Labor Reintegration of Return Migrants in Two Rural Communities of Yucatán,
Mexico*
Mirian SOLÍS LIZAMA **
Abstract
The
objective of the article is to describe and analyze the process of
reintegration into the labor market
of migrants who have returned
from the United States to two rural communities in the State of
Yucatán, Mexico. These communities have different social and economic dynamics.
The ethnographic work and in-depth interviews,
conducted for this paper show that the labor reintegration of migrants
depends not only on the reasons
and the forms
of return, but also on factors such as their time of stay in the north,
their life experiences in the United
States, the amount
of time they have been working
again in their communities, and the investment and augmentation of their savings.
Keywords: 1. return migration, 2. labor reintegration, 3. rural community, 4. Yucatán, 5. Mexico.
Reinserción laboral de migrantes de retorno en dos comunidades rurales de Yucatán, México
Resumen
El objetivo del artículo es describir y analizar el proceso de reinserción laboral de migrantes retornados de Estados Unidos a dos comunidades rurales del estado de Yucatán, las cuales tienen dinámicas sociales y económicas distintas. La información, proveniente de trabajo etnográfico y entrevistas a profundidad, muestra que la reinserción laboral de los migrantes depende no sólo de los motivos y las formas de retorno, sino también de otros factores como: el tiempo de estancia en el norte, sus experiencias de vida en Estados Unidos, tiempo que llevan trabajando nuevamente en sus comunidades y la inversión y multiplicación de sus ahorros.
Palabras clave: 1. migración de retorno, 2. reinserción
laboral, 3. comunidad rural, 4. Yucatán, 5. México.
Date of receipt: June 8, 2016.
Date of acceptance: February
21, 2017.
* Text originally written in Spanish.
This investigation was carried out during the post-doctoral stay at the Centro
Peninsular en Humanidades y
Ciencias Sociales at UNAM, under
the counseling of Ricardo López Santillán,
whose camaraderie during the stay and
his pertinent suggestions on this text are greatly appreciated. Thanks also to CEPHICS for all the assistance offered during the course of the investigation.
** CEPHCIS-UNAM, Mexico, mirian.solis.lizama@gmail.com
http://dx.doi.org/10.17428/rmi.v9i35.416
MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES, VOL. 9, NÚM. 4, JULIO-DICIEMBRE DE 2018
In
this work, I
will present the
preliminary results of
an ongoing investigation into the return
of migrants to their places
of origin, particularly to Xohuayán
and Tixbacab, rural communities located in the South and East of Yucatán state, respectively. Starting
with ethnographic data, I will focus on the reintegration of the returnees
into the labor markets of their communities and which aspects explain the ways in which they have carried out that process of reintegration in rural areas with distinct social and economic
dynamics.
The work is divided
into four sections.
The first is a brief description
of Xohuayán and Tixbacab;
the second focuses on the socio-demographic information of the migrants; the third presents
the motives and manners of returns; and the fourth explains and analyzes how these
motives and manners, along with other features, influence the process of reintegration into the labor market. The empirical information being presented was obtained through
in-depth interviews of returning migrants,
as well as informal chats with non-migrants in both communities.
Studies of the return
of migrants in Mexico and other countries can be divided into three types: 1) those that discuss
the concept of return in light of theories that have also attempted to explain the exodus (Cataño & Morales, 2015; Cassarino, 2004; Egea, Nieto,
& Jiménez, 2002); 2) those that are
interested classifying the motives and manners or types of return (Jáuregui & Recaño, 2014; Mestries, 2013; Díaz, 2009; Durand, 2004); and 3) those who approach
the labor-market and socio-cultural
reinsertion of the migrants into their
native communities, here we also can include works that analyze the ties between return migration and violence and crime (Anguiano, Cruz, & Garbey,
2013; Rivera, 2013a, 2013b; Tovar & Victoria, 2013; Vilalta, 2009; Cobo, 2008; Papail, 2002; Espinosa, 1998).
It is useful to return
briefly to the approaches of the theoretical
models that attempt
to explain why migrants return,
with the goal of
drawing upon some of them to analyze the cases presented here. Neoclassical theory maintains that
migration occurs due to wage differences.
The movement occurs from areas with low
wages to areas with high wages (Harris
& Todaro, 1970)
and returns are seen as a failure
of the migrant experience (Cassarino, 2004).
[186]
SOLÍS LIZAMA / LABOR REINTEGRATION OF RETURN MIGRANTS 187
The new economy of labor force migration shows
that departures are a strategy of households to better
the conditions of the family group. Returns
happen when the objectives have been achieved, which therefore assumes the return of
successful migrants. Migrants plan their return to enjoy their achievements, greater prestige and to reunite with the family
that awaited them and managed
their remittances. Maintaining their community ties eases their reintegration (Mestries, 2015;
Cassarino,
2004).
Structuralist theory conceives of
international migration as a result of the inequalities that exist between
receiving and ejecting nations, as well as the dependence on cheap and flexible
manual labor by developed economies (Mestries, 2015, p. 43). When these developed economies
enter a crisis, the first to be affected are immigrants because they are forced to return (Mestries, 2015, p. 44). When positive changes occur in the country of
origin of the migrants they may feel motivated to return due to the expectations generated by these changes. However, these expectations are
rarely rooted in the local reality,
so the migrants encounter the unexpected, are unable to readapt and decide to re-emigrate (Cassarino, 2004, p. 258).
Trans-nationalist
theory maintains that the return is not the final phase of the migratory process,
but rather a circular system
of social and economic relationships (Albo, Ordaz, & Li, 2012, p.
240). The theory proposes
that migrants maintain
a fealty to their native homeland and destination country;
they live between
the two in a constant
coming and going, returning when they have achieved their objectives (Mestries, 2015,
p. 45).
Lastly, the theory of
social networks maintains that returning migrants
bring with them tangible and intangible resources (Cassarino, 2015, p. 265). The migratory
experience allows them to develop other types of relationships that provide them valuable resources, apart from financial ones, such as access to information and the support of family and other social networks (Hazan, n. d., p. 11). The return, like
migration, requires being prepared and supported by social networks
based in the region of origin (Mestries, 2015, p. 44).
188 MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES, VOL. 9, NÚM. 4, JULIO-DICIEMBRE DE 2018
Although the various
theories contribute toward explaining the return
and reintegration of the migrants into their communities, the breadth of experiences we encountered in the real cases we studied tell us that it is difficult to explain
the return based on just one theoretical model. Later, we will return to the theory of the new economy of labor force migration and the theory
of social networks
to analyze the return of the migrants
from Yucatán.
