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Remittance & Migration - Reporting On Its Impact on Guatemalan Life [1]

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Date: 2023-04-13  

Nebaj, El Quiché, Guatemala. It rained that day. It rained almost every day. This place is still gorgeous.

When I first arrived in the USA at the end of 1985 in Miami, Florida, my local currency exchange was my bank. I came on a student visa and scholarship but had to wait to start because of a paperwork mix-up (due entirely to my family’s intentional inaction). Without housing, I went to work. I took warehouse jobs, loading and unloading trucks, I worked groundskeeping jobs, and a number of odd jobs to afford living in Miami until my scholarship started. Currency exchanges are where I would go to cash my check, pay my bills and purchase bus tickets. In line with me were a number of other Latinx workers doing the same... and remitting part of their paycheck to their families located in other countries or Puerto Rico.

Remittances are not only a huge part of the economies for the origin countries of migrants, it is also seen as a key survival technique for families in those countries as well. Even during the pandemic, the flow of remittances continued, despite economic setbacks.

Susan Pozo of Western Michigan University wrote about the flow of remittances from the USA to a number of Latin American nations (using México, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic for her case study) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a disproportionate negative impact on the Hispanic population in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that Hispanic individuals accounted for 24.8% of all COVID cases through May 4, 2022, far greater than the 18.5% Hispanic share of the U.S. population (CDC 2022; U.S. Census Bureau 2022). The U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey revealed that by May 2020, 58% of Hispanics reported a loss in income since the start of the pandemic, 11 percentage points higher than for the overall U.S. population at the time (U.S. Census Bureau 2020). And while 92.9% of non-Hispanic individuals had some health insurance coverage during 2020, only 82.5% of Hispanics did, compromising their ability to weather the health emergency (Ruggles et al. 2020b).

Thus, the assumption could be made that Latinx remittances would decline as well:

In April 2020, the World Bank forecasted a 19.3% decline in remittances to the Latin American and Caribbean region for the year (World Bank 2020). Yet one year later we learned that, instead, remittances to the Latin American and Caribbean area rose by 6.5% (World Bank 2021).

Remittance received by México (2010-2021)

For example, remittances sent to El Salvador increased from $4.5 Billion in 2016 to $5.6 Billion in 2019, $5.9 Billion in 2020 $7.5 Billion in 2021 (all USD). México saw an increase from $3.5 Billion in 2019 to $4 Billion in 2020 and over $5 Billion in 2021 (all USD).

Three models for understanding remittances have formed:

Altruism model: Immigrants provide ongoing support for the family back home

Consumption smoothing model: A transnational family’s separation into different units across geography diversifies income and facilitates consumption smoothing (To quote Paul Weller: “ You see they tell you to move around / If you can't find work in your own town”)

Precautionary saving model: Immigrants use remittances as a means of saving to counteract heightened risk (lower job security, possible deportation, health care costs and lack of access to other protections)

Each, in isolation, would predict differing remittance patterns due to the pandemic. However, the reality is much more blurred.

Source: Susan Pozo. 2023. “The Puzzle of Latin American Remittances during the Coronavirus Pandemic.” The Minority Report 15 (Winter 2023).

Stories From A Country Of Origin

Six weeks in Guatemala (June-July 2021): We started in Flores.

In June 2021, I traveled with a number of UNESCO health representatives through the highlands of Guatemala. June is traditionally the start of the rainy season and this year was no different. (In my journals, I noted 20 straight days of rain.) One evening in Santa Cruz Verapaz, myself, my son and two cohorts from UNESCO stopped at a bar. You could not tell it was a bar — it looked like a storefront business with a rundown exterior, no signs, a few lights and a few men lingering around the entrance. (Rural Guatemala is still a very divided society regarding men and women: women were not allowed in places like these.)

We knew of the place from interviews and remarks made earlier in the day at a makeshift health care clinic. (Q: “Can we talk with your husband?” A: ”He’ll be at Rodrigo’s place after work.”) Weeks earlier, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was in Guatemala and, with U.S. and international help, the COVID vaccine would be coming to the country in July. Still, we were all masked up, except to take a drink from our beverages. (Smoking was not allowed — this place was a firetrap! The men we saw outside had stepped out for a smoke.) Inside were a dozen or so men drinking. The bartender smiled at us, figuring we were just lost tourists.

