Yucatan in an Era of Globalization

Yucatán in an Era of Globalization You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. ...

Author: Eric N Baklanoff | Edward Moseley

114 downloads 1297 Views 1MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!

Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

Yucatán in an Era of Globalization

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

YUCATÁN IN AN ERA OF GLOBALIZATION

Edited by Eric N. Baklanoff and Edward H. Moseley

TH E U NI V ERSIT Y OF A LA BA M A PR ESS Tuscaloosa

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Published in cooperation with the Alfredo Barrera Vásquez

Center for Yucatecan Studies

Copyright © 2008 The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Typeface: Bembo ∞ The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences–Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Yucatán in an era of globalization / edited by Eric N. Baklanoff and Edward H. Moseley. p. cm. “Published in cooperation with the Alfredo Barrera Vásquez Center for Yucatecan Studies”—T.p. verso. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8173-1603-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8173-5476-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8173-8004-5 (electronic) 1. Globalization— Economic aspects—Mexico—Yucatán (State) 2. Globalization—Social aspects— Mexico—Yucatán (State) I. Baklanoff, Eric N. II. Moseley, Edward H., 1931-2005. HF1482.9.Y93Y83 2008 303.48′27265—dc22 2007032101

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Contents

List of Illustrations Preface

vii

ix

Introduction: Yucatán since the 1982 Mexican Debt Crisis Eric N. Baklanoff 1 1. Yucatán’s Prelude to Globalization Edward H. Moseley and Helen Delpar 20 2. Globalization and the Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso Michael S.Yoder 42 3. A Wheel of Fortune: Yucatán’s Entrepreneurial Elite from the Revolution to Globalization Luis Alfonso Ramírez 69 4. Yucatán: Mexico’s Other Maquiladora Frontier Eric N. Baklanoff 92 5. Tinum, Yucatán: A Maya Village and the Lights of Cancún Paula R. Heusinkveld 112 6. Chan Kom Tourism and Migration in the Making of the New Maya Milpas Alicia Re Cruz 134 7. From Tallapoosa to Tixkokob: Two Communities Share Globalization Edward H. Moseley 147 8. Embracing Community: An Alternative Tourism for Yucatán Kathleen R. Martín and William A. Martín González 164 Contributors Index

185

189

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Illustrations

Figures 1. Peninsula of Yucatán

x

2. The late Dr. Alfredo Barrera Vásquez

xiv

3. The late Edward H. Moseley and Eduardo Tello Solis

xv

4. Hacienda Yaxcopoil, a henequen defibration plant

3

5. Hacienda Yaxcopoil, entrance to owner’s mansion

4

6. Cathedral on Plaza Mayor, Mérida 7. Streetscape, central Mérida

5

6

8. The Observatory at Chichén Itzá

11

9. Hotel Fiesta Americana, Mérida 10. Port of Progreso pier

14

54

11. Cranes at the expanded port of Progreso

55

12. General cargo platform, port of Progreso

60

13. Yucatán Industrial Park, Mérida

100

14. Maquiladora Industrias Oxford de Mérida

105

15. Friends and neighbors cooperate in the construction of a nah 16. Maya girls sharing a hammock 17. Traditional Maya kitchen

115

117 124

18. Friends pose in front of store financed by Cancún earnings 19. Meeting room at the JERZEES plant

127

157

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

viii / Illustrations 20. Alabama group viewing the Pyramid of the Sorcerer at Uxmal 21. Entrance to the Quadrangle of the Nuns at Uxmal

165

173

Tables 1. Yucatán: Diversification in the agricultural-livestock sector, 1980 and 2000 9 2. Yucatán: Economically active population by sector, 1990 and 2000 10 3. Yucatán, Quintana Roo, and Mexico: Distribution of GDP by economic sector, 2000 12 4. Yucatecan henequen production, selected years, 1901–1982 5. Major imports, state of Yucatán, 1990–2000

58

6. Major exports, state of Yucatán, 1990–2000

58

7. Grain imports, port of Progreso, 1989–2003

59

8. Aggregate cargo movement, port of Progreso, 1996–2000 9. Container traffic, port of Progreso, 1989–2003

53

59

61

10. Yucatán’s maquiladora industry: Number of plants, employment, and value added, January 2000–May 2005 102 11. Yucatán: Number of maquiladoras and employees by municipio, June 2004 104 12. Yucatán: Volume and value of exports via maritime and air transport, July 1999–June 2000 107

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Preface

Irving L. Webber sat in the central plaza of Mérida in late May 1975, having his three-quarter-length boots polished and reflecting on the social structure of the provincial capital and its surrounding communities. “You know,” he mused, “Yucatán is one of the least-developed regions of Mexico, and lacks many characteristics necessary for a modern society.” Pausing to relight his pipe for the third time, Webber concluded: “That’s the reason I like it so much.”1 This conversation—and many others like it—grew out of an interdisciplinary field course, “Yucatán Past and Present,” initiated in 1973 by the Latin American Studies Program of The University of Alabama. Between 1975 and 1980 the core faculty of that project and a widening circle of Yucatecologists collaborated to publish an interdisciplinary collection of essays entitled Yucatán: A World Apart. Archaeologists, geographers, social scientists, and humanists discussed long-range perspectives and unfolding events that contributed to an interpretative analysis of a relatively isolated social laboratory at a frozen moment in time. Aware that the peninsula had never been completely removed from broader Mexican and world affairs, the authors nevertheless contended that Yucatán was a unique and “separate” society, even after 1961 when it was linked by highway to the “mainland” of central Mexico.2 In the two and a half decades following the interdisciplinary publication, however, Yucatán has undergone far-reaching changes, many tied to advances in technology and international political shifts, but all linked to the evolving era of globalization. The present volume is addressed primarily to those cuttingedge changes.

