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In tiny Mexican hamlets such as Santa Maria Tonaya, the population fluctuates greatly based on the season, as every man, woman, and sometimes, child, migrates to where the work is. (Photo: Carlos Villalón)

By KARL PENHAUL
Photos By CARLOS VILLALON
Channel: Immigration, Latin American Affairs

SANTA MARIA TONAYA, Mexico — Bunches of now-faded orange flowers adorn the church altar. A necklace of colored blooms hangs as an offering around a hand-painted statue of Christ.

Marigolds are the flowers traditionally placed on tombs on the Day of the Dead in Mexico. Here, high in the mountains of southern Guerrero state, indigenous peasant farmers leave them as a good luck charm before they abandon their dirt-poor communities and migrate to other regions of Mexico or the United States in search of work.

“When we leave, we go only with our faith in God. Before you go, you offer flowers to the saints and you go in peace. If you do this then you will find work somewhere,” Juan Solano, one of the traditional authorities in the hill village of Santa Maria Tonaya, told Univision.

Wilted marigolds serve as evidence of Santa Maria Tonaya’s residents’  dedication to tradition and culture. (Photo: Carlos Villalón)

There is almost no paid work in these villages, locals subsisting on the seasonal farming of maize and squash. For that reason, Solano calculates less than 80 members of the village are left. More than half have migrated. But they have not forgotten those left behind. They regularly send remittances to remaining relatives or cash to maintain the church - a centerpiece of all these highland communities.

A short distance down the hill, Amado Toribio weaves a palm-leaf mat with his gnarled fingers. He explains that his mother tongue is Me’phaa - one of several indigenous languages spoken in Guerrero - but agrees to speak Spanish.

At 100, he tells me he is the oldest surviving inhabitant in Santa Maria Tonaya. He gives a wide-mouthed laugh to expose a few yellowed teeth to prove his point.

“Everybody has left. I never counted how many. But they’ve gone. They’ve all gone to look for work,” he said. “I didn’t leave because I’m too old to work in the fields anymore. I’m not a donkey.”

Instead, he has to survive with what he can earn from weaving mats. Each one, he says takes about three days to make. He says he makes about three dollars profit.

It takes three days for Amado Toribio, 100, to make one of his hand-woven mats. (Photo: Carlos Villalón)

Most of his neighbors head for northern Sinaloa state, Michoacán, or Morelos. They usually leave en masse – labor-gangs contracted by big farming enterprises to pick tomatoes and chili peppers for export to the United States or Europe.

Others like Juan Solano found work. Solano was employed as a busboy for two years in a New York restaurant. He calmly explains what must clearly have been a perilous crossing as an undocumented migrant into the United States.

“I took the bus to El Altar and then walked three days and nights through the desert. When I reached Tucson I took a minivan. Then I rode four nights until I arrived in Manhattan, New York,” he said.

The most frightening experience, Solano says, was taking the New York subway to work for the first time.

Solano, one of just a few working-age adults that remain in Santa Maria Tonaya, returned to take up a spot on the village council, a widely respected position.

Juan Solano returned to his hometown after two years in New York City, making him one of the very few adult males living in Santa Maria Tonaya. (Photo: Carlos Villalón)

Those who migrate to other states in Mexico usually spend at least seven months of the year away from home.  They are drawn back to their community for a few brief days by the natural cycle of life - part Catholicism part Mother Earth - perhaps for the Day of the Dead or the traditional fiestas associated with planting and harvesting maize.

There are hundreds of communities like Santa Maria Tonaya that dot the Sierra Madre del Sur Mountains in Guerrero and neighboring Oaxaca state. They are among the poorest anywhere in Mexico.

“The issue of indigenous communities is an invisible, forgotten problem. It is an untold tragedy. People are dying of hunger. They do not know what a salary is. They have to migrate to survive or die,” said Abel Barrera, director of the Tlachinollan human rights center, which monitors discrimination against indigenous communities in Guerrero.

Members of Tlachinollan are especially active monitoring the treatment of migrant workers. In coordination with Mexican government agencies, Tlachinollan has helped set up a reception center for indigenous farmhands in the town of Tlapa de Comonfort.

The center has become the last stop for busloads of workers before they head out of state. They register where they are going and are offered a government-backed, 50-cent health insurance plan, in case they get bitten by snakes or scorpions in the tomato and chile plantations.

The reception center of Tlapa de Comonfort provides migrant workers with much needed food, shelter, and insurance. (Photo: Carlos Villalón)

Margarita Nemecio, a specialist in migrant worker rights at Tlachinollan, says at least 12 migrant workers from Guerrero’s mountain communities have died so far this year while working on farms in northern Mexico. She said the real figure is likely much higher but some families did not request Tlachinollan’s help repatriating the body of their dead relatives.

At the reception center, around 30 sun-beaten peasant farmers prepare to depart for a tomato farm in Sinaloa. Most are traveling with a gaggle of young children whom they cannot leave alone at home.

Marcos Martinez is 70 years old and is leaving with his wife Rosa, 68, three sons, his daughter-in-law, and an eight-month-old granddaughter.

“We have to go out of necessity. There’s no money here,” he told me. “It’s hard. We work all day in the sun. If it rains, it’s a sea of mud. But we have to earn enough to eat.”

Martinez said he expected to be away for around seven months. He calculated that during that time he and his wife together would be able to save a total of just 2,000 dollars after subtracting the cost of food and clean drinking water.

According to Nemecio, employers generally give each family a room to sleep in but there are no beds only mats on the floor. In theory, teachers employed by the Mexican government organize schooling for migrant children but Nemecio says the measure is not enforced.

In the worst migrant camps, Nemecio says, bosses post armed guards to prevent the workforce from leaving before their contract is up or from looking for better-paid work elsewhere. She says indigenous workers who may often not be able to speak of write Spanish are cheated out of their earnings.

“The problem is disguised but that does not detract from the fact that this modern-day slavery. They may not be chained at the ankle or at the wrist or forced to stand in indian-file. But this are still slave-like conditions,” Nemecio said.

One migrant worker heading for Sinaloa, Amercusiano Bernabe says one advantage of taking the whole family is that everybody can work. Technically the fine print on their contracts states only those older than 16 can be employed. But Bernabe knows from experience that the reality is different.

“Everybody can work. The whole family, the children of 12, 13, and 14 for sure can help in the fields,” he said.

Life for children in the Sierra Madre del Sur Mountains is often one of arduous manual labor from the age of 12 or younger. (Photo: Carlos Villalón)

Despite publicly-declared policies against the use of child labor, Nemecio said the practice is frequently overlooked by Mexican officials and U.S. and European companies that buy Mexican produce.

When you see Marcos Martinez’s family board a ramshackle bus bound for Sinaloa, it’s easier to fathom the depth of the problem. Three generations of the same family are migrating to survive. 

During those three generations the problem of rampant poverty in the highlands of southern Mexico has not been addressed. 

That has left Martinez, his family and their neighbors prey to “slave-like” labor conditions on industrialized farms in northern Mexico or forced them to attempt the treacherous crossing into the United States.

“This crazy economic model of globalization treats human beings like a piece of merchandise,” said Barrera, Tlachinollan’s director. “So-called developed nations do not think with their heads and their hearts. They simply think like robots about how to generate profits.”