annenberg media ♪ captioning sponsored annenberg/cpb narrator: in the region of latin america, a key geographical issue isopulation--

its distributionand rad. inheub-region ofexico, welso okpolation moveme, or migration both within mexico and north tohe u.s. we explore a major and unexpected source of migrants caedolw re weskf e usion can change the rate of flow, or if a new u.s. border policy is having an untended consequence. ( helicopter whirring ) narrator: every day, thousands of mexicans cross the border illegally into the united states. ofte those hopes are arreste manyre at the border.o. man: ahora lista pont la mano en frente... narrator the u.s. i.n.s., or immigration and naturalization service,

records each apprehension on standard forms, including one entrywith hid: it was the migrants' home towns inexico. that's whabringseographe richard jones tohe i.n it was the migrants' home towns with a novel reseaplan. jones knows that economic conditions vary greatly om region to region in mexico. he suspects that some places drive out-- or "push"-- many more migrants to the u.s. than others. his investigation begins inly90s aris hom inanoniotes. his ijos lieveson begins many secrets are stored in i.n.s. files like tse. can they reveal where most migrants come om? can the answers help both countries keep more ople ahome? cjones sampless every tenth record, writing down the area of origin within mexico.

back in his office at the university of texas, he enters the values into a map of mexico. jones marks in blue the wnships that send an above-arage number of migrantso e u.s. jonea pattern emerges that reveals much about thchangi econocage numbesocial condition u.s. of mexico's diversees geograic regions.much on the west coast, townships marked in blue a rong pum iyousmhcocial agricul swebothegionsare economically c far sout aminor source. nes: weected to find relati w anrom e so a roand we did, becausel agricul swebothethis is an areaically c of close-kni ingenous communies, aneconomic and social rriers for those people

make it difficult for themo come here. narrator: he confirms that a large numbe from the northern border region and from the metropolitan center, including mexico city. ar rio has, for almost a hundd years, beenheest central region, that is,alisco, michoacan. and we found tt indeed, beenheest central region, it was still t most important . that is,alisco, michoacan. narrator: jones then sees a surprising cluster here, whe eaecit. nes:l me hasccelyeen studd ociascnt we were erore suri nes:l me hasccelyeen studd heag of migrat fr the nend i a huo is w s, but to verify this, i eded to go into the fiel rrator: jones's search has brought him here, tohe mesa e, a high dry plateau beginning near mexico city

and sttching to the u.s. border. and employment here:ditiaa gold andilver mining. but one look at the mines and a talk wh so remaining workers coirms the sad economic stistics. butchear mesubsteseand a drop e talk wh so remaining workers have cut many jobsere. jos: what we found in the north central region was a decline in production and in employment in the mining sector, whiccorresponded, spatially, remarkably closely to the migration patterns. narrator: so mining incomeas lowered regional living standards. ( dog barking ) whatute cuuraltor,where os e d difficulties re also encouragtoigrate? it is 1994. buenos días. narrator:nes arris m of anastacio and ofelia

near a municipio called cedral. their family sells goat meat in a local market. they also groworn, barley and a little wheat. but the climate makes farming a constant battle. ity, d soil quatys poor buso when jones interviewsing anastacio, he is not surprised eau. translator: i chopped christmas trees and picked apples.? cortaba. ( conversing ) narrator jones's findings challenge e widespread assumption that migra workers move permanently to the.s jones ( translated ): and you went how many times? translator: six times. narrator: as hard as this land is, these people are attached to ts place. many move north to earinstl that they bring ord me

slor: to your fami and yourife? en pmegar.translator: most important, it was e children's school, food and clothing. which migrants bring back tor send backes are used by their families, first for food, then for educational health and small appliances, anthen for larger investments such as improving a house or investments in agriculture. ator each yea mexican immigr. anthen for larger investments that is the nation'souh largessource of income, behind oil, manufacturing and tourism. so in interviewing townspeople, jones isot surprised to fi

at many family members hae u.s. locations work.s ress ere opm ceal gone. rcbeeen ma mouninanges,e mesaelor , jones calls iseg t nes sech has vealed thasides re ere opm ceal gone. rare not migrating only to the united stateselor , many come theexic, ere speciazo was creed wi.sagem u.s.ompaniescod loca ns ere speciazo was creed within0 kimete wi.sof border toake advantage of cheap mexican labor plants like is ociudad a "maquila" is a measure of corn jororn oil given a farmer.