Yucatán: A Land of Traditions Mérida in 1975 was a bustling city of approximately 300,000 inhabitants, boasting some of the services and features of a modern urban center but suffering from a stagnant monocrop economy, propped up by subsidies from the Mexican government.3 Yucatán as a whole, including its capital, was defined

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

x / Preface

Fig. 1. Yucatán Peninsula (map by Eugene Wilson).

by most observers at the time as a “traditional society,” one made up of a complex and often conflicting set of traditions. Small towns and villages in the eastern and southern sections of the peninsula displayed a remarkably uniform folk culture based on diet (corn, beans, squash, and chili peppers), distinctive dress for women (the huipil ), family compounds (solares), and slashand-burn agriculture plots (milpas). The population was linked by a common language (Yucatec Maya) and a set of beliefs and ceremonies rooted in preconquest mythology and legends.4 Yet the most ardent admirer of ancient influences admitted that no “purely Maya” culture existed in Yucatán. A new set of institutions, patterns, and symbols (European and Catholic) entered

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Preface / xi the region in the early sixteenth century and for the next four hundred years exercised varying degrees of dominance from the center of Spanish-Creole rule (Mérida) to the most remote villages of the interior.5 The two traditions clashed, violently at times, but eventually produced a complex set of genetic, cultural, and psychological variations, including a unique blend that can be called “Yucatecan mestizo.”6 Another long-lived economic institution—the henequen culture—emerged in the late nineteenth century. Yucatán’s dry northwestern section was converted into almost a solid field of green-spiked plants, producing fiber for the grain farms of North America and providing fabulous wealth for the owners of the henequen haciendas. Yucatán entered its golden age as palatial homes of the elite planters dotted the countryside and lined the wide Paseo de Montejo of Mérida. Throughout the henequen zone, Maya peasants were deprived of their milpas and bound to the haciendas under a highly regimented system of debt peonage. Between 1915 and 1940, peonage and the haciendas were swept away by the Mexican Revolution and agrarian reform decrees. The monocrop economy remained, however, and the former peons (now members of the collective lands, or ejidos) continued to carry out the same tasks as before under the supervision of the federal government’s Banco Rural. From 1961 to 1964 the Mexican government extended its control of the henequen industry by nationalizing Yucatán’s cordage mills and forming a single, publicly owned manufacturing firm called Cordemex. Global competition of natural fiber from Brazil and East Africa after World War I and lower-priced synthetics from the mid-1960s onward cut deeply into the market for Yucatán fiber, yet in 1975 henequen still dominated the state’s agricultural and industrial sectors.7

The Era of Globalization Three decades after Irving Webber sat in the central plaza of Mérida and theorized about the nature of Yucatecan society, many of the characteristics of the traditions he described, including Maya village life and deep-rooted elements of Hispanic society with their unique Yucatecan flavor, still endure— though precariously. Other institutions and customs that seemed so well entrenched, including the henequen monocrop economy, have been swept aside by rapidly emerging national and international conditions. Major changes have taken place on the world stage since 1975, including the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of China, the progressive unification of Europe, and major shifts in the balance of world economic and strategic power. Farreaching innovations have come in the field of technology—marvels in telecommunication such as e-mail, cell phones, computerized weapons, and sophisticated shipping and packaging techniques. Most Latin American nations, including Mexico, have shifted away from economic nationalism toward more open markets and hospitable investment climates. All these forces, which have

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

xii / Preface led to the breakdown of traditional barriers to international trade, investment, and movement of people, have been lumped together under the heading of “globalization.” In the case of Mexico specifically, this has involved the weakening of the nationalistic system that grew out of the 1910 revolution with emphasis on state ownership of “strategic industries,” strict regulations of manufacturing and commerce, ambivalence toward foreign direct investment, and a patronal concept of land ownership that placed emphasis on communal rights. Mexico’s 1982 debt crisis triggered a profound realignment in the nation’s economic orientation. Turning from a state-led, inward-looking development strategy, Mexico became a member of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1986 and joined the United States and Canada in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. Yucatán and its provincial society were greatly affected by these rapidly emerging national and international conditions, offering once again an opportunity for a meaningful case study, a variation on the general Mexican theme. Specifically, our research focus is the state of Yucatán, which forms the crest of the peninsula that bears its name. The peninsula also includes the state of Campeche to the southwest and Quintana Roo in the east. As in Yucatán: A World Apart, our approach is interdisciplinary and selective; we continue to view Yucatán as a useful regional microcosm of study within a larger national and global setting. Kathleen Martín and William Martín González remind us in chapter 8 that the state represents an “authentic, distinct Mexico strongly rooted in its ancient Maya past and a continuing indigenous present.”

