Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Mexicans worry about Trump
Town whose chief earners are in the US worries about them being sent home
Families that rely on money earned in U.S. fear deportation promise.
TLACOLULA, Mexico — From her stall featuring regional delicacies, Eufenia Hernandez issued a challenge to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
“If this individual came down here to Oaxaca, we would put him to work,” she said. “Let’s see if he can work as hard as the Mexicans in the north.”
Hernandez, a veteran border crosser, having made the journey 18 times, has a brother and son in California.
“What would the United States do without Mexicans?” she said. “Who else would pick the crops? Who would build the homes?”
Mexico also depends on those crops, those homes.
Its citizens in the U.S. sent back nearly $25 billion last year, Mexico’s second-largest source of foreign income, after manufactured goods and ahead of oil.
Much of that ends up in impoverished rural communities like the ones in the southern state of Oaxaca, which for decades have sent young and old north.
The cash they send home builds homes, funds small businesses, refurbishes churches and schools, and provides sustenance for multitudes.
It’s evident in the big, half-finished homes dotting the countryside. “They are waiting for more dollars from the north to finish,” people explain.
In the state’s central valley region, lines form daily at banks and money-exchange outlets as people collect cash sent from loved ones.
The cycle of people heading north and money flowing south is so entrenched that no one here can envision it ending.
The election of Trump, who has vowed to stop it with a wall along the 2,000mile border, has spread dismay and apprehension.
Most everyone in the area appears to have heard of Trump and his threats — his bellicose pronouncements about Mexico have been major news south of the border.
But there is a pervasive sense that Trump is bluffing — or will have little appetite to pursue his far-reaching immigration agenda once in office. Or that he will fail. “It’s all campaign talk,” said Rolando Silvaja Jarquina, a retired teacher.
Every Sunday, producers of local products descend from ancient hillside settlements to sell their goods in Tlacolula, a market town about 20 miles southeast of Oaxaca city, the state capital.
“Both countries, Mexico and the United States, benefit from trade, from immigration,” Silvaja said. “Why would Mr. Trump want to make Mexico his No. 1 enemy? Don’t you want your enemies far away, not next to you?”
The flow of money and people has continued through various waves of deportations and angry vows from U.S. politicians to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I don’t think this president can stop immigration,” said Liberio Hernandez of San Miguel del Valle, who is a returnee from the United States. “This has been going on too long.”
As in many migrant-sending communities, much of the permanent population of the town consists of women, children and older men — some of whom returned home with their savings after years in the U.S. Many working-age men remain in the north.
“I have so many grandchildren in California, I just hope I get to see them before I die,” said Arnulfo Miguel Lopez, who returned from the north more than two decades ago but has several sons in the Los Angeles area. “It’s not so easy now for people to come back and visit.”
Word of Trump’s threats to impose new tariffs has filtered down to family workshops.
“The tariffs on everything we ship to the north are already very high,” said Luis Leon Monterrubio, who produces a line of mescal, the signature regional liquor distilled from the maguey plant, and exports much of it north. “If tariffs got any higher, of course it would hurt our business.”
“Why would the president want less trade anyway? How does that help the United States?” Monterrubio said.