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migration

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  • The Homelands Blog

    Ecuador welcomes its migrants home

    On the day Ruxandra Guidi  arrived in Quito last year, she spoke with the owner of her bed and breakfast, an English-speaking Ecuadorean in his late twenties with obvious entrepreneurial savvy. He’d attended college in the U.S. on his parents’ …

  • The Homelands Blog

    Big year coming (you can help!)

    Before we say goodbye to 2014 we thought we’d give you a sneak peek at what we’re cooking up for the year to come. If you feel it’s worth supporting, far be it from us to stand …

  • The Homelands Blog

    A boon for the women of Ecuador

    For the 60,000 residents of Cañar, Ecuador, the costs of migration can be great, especially for children. But the benefits can be great as well: unprecedented access to education and jobs, freedom of movement and financial independence for …

  • Gregory Warner

    WORKING

    Human Smuggler

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    Gregory Warner

    WORKING

    Human Smuggler

    For 30 years, Alidad has been smuggling Afghans on a secret nighttime passage through the mountains of western Pakistan into Iran. “I have a lot of sad memories,” he says.

    SmugglerFor most Afghan refugees, fleeing the war-torn country is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. For Alidad, it’s a job.

    He’s spent 30 years smuggling Afghans on a secret nighttime passage through the mountains of western Pakistan into Iran. Sometimes he finds out too late they can’t handle the journey.

    “We go when it’s raining, when it’s snowing. People fall off the mountain, people die,” he says. “I have a lot of sad memories.”

    Date

    March 19, 2009

    Outlets

    Marketplace

    Tags

    Themes: Lives, Economy, Peace & Conflict
    Regions: Asia / Oceania
    Media: Audio
    Other Tags: smuggling, refugees, Afghanistan, smuggler, migration

  • Marianne McCune

    Worlds of Difference

    Mezcal Dreams

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    Marianne McCune

    Worlds of Difference

    Mezcal Dreams

    Mexican migrants to the U.S. send back billions of dollars to their families every year, but their absence comes at a price. Marianne McCune reports on one tiny pueblo that is brewing up plans to keep its people from leaving.

    When Americans debate how to regulate the hundreds of thousands of Mexicans crossing the border to work in the U.S. each year, they sometimes forget the toll migration takes back home. That toll is especially high in rural areas, where families are divided, villages are deserted and cherished traditions are gradually slipping away.

    But in the tiny pueblo of Zoochila, in Mexico’s southeastern sierra, a group of would-be entrepreneurs is brewing up a reason to keep their friends and neighbors from leaving.

    “The idea is to create a source of work so that people don’t have to go,” explains Francisco Siguenza, the pueblo’s volunteer treasurer. Instead of exporting workers to America, Siguenza and about 20 other Zoochilan men hope to send thousands of bottles of top-quality, hand-made mezcal – a fiery local liquor made from the spiky maguey plant.

    It may sound like a simple plan, but it is full of hubris. The forces driving the Mexican migration have been building for decades. Since World War II, tens of millions of Mexicans have been drawn to the U.S. by the promise of jobs and economic opportunity. Communities throughout Mexico have come to depend on the dollars the migrants send back. About half of Zoochila’s 300 families are now based in America, most of them in Los Angeles.

    Erasmo Luna Mateos lived in L.A. for about 20 years before returning to Zoochila. But he’s one of the few who have come home for good. “Once people get used to making money over there, it’s hard for them to come back,” he admits.

    Visit Zoochila during its annual fiesta and you’d think the town was booming. There are bull-wrangling competitions, basketball matches and native dance performances. Local bands parade up and down the dusty streets. Returnees from LA videotape everything and dance the local jarabe into the wee hours. Their cash and the local mezcal make for a festive blend.

    But when the celebration is over the picture looks very different. Sturdy new houses stand empty in their lots. The handsome town hall has been restored, but the all-volunteer government is stretched perilously thin. Residents fear that Zoochila, like other nearby mountain villages, could become a ghost town.

    Members of Zoochila’s mezcal collective know it won’t be easy to compete with more established producers for a piece of the export market. One of the few companies that sells traditional, single-pueblo mezcal in the United States has only just begun to have some success. “I’ve devoted nine years to building a market,” says Ron Coooper, owner of the export company Del Maguey. “It’s overwhelming.”