From Tradition to Globalization The idea for this book was born at the meeting of the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies held at Myrtle Beach in the spring of 2000. At a small gathering of Yucatecaphiles, Ed Moseley observed that much had changed since the publication of Yucatan:A World Apart and that a new volume was warranted. In the following year, as potential contributors to the book were recruited, Eric Baklanoff suggested globalization as a unifying theme for the collection. Essays in the present volume, prepared by scholars from a number of disciplines who have devoted many years to the study of Yucatán, reflect an evolving interpretation of the region. Most observers of the peninsula prior to 1975 would have found it impossible to imagine the region without the overwhelming dominance of henequen; yet what seemed an almost unchanging society was swept aside by waves of external development and pressures from within. The agro-industrial henequen complex, barely kept alive by the patronal oversight of the federal government and the ruling political party, created even greater problems with the debt crisis of 1982. A decade later it was

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Preface / xiii dismantled by the neoliberal policies of the very party that had sustained it for over fifty years. Protectionism and the closed system that had for so long been a part of the framework that emerged out of the revolution were abandoned; even the most sacred part of the Constitution of 1917 (Article 27) was revised in such a way as to remove basic restrictions on land tenure, including those governing henequen ejidos. For Mexico in general and for Yucatán in particular, this process was firmly linked to rapidly emerging technology and changes within the global framework. One specific development took place on the far eastern edge of the peninsula: in 1971 the Mexican government took the initial steps to open a major tourist resort along the virtually vacant beaches of Cancún. In the following decades the rapid growth of the Caribbean coastal resorts brought overwhelming change throughout the Yucatán Peninsula, affecting Mérida and the most remote villages. This collection of essays does not attempt to sustain a central unified thesis about globalization in Yucatán, nor does it pretend to predict the ultimate consequences of the state’s international integration. Taking a prismatic view, the multiple perspectives given in these chapters reflect the growing complexity of Yucatán’s society and economy in a period of accelerated change.

Acknowledgments and Dedication The editors wish to thank a number of individuals who have contributed to the ideas behind this volume. Dr. Alfredo Barrera Vásquez provided the intellectual and spiritual inspiration for many generations of scholars, including most of the contributors to this collection.8 He directed the labors of a team of linguists in the compilation of the Diccionario Maya Cordemex: Maya-Español, Español-Maya, a monumental work completed shortly before his death. Asael T. Hansen, who in the 1930s participated in the Carnegie Institution project on Yucatán coordinated by Robert Redfield, was later Professor of Anthropology for many years at The University of Alabama and formed a valuable link between that institution and his “patria chica.” Other key members of the Alabama team were Professors Paul H. Nesbitt, C. Earle Smith, Irving L. Webber, Edward D. Terry, Selwyn Hollingsworth, Richard Krause, and Michael Murphy. Joy D. Baklanoff, Jeffery Brannon, and James Callaghan, all of whom completed graduate work at Alabama, have made contributions to the field of Yucatecan studies and have worked closely with the editors of this volume for many years. Ben Fanning, an Alabama undergraduate with a double major in business and Spanish, provided the initial link with the Yucatecan maquiladora of Russell Corporation. Nancy Young, Russell’s Vice-President for Public Relations, provided data and helpful comments regarding the company’s operations in Alabama and Latin America. We are grateful to Debra Wheatley, Office Associate Senior, Department of Eco-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

xiv / Preface

Fig. 2. The late Dr. Alfredo Barrera Vásquez, for whom the Center for Yucatecan Studies was named, May 1980 (photo by Edward Terry).

nomics, Finance and Legal Studies, The University of Alabama, for her assistance with preparation of the manuscript. In Yucatán we have been most fortunate to have the support and guidance of a number of knowledgeable and dedicated scholars and leaders. Luis Alfonso Ramírez, a contributor to this volume and former Director of the Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de la Universidad de Yucatán, made the facilities and materials of his research center available on a most generous basis and shared his valuable insight on the society and economy of the region. Ing. Manuel Miér y Terán, former Secretary of Planning for the state of Yucatán, offered meaningful lectures and advice, as did Professor Othón Baños. Special thanks are due to José Luis Ponce García, outstanding business leader, astute observer of Yucatecan society, and a former member of the Board of International Advisors for the College of Commerce and Business Administration of The University of Alabama, who hosted numerous delegations to Yucatán and shared his valuable insight into the complex nature of the region. Of all the friends and colleagues, one stands out in a special way. We first met Eduardo Tello Solis in 1978 when he was Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs for the state of Yucatán. Not only did he open many doors in the scholarly and official community, including that of Governor Francisco

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Preface / xv

Fig. 3. The late Edward H. Moseley and Eduardo Tello Solis (photo by Edward H. Moseley, 1999).