Some authors have
pointed out that migrants do not necessarily
return to their place of origin, but rather to a place with growing employment, so they suggest
the growth of the latter
be supported rather than the former (Escobar, Martin,
Lowell, & Fernández de Castro, 2013). Others,
however, maintain that migrants tend to return to their native communities due to the existence of family and community
networks (Mendoza, 2013; Mestries, 2011). It also has been pointed out that return migration may increase the rate of unemployment
due to the inability of the labor market to absorb these surplus workers in their entirety (Mendoza,
2013, pp. 71-72).
This last point gains
credence if one bears in mind that between 2005 and 2010, the number
of Mexicans who had returned
from the United
States had never been
greater, according to Escobar et al.
(2013); since 2005 that number was
230 000 and in 2010 it was 980 000. To this
we must add that those who return no longer go back to the United States and are also accompanied by children born in that country, something which, according
to the authors, did not happen before 2005 (Escobar
et al., 2013, p. 17).
In the face of these
general approaches on return migration and the
reintegration of migrants into the labor market, coupled with the fact that studies
on the international migration of Yucatán natives
are scant and for none of these is return migration and labor
reintegration the principal subject of analysis, the case studies
presented in this document gain relevance. Especially if one takes into account that the countryside in Mexico has been in
crisis for decades, that the labor market in this country
is ever more selective and competitive, making
more vulnerable those who, like the migrants, come from rural areas, have low levels of schooling
and even, because of their ethnic origins, find themselves relegated
to informal jobs with low wages and, in
the best of circumstances, they become self-employed with meager incomes.
SOLÍS LIZAMA / LABOR REINTEGRATION OF RETURN MIGRANTS 189
Tixbacab and Xohuayán are rural communities categorized as precincts
with fewer than 2 500 inhabitants; they depend on municipal capitals, Cenotillo and Oxkutzcab respectively. According to the 2010 Census
(Consejo Nacional de Población
[Conapo], 2010), Xohuayán has a population of 1 340, of which 617 are men and 723 are women. Tixbacab has 349 inhabitants; 167 men and 182 women. The latter is
located in the eastern part of the state, some 140 kilometers from Mérida. Xohuayán
is located in the southern part, almost 130 kilometers from the capital
of Yucatán.
According to the Consejo Nacional de Población (Conapo), the two
communities in the study suffer from high degrees of marginalization
(Conapo, 2010a). Their public services are substandard. Pavement is limited to only the main streets,
but in Xohuayán, for example, it is in poor condition. Practically all homes have electric power, but street lighting is not available throughout the
entire town. In both communities, the inhabitants dont have access to drinking
water throughout the day, or every day, so they must find a way to store the water for their
activities and hygiene.
The state Ministry
of Health provides
services to the inhabitants; community health centers see patients Mondays through Fridays from 8 a.m. to 3
p.m. In case of a medical emergency
outside working hours or on weekends, patients must travel to the municipal capital or to neighboring towns to receive
treatment from private
physicians. And if the patients family does not have a vehicle, they must pay for transportation to the medical
appointment, since there are no buses operating
between these communities and the neighboring towns.1 In general, families rely on Seguro Popular. As far as educational services, both communities have preschool and ele mentary school, as well as junior high school and high school via distance
1 In
Xohuayán, some inhabitants who own vans make morning
and afternoon runs between the community and the neighboring towns. In Tixbacab there is a morning bus that
travels from Cenotillo to Tizimín,
one of the principal cities in the state, but it makes just one trip per day.
190 MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES, VOL. 9, NÚM. 4, JULIO-DICIEMBRE DE 2018
learning. These remote
learning offerings began in Tixbacab in September,
2015 and in Xohuayán they are about to complete their
sec- ond year
in operation. The existence of a distance learning junior high school has, in the last decade,
allowed young people to extend their
years of schooling beyond the elementary grades. According to older adults, when they were growing up they could only study up to the third grade and not every child then went back to school. This in part explains why in Tixbacab the rate of illiteracy among
adults is 14.34 percent and why 40.55 percent of them did not complete
elementary school.
In Xohuayán the rate of illiteracy among
adults is 26.04 percent
and 52.70 of them did not complete
elementary school (Conapo, 2010a).
In Xohuayán
and Tixbacab, but especially in the former, one can notice the contrast between
traditional Maya houses built from perishable
materials (palm fronds and cane) and other structures made of cinder blocks,
concrete and Californian styles. The inhabitants indicated that buildings made from material,2 grew in number after the beginning of migration to the United
States. In Xohuayán, when one walks down the streets, it is surprising to see the styles and
number of homes that have been built or are being built. This is evidence
of the positive
impact of migrants remittances in terms of the purchase and improvement of dwellings.
Xohuayán is a place with
deeply rooted customs and traditions: every inhabitant
over the age of five speaks Maya, this is the language used daily by every generation. Men speak Spanish more fluently than women
do, and although the latter
understand it, they refuse to speak it, possibly afraid they might make a mistake.3 Adult women and many younger ones wear the typical hipil every day; this garment and the terno4 are
very common during family celebrations. Most women wear
the
traditional white terno when they marry. In Tixbacab only older adults speak Maya, since
the language is no longer
used by young
people and children.
The hipil as an everyday
garment is worn by a smaller number of women and when weddings
are celebrated the couples wear traditional Western dress. The rituals related
to the planting and harvest of maize fields are waning in popularity in Tixbacab, but in Xohuayán they
are practiced regularly.
2 This is the term used by local inhabitants to refer to houses built of concrete.
3 The refusal of the women to speak
Spanish is evident in adults as well as the young. In many instances, the girls who studied junior high school
through remote learning used Spanish,
but others refused to do so.
4 This is the formal attire. It is
commonly used in celebrations of patron saints and in typical dances.
SOLÍS LIZAMA / LABOR REINTEGRATION OF RETURN MIGRANTS 191
The communities in the
study share one feature that in a way explains
the emigration of its inhabitants the United States: the lack of well-paying jobs.
In both towns,
the men primarily work the fields
as farmworkers, small ranchers or both at once. Some are construction workers
and those with mechanical or electrical skills work in those professions. Landholding is communal, although there also exist small
landowners. In the 1990s, thanks to the Program of Certification of Communal
Landholding Rights and Certification of Parcels (Procede), a portion of the older
adults in these communities received land titles that grant them the right of legal usufruct of communal
parcels. In Tixbacab, the communal landholders were
in favor of the subdivision. In Xohuayán, some of the communal
landholders accepted it and others
did not.
