Money Trickles North as Mexicans Help Relatives

[tekisui]

Source: NY Times

MIAHUATLÁN, Mexico — During the best of the times, Miguel Salcedo’s son, an illegal immigrant in San Diego, would be sending home hundreds of dollars a month to support his struggling family in Mexico. But at times like these, with the American economy out of whack and his son out of work, Mr. Salcedo finds himself doing what he never imagined he would have to do: wiring pesos north.

Unemployment has hit migrant communities in the United States so hard that a startling new phenomenon has been detected: instead of receiving remittances from relatives in the richest country on earth, some down-and-out Mexican families are scraping together what they can to support their unemployed loved ones in the United States.

“We send something whenever we have a little extra, at least enough so he can eat,” said Mr. Salcedo, who is from a small village here in the rural state of Oaxaca and works odd jobs to support his wife, his two younger sons and, now, his jobless eldest boy in California.

He is not alone. Leonardo Herrera, a rancher from outside Tuxtla Gutiérrez in the southern state of Chiapas, said he recently sold a cow to help raise $1,000 to send to his struggling nephew in northern California.

Also in Chiapas, a poor state that sends many migrants to the United States, María del Carmen Montufar has pooled money with her husband and other family members to wire financial assistance to her daughter Candelaria in North Carolina. In the last year, the family has sent money — small amounts ranging from $40 to $80 — eight times to help Candelaria and her husband, who are both without steady work and recently had a child.

“When she’s working she sends money to us,” the mother said. “But now, because there’s no work, we send money to her.”

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/world/americas/16mexico.html?_r=2&hp

[Craftsman]

1. I guess returning to fix the problems in Mexico is not yet entered their minds?

[Overseas]

3. When they need medical care without going bankrupt

then perhaps they may return to Mexico if they haven't become US citizens yet.

[Craftsman]

4. A good many of them just go to the emergency room and do not pay.

A friend's wife works in one here in Houston and sees it all the time. She once saw a guy in an ICE jacket enter the ER and the room emptied. The guy was there because his son had a bad sprain from playing ball.

[Overseas]

7. Along with the 44 million other uninsured patients, I guess.

I guess that migrant worker shoulda just let his son's leg heal wrong.

I mean, really! Compassion is expensive! How dare those parents seek help for their kids! They must think health care is some kind of human right. Don't they know that only those who are paid well enough to afford treatment should get help? That's the American Way right now.

[arcadian]

2. Where do most migrant Mexicans come from?

Is it Sinaloa and the border states?

[LuckyLib]

6. From all over Mexico, but large numbers from the states of

Michoacan, Chiapas, Veracruz, Jalisco.

http://www.economicexpert.com/a/List:of:Mexican:states:by:population.htm

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. “We’re poor, but nobody can throw us out of this house,”

unlike most Americans