Luna Kan, but more importantly, he shared his encyclopedic knowledge of and enduring passion for the culture and society of Yucatán. Especially memorable were his enthusiastic lectures on the music of the peninsula. Whether in a political discussion or simply on a stroll through the streets of Mérida, Don Eduardo was always available to assist in so many ways. He also opened his home and extended the friendship of his wife, Tere, and their children, Eduardo, Tere, Marta, and Beatriz. Hundreds of scholars and students have sampled Teri’s traditional dishes, such as poc chuc and papadzules, or have shared mero (grouper) roasted over an open fire at Puerto Chicxulub. The editors are pleased to dedicate this collection of essays in appreciation of Eduardo Tello. Edward H. Moseley, co-editor of this volume, died on March 28, 2005. While he lived with cancer for seven years, Ed’s indefatigable spirit and keen sense of humor kept him engaged in the things he loved most: together with his wife, Virginia, entertaining international friends and colleagues in their home; revisiting Germany, Spain, Guatemala, and Yucatán; counseling students; and, of course, writing until the end. Next to his native Alabama, he considered Yucatán his other patria chica. He was my valued friend and colleague of many years, and all of us who knew him will miss him. It is only appropriate that we, his colleagues and contributors to this project, have decided to co-dedicate Yucatán in an Era of Globalization in his memory.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

xvi / Preface

Notes 1. The late Irving Webber was Professor of Sociology at the University of Alabama and also served as department chairman for many years. 2. Edward H. Moseley and Edward D. Terry, eds., Yucatan: A World Apart (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1980). 3. Jeffery Brannon and Eric N. Baklanoff, Agrarian Reform and Public Enterprise in Mexico:The Political Economy of Yucatán’s Henequen Industry (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987). 4. This folk culture was described in what were to become the classical works of Robert Redfield and his associates between 1930 and 1950. See Robert Redfield and Alfonso Villa Rojas, Chan Kom: A Maya Village (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1934); Robert Redfield, A Village That Chose Progress: Chan Kom Revisited (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950). For an analysis of the interpretation of Redfield and his companions as well as a survey of more recent views on the topic, see Gilbert M. Joseph, Rediscovering the Past at Mexico’s Periphery: Essays on the History of Modern Yucatán (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1986). 5. Irwin Press, “Historical Dimensions of Orientations to Change in a Yucatec Peasant Community,” in Anthropology and History inYucatán, ed. Grand D. Jones (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977), 275–88; Irving L. Webber, “Social Organization and Change in Modern Yucatan,” in Moseley and Terry, Yucatan, 172–201. 6. Allen Wells, Yucatán’s Gilded Age: Haciendas, Henequen, and International Harvester, 1860–1915 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985). For a highly favorable account of the life of Maya peons on a hacienda, see Narcisa Trujillo, “El Maya de las Haciendas Henequeneras,” Enciclopedia Yucatanense, 2nd ed. (Mérida: Edición Oficial del Gobierno de Yucatán, 1977), 6:133–71. 7. Eric N. Baklanoff, “The Diversification Quest: A Monocrop Export Economy in Transition,” in Moseley and Terry, Yucatan, 202–44. 8. The late Alfredo Barrera Vásquez directed the Department of Philology and Linguistics of the Southeast Regional Center, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mérida, Yucatán. He also was Research Associate in Anthropology at The University of Alabama.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Introduction Yucatán since the 1982 Mexican Debt Crisis Eric N. Baklanoff

Mexico’s 1982 crisis was rooted in a huge, unsustainable external public debt, a sheltered inefficient manufacturing sector, and the dominant role of oil in the country’s export profile. Mexico’s debt problem in turn was linked closely to the systemic crisis of its public enterprises, whose number grew explosively from 84 in 1970 to 740 in 1976 and 1,155 in 1982.1 In his first address to the Mexican Congress in December 1982, President Miguel de la Madrid (1982– 88) lamented: “The majority of public enterprises not only register permanent deficit, but their financial statements reflect bankruptcy.”2 The consolidated losses of these debt-burdened entities reached 8 percent of Mexico’s GDP, or nearly half of the national fiscal deficit.3 For Yucatán, Mexico’s debt crisis and its aftermath had profound implications: in a climate of extreme fiscal austerity, the federal government no longer could afford the luxury of subsidizing the state’s moribund agri-industrial henequen industry. Since 1982 Mexico’s path toward globalization has been a tortuous one marked by two recessions and episodes of high inflation. The December 1994 peso crisis was followed in 1995 by a severe domestic market contraction and massive bankruptcies. Although impressive in terms of numbers of enterprises divested, Mexico’s privatization process has been flawed by political cronyism in some instances. The key energy sector—oil, natural gas, and electricity—has been neither privatized nor reformed. Still, on balance, the shift of about one thousand enterprises from the public to the private sector between 1983 and 2003 has substantially benefited Mexico.4 Privatization has provided revenues needed to dramatically reduce the country’s crushing external debt burden and increase spending for education and poverty alleviation. Improvements in firm performance resulting from efficiency gains have given Mexicans greater access to goods and services. Transparency International’s 2005 “Corruption Perceptions Index” (CPI) indicates that Mexico has issues related to the rule of law. Among the 159 countries included in its survey, Mexico ranked 65th, well above Chile (21st) and Uruguay (32nd), the least corrupt in Latin America. With its 2005 CPI score of only 3.5, Mexico is placed in the company of Ghana, Peru, and