In Tixbacab, a smaller number of communal landholders practice agriculture, and the planting
of beans and corn has decreased. Plots
where in years
past cornstalks grew have been transformed into corrals, since more men now see cattle ranching
as a better option to secure a higher income.
The distribution of water through
wells and cenotes, coupled
with the proximity to various Cattle Ranching
Unions, where cattle are processed, has favored the growth of these activities. Some communal landholders
dont have their own cattle, but work
in association with the cattle ranchers in the region and provide for their families and maintain
their own small parcels with the wages they earn.
In Xohuayán
agriculture and cattle ranching also coexist in the communal landholdings, but the former activity
has greater relevance among the inhabitants. The fields are seasonal and besides corn, they plant pumpkins, chiles
and different varieties of beans, like ibes
and xpelón.
Part of the harvest is for family consumption and the rest is sold in municipal market at Oxkutzcab. Some farmers have set aside
part of their parcels for the planting
of citrus (limes
and sweet oranges), as well as avocados, eggplants
and achiote, crops meant exclusively for sale.
192 MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES, VOL. 9, NÚM. 4, JULIO-DICIEMBRE DE 2018
Cattle ranching
at a small
scale is
an ancient custom
in Xohuayán, and with the passage of time the number
of communal landholders dedicated to
it has increased thanks to remittances sent by migrants. However, as an economic activity it does not seem to have the
same importance as it does in Tixbacab. This is probably
due to the difficulty in procuring water for the animals. Xohuayáns elevation
makes it difficult to dig for wells and these would
be very expensive. In addition, the surrounding area also lacks
natural sources like cenotes to supply water. Those inhabitants who have plots close to the town leave
their animals at pasture for two or three days, then they go to retrieve
them and bring
them to town to drink
from the troughs
or cisterns located
in the plots. Those who have more distant plots choose to fill large water tanks with potable
water and take these to their plots
to supply their animals. This fact points to two problems: first, this reduces the amount
of drinking water
available to the population, and second, a vehicle is needed to transport the water.
For the women, the labor situation is even more difficult, since these small communities dont have spaces to employ them. Some four years ago in Tixbacab, a cooperative comprised of ten women dedicated to raising poultry began operations; three years ago, a communal
dining hall entered
service and employs
a small number of other women certain days a week. Except
for these spaces, there are no other job opportunities for the female
inhabitants. Some of the women who contribute to their familys
income sew clothing, weave hammocks and sell typical Yucatec food. The women of Xohuayáns mostly engage in the embroidery of hipiles, ternos and blouses. The demand for hand or
machine-embroidered clothing transcends local
boundaries, since some of the embroiderers work for people in Mérida,
who deliver to the women
all the material needed for the garments
and pay between
100 and 150 pesos for embroidering a blouse.
Embroidering is not exclusive to women; some men also earn their daily wages through the sale of hipiles
or blouses. In Xohuayán, it is common in the mornings
and evenings for several homes
to sell local dishes likes panuchos and salbutes, tortas, empanadas, Chinese food and other dishes, thus allowing
men and women to earn a small
income to supplement earnings from the fields and from embroidery.
SOLÍS LIZAMA / LABOR REINTEGRATION OF RETURN MIGRANTS 193
Faced with a lack of labor
opportunities, the inhabitants of Xohuayán and Tixbacab, mainly the men, decided to emigrate
to the United States in search of employment. The municipal capitals, Cenotillo and Oxkutzcab feature
prominently among the municipalities that experience considerable ejections of
their inhabitants to the United States. According to Conapo
(2010b), Oxkutzcab has a very high degree of
migratory intensity and Cenotillo has a high degree,
helping them occupy the second and third highest rankings in the state,
respectively, as far as population ejections per municipality (Conapo, 2010b).
In both towns, international migration dates back to the era of the Bracero Program (1942-1964), although the 1990s stand out as the period with the greatest exodus.5 Tixbacab and
Xohuayán experienced
the phenomenon of migration later;
in the former community impirical evidence
revealed that its inhabitants began to leave mainly in the 1980s,
while in the latter this occurred in the 1990s.
When asking returnees
their reasons for emigrating, they replied that their
earnings from working
the fields was not enough
to subsist and, at the same time, that they wanted to buy a plot of land and a house. The networks they maintained with friends and relatives in Cenotillo and Oxkutzcab facilitated their arrival in the United
States. Migrants from Xohuayán travelled to San Francisco and Santa Rosa,
California. Those from Tixbacab went to cities in Colorado, primarily Denver. In their various destinations, almost all interviewees worked in restaurants,
first as dishwashers, while later, several became waiters and cooks specializing in various cuisines. Their biweekly earnings ranged from 800 to 2 000 dollars.6 After
one, two, five, even
10 years
abroad, those who once were absent sons and daughters
decided to return home and are now again in the land of their birth.
The
returnees to Tixbacab and Xohuayán are mainly
younger men. The
mean age of the interviewees is 39. Migration among women is more
5 For more information on migration
in these municipalities consult Cornejo & For tuny (2012) and Solís (2005).
6 Their total earnings depended on the
type of work done, length of stay in the United States and number
of jobs held simultaneously.
194 MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES, VOL. 9, NÚM. 4, JULIO-DICIEMBRE DE 2018
common in Tixbacab than in Xohuayán. In the
first community, we interviewed just one returning
migrant and met another two who had returned
to their home town after several years residing in Colorado. According to the inhabitants there are women who today live in Denver; during
our field work we met one of them who came back to visit her home town: she emigrated in the 1990s and
is a legal resident of the United
States. In Xohuayán, we interviewed a woman who
returned after living
in San Francisco for approximately one year, but no one was able to point
to any other woman who had emigrated. To explain the non-participation in international migration among the women of Xohuayán, one of the returnees said:
the women here
dont go there, they dont dare [...] theyre afraid because
theyre young women and young women here are very
closed-minded. A woman must stay at home beside
her mother, they feel
its their duty, so they dont leave (Raúl, personal communication, February 2016).
Most returnees are
married; before emigrating some of them were single,
but they married upon their return. The only two who were still single when they were interviewed come from Xohuayán, but they plan to marry soon with young women from the same community. Among the migrants there is a preference for endogamy; for them, marrying in the United
States implies not returning to their native
town and this was not something they were willing
to do.