“Where are you from?” the bartender asked us. “México,” I answered. “Originally from the Veracruz department. Now on the east coast, near Belize.” The bartender and a couple of men standing nearby looked us over. “What are you doing here? You reporters? Or with the government?” I pointed at Mat. “My son here is a forester. He has written a book about the forests of the Yucatán and is researching in Petén.” The men looked him over. “I work at a university.” “You studying us?” “No,” I explained. “I’m here to talk a little about COVID to tell my acquaintances back home. We want to help – send food and medical supplies – and make sure they get to the right people.” ‘Right people’ triggered a chuckle from Rodrigo, the bartender and owner. A couple of men around us smirked as well.

If you don’t know how to take care of the mountain, you are not welcome (Author photo)

The men in the bar talked about their daily work: on the local farms or fincas. They shared their stories about the impact of COVID. One man mentioned about a neighbor who took some bleach and got very sick. He recovered but the doctor bills have taken all of his family’s money and they had to move in with some other family members. We heard several men tell stories about villagers ordering special bleach cocktails that cost about a day’s wage, if not more. Most of the group in the bar didn’t think it worked or was worth the price but almost everyone had a story about knowing someone who heard about this ‘wonder’ drug.

Our conversations turned to migration. A number of men had family members that had migrated to the USA. Everyone there knew of someone who had migrated amongst friends and neighbors.

”They” [meaning the people who eventually migrated] “looked for work,” one man told us. “We move around… we all have to move around every year.” Another talked about working in factories near the capital. One man took work part of the year driving a truck. (My father did this as well to make ends meet.) Another worked at a soda bottling plant. “What attracts them to leave?” I asked. “Why did they go to the USA? Or Mexico?” “Or Canada?” another interjected. “It’s more money than we’ll make here,” one man answered, almost sotto voce. A few nodded their head in agreement.

If these men had one common enemy, it was the agent (or connection of agents) who controlled the migration process. You paid an agent a sum of money to get to another country, usually with a promise to continue to make payments to this agent to cover the fees (usually for paper processing (or smuggling), horrible transportation, minimal food and water, and the ‘introduction’ to a work agent on the other end). The work agent you work in the destination country, and takes a cut of the wages. (I was approached by an agent like this in 1985-86 when I came to Miami but I refused.) Sometimes, you have to pay another agent to find you a place to live and transportation to and from work. Finally, another agent (or agents on both sides of the transaction) takes some of the money to remit it to the origin country.

I could have been driving a truck — my father did this for a number of years. (Author photo)

Let’s look at what happens to the wages a migrant may make (in the best circumstances). If someone is offered a job in a slaughterhouse for $10 an hour, here is where it goes:

$2 for the transportation agent

$2 for the work agent

$1 for the financial transfer agent

$1-2 for lodging

The remainder is split on necessary goods to survive in the destination country: food, phone service, personal supplies, clothing and remitting the back to the family back home. From UNESCO testimony throughout Central America, 50 to 70% of all income that migrants make is taken by someone else in the process.

These numbers do not take into account variables like medical bills and other emergencies that may arise.

But, as the one man told us, “It’s more money than we’ll make here.”

One day a week, a family would head to the local currency exchange / wire transfer office to collect the remittances. This might be Friday: you might see a line of twenty or more people waiting for an expected transfer. It might be Saturdays if the office was open on the weekend. It might be Monday after work: if the worker in the USA or Canada could not get to the currency exchange office before closing on Friday, he or she would have to do it on the next day. In this day of cellular phones, the family at home knew exactly when they could pick up the money.

(A quick note about currency transfers in the USA: some states regulate the fees that can be attached to a transfer, others do not. A worker in Iowa will have more money ‘taken’ in fees than one in Illinois. In the USA, it really depends on the power of the currency exchange lobby as fees for paying bills and other useful services are much higher in states where these owners/lobbyists have more power.)

Days later, in Uspantan, El Quiché (the birthplace of Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú — who attended at least one event with Vice President Harris that year in Guatemala), we talked to a man who had two children in the USA. They had left in 2018 and 2019 due to the aftermath of the tropic storms and hurricanes. He told us about the risks each person, a man and a woman, felt and the dangers that they had encountered. Talking about remittances, he held out that both children sent as much money out of the country as soon as possible to avoid having it being taken by someone in the USA. Neither had bank accounts in the USA. Any decision that his children would make to stay would occur after they paid off the initial debts incurred for the migrant trip.