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

2 / Eric N. Baklanoff Turkey—all countries perceived as having a serious corruption problem. To evaluate Mexico’s standing among countries pursuing market reform, it is useful to consult the 2006 “Index of Economic Freedom.” Published jointly by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, the index established a benchmark by which to gauge a country’s prospects for economic growth. Among the 161 sovereign nations included in the index, Mexico was characterized as “mostly free” and ranked 60th, well below Chile (14th) and El Salvador (34th)—the most economically free in Latin America. The World Bank’s annual survey Doing Business evaluates the business climate of 175 member countries. In the 2006 survey, the bank placed Mexico 43rd worldwide and second in Latin America (behind Chile at 23rd). Significantly, Mexico jumped nineteen places in its overall rank that year compared with 2005. The bank praised the country’s new securities law that protects minority investors, a streamlined procedure for business startups, and a graduated cut in the corporate income tax.5 Also on the positive side, Mexico has demonstrated notable success in penetrating the U.S. market with manufactured products as well as putting the government’s fiscal house in order. In the presidential election of July 2, 2006, center-right candidate Felipe Calderón of the Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN, National Action Party) won by a narrow margin of 240,000. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Calderón’s principal opponent, made it clear he would not accept any ruling from the special elections court short of an order to recount all 42 million ballots. Facing a divided and possibly hostile Congress, Calderón will have to depend on his political skill and strength as a leader, but even more on his capacity to form alliances with disaffected members of the other two parties.6 The president-elect, who promises to continue the free-trade policies championed by outgoing President Vicente Fox (2000–2006) and to enhance Mexico’s competitiveness, would like to open the country’s state-controlled energy sector to private investment—a policy that had been firmly rejected by leftist candidate Lopéz Obrador. For Calderón, reforming and partially privatizing Pemex, the country’s oil monopoly, would present a daunting challenge as well as an opportunity to greatly strengthen Mexico’s long-term economic prospects.7 This introduction provides a brief contextual framework for the book and previews the chapters. The framework highlights four salient factors that have given shape and direction to Yucatán’s economy and society since 1982: the decline and collapse of the monocrop economy, economic diversification, the Yucatán–Quintana Roo nexus, and Mérida’s emergence as a strategic city.

Henequen Malaise: The Decline and Collapse of the Monocrop Economy By expropriating the family-owned plantations in the 1930s and nationalizing the private cordage mills in 1964, the Mexican government profoundly

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Introduction / 3

Fig. 4. Hacienda Yaxcopoil, a henequen defibration plant (photo by Joy D. Baklanoff ).

altered the henequen industry’s organization and incentive structure.8 By the mid-1970s two federal enterprises, Banco Rural (which supervised and financed the collective ejidos) and Cordemex (the nationalized multiplant cordage enterprise), dominated the state’s economy. The Great Depression of the 1930s and the invention of the harvester combine (which reduced the use of twine) contributed to the henequen industry’s woes during that decade. In 1937 President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934– 40) ordered the expropriation of more than 70 percent of the state’s henequen plantations. The path that agrarian reform took in Yucatán differed significantly from that taken in most other parts of rural Mexico. Cárdenas, who favored the collectivization of agriculture, chose Yucatán along with the cotton-producing La Laguna region of northern Mexico to be models of an extensive collectivized program. As a political strategy, his radical reform hastened the integration of the country and consolidated the power of its postrevolutionary political elites. The ejidatarios, the presumed beneficiaries of the 272 collective henequen ejidos, became a durable base of support for the ruling party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI, Institutional Revolutionary Party). All fiber production was not collectivized, however, for federal legislation provided for the operation of two forms of private property. The hacendados were allowed to retain 150 hectares (later amended to 300 hectares) of their

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

4 / Eric N. Baklanoff

Fig. 5. Hacienda Yaxcopoil, entrance to owner’s mansion (photo by Tanya A. Baklanoff ).

former holdings, designated as pequeñas propiedades, along with the desfibradoras (rasping machinery) and the casco (the hacienda core buildings). Thus the former hacendados made up most of the new group identified as pequeños propietarios. In addition, some campesinos were granted titles to small plots under agrarian laws passed before 1937, or to land they purchased later; these holdings (twenty-five or fewer hectares) were known as parcelas and the owners as parcelarios. By the late 1970s, ejidos constituted 64 percent of henequen land in full production, pequeñas propiedades 27 percent, and parcelas approximately 9 percent. All three forms of land tenure continued throughout the twentieth century, but the collective ejidos were by far the most important in the economy and politics of the region. Significantly, a 1968 United Nations

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Introduction / 5

Fig. 6. Cathedral on Plaza Mayor, Mérida (photo by Tanya A. Baklanoff ).