Various authors who tackle the
study of migration by Mexicans to the United States have documented
that the majority of these migrants
have low levels of schooling (Alarcón & Ramírez, 2011; Angoa, 2009; Tinley, 2006; Levine, 2001) and this can also be seen among the returned migrants in Yucatán, as, on average, they have completed six years
of formal education. As to the year when they emigrated
for the first time, we observed that only one did so in the 1980s, but that in the 1990s this same individual crossed
the border without legal documents four more times. He is the oldest returned migrant, at 58 years
of age. Of the other migrants, 24 percent undertook their voyage in the 1990s and 71 percent in the first
decade of the 2000s. The returnees from Tixbacab first emigrated in the 1990s and those from
Xohuayán did so starting in the 2000s. Without
exception, all of them crossed
the northern border
without legal documents.7
SOLÍS LIZAMA / LABOR REINTEGRATION OF RETURN MIGRANTS 195
In summary, the
returned migrants mainly are young men, married, who emigrated in an undocumented manner, primarily in the 2000s and who have six years of formal education. When comparing the returned migrant population of both communities, we find that the youngest migrants, with the highest
levels of formal education and who experienced their first
migration in the 2000s are those from Xohuayán. A broader
study on the migration in both communities could tell us if
the presence of young returnees in Xohuayán is
because returning is more common in this community or because young people in Tixbacab emigrated less frequently in the last decade.
The desire
to earn dollars to
give a better
life to their
families, to build
a house, start
a business or pay debts are among the motives given
by the interviewees to explain their exodus to the United States. Their return, considered by some authors as the
final phase of the migratory process, also involves a combination of motives.
Francis Mestries (2013)
indicates that the motives for the return
are complex and interconnected,
since they include both objective and subjective features that are often intermingled. Among the objective
features he includes
age, deportation, the acquisition of material goods in the place of origin
and distance between the hometown and the destination abroad. Among the subjective factors, the author
includes social and human capital,
community identity, the reaching of objectives and feelings of affection (Mestries, 2013,
p. 178-180).
The
testimony of the
returnees clearly expresses
that in those
cases where the migrant
underwent a planned
return, several motives
were intertwined, like nostalgia for their families
and communities, fatigue
from long workdays
and the desire to enjoy the goods they had acquired. For
example, Fernando,8 who left Tixbacab in 2005 and re- turned in 2012, explained his
return:
7 Undocumented
entry into the United States was the only option the
inhabitants of Xohuyán
and Tixbacab had when they emigrated, since in
Yucatec communities United States
government programs H-2A and H-2B do not apply. These programs permit temporary and legal workforce migration to that country.
196 MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES, VOL. 9, NÚM. 4, JULIO-DICIEMBRE DE 2018
The
principal motive [to return] is for the family, especially after my wife said you know that the house is done,
theres a little cash, so like they say, for love of family you have to go back. Because
there will be opportunities to go again,
but my goal was just one trip and accomplish what had to be done so as not to come and go back again, and above all, the
main thing is the family (Fernando, personal communication, November 2015).
Those who emigrated as bachelors, in addition to having built
their houses and saved some money, decided
to return in order to marry, but also because
they felt tired
of being subjected to long and exhausting
workdays that caused them stress. For Reynaldo, for example, the return implied
rest:
I grew
tired, I got bored too, everyday working and working, because there you cant just go out as you wish, sometimes I work double shifts too, I start at nine in the morning and
finish at 10 at night, 11. I work three double shifts like that; I cant do anything
else. I called my family, you know what? I want to return, Im only going to wait one more year, and my mother said, its alright, well wait for you here (Reynaldo, personal communication, February
2016).
The returnees with
motives similar to those of Fernando and Raymundo are those who planned their return, they took weeks
or even months preparing
their voyage, many times convinced their returns would be final.
Others returned due to family matters that forced them to take a sudden decision. One of these is Javier;
he is 46 years old, he first emigrated in 1995 and after a two-year
stay in Colorado Springs
he returned to his hometown
because he wanted
to be with his family.
In 1999 he embarked on a second voyage. The goal was to earn money to settle a debt of his
fathers, he returned to the same place,
where he worked as a kitchen assistant. In 2002, he returned to his hometown
unexpectedly:
8 The names that appear in this text are fictitious.
SOLÍS LIZAMA / LABOR REINTEGRATION OF RETURN MIGRANTS 197
I returned because
my son got sick with a heart problem
and I had to return. They notified me and I returned with the paycheck
I had, I didnt buy anything [...] I returned on March
20, on the 19th I received my paycheck and on the 20th I was already
heading back here (Javier, personal
communication, November 2015).
Juan, too, received news that prompted
him to take an airplane
and return home. He is 48 years old, emigrated
for the first time in 1991, and between
then and 2009 he made several trips
to the United States. His stays
were always in Denver, where at first he worked as a dishwasher until he became a cook in various Chinese
restaurants. In 2012 he returned
to Tixbacab, his oldest sons wedding forced
him to make this decision:
It wasnt
planned to return quickly, but it turned out that my son, who is 22, decided to get married
now, so I told him not to get married
because hes very young, but he made the decision
and told me, if you want to come, you will, if you dont, you wont.
So, it was like a forced
return, because I had planned spending more time and then returning, but it didnt
work out that way. So I returned, but with the intention of going back quickly [to the United
States] once the wedding
was over and then back again, but that didnt happen because the problems have already started9 [...] (Juan,
personal communication, November
2015).
Another return due to
personal motives was that of Marcela, 36, who
emigrated in 2005 to Denver to be with her husband.
Three months after arriving in that city she began
to work cleaning
houses. One year after her arrival she became pregnant
and left her job. Her son was born in Denver and when the
child was 11 months old, her husband decided
she should return to live in Tixbacab. Although
not completely convinced, Marcela heeded her husbands decision and returned to her hometown
in 2008.
9 By the start of the problems, Juan
is referring to his mother falling ill repeatedly and his siblings leaving the responsibility of caring for her to
fall on him. This created conflicts
within the family, but Juan agreed to care for his mother, who due to her
advanced age and delicate health requires much care and constant visits to the
doctor, which prevents Juan from leaving
his hometown.