but the maquiladora plantse had "give back"e. all theifinishedrocts to the u.s. nothing made here coulbe sold inexico. ey get nothing b wagesfotheir lo all theifinishedrocts that sheltered local industries, but there was a ice procte technologicaknow-how. e north american free trade agreement, onafta, was crafted to gradual end those protections. the first thing it did was end e locational restrictions. so now, the maquiladoras from the u.s. and manyigrants from the holw core move to find eacother in cities soutofheor ke ts. they are also migrating here to monterrey. located in the northern border region, monterrey is mexico's third largest city and the couny's centerof he.

rof american-owned mattel toys,, to connue his research. as he expected, many of these workers came from the hollow core region, lured north by the higher salaries in the maquiladoras. aquí en la fábrica, pues, como le dijo... translator: re ithe factory we work an eight-hour day. for an eight-houday in my me town, they'd paybout 8,000esos. narrator: heat grote industries, most workers are women, who assemble reflectors and ilg. th a pai62 cents per hour. that's less than the goiage in the north along the bor

but it is more than new ants would have to pay grote manager jaime gomez. so probly we're going tourn t in the north part of mexico. they're going to start to develop a lot of maquiladora businesses and it'soing to go down, down and dow because we're going to run out of labor. so they have to go farther south. jones agrees that the abundance of cheaper labor inalady, ofelia has a newraw new employment option hereouthg is is one of twoewmaquilada that makes women's underwear. they are typical of maquilas mong south. textile workers require fewer skills, so employers can pay them less than workers along the border. jones: since i gaisdy, i've already noted that maquiladoras

are decentlizing into the north central region, into some of the smaller places, and this is having the beneficial effects of increasing the job rate and decreasing the u.s. migration rate. narrator: eight years later, and the numbers confirm his theories. nationwi after 2e mber of s died witthe u.s. recession, but then rebounded again. and employers ceainly moved south. in 1993, nonborder states employed ten percent of maquila workers. in998, that percentage increased by over 50%. but how much did maquilaras actual spread into the hollow core? between 1993 and 1998, these six states almost tripled their maquila employees, adding 44,000 new jobs. they gained jobs almost twice as fast as the rest of mexico.

ere isrespatial variat t wiinhenorte, san luis potosí, where jonese studied the town of cedral,ico. gained only 2,0 new jobs and even though the wages are below those near the border, there is acantmultlier eff. families spend a very highs are percentage of their incomeder, close tobut richard jonesmploy twas not just interesd to see if maquiladoras would spad south, but whether they could keep people home and stop them from migrating. and here, new enforcement policies at the u.s. border may have negated any gains realized by maquiladora difsion. before 1993 the border patrol more or less looked the other way,

allowing people to cross freely. once inside, the migrants with limited results. now the u.s. has erected fences and pledgents right up on thers of the border. it forces migrants to cross in remote deserts. overalf a million a year, and . bustileyss-- the get-tough approach has had an ironic and unintended consequence. now instead of crossing temporarily and returning home with money, men either stay longer now instead or bngir whole familiesily and move permanently tohe u.s. it's just too dangerous to cross now instead only have toake it once.now migs every year now, 50,000 people from just one hollow core state-- michoacan--

migrate to the u.s. about half of them movemanently. moichoacanos cly live in california, tex abanheillinofanmem movemanently. so witborders thaton't s mexicans, let alone terrorts, many starting tosk "is ere betterolicy? in the latmecasuegioofentral a, in tmetheir populationns has coapseanthen boomeanre recy without enough land their rising numbers, socipheaows,

including -uan migratiooverioe. in the highlands of guatemala, weary maya indians welcome a truce, following the peace accords of 1996. a victimthe violence was ma, who lives in this house compound with her surviving grandchildren and eir families. the pipes that carry this wate t village were an innovation brought by her son. helso efrts touioad aspeakingocalanguager)h. translator: wanting those kinds of thingss in the eyes of certaineople. it caused mo to go aroun that he's onlyoing that good work because he's a member of the gueilla organization.

naator:the organizan washis son, diego, was too young to remember his faer and grandfather naator:the organizan whenaramilitaries entered his compound in 1982. they beat, bound and took away first his grandfather, and then his fatr. ( speakingocalanguage ) translator: i heard a shot, and i knew my son was dead. narrator: ten years later, a humaamong them,p exhumed 1doña magdalena's son., ma) ( wailing ) narrator: diego, in the center, watc as scientists revealed the crusng bw isatr's head.