study concluded that though the average yield per hectare on ejido land was 750 kilograms, pequeña propiedad and parcela yields averaged 1,150 and 1,300 kilograms, respectively.9 Private yields were not only well above those of the ejido sector but also compared favorably with the productivity of the prereform haciendas. In the mid-1920s Yucatecan entrepreneurs initiated a modern, forwardly linked cordage industry that eventually displaced U.S. production with manufactured exports from Yucatán. The absence of U.S. tariff barriers against cordage permitted Yucatán’s penetration of the American market for harvest twine, cables, ropes, packing twine, and other henequen products. Further, the peninsula’s lower labor costs and proximity to the United States facilitated North American marketing operations and U.S. bank financing of the industry’s working-capital needs. Among the leading national producers of hard fiber in the early 1960s—Brazil, Tanzania, the Philippines, and Mexico—only Yucatán possessed a large export-oriented cordage industry. In 1964 the Mexican government increased its involvement in the henequen industry by nationalizing Yucatán’s fiber-using cordage mills and placing them under the direction of a single publicly owned corporation, Cordemex. In contrast to the uncompensated expropriations that characterized the agrarian reform of the 1930s, a large majority of the cordage mill owners initiated the transfer of their properties to the Mexican government, and most of them were pleased with the terms of the financial settlement. Cordemex was

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

6 / Eric N. Baklanoff

Fig. 7. Streetscape, central Mérida (photo by Tanya A. Baklanoff ).

granted near-monopoly powers in both the domestic and external markets for henequen manufactures as well as substantial control over the destination of the raw fiber sales of the ejidos and the remaining private producers. Cordemex’s investment strategy during the 1970s bore little relationship to world market trends in the demand for natural fiber. As a public enterprise, unconstrained by the discipline of private capital markets, the company had easy access to federal funds for expansion projects. Notwithstanding the longterm decline in global demand for natural fiber, Cordemex, during the presidential term of Luis Echeverría (1970–76), invested heavily in mills, equipment, and defibration facilities; the firm’s manufacturing capacity increased from 100,000 tons annually to 141,000 tons in this period. Under the president’s populist administration, the company’s labor force more than doubled, from 3,700 to 7,500, the average wage rate tripled, and consequently the firm’s wages and salaries became the highest in the Mexican textile industry. With sixteen industrial plants (most of them located in Yucatán), Cordemex became the premier industrial enterprise in the state. On the outskirts of Mérida, the company’s principal manufacturing complex included luxurious air-conditioned offices, a resort-like house where important government visitors stayed when they came to Yucatán, and a company town, “a middleclass enclave that contrasts to the rural simplicity of houses of the peasants who produce henequen.”10 Cordemex’s principal administrators came from

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Introduction / 7 other parts of Mexico and changed every six years with the new presidential term. With the introduction of price-competitive synthetic fiber, world demand for natural fiber declined sharply from the mid-1960s. By 1970 the synthetics, which possess advantages over natural fibers in many end uses, had captured almost half of the rope and cable markets in high-income industrial nations and made serious inroads into the packing and industrial twine markets. Reflecting the inexorable decline in world demand for natural hard fiber, global output contracted. Political crises in Yucatán, however, prevented henequen industry officials from making timely and adequate responses to the deteriorating conditions in the fiber market. Instead of minimizing losses, both Banco Rural and Cordemex, as the leading symbols of the federal government in Yucatán, pursued policies designed to allay social discontent and defection from the ruling party. The economic consequences of this political strategy were staggering. By 1980, the henequen industry’s losses were so overwhelming and production so disorganized that Cordemex and Banco Rural had almost ceased performing a legitimate economic function in the state. Instead, the two federal entities had become the major disbursing agents for a massive, corrupt, and largely ad hoc social welfare program in Yucatán. Addressing both the economic and political dimensions of the state’s difficulties, President de la Madrid inaugurated in 1984 the Henequen Rationalization and Integral Development Program. The program’s aim was to foster industry restructuring and market-driven economic diversification in Yucatán while reducing and redirecting federal subsidies to the state. Eight years later, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988–94), de la Madrid’s successor, finally terminated the federal government’s protracted role in henequen production. After indemnifying the 5,980 cordage workers with severance pay in 1990, Cordemex was divided into four separate operating units and sold to private investors in May 1991.11 Following the reform of Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution, the federal government in 1992 distributed the collective ejido land in individual parcels and provided severance pay for 30,225 ejidatarios between the ages of twenty and forty-nine. Federal authorities also gave early retirement to 12,200 ejidatarios over the age of fifty.12 Hence, under private ownership both fiber growing and cordage manufacturing have been radically downsized in accordance with cost and global market considerations.