198 MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES, VOL. 9, NÚM. 4, JULIO-DICIEMBRE DE 2018
I came back because
my husband says that over there its not for living, over here he likes the woods and he says
that one day, since were not from there,
theyre going to kick us out. [In Tixbacab] where are we going to return? How are we going to subsist? Thats why I returned, because since I was pregnant he was
going to send me back, because he worked
at a restaurant from 11 in the morning to two in the morning,
and I barely saw him. Here, with the little he was able to send, I built my house,
well I remodeled it, because
it was my father in laws and he gave me a part of it. Truth is, I didnt want to return, life over there is pleasant
[...] there is comfort, you live well, eat well, of course, like I told you, you have to work to stay there (Marcela, personal communication, November
2015).
Elena, 41, had
a similar experience to
Marcela: she left Xohuayán for San Francisco in 2003 to be with her
husband, to whom she had been married
15 years but had been unable to become pregnant. Shortly after her arrival in California she began
working as a kitchen assistant at a restaurant. Almost a year after her arrival in California, Elena
became pregnant, so her husband and other relatives convinced her to return to her hometown
before the birth of her child, otherwise the baby would be claimed by the United States government.10 Against
her will,
but fearful of what might happen to her son, Elena returned to Xohuayán in 2004. She recalls
her life in the city of the Golden Gate with nostalgia.
I liked it a lot over there, I dont know, I think it seems like a dream, its
beautiful, before you get to the city there are a lot of lights,
I didnt eat Yucatec food there, like I used to eat, I wanted
to eat other food. There,
I ate all sorts of things, since it was just the two of us and he [her husband] earned
a lot, we went out to eat whatever we wanted, we had
fun, thats what I tell my children [...] I didnt work very long because I only went there to have fun; over there I liked
everything, to go for a walk, the zoo, the beach, I went where there are a lot of doves, turtles, where there are squirrels, I even went where they played baseball, I went everywhere
[...] I want to go one more, thats what I tell [her husband], but he doesnt
want to, maybe he doesnt like it (Elena, personal communication, February
2016).
10 Elena said her husband thought that
since they were undocumented the United States government could take their child from them and deport them. According to Elena,
other countrymen of hers had the same notion. This was the first time in the
authors work experience with Yucatec
migrants that someone expressed a fear of losing their offspring because the child was born in the United
States.
SOLÍS LIZAMA / LABOR REINTEGRATION OF RETURN MIGRANTS 199
In the four cases
presented, the motives for the returns do not
correspond to the wishes of the migrants.
Unforeseen family circumstances, like those that befell Javier and Juan, altered their migratory plans and drove them to make the decision
to return. The returns of Marcela and
Elena, besides not being completely voluntary, include the dimension of gender, since their decisions
were mediated by their roles
as wives who must obey the orders of their husbands.11
Two more cases correspond to migrants who were deported, thus the
deportations were the objective motive (Mestries,
2013) they found themselves
in Tixbacab once more. The first to be deported was Martín, 35, married and the father of
four children; he emigrated in 2000 to Denver with the goal of working and building a house.
His stay lasted seven years and he
worked in various restaurants. Martín recounted
that in Denver he established a friendship with a woman who sold drugs.
Once while with her, the police arrested
them and he was
charged with smuggling. He was jailed for six months and subsequently deported.
Although Martín attained his goal of building a house, and even financed part of the construction of his parents house, after
he was deported he arrived
in Tixbacab with no savings.
The second deportation case is
that of Saúl, 42, married
and father to one daughter. Saúl first emigrated in 1990 and made four voyages from then to 2000. Saúl also settled in Denver, where he worked as a dishwasher and cook in various
restaurants and, later, in construction. In 2012, Saúl and his friends were detained by the police;
he declined to state the
reason, but he was jailed for several months
and then deported. Saúl arrived in Tixbacab with no savings, largely the result, in his own
words, of living a dissipated lifestyle in the
United States.
The
motives for the
returns are intimately
linked to their manner
or type. In the cases we studied, the majority experienced the definitive
11 A prominent feature in studies on
migration and gender is that women tend to adapt
more quickly and better than men to their destinations, so they prefer to
settle defini- tively (Espinosa, 1998).
200 MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES, VOL. 9, NÚM. 4, JULIO-DICIEMBRE DE 2018
return of a successful migrant, (Espinosa, 1998 cited in Mestries, 2013, p.
178), that is to say, a return that occurs when the migrant reached his goals, like building a house, buying
land or vehicles, or setting up a
business, for example. The cases of Martín and Saúl
represent forced return, this manner is the result
of deportation, according
to Jorge Durand
(2004).
For the majority
of the interviewees,
the return to their community also meant a return to the fields. At
the time of their interviews, all of
them except Elena were involved in an activity that generated income. According
to their own testimonies, finding
work in their communities
did not present a problem; what has been difficult for several of them is meeting all their necessities
with their income, especially for those
with daily earnings
of 100 to 200 pesos.
Given their different points of origin and the
diversity of their experiences, motives and manners of return, in order to
explain how the process of reinsertion into the labor market has occurred it is
convenient to group them according to their place of origin and the manner in
which they earn their income. We can divide the returnees to Tixbacab into three groups: self-employed, day laborers and
those who combine both forms of work. In the self-employed group are those
migrants who are communal landholders, who with their remittances developed a
plot of land, bought their own cattle or worked in partnerships; among these,
some also carry out other types of activities. Most of these migrants returned
of their own volition when they attained their goals. The funds invested in
their parcels and their accumulated savings facilitated this groups
reinsertion into the work force. Marcos and Juan are self-employed,
they first migrated in the 1990s and repeated the voyage on more than three
occasions. With their remittances, they built houses, invested in their parcels
and bought cattle and motor vehicles. Marcos decided to return because he grew
tired of the work and thought it was time to dedicate him- self to his parcel.
With his remittances, his wife opened a small market and, later on, a tortilla
factory. When Marcos returned, he became
SOLÍS LIZAMA / LABOR REINTEGRATION OF RETURN MIGRANTS 201
involved with the family
businesses. Currently, he and his wife own more than 100 head of cattle and, in addition
to working his fields, every day Marcos rides a motorcycle to neighboring towns to sell torti llas. On Sundays, he sells cochinita pibil.
Juan, like Marcos, is
involved in cattle ranching and other activities. Although, as he said, his
return was forced, the fact that he had a
parcel of land, more than 50 head of cattle and cash savings before his return eased his re-adaptation into
the community after four voyages to Colorado. Currently, he is the municipal
commissioner and, besides his work in
his fields, he has started a small business selling motor oil for motorcycles and automobiles. He travels every week to the city of Tizimín to buy supplies
of these products.
