Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Cajolá, a small town in the Guatemalan highlands,
has always been a town of immigrants.
The indigenous, Maya Mam inhabitants used to migrate yearly to the Guatemalan Pacific coast
to pick coffee on large plantations.
Now, a third of this town of 18,000 people live and work in the United States.
They send money back to their relatives in Cajolá to build houses and buy cars.
But some immigrants are being forcibly sent back home.
Others are leaving because of the economic recession.
And a few are moving back on their own, with hopes of a better future for their people.
We have almost 4,000 hens, which gives us 3,400 to 3,600 eggs per day,
which are consumed by the community.
Eduardo Jiménez came back to Cajolá three years ago after spending 10 years in the U.S.,
most of that time as an illegal immigrant.
I immigrated when I was 15 years old, and I always wanted to build a house.
Many of us Cajolenses dream of building a house, having a car,
and having some funds in order to survive in the future.
Jiménez ended up in Morristown, New Jersey,
where he got involved in the immigrants rights movement.
He and other immigrants from his town formed Grupo Cajolá in 2000
as a way to start looking out for each other, and even other Latino immigrants.
But in 2005, he decided to give up the American dream for good.
I started thinking, I've been in the United States for 10 years.
What would happen if I lost my parents one day?
What am I going to do with money?
I'm not going to resuscitate my father. I'm not going to resuscitate my family.
Jiménez decided to go back to Cajolá to be with his family
and help build a solid economic future for the town.
Here, Grupo Cajolá runs an Internet center, an egg farm, and a textile export business.
All are collectively owned by community members, mostly women.
Our primary objective is to show that we can create our own companies
and employ ourselves, a vision that the town of Cajolá hasn't had.
While Jiménez came back on his own terms
tens of thousands of immigrants are being forcibly sent back to their homelands.
The U.S. government has deported over 55,000 Guatemalans since 2007,
around 1,000 of them from Cajolá.
Construction of many homes is on hold
and families have had to scale back their plans for the future.
Some immigrants are leaving the U.S. for lack of work.
There's not much work there anymore and here I need to study, so that's why I came back.
But most are trying to wait out the economic storm,
fearing their chances for making a decent living in Guatemala are even worse.
And the majority of deportees head right back across the border.
Because of the political and economic situation here in Guatemala
people come for just a month or two, and when they see the difficulty in finding employment,
the difficulty in surviving, then there's no other path but to return to the United States.
But a few plan to stay in Cajolá and start life anew.
Julia López came back with her two American-born children
after her husband, the children's father, was deported from the U.S. in September 2008.
At the time we felt it was unfair, because really the only thing we were doing there was working.
But the time came when we had to come back so we came back.
And here we are and we feel good.
Now López and her husband, Pedro Morales, are building a home in Cajolá.
And they plan to open a bakery in the future.
We don't have any choice but to stay here and work hard and honorably,
because that's the way one can succeed and do what one wants.
When the economy picks up, Jiménez hopes immigrants like López and Morales
and those still working in the U.S., will invest in community-owned businesses in Cajolá.
After a person has their house, their car, their capital that they want to invest in the bank,
they can invest it in a business that we're possibly going to form in the coming years.
But Grupo Cajolá isn't just about business.
The group also awards scholarships to high school students
and gives workshops in Mayan spirituality and Guatemalan history.
Ely López is a Mayan spiritual guide and part of Grupo Cajolá.
He hopes to revive interest in Mayan culture among young people.
We see that today, spirituality is being lost and young people aren't interested.
And it's really sad. So from my point of view, as a young person, I have to rescue it.
López knows well the pains of immigration. His father has been in the U.S. for the past four years.
I'm the first child, but it's really hard for me because I have to raise my younger siblings.
My role is like a father's.
Jiménez and Grupo Cajolá are planting the seeds
they hope will keep members of their community from having to migrate in the future.
We could have those benefits in our own countries.
We want to have our own paradise here in Cajolá, here in Guatemala.
We want to live with dignity.