Economic Diversification and Structural Change In tandem with the decline of the henequen monocrop system,Yucatán has accelerated the diversification of its economy. In the countryside, livestock production and nontraditional crops have eclipsed henequen cultivation. Tourism, largely associated with the development of the state’s archaeological sites,

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

8 / Eric N. Baklanoff has created numerous jobs and generated revenue from visitors, both domestic and foreign. Commercial fishing and related activities, of negligible importance in the 1950s, have become sources of employment and income for numerous communities along Yucatán’s northern coast. Since 1984 the maquiladora export-assembly industry has become the centerpiece of Yucatán’s diversification drive. It is important to emphasize the critical role played by Víctor Cervera Pacheco, who served as interim (1984–87) and elected (1995–2001) governor of Yucatán. With solid political connections within the PRI—as a former leader of the Comisión Nacional de Campesinos (National Campesino Commission)—Cervera Pacheco mobilized federal support for port modernization and expansion of the state’s electrical power grid, and he designated Yucatán as “Mexico’s other maquiladora frontier.” Table 1 illustrates the changing commodity structure of Yucatán’s agricultural-livestock sector between 1980 and 2000. The share of livestock production in the value of the sector’s total output rose sharply from about 58 percent in 1980 to 82 percent in 2000. Three categories—poultry, eggs, and pork— more than doubled their joint participation from 29 percent to 64 percent in the state’s agricultural-pastoral production. Henequen, whose value exceeded the combined production of all other crops in 1980, contracted sharply during the two-decade period and fell to last place in 2000. Two crops, citrus fruit and vegetables, not only experienced strong output expansion over the two decades but also increased their market shares in the state’s agricultural-livestock sector. Henequen, which for decades dominated Yucatán’s rural landscape, collapsed to a mere 2.3 percent share of the sector’s production in 2000. The cultural heritage of Yucatán plays an important role in the peninsula’s development. The ancient Maya communities, such as Chichén Itzá and Uxmal, first gained worldwide attention through the publications of Incidents of Travel in Yucatán by John Lloyd Stephens in 1843. Governor Felipe Carrillo Puerto (1922–23), who built the first roads to these sites, also patronized U.S. archaeological digs. In the first half of the twentieth century, many archaeologists concentrated their activities on the principal sites of the northern section of the peninsula, then expanded the scope of their investigations to other sections after 1950, in part due to the guidance of Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (National Institute of Anthropology and History). As research progressed there was also a growing increase in tourism related to the allure of the ancient Maya. In contrast to Cancún’s mega-tourism with its emphasis on “sun, sand, and sex,” the state of Yucatán has sought to capitalize on its archaeologicalhistorical patrimony. Large public outlays have been made in restoring archaeological sites and colonial structures, including churches and convents, and in modernizing the state’s highway network. As noted in chapter 2, the enlargement of the port of Progreso now facilitates the docking of cruise lin-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Introduction / 9

Table 1 Yucatán: Diversi¤cation in the agricultural-livestock sector, 1980 and 2000 Crops Henequen Corn Citrus fruit Vegetables Other Subtotal

(Value of total production, percent) 1980 2000 21.2 2.3 11.3 5.5 3.1 5.1 2.6 4.0 4.1 2.9 42.1 19.8 (Value of total production, percent)

Livestock Beef Poultry Pork Eggs Honey Milk Other Subtotal Grand Total

22.7 10.9 10.5 7.5 4.9 1.2 — 57.7 100.0

16.0 26.0 23.2 14.3 1.3 0.7 0.7 82.2 100.0

Sources: For 1980, Secretaria de Programación y Presupuesto, Yucatán: Informe económico, 1980 (Mérida, 1981). For 2000, Quinto informe de gobierno, anexos (Mérida, 2001).

ers from U.S. Gulf ports. The number of ships docking at the port increased annually from 64 in the 2001–2 tourism year (with 78,023 passengers) to 111 in 2004–5 (with 240,539 passengers).13 Beginning in the 1990s, private investment, both national and foreign, has favored four- and five-star hotels, located mainly in Mérida, as well as the restoration of “golden age” haciendas in the former henequen zone. The number of five-star hotels in Yucatán more than tripled, from seven to twenty-two, between 1995 and 2004, while the number of four-star hotels built rose more or less steadily, from nineteen to twenty-seven during the same period. The number of visitors to the state’s archaeological zones saw a rising trend, increasing from 1,138,688 in the 1995–96 tourism year to 2,051,155 in 2003– 4. On the basis of the number of visitors, Chichén Itzá ranked first, followed in descending order of importance by Uxmal, Dzibilchaltún (located between Progreso and Mérida), Loltun, and Balankanché. Table 2 shows the changing profile of the state’s economically active population between 1990 and 2000. Total employment increased from 407,000 in 1990 to 618,000 in 2000, an increase exceeding 50 percent. Employment

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

10 / Eric N. Baklanoff

in Yucatán’s primary sector (agriculture, livestock, and commercial fishing) showed a small numerical decline while its share in the total shrank from 27 percent to 17 percent during the decade. Employment in the secondary sector (manufacturing, construction, mining, electricity, gas, and water) grew sharply from 100,000 to 174,000 during the decade while its share grew from 24.5 percent in 1990 to 28.3 percent in 2000. Manufacturing employment accounted for most of the expansion in the secondary sector: significantly, of the 55,000 new manufacturing jobs created, maquiladoras employed over 30,000, more than half of the total. Burgeoning construction employment partially reflects the large investment in factories, highways, and tourism infrastructure during the period. Notable expansion in the tertiary sector (services or intangible transactions) was registered in commerce as well as in services of restaurants and hotels, which numbered 28,550 employees in 2000 compared with 13,600 in 1990.

