about sending communities.
“SIN MAIZ, NO HAY PAIS”
“Without corn, there is no country”• The average Mexican eats 10 corn tortillas a day.
• About 90 percent of Mexico's corn farmers work fields of five acres or less.
• According to the US Department of Agriculture, imports of corn to Mexico from the US have increased nearly eighteen-fold since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994.
• The American Farm Bill signed by President Bush in May of 2002, provides subsidies to U.S. corporate farmers. As a result, the U.S. can produce cheaper corn then Mexico, leaving small Mexican farmers with lots of corn unsold.
• Many small farmers are being forced to leave their rural villages and seek jobs in Mexican cities, or in the US.
Ears of unsold corn sit in a barn in El Gusano.
EL GUSANO’S SOLUTION• Women delegadas in the town of El Gusano, Irapuato have responded to the need to be economically self-sufficient by purchasing a village corn-grinder.
• They were able to purchase it using the remittance money sent by their husbands, along with loans set up by Guillermina Lopez, the facilitator of many of the delegadas in the Irapuato region.
• Women pay a small fee to use the grinder, which will eventually cover its cost.
• Before the corn-grinder, the women used to have to wake up early in the morning; now they can grind corn in a matter of seconds, leaving more time to do work in their homes, in the fields, and in the community.
Women in El Gusano demonstrate how the corn-grinder works.
LA PANADERÍA
• In the town of El Molino, a group of 5 women, whose husbands work in the United States, started their own bakery - a panadería.
• Twice a week the women start at 6:00 AM and bake in a one-room kitchen for five hours.
• They make hundreds of breads, cookies, and pastries, and then sell it to the surrounding villages, as well as in the nearby city of Dolores.
Women in El Molino baking cookies.
SAVINGS GROUPS• Women in the villages of Guanajuato have set up a system to ration the remittance money.
• They have formed savings groups of approximately 25-30 women and children.
• Each member has his or her own bolsita, or bag, in which money is added to each week. The bags are then placed into a box, which is locked and then placed in safe keeping by one of the members.
• When taken out, the money can be used for clothes, food, or get-togethers. In same cases, members can take out loans.
• Different savings groups do different activities. Some work together to embroider and sew clothes, tablecloths, and other items that can be sold. Others are more of a social group that plans meetings, parties and dances for the village.
• The savings groups have become more than a mini-banking system. They have become a network and support group of women who come together to learn from each other, to share with each other, and to learn to live together as a community.
Members of a savings group in Irapuato collect the bolsitas from members.
DELEGADAS• Prior to the expansion of sending communities, men tended to dominate the position of the delegado, the local delegate of a rural village.
• However, in the past 10 years with the increasing number of men leaving, women have emerged as the delegadas.
• In the village of Capolín, a new delegada is elected by the community every 3 years.
• The delegada serves as the voice of the community – she meets with delegadas from other communities and also serves as the link between her community and government projects. She holds meetings with the community, whether it is to listen to their concerns about flooding problems by the riverbank, or to plan the building of a new bridge that will solve the flooding problem.
• Especially because shortages of rain are common in Guanajuato, the delegada is responsible for ensuring that there is always drinkable water.
Guillermina Lopez, the facilitator of the delegadas in the Irapuato region.
CONCLUSIONNAFTA, other U.S. free trade policies, an already weak Mexican economy, and the lack of agricultural support by the Mexican government have created a problematic situation in the fields of Mexico. Crops, which could potentially sustain the Mexican people, are going to waste, as they cannot compete with low US food prices. In the past decade, the economies of the US and Mexico have become increasingly linked in an unequal relationship; the US economy is gaining more business, while the Mexican economy is becoming increasingly dependent on it. The easiest solution for rural Mexican men is to either move to a big city, or migrate to the US to work in order to earn money for their families.
While some women have migrated to the US with the men, a large percentage have decided to remain in their rural communities either out of choice, or because it is too expensive for both the husband and the wife to cross the border illegally. Of the women who have remained in Guanajuato –a state known for its large populations of sending communities - they certainly face new challenges. Women are asserting their power as leaders of their families and communities in the form of delegadas, they are setting up their own banking systems and businesses to supplement and ration the money from remittances, and they are beginning to stir up the traditionally machismo Mexican culture.
Although the context of the recent gender-based demographic shifts is certainly an indicator of greater foreign and domestic policy changes needed, it is certainly commendable that women are asserting their leadership powers in creative and unique manners during a time when it is most needed.