Among the day
laborers, there are those who returned for family reasons and those who were deported, Javier
is one of them. As mentioned
in previous pages, he returned because his child fell ill. He is not a communal landholder and while he worked in the United
States, his remittances were used
to pay off his fathers debt and to build a house. Since he was on in the United
States for three years, he was unable to save enough money to buy a parcel of land, much less to buy cattle.
Although his return was unexpected, he soon found work as a cowherd in a ranch, where he has worked for 12 years. He receives
a weekly wage of 600 pesos, and although those earnings are
steady, they are not enough to cover all the needs of his family.
Her wife is a member of the cooperative dedicated to raising
poultry and she contributes as much as possible
to the household.
Martín
and Saúl
are the deported
day laborers. They
returned with no savings whatever, are not communal landholders and represent the most difficult cases of workforce
reinsertion. Since his return (in 2007),
Martín has undergone several internal migrations, to neighboring towns as well as to the city of Cancún, but nowhere has he found
stable work. He currently has two jobs: in the mornings he is a day
laborer at a ranch and in the afternoons he is a municipal police officer. Saúl
lacks steady employment, he works where he can, and sometimes
helps his brother
repairing motorcycles and bicycles or as an electrician. Years
before, he took a course
in electrical installation and this has helped him earn some wages. He is the only interviewee whose living situation is
precarious and who clearly expressed feeling like a failure.
202 MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES, VOL. 9, NÚM. 4, JULIO-DICIEMBRE DE 2018
The
third group, comprised of
returnees who combine self-employment
with day labor, returned for various motives
and all succeeded
in building their houses, invested
in parcels, bought
cattle and accumulated savings. However, when these
funds ran out, some of these migrants
were forced to diversify their economic activities to increase their daily earnings and have even thought of returning to the United
States.
Julián is part of this
group; he is a communal landholder and returned
to his hometown in 2009 because he missed his family. He is married and has three daughters. With his remittances, he
built a house, invested in a small
plot of land, and bought a truck and some head
of cattle. He returned with some savings, but these were spent little by little, until the time came that
he began to sell his cattle one at a time. In 2013, when his economic
situation worsened, he decided to
emigrate once more. He sold more of
his cattle to finance his voyage. While heading
to Denver, he was stopped by United States Immigration officers and was deported. He returned to his hometown, disappointed after having spent 40 000 pesos in his failed
attempt to cross the border a third
time. Currently, so as not to lose his remaining cattle, Julián tries to work as a day laborer for regional ranchers for 120 pesos per day; He devotes his afternoons to
his own parcel. About his economic situation, he commented:
I think were doing okay, not good but not bad, were making ends meet with what little I earn [...] although
right now is the moment
when things get too tight.
Before they didnt, because your paycheck was dependable, and now, when someone gets sick things get too tight for us (Julián, personal communication,
November 2015).
Returnees to Xohuayán fall into the
same three categories: self-employed, day laborers and those who combine the two. In this com-
munity, most interviewees mentioned that they adapted quickly
to working the fields,
but they are aware that the incomes the make from
agriculture and, in a few cases, cattle ranching, are barely enough to pay for food and other basic necessities, so some of them have also
SOLÍS LIZAMA / LABOR REINTEGRATION OF RETURN MIGRANTS 203
considered
the possibility of emigrating to the United
States once more. Among the self-employed are
communal landholders, small landowners
and those who have no parcels. In the last category are mainly younger men who work their parents
parcels.
Mauricio is
self-employed. He emigrated
in 2007 and returned
in late 2014, married, and had his first child.
In Santa Rosa,
Mauricio earned about 2 000
dollars every two weeks working as a cook and
busboy. With his remittances, he built a large house, bought two parcels
of land and a truck and also sent money so his father could
plant some crops and buy cattle. Upon his return,
he tended to his parcels. Currently, he grows limes and
eggplants, which he sells in Oxkutzcab. He described
his work and economic situation, as well as that of the other
returnees, thus:
Im doing
well, thats the truth, because with what I have I earn well. Sometimes, when we harvest
the limes, the things we planted, well we do well, because
I work with my father,
together [...] My father told
me you better buy someplace where you can work when you return, I sent the money,
he bought it for me and it helped me a lot so I didnt have to chambear12 like some young men have to.
Sometimes they work all day, they earn 120, 150 pesos, apart from the gasoline
theyre going to consume,
their food. How much is left? around 80 pesos. Things are difficult here, because I have
a cousin like that. He sent money to his father
and he never got into his sons head that he should
buy some land so he would have work when he returned and now he regrets
it. He says, why didnt
my father tell me to buy this or that? And he tried to go back [to the United States]
twice, but he didnt make it (Mauricio, personal communication, February
2016).
The only self-employed
returnee who doesnt work in the fields is
Raúl. He is 25, emigrated in 2007 and returned in
April, 2015, not before having built
a house, bought a truck and saved some capital. Before emigrating, he worked in his fathers
plot, but he also learned
to embroider. Since his return,
Raúl and his wife are involved in embroidering hipiles and ternos, which they sell among the women in their community. The everyday use of the hipil in Xohuayán favors the success
of his small, family business.
To embroider a garment takes him approximately
one month and he charges between 1 000 and 1 500 pesos each. Raúl does not think that agriculture is a good option to
make a living:
12 This term is used to refer to wage labor.
204 MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES, VOL. 9, NÚM. 4, JULIO-DICIEMBRE DE 2018
I dont
like those sorts of jobs because I see almost nothing; I like things that produce year-round and those
parcels are seasonal. If there is no
fruit, there is no money and there is no food [...] I think its really
difficult, because working
in a field is hard work and sometimes it doesnt produce
anything. Like last year they had a very poor harvest, theres
not even corn now, and for people who dont have a way to get ahead its very hard. Thats why you have to learn to do more things than what you already know. Like I tell
my father, you can learn more things,
not just working the fields. If my brothers werent there [in California] he wouldnt have enough to eat, because
he only works the fields
(Raúl, personal communication, February 2016).
Among
those who combine self-employment with wage labor,
some returned for
various motives. Some
have their own parcels
and others are communal
landholders, but their crops dont produce enough resources to sustain them, so they have to work for others for 120 pesos per day.
