Chinameca is a tiny farming village in the mountains of eastern El Salvador. It was once a coffee town, until cheap beans from Vietnam put local growers out of business. By all accounts, the town should have died when coffee prices plummeted. But that's not happened.
These days, Chinameca's main export is its people. Over the past quarter century, a steady flow of migrants have made the long journey from Chinameca to the United States. Many of them, like Francisco Castro, the subject of my two-part series on Marketplace, One Home, Two Nations , have ended up in Fairfax, Virginia.
These migrants have not forgotten Chinameca. The money they earn in the US has helped renovate the church, install a septic tank and pave roads in their hometown. Their money keeps Chinameca alive.
In a real way, these migrants never left Chinameca. Rather, they created a new outpost for the town – an outpost that happens to be 2,000 miles away, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There they raise funds for the town, compose songs in its honor and communicate with "neighbors" by phone.
Scholars call this transnationalism. The idea is that in a globalized world, where borders are porous and money is fluid, people can live in two countries at once. This is certainly true of Francisco Castro, who after 25 years in Fairfax still considers Chinameca his home. "My heart is in Chinameca, my mind is in Chinameca," he told me. "There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about Chinameca."
Chinameca is representative of a much larger phenomenon. A full one third of El Salvador's population lives in the United States. The money they send home – more than $2 billion a year – props up the Salvadoran economy. The allegiance these migrants feel for the hometowns they left behind is what drives this awesome generosity.
I myself am the son of an immigrant. My father came here by plane from Franco's Spain around the same time Francisco Castro crossed the desert on foot into California. And while my father had advantages that Francisco did not, their personal journeys are similar. They both worked hard to find success in a foreign land. They both raised American sons. They both yearn to return home. As I interviewed Francisco in Fairfax, I could hear my father's wistfulness in Francisco's sighs.
I invite you to use this space to tell me your own immigrant stories, to talk about how my radio pieces touched or provoked or interested you, and to offer your own insights into the roiling immigration debate in this country. I look forward to hearing your ideas.
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Dan Grech
Reporter for American Public Media's Marketplace(Reporter archive)
See the One Home, Two Nations series
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Comments: 2
"Scholars call this transnationalism. The idea is that in a globalized world, where borders are porous and money is fluid, people can live in two countries at once."
In the current state of things, it seems more social and political pressure leans on individuals to make a distinction and "decide."
Thanks for your post. I think you're right that the current political climate in the US is to make it more difficult for undocumented immigrants to cross the border.
But for legal immigrants like Francisco Castro, keeping a foot in El Salvador has never been easier. Flights are relatively inexpensive, phone calls cost next to nothing, and send money overseas has become much cheaper as transaction costs go down.
My feeling is that part of what's driving the increase in remittance flows from the US to Latin America is how much cheaper it's become to stay in touch, maintain the bonds and visit.
Thanks again for writing, and I look forward to more posts.
Dan Grech