No Immigration Without Emigration: Consequences For The Countries Left Behind

Tweet "Eighteen years ago, I spent a summer in my father’s village in Jalisco. I was in college then, and I have always had a strong and fond connection to the place. We used to spend our summers there when we were kids. I remember those days as if it were yesterday. The days seemed endless. Mornings began at around 5:30 a.m. It was hard to know exactly what time it was, because no one had a watch or a clock. Early in the morning, I would accompany my cousin to the mill to grind our corn into flour for tortillas. We would cook the tortillas over an open fireplace, which was built into the kitchen wall. That summer, I spent Sundays watching soccer games at the village soccer field. Each Sunday, a different neighboring team would challenge the local team. Sometimes the team would have to travel for the game and the whole village would travel with them. Talk about team spirit! During the week, my cousin and I would saddle our horses and ride up to the mountains and pick oranges. On Saturdays, my cousins and I would dress up and go to dances at the neighboring villages. There was always a wedding, a quinceañera, or a baptism. There was at least one dance every Saturday.

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"Finally, I returned in October 2005. I was so excited to visit, as if I was returning for a homecoming. However, everything had changed. The first sign that the village was not the same was waking up in the morning to the sound of trucks driving on the cobblestone streets. There had been very few cars when I had last been there. Now SUVs ruled the roads. There were practically no horses left. The sugarcane fields were gone. The corn fields were gone. I was there for 10 days and did not see anyone make tortillas. The sound of the mill was replaced by the trucks that came into the village from the big city of Guadalajara to sell tortillas and the dough for tortillas. The soccer field was overgrown with weeds. In fact, no one could remember when the last soccer game was played. The place where the horse races were held was no longer noticeable. The plaza was empty on Sundays, except for a few men standing around and an older couple sitting on one of the benches. It took me a while before I noticed there were no young adult men. There were teenagers and older men, but practically no men between 20 and 50. The sugarcane fields and the corn fields had been replaced with agave plants (from which tequila is distilled). I was told that agave required less manpower and was harvested every few years instead of every year. There were women of all ages and there were young children, but it seemed that fatherless families were more prevalent than not. I visited a few surrounding villages and found the same -- no young adult men.

Found on the Website Payday via Insurgent American website