Costalegre Community Message Board

Migrants are coming home from U.S. with dollars, ideas and little patience for the old way of doing things.
By Jeremy Schwartz

MEXICO CITY BUREAU


Sunday, June 22, 2008

LUVIANOS, Mexico — Seir Benítez left this remote town high in the Sierra Madre mountains 12 years ago in hopes of escaping a harsh life in its dusty fields.

He traded dramatic mountain views and grinding poverty for an apartment in Austin and a job in a tool factory. He spent eight years in the United States, venturing as far as Florida and Nebraska, before returning home with enough money to build a house.

Benítez, 28, also came back filled with new ideas of how Luvianos, in the state of Mexico, should be governed. He is considering a run for mayor, joining a wave of politically active migrants who many in Mexico believe have the potential to reshape the countryside.

"I want to create jobs so that other young people don't have to migrate," said Benítez, who works for Luvianos' city government and peppers his conversation with references to Austin's flea markets and Riverside Drive restaurants.

In isolated pockets throughout Mexico, especially in far-flung rural areas, groups of migrants are entering the political arena. For many returning migrants, the lessons they learned in places such as Austin are guiding their forays into politics. Before they left Mexico for the United States, many of them were the poorest, and often the least educated, residents of their towns and villages. They are returning with dollars, ideas and little patience for the old way of doing things.

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/n ... rants.html