Felipe is part of this
group. He is 43, emigrated to California in 2000 and returned in 2008, convinced that
he had fulfilled his goals by
building a house. He had some savings and, at that time, thought he could return
and once again dedicate himself
to agriculture. Felipe
is not a communal landholder and currently rents parcels to raise crops. The harvests arent
always what he hopes for and when that happens,
his economic situation
turns precarious and he is forced to find work as a day laborer.
He believes returning
was a bad decision:
Im saying
that maybe I didnt make the correct
decision, because first you have to ensure a job, somewhere to work and a house, and then return. But you need a place to work more than you need a house.
A house is also a blessing, because
I have my own house,
but I dont have a job, a permanent position. Without
daily sustenance thats not right. I thought
of a house, but I didnt think in a place to work and that was one of the bad decisions [...] I was
sure that I would return to the fields, because we have no formal education, but if I had thought
SOLÍS LIZAMA / LABOR REINTEGRATION OF RETURN MIGRANTS 205
about it better maybe things would be different right now, maybe Id have a business, a parcel with irrigation that could produce
year-round. Even if there
wasnt enough to save, there would be daily sustenance. Right now I only work seasonally, I plant corn, beans, pumpkins,
lima beans, but when my harvest is done I start looking
for work, I go work for
other people, as a construction worker too [...] sometimes I get the idea of going back there [the United
States] (Felipe, personal communication, February 2016).
Returnee day laborers seem to have uncertain work futures, since
they depend on others to pay their wages and because their economic activities are tied to seasonal agriculture. Gabriel belongs
to this group; he is 46, he emigrated in 2002 and returned in 2008. Although
he is a communal landowner, he does not farm his parcel because he does not have the economic resources to
maintain it. With his remittances, he built a house and returned
with some savings,
but these were exhausted a few months
after his return.
He currently works
where he can. He has four children, three young women and a teenaged boy. The daughters
embroider blouses and thus contribute to the household
and reduce the economic pressures faced by their father. Gabriels wife mentioned that were it not for her daughters, the family wouldnt
have enough to eat.
As for the motives and
manners stated by the returnees, we can say that,
except for the cases of deportees and those who returned for family
reasons, their return happened once the migrants had accomplished their goals.
Their expectation of their return was to come
back to enjoy better social and economic conditions compared to what
they had before
their emigration. In this sense,
the new economy of labor force migration helps to
explain, at first, the rapid and, to
a certain extent, successful reinsertion of the migrants, especially of those who planned their
return and did so voluntarily. Some of them already had a parcel
or a ranch and savings
to invest in agriculture and/or
cattle ranching. The expectation was to return,
invest and live off the earnings.
In these cases, their savings were the largest
resource obtained in the United States that the migrants
utilized to aid their reintegration into the workforce. The skills and knowledge gained
in the United
206 MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES, VOL. 9, NÚM. 4, JULIO-DICIEMBRE
DE 2018
States dont seem to be important
to the process of labor force reinsertion among the migrants from Yucatán, as they did not use them to find employment. On the contrary, they exploited their
knowledge prior to their migration in the fields
of farming and ranching, as well as social and family networks
to establish their businesses.
The expectations of the returnees, focused
on investing and multiplying
their savings, were clearly met in the cases of Marcos, Juan and Mauricio, were successful in reaching
their goals. Others, like Julián and Felipe,
experienced good moments
that came to an end, forcing
them to turn to their social networks to find employment. Although the investment of savings was
crucial at the beginning of the labor
force reinsertion of the majority of the returnees, one cannot set aside the
how important social networks also have been. The reinforcement of their ties to the community
through the networks
of common origin,
friends and relatives has been for the returnees
the channel through
which they achieved
reinsertion, as they used these to make their investments and sustain their businesses. Even the deportees, who had no clear intention
of returning but were forced
to do so and without
any savings, have turned to their networks
to find employment that affords them, as much as possible, the earnings they need to subsist.
Although social networks did not, at first, play a part in the decision
of these migrants
to return, they have played
an important role in the
process of workforce reinsertion, especially for those who did not see the results they expected when they
invested their savings.
The diversity of the
cases presented shows once more how complex it is to analyze and explain the
return of the migrants and their labor force reinsertion according to just
one theoretical approach, especially
when the cases had different moments of emigration and return. And it is necessary
to take into account other aspects that will be presented next.
Based on the empirical information gathered, one can say that the workforce
reinsertionsuccessful or notof the migrants into their communities depends not only on the motive
and manner of their
SOLÍS LIZAMA / LABOR REINTEGRATION OF RETURN MIGRANTS 207
return and of the objectives
that led to the migration, but also on how
long they lived in the United States, on their experiences there, on how long they have been working in their native communities once more, on the investment and growth of
their savings and on the context of their place of origin.
The instances
of Marcos and
Juan, which represent
successful and ongoing workforce
reinsertionbecause they invested in a ranch or plot of land, bought cattle, started a business and now enjoy a
comfortable economic situationseem to be extraordinary cases in the context of returnees to Tixbacab. To explain these cases, one must take into account that they are migrants
who went through an accumulative process of migratory experiences and,
therefore, of saving remittances; who
crossed the border several times in a decade (the 1990s) when the economic costs and risks were lower; who received
from Procede a communal landholding parcel;
and whose relatives who lived in
Mexico took on the task of starting businessescattle ranching, tortilla factories,
etcetera.to smooth the road toward a
working life in the community upon their return. In these cases, migration points to, as the new economy of
migration states, a family strategy that sought to better the standard of living of the group
and to lay the groundwork for the definitive return of the migrants so they could reunite with their families
and enjoy their assets.
Therefore, the family
support network is one more feature that, in an indirect manner,
influences the labor
force reinsertion of the migrants
into their native
communities. The wives
and parents, as the administrators of the remittances, become necessary for the success of the migrant to be reflected in the
building of a house, the investment in a business or the accumulation of savings.
Unlike Marcos
and Juan, other
returnees who have invested in cattle
or agriculture, like Julián and Felipe, were unable to multiply the savings they invested, but spent these and have been forced to sell their labor
for wages that barely meet their basic needs. These are cases of returnees who migrated but once, especially after 2000, when the costs and risks of undocumented border
crossings increased. Not all of them own their
own parcels; they returned once they had achieved their
goal of building
a house and saving some money. These
migrants invested their savings in cattle or agriculture, but did not
208 MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES, VOL. 9, NÚM. 4, JULIO-DICIEMBRE DE 2018
realize the hoped-for
results. In the majority of these cases, international migration did not result
in better work and economic
conditions, since
they returned to the fields,
where they receive
low wages, or are self-employed in businesses or
activities that generate scant incomes. In that sense,
international migration did not help the returnees
attain higher wages than those who did not emigrate.
