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Anti-emigration strategy: Small Mexican towns try to create jobs at home

In rural Mexico, locals try to make a brighter prospect out of staying home.

from the October 29, 2007 edition

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Tamaula is one of a handful of communities that Cortes chose for her programs based on its demonstrated commitment to reducing its labor drain. Cortes has established programs here in alternative tourism and weaving factories that draw support from the education, business, and government sectors.

In the nearby town of El Gusano, where only 40 percent of the homes are occupied, Cortes's foundation helped a group of women who run a sewing cooperative buy land for a community enterprise. The new facility will include a place for them to work, a training center with computers, a shop to sell their products, a few rooms to rent to visitors, and a restaurant.

We want it to grow, so it generates employment, so our kids don't think so much of going to the US," says Mariana Garcia, one of the members of the group, which calls itself the "Embroiderers of El Gusano." The group also plans to begin business management classes at a local university.

Whether these communities will be successful in keeping their labor local remains unclear, but they are receiving the support of some local officials.

"I cannot say 'no' to a local community, especially to young people who want to help themselves," says the mayor of Irapuato, Mario Turrent Anton, who adds that migration is among his municipality's gravest problems. Family disintegration, he says, can lead to a host of other social issues such as depression and a spike in school dropouts.

"This is their land, and they should stay in their land; we could not do this work without people like Adriana," he says. Mr. Anton has promised Tamaula's residents that his administration will give them resources to help build a community training center to help teens gain practical job training and finish their high school degrees.

Already the improving prospects in Tamaula have acted as a magnet. Gloria Zambrano's husband, Jesus Villanueva, left two years ago to work in a chicken processing plant in Atlanta, but he plans to come home in December. First he will grow crops, she says, and then hopes to help find work at the cheese factory, where she works. "We never believed any of this was possible," says Ms. Zambrano.

Cortes always believed it was possible – and vital for Mexico's future growth.

"The day that we stop receiving remittances, what is the country going to do? We have social peace now because people are eating," says Cortes. "With the number of migrants leaving, this needs to be on the table as an urgent issue."

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