CNS STORY: Guatemalans working in U.S. find life has mixed blessings

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CNS Story:

GUATEMALA-SALCAJA Aug-21-2007 (1,080 words) With photos and graphic. xxxn

Guatemalans working in U.S. find life has mixed blessings

By Patricia Zapor
Catholic News Service

SALCAJA, Guatemala (CNS) -- Father Juan Poz can quickly tick off the mixed blessings of emigration from this town in Guatemala's western highlands where he is pastor of San Luis Rey Parish.

Immigrants to the United States have made it possible for the families of Salcaja to fix up their houses, buy land and open small businesses. At his parish, when he needs money to repair the roof or help a family in need, it's much easier to raise the funds. More children are able to go to school instead of having to help support their families by working.

"It is people's dream to have nice houses, better roofs, a small business, a piece of land," Father Poz said in an interview early in 2007 at his church. One person working in the U.S. for a relatively short time can dramatically improve a family's fortunes.

"Some are away for two years and they come back and their houses are fantastic," he said. The typical way of building a home for the majority of Guatemala's population is to start with a basic one- or two-room structure -- often of adobe. Bedrooms, a bathroom, electricity, plumbing and flooring are added and building materials are upgraded as money permits.

But Father Poz is also very aware of the downsides of having 60 percent or more of the families in town dependent upon relatives who send money from another country.

Some families, unaccustomed to having extra quetzales, the national currency, don't save. Instead they splurge on fancy birthday parties or expensive clothes and luxury items from Quetzaltenango, the region's major city, a short bus ride away, he said.

For some households, the pressures of having one parent -- or sometimes both -- working thousands of miles away leads to kids who aren't properly supervised, have time on their hands and get into trouble with drugs, drinking and gangs. Marriages fall apart.

"The father is living away, the children are living with grandparents," Father Poz said. "The children are without control, without support, without education, without both parents. It is a very difficult situation. The grandparents can't manage them.

"The youths say 'I have money,'" and think that means they don't have any responsibilities, he continued. "They don't study, they get bored, get into drugs, get into trouble. The reality is families are disintegrating. The husband gets another woman up there, the wife finds someone else here. This is a big problem with consequences for many."

Cesar Yovani, who works at the Salcaja parish, estimated that 80 percent of the people he knows have a relative in the U.S. Of those, perhaps 25 percent send no money home, he said. Some families wait for years with no word about whether their husband, father, sister, mother or brother who headed north even made it across the border.

Most Salcajenos enter the United States illegally, paying a smuggler the going rate of 15,000 quetzales (US$2,000), he said. The current wait for a visa to immigrate legally is at least three years. In 2005, the U.S. issued 6,167 temporary worker visas and 6,241 immigrant visas to Guatemalans. During 2006, 26,000 Guatemalans were apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Meanwhile, in Salcaja, the evidence of prosperity is obvious. In the blocks around San Luis Rey Church, homes sprout new second-story additions and fresh paint. Satellite dishes and stores selling electronics are ubiquitous.

The church and the small plaza in front of it are tidy and well-maintained, lacking the trash, graffiti and other signs of neglect typical of Guatemalan towns without the resources to pay for upkeep.

The town's traditional industry of weaving fabric isn't providing the cash to finance such civic improvements. It's the $100 or more a month sent home by relatives working in Trenton, N.J., or Chicago.

The International Organization for Migration estimates that about 10 percent of Guatemala's population lives abroad, mostly in the United States, and their remittances help support about 30 percent of Guatemalans at home.

The shrinking population is evident in Salcaja, where even on a weekday morning only a handful of people cross the square by the church.

Father Poz also told of more serious problems, such as families split by divorce once the husband returns. In one case he described, the husband couldn't accept how well his wife had managed the money he sent home.

When he returned to Salcaja to find that his wife and her father had secretly saved and upgraded the older man's house, he accused his father-in-law of trying to steal his earnings.

"The father-in-law had to explain to him, 'This is now your house,'" Father Poz said. "It was hard for the husband to accept that his wife was a good administrator of their money and that his in-laws would help."

The situations workers find themselves in once they get to the U.S. don't help keep families together either, he said. Often they have only temporary work. Comforts like television, the Internet and cars are readily available, but workers don't have family support systems.

"For human reasons it's better to live in Guatemala, where families are closer," Father Poz said.

Vicente Gonzalez, who also works at the church, said in some families he knows an absent father who supports his family from the U.S. is built up to be some kind of superman.

"Then, when he returns, he can't live up to it," Gonzalez said.

Yovani said he knows many families where the lack of a father in the home leads to discipline problems. "Then when he returns, they have no respect for the father."

In one U.S. enclave of Salcajenos, Hugo Sotovando of Trenton, N.J., said he is struck by the changes to his hometown when he visits every two to three years. The prevalence of televisions, refrigerators, microwave ovens and home improvements are among the obvious differences, he said in an interview this summer at his business, Salcaja Towing in Trenton.

But he also sees "the destruction of the family" in such things. "Parents try to buy the love of their children with a car," for instance, he said.

It's clear that children in Salcaja have better childhoods because money is more available, he said. More poor families can afford health care, and fewer children have to work to help support their families.

"But many children get into trouble," he said. "It's part of the evolution of prosperity."

END

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