In the United States,
the migrants gained new skills, especially those
related to the cooking of various types of food, however, these new talents have not helped
them to reintegrate into the labor
market. The characteristics
of their native communities do not favor the existence of restaurants where they could sell their services or be owners, since these would not be at all commercially viable in these rural communities.
As pointed out by Salvador Cobo (2008), rural areas
with few of factors
of production offer few or no returns on the investments of the migrants
since their small populations mean that businesses financed through remittances are not profitable. Therefore,
the characteristics of the marketplace and of investment opportunities in their native communities are determinant
to their success (Cobo, 2008, p. 172).
On the other hand,
when migrants have considered leaving their
communities to work in an urban center
like Cancún or Mérida by offering
their services to restaurants, they have wound up abandoning the idea. First, because they assert
that any job will require of them levels
of formal education they do not possess, and second, because in the city they would
have to pay for housing
and transportation. When they set off the wages they would earn against the expenses they would incur, they come to the conclusion that it would not be profitable
to emigrate to the cities and they decide instead to
remain in their communities, as laborers or in the fields. Some of them, however, faced with the inadequacy of their incomes to better their living conditions, still think of emigrating once again.
Although at the moment
most of the returnees have incomes sufficient
to feed themselves, but not to save, the ones who seem to have relatively stable work conditions are
the natives of Tixbacab. This could be because they emigrated earlier,
journeyed to the United States more than once, returned earlier,
own communal landholding parcels and their economic
activities are more closely tied to cattle
SOLÍS LIZAMA / LABOR REINTEGRATION OF RETURN MIGRANTS 209
ranching.
As far as
the labor prospects
of the migrants
from Xohuayán,
these
seem uncertain, first because they mostly depend on seasonal crops,
they are more recent returnees
who still have savings and have not experienced a crop failure,
and second, because
many of them are younger
men who do not own their own land or have sufficient economic resources to purchase it.
Although there is no one case where we can say with absolute
certainty that the returnees have failed to reinsert themselves into the workforce of native communities (because even the deportees, despite their
hardships, are currently working at what they can), it is possible
to maintain that the meager wages or incomes they derive from working the fields make most of their
economic situations difficult, and highlight
the advantages of working in the United States. Their return to a life of want has prompted them to think about or try to emigrate
once more, since they lived an unfinished American dream.
Alarcón, R., & Ramírez, T. (2011, julio-septiembre). Integración económica de los inmigrantes mexicanos en la zona metropolitana de Los Ángeles. Papeles de población, (69), 73-102.
Albo, A., Ordaz, J. L., & Li, J. J. (2012). Inserción laboral y características de los migrantes mexicanos de retorno 2005-2011. Comparación urbana-rural. In T. Ramírez & M. Á. Castillo (Coords.). El estado de la migración. México ante los recientes desafíos de la migración internacional (pp. 237-268). Mexico: Conapo.
Angoa, M. (2009). Mexicanas en Estados Unidos. In P. Leite & S. Guiorguli (Eds.). El estado de la migración. Las políticas públicas ante los retos de la migración mexicana a Estados Unidos (pp. 171-210). Mexico: Conapo.
Anguiano, M. E., Cruz, R., & Garbey-Burey,
R. M. (2013). Migración internacional de retorno: trayectorias y reinserción laboral
de migrantes veracruzanos. Papeles
de población, 19(77), 115-147.
Cassarino, J. (2004). Theorising Return Migrations: The Conceptual Approach to Return Migrants. International Journal on Multicultural Societies, 6(2), 253-279.
210 MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES, VOL. 9, NÚM. 4, JULIO-DICIEMBRE DE 2018
Cataño, S., & Morales, S. (2015). La migración de retorno. Una descripción desde algunas investigaciones latinoamericanas y españolas. Revista Colombiana de Ciencias Sociales, 6(1), 89-112.
Cobo, S. (2008). Cómo entender la movilidad ocupacional de los migrantes de retorno. Una propuesta de marco explicativo para el caso mexicano. Estudios demográficos y urbanos, 23(1), 159-177.
Consejo Nacional de Población. (2010a). Índice de marginación por localidad 2010. Retrieved from http://www.conapo.gob.mx/en/ CONAPO/Indice_de_Marginacion_por_Localidad_2010
Consejo Nacional de Población. (2010b). Índices de intensidad migratoria México-Estados Unidos 2010. Retrieved from http://www.conapo.gob.mx/swb/CONAPO/Indices_de_intensidad_ migratoria_Mexico-Estados_Unidos_2010
Cornejo, I., & Fortuny, P. (2012). Liminalidad social y negociación cultural: inmigrantes yucatecos en San Francisco, California. Convergencia. Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 19(58), 71-96.
Díaz, L. M. (2009). La quimera del
retorno. Diálogos migrantes, (4),
13-20.
Durand, J. (2004). Ensayo teórico sobre la migración de retorno. El principio del rendimiento decreciente. Cuadernos geográficos, (35), 103-116.
Egea, C., Nieto J. A., & Jiménez, F. (2002). El estudio del retorno: aproximación bibliográfica. Migraciones y exilios, (3), 141-168.
Escobar, A., Martin, S. F., Lowell, L. L., & Fernández de Castro, R. (2013). Estudio binacional sobre migrantes mexicanos en Estados Unidos y en México. Las implicaciones de la emigración cero de México a Estados Unidos. Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica, 13(3), 12-17.
Espinosa, V. (1998). El
dilema del retorno: migración, género y pertenencia en un contexto
transnacional. Zamora, Michoacán: Colmich, Coljal.
Harris, J. R., & Todaro, M. (1970). Migration, Unemployment and Development: A Two-Sector Analysis. The American Economic Review, 60(1), 126-142. Retrieved from http://isites.harvard.
edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1222150.files/Session%2018/harris_toda- ro70.pdfSOLÍS LIZAMA / LABOR REINTEGRATION OF RETURN MIGRANTS 211
Mestries, F. (2013). Los migrantes de retorno ante un futuro incierto. Sociológica, 28(78), 171-212.
212 MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES, VOL. 9, NÚM. 4, JULIO-DICIEMBRE DE 2018