La Casa De Mis Suenos by Peri L Fletcher

Author:Peri L Fletcher [Fletcher, Peri L]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367010058
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

4

Land, Livestock, and Remittances: Changing the Balance

DOI: 10.4324/9780429039911-4

Two blocks up from the church on the uneven, cobbled street that runs from the dirt road toward the lake, a group of men gathers to talk at the base of the water tank. Among them is Celedonio Ortiz, a former bracero who rose to local prominence by serving on the ejidal board, first as jefe de vigilancia (head of vigilance, somewhat like a sheriff), now as jefe de tenencia (head of tenancy, in charge of ejidal landholdings). Today, Celedonio converses in low tones with Ernesto García, the current jefe de vigilancia as afternoon shadows begin to obscure the fields of maize nestled between the hills of the Tarascan highlands. The evening before, a fierce hail storm flattened much of the young maize on the lakeside plots. The men are waiting for Ernesto’s son to return from el cerro (the hill) with additional reports on damage. They fear the storm may have been even more ferocious on the mountainside; they will not know for several weeks if the crop will survive the battering it received. Ernesto mentions how he may have to ask his other sons in California to help the family if they lose the whole crop. Celedonio nods, si, he will have to do the same thing. He voices his concern for the sharecropper who works the land of Celedonio’s brother (who is in the United States) and has no migrant children to help him. As a truck drives by and honks, they lift their heads only slightly, making the smallest gesture of recognition that civility allows.

The two young men in the truck are recently returned migrants who are part of a group suing for lakeside land. The land dispute is the most disruptive incident in a chain of events that culminated in the summer of 1990.

Two key events in the 1980s illustrate how villagers have responded to their changing circumstances. In the early 1980s, a group of migrants envisioned a church to reflect the unity and prosperity of the greater Napízaro community. They were able to design, coordinate, raise funds for, and build this church with the full cooperation and participation of all the village households and hundreds of migrants. By the end of the 1980s, however, the prosperity and the unity of the village were threatened both by outside pressures and from within, and the village was bitterly divided by a feud over land.

While the church embodies Napizareños’ ideals of community, the land disputes reflect their inability to achieve equality and prosperity for all, given their marginal position in the Mexican and world economies and their vulnerability to recession and political backlash in the United States. Land disputes and a challenge to the ejido are demonstrations of rising tension and widely felt feelings of unfairness. They expose serious ruptures in the village’s ideology of egalitarianism and unity. The land dispute, part of a larger transformation of the village social and economic structure, has been a traumatic experience for the families involved.

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