My colleagues heard from families that were forced to cover these debts when either the migrant fled the debt or was unable to fulfill its terms, usually due to a number of factors: a medical issue, a legal issue, such as a crackdown on non-citizen labor or the devious actions of an agent who changed the terms and wanted more money.

Two of us took a side trip to Chichicastenango. As we got closer to the heavily populated areas, we heard less stories about bleach and crazy ideas (like religious cures) regarding COVID. Instead, we met more people impacted by the death of someone near to them: a family member, a neighbor, a co-worker, a friend, a fellow church member. More masks. More national stories about the vaccine as well. We were there for the Holiday weekend: Bank Employee Holiday on Thursday and Armed Forces Day on Friday at the start of July.

Hope

Guatemalan moon (Author photo)

Here we encountered something a little different: “Hope.” It had dawned on us after four weeks in the field that we encountered a lot of emotions and attitudes from the people we met. Much of it reminded me of my upbringing in a rural community: we worked, we relaxed, we worked some more, we relaxed a little. The cycle would not change. When I grew up, we might run out of essential food staples, like meat, corn and milk, before we could afford to buy more. As children, we realized that we had to contribute to our own family’s survival as soon as possible. (In my 8th summer, I started working at a farm. The next few summers I picked green peppers for two months — and did this until I could find a better job. When the Mexican economy collapsed in 1982, I worked at a food shipping plant: we would work 12 hour days unloading produce from trucks to ship out on the railways or by ship at Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz. I was 16. I slept in my truck because it was over two hours from my home.) You do these things to survive — to eat, to have clothing and other essential items, to pay medical bills, and so on. Money is finite. So is happiness. Injecting hope into this situation can disrupt this existence. If you want to hope for something better, such as an opportunity to live a better life, you had work hard to get a chance at it and you still had to understand the risks.

One couple told us about their daughter who studied in Quetzaltenago (known as Xela by almost everyone in Guatemala).

The father bragged to us about his daughter. “She went to the university [in the capital] and now runs a bank in Antigua.” The men laughed. “Tony,” his wife said with a smile. “She doesn’t run the bank!” They both laughed. “She should!” he answered. “She knows more than any of those [expletive]s!” His wife beams with pride.

The couple hoped their daughter could break the cycle of the struggle for existence that they grew up with. People come to the USA and Canada (and even México) with the same hopes. And the same driving work ethic. They have deep-seeded fears: women are treated poorly in the country, especially in white-collar roles.

A New Opportunity?

4- July – Chimaltenango Sunday market I woke before dawn to watch the setup for the Sunday market near the Iglesia de Santo Tomás. The Sunday market caters to the local population as well as tourists in the area. The locals will shop for food, spices, clothes, shoes, supplies, tools, and whatever household item that they might need. In this town, there are shops for most of the things people may need but the markets offer fresh vegetables, fruits, meats and spices as well as deals on off-brands for clothes, like jeans, work shirts, shoes and the like. The markets also cater to the tourists but there haven’t been many since COVID. Still, around town, I have seen people from Europe (Spain and Germany), Japan, Australia and other Latin American countries. Prices are cheaper than the main markets off of the highways. There is fresh food here to eat all day. Fresh drinks as well.

Tourism is seen by many as the opportunity to break the cycle. The major, heavily populated parts of Guatemala have known this for years: the capital, Antigua, Lago de Atitlán, CAVA (the Central American Volcanic Arc), etc. have all catered to the international industry. Now, Flores and Sayaxché, Petén to the National Reserve in Visis Cabá near Nebaj (the top photo) and other remote places are getting in on the opportunity. The COVID pandemic shut down these opportunities.

But what happens now? Let’s leave the story here and talk about tourism in a forthcoming article.

Background: In association with UNESCO’s Education Sector, I was in Guatemala as part of a Mexican delegation promoting higher education throughout Central America. My first visit to Guatemala was in late 1987 and my home in Chetumal, Quintana Roo, México is only six hours from Flores, Petén. I was with a team from UNESCO that visited Guatemala in June and July 2021. Recently I worked for six weeks in Flores and Santa Elena, Petén, Guatemala in February and March 2023. I return in April and May to Puerto Barrios, Izabel, Guatemala & San Pedro Sula, Cortés, Honduras. This is the one in a series of articles/observations about México, Guatemala and Central America relating to the economic and political environment, migration and relations with the USA:

Censorship, Jailing Opponents, Voter Suppression: The Conservative Script Road-Test - Guatemala

Thank you for reading!

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