The Yucatán–Quintana Roo Nexus Designated a Mexican state in 1974, Quintana Roo has exerted a strong economic pull on its Yucatecan neighbor. The development of Cancún began in 1971 under the auspices of the Mexican government’s Fondo Nacional para

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Introduction / 11

Fig. 8. The Observatory at Chichén Itzá (photo by Joy D. Baklanoff ).

Turismo (National Fund for Tourism) with the financial assistance of the Inter-American Development Bank. First to be affected by the island’s transformation into a mega-tourism center were the local inhabitants, who until that time were barely making a living from small-scale fishing and subsistence agriculture. Between 1990 and 2000 the island’s hotel capacity doubled, reaching 50,000 rooms, making Cancún Mexico’s second most important tourism attraction for generating foreign exchange.14 Beach-resort tourism expanded southward along the Caribbean Cancún-Tulum corridor, including Playa del Carmen, and the nearby islands of Cozumel and Isla Mujeres. By 2003 Quintana Roo contributed 1.5 percent of national output while it represented nearly a third of Mexico’s investment in hotels and restaurants.15 From only 88,000 residents in 1970, with half of the labor force in agriculture, Quintana Roo’s population soared tenfold to 873,804 in 2000, of which 397,191 lived in the city of Cancún, whose residents cater to the needs of tourists, foreign and domestic. The state has attracted a large migratory flow from neighboring Yucatán, both permanent and temporary workers. Of Quintana Roo’s total population of 423,277 in 1990, 292,000 were born outside the state, and half of those were natives of Yucatán.16 In contrast to the large number of Yucatecans that have moved to Quintana Roo, few of their compatriots have immigrated to the United States. Among Yucatecan households only 1 percent have migrants in the United States—the lowest share among the thirty-two Mexican states—compared with 4.1 percent of all Mexican households.17

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

12 / Eric N. Baklanoff

Quintana Roo’s backward linkages through the purchase of building materials, foodstuffs and beverages, artisan products, and services has had a favorable impact on supplier firms located in Yucatán. Chichén Itzá, Yucatán’s premier archaeological site, plays host annually to tens of thousands of visitors who make the one-day trip from nearby Cancún. By the year 2000 the two neighboring states exhibited a highly divergent but complementary economic relationship (table 3). More than 94 percent of Quintana Roo’s production was generated by the tertiary sector (mainly hotel and restaurant services), with less than 7 percent contributed by industry and agriculture combined. By contrast, Yucatán’s economic structure showed a diversified pattern with 6 percent of its production arising in the primary sector and over 24 percent in the secondary sector, largely manufacturing and construction. The balance of the state’s GDP, 72 percent, is accounted for by a mosaic of services, including commerce, transportation and communication, restaurants and hotels, financial and real estate, and community and personal services. Yucatán’s sector-production profile is roughly comparable to that of Mexico as a whole, a convergence that in some measure validates recent Yucatecan initiatives to diversify and globalize its economy. In October 2005 Hurricane Wilma struck a major blow to Quintana Roo’s Caribbean coast. Storm-surge floodwater coursed through hotel lobbies and restaurants, hotel rooms were trashed by wind and rain, and numerous tourist shopping centers were emptied by looters. Some nearby piers were damaged with negative impact on the cruise-line business. Commenting on the problem, Ana Patricia Morales, vice-president of the Cancún Hotels Association, indicated that full recovery could take until Easter week of 2006.18 Because of the Cancún-Tulum corridor’s capacity to generate an enormous volume of foreign exchange for the country, the Mexican government has a

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Introduction / 13 large stake in reconstruction of damaged infrastructure in the mega-tourism region.19

Mérida as a Strategic City Following Mexico’s debt crisis, President de la Madrid designated Mérida as a strategic city and the Mérida-Progreso corridor as one of the nation’s priority growth poles. Located near major cities along the U.S. Gulf coast, the corridor offers Yucatán a competitive advantage, notably in the wake of Mexico’s NAFTA membership. The capital city grew from 241,964 residents (32 percent of Yucatán’s population in 1970) to 703,324 in 2000, expanding its share to 43 percent of the state’s total population.20 Almost half of total employment and over threefourths of value added in production in the state’s economy are concentrated in the municipality of Mérida.21 Consequently, Yucatán’s capital has emerged as a regional metropolitan center for southern and southeastern Mexico. The city projects economic power through its manufacturing and construction companies, whose reach extends far beyond the state, as well as through its vigorous wholesale and retail establishments and financial institutions. Recent large infrastructure investments support the Mérida-Progreso corridor’s regional ascendancy. These include the expanded and modernized port at Progreso, new industrial parks, and four-lane limited-access highways within and surrounding the metropolitan area. Virtually absent before the 1982 crisis, multinational companies now form part of Mérida’s entrepreneurial landscape. Major foreign bank offices with majority foreign ownership include Banamex-Citibank, BITAL-HSBC, Inverlat-Scotiabank, and the two largest