now,0 yes afe muers, and moved mala c s rmca longesuorhim. heow sells fruit for fi dolla a day. te of thousas of other maya ha migrated here, too. rural-to-urban migration is a key regional feature te of thousas of other maya ha min latin america.. diego's siblings face the same problems. tepoquito nos tocó a cada uno y por eso que cada uno... naatorsince we eacht very little land, each one has to move to suprt one's family. ats why were scaeredalover t e narrator: the same forces at push inalso led to the violence. what a those forces, a what are thprospects for change?

orsen wi grow out for a historical geographer, the st is fertile ground. george lovell is researching patterns in both time and space explain t collapse-- annow the explosion-- of maya population aftethe conquest in the 16th ceury, the spaniards had little interest in highland resources. they saw something in the hills more valuable than land. as labor the spaniards saved mayas' souls and forced tir bodies to work silver mines and lowland plantations. lovell: to supply them with ready pools of labor,

ator: and is... and iveds forced in compact tow like is.uild and this. the w settlements, called congregaciones, were laid out in classic spanish-american grids and located in valleys. the dense urban settlement pattern helped decimate maya population. the conquistadors ought fromurope stthe close ling quarters and poor sanitatiostccelated the vastating iless. lovell estimates that the guatemala maya numbered two million before the conquest, and fell to 128,000 by 1625. it was part of the largest population collapse

in human history. but when the spanish empire itself collapsed here, many indianseft the conggaciones to retur to theirge-old pattern gradually otheir numbers, too, rebounded theointhere many now fear a daerous polation explosion. georgeovelwants to know why. narrator: the year 2000, and doña magdalena is now 92. with diego now working in guatemala city, she relies on one of her oerrandsons, paulino, george lovell visits still the gonzales farmpound. to see if growth otheir famipros whdid diego ha to leavty.

why caupe wholmi rvests of corn have sustained life here for ousands of yea the size of maya population was limited largely e of the corn harvest. the land has been good to the gonzas family. she has just divided the land into separate plotsdren. for her six grandchildren. t are e ots big enoughr each ? lovell ( translating): this is the boundary marker el between my land,l... which lies behind me here,

you casee st how narrowe, isy brthstrip of land is. ator: paulino aws a simple map to sw the layout. uh-huh. ator: paulino aws a simple map to sw the layout. ah. narrator: doña magdalena's husband on. en it suor11eoe. now aso supp? m que nos aguan esasgost. anslator wearvest our corin jano can lastll of thfamily-- all nine ous-- uil august. ifhe corn runs out before august, what that means is we'll just have to start working get money to buy the corn earlier. paulino has to find other work for a good part of the year. that's wis brotherdiego, now lives in the city.

he mrates seasonalfor mporary y o many maya for the la? maybe e problem is t way the land is used. george lovell heads off to study the dominant industry of the highlands. traditionally it is marked by tall trees shg shbsike is. eh, r... porías o toaganquetles? trslatoronig quetzales n narrator: eightquetzales-- 0 a day-- iseager wage by a standar

narrator: on coffeeof violences like thist it and grion.ross guatemala. just three perce of guamalas by the m960s controlledwo-thisofhe ae . atel gcoee perce of guamalas by the m960s he halin,nanasuneikofhe ae . most are cascrops for export. verywho pportoy rerns anxpdiopulatnayon the smal. squalid using, impoverishing wages and d ofir lemany indians and with that desireheir , came conflict. in new milnnium but the underlying the guuiproblems remain.

e maya't have enoughan who will soon reach suchildbearing age.site in willir culture and economy change ncourage family planning? aturrent rates will they haccess birth conol? the countrs population willow double in just 24 yea, tcompared with 120 years for the u.s. economics, religion and the lack of bih control mean that fertility rates remain as high as they have been for centuries. at the other end of life, however, something has changed thsalu-aspanish foal. cal clinics like tshave greatlf and keptopulatiohigh. for geographers like george lovell e good news is tempe ace ground. for geographers sos he ponde t outlook for doña magdalena's he can only hope for a change

inthe inequities resulte from three cycles of conquest,. lasting over 500 years. as maya population continues to grow, a ck of nd reforjust sures greasoci ueaval lasting over 500 years. guatemala.

captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org