    Zoochilans are well aware of how time-consuming and expensive it is to produce a distinctive liquor of consistently high quality. And they know that they’ll need to do more than just break even if they want to lure their townsfolk back from America. But they’ve done the math and they believe they can succeed.

    Erasmo Luna’s daughter, Mercedes, has also done the math. She says she probably couldn’t have gone to high school if her father hadn’t been sending money home. But she insists that 20 years without him wasn’t worth it. “Who cares if we didn’t have money?” she says. “We wanted our Papa to take care of us, to hug us.”

    – Marianne McCune

    Date

    April 21, 2004

    Outlets

    All Things Considered

    Tags

    Themes: Economy, Culture
    Regions: North America
    Media: Audio, Text
    Other Tags: mezcal, Zoochila, Mexico, migration

  • Border Stories

    Documentaries and features in English and Spanish exploring social, economic, legal, and environmental issues along the U.S.-Mexico border.

  • Sandy Tolan

    World Views

    Coming North

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    Sandy Tolan

    World Views

    Coming North

    A visit to a shelter for transients in the Mexican border town of Nogales, where would-be migrants prepare for the harrowing trip across the border to the United States.

    A visit to a shelter for transients in the Mexican border town of Nogales, where would-be migrants prepare for the harrowing trip across the border to the United States. Tens of thousands of Mexicans and Central Americans have passed through the shelter, undeterred by the frequent deaths of their compatriots in the Arizona desert.

    Date

    May 2001

    Outlets

    All Things Considered

    Tags

    Themes: Lives, Economy, Culture
    Regions: North America
    Media: Audio
    Other Contributors: Sandy Tolan
    Other Tags: migrant, nogales, journey, trip, shelter, migration, desert

  • Sandy Tolan, Nancy Postero

    Vanishing Homelands

    Refugees from a Fallen Landscape, Part 2

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    Sandy Tolan, Nancy Postero

    Vanishing Homelands

    Refugees from a Fallen Landscape, Part 2

    Part 2 of a two-part report from Honduras examines attempts by foreign and private relief agencies to regenerate the soil and help farmers stay on their lands.

    For decades, inequitable land distribution, slash-and-burn farming, and uncontrolled erosion have turned entire regions in Latin America into desert, and forced hundreds of thousands of farmers into towns and cities.

    This has created a new kind of migrant: the environmental refugee.

    But two programs in southern Honduras are looking at ways to help restore the damaged soils, and keep farmers on their lands.

    One is a grassroots effort that could serve as a model for small-scale development projects. The other is a U.S.-funded plan that is trying to change the way people farm across the entire country.

    Narration is by Edward James Olmos, who hosted a series of 13 half-hour Vanishing Homelands specials.

    Date

    May 28, 1992

    Outlets

    Morning Edition

    Tags

    Themes: Economy, Environment
    Regions: Central America
    Media: Audio
    Other Contributors: Sandy Tolan
    Other Tags: migration, land degradation, displacement, Honduras

  • Sandy Tolan, Nancy Postero

    Vanishing Homelands

    Refugees from a Fallen Landscape, Part 1

    Play Now Download

    Sandy Tolan, Nancy Postero

    Vanishing Homelands

    Refugees from a Fallen Landscape, Part 1

    Part One of a two-part feature about the effects of deforestation and desertification follows poor farmers in Honduras who are fleeing their damaged lands to an uncertain life in Tegucigalpa.

    In many parts of Latin America, the ecological crisis of deforestation and soil erosion has become so severe that hundreds of thousands of farmers and their families have been forced to abandon their lands and flee to the cities.

    In southern Honduras, a generation of poor land distribution and slash-and-burn farming has turned once-fertile lands into useless patches of rock.

    Narration is by Edward James Olmos, who hosted a series of 13 half-hour Vanishing Homelands specials.

    Date

    May 27, 1992

    Outlets

    Morning Edition

    Tags

    Themes: Economy, Environment
    Regions: Central America
    Media: Audio
    Other Contributors: Sandy Tolan
    Other Tags: Honduras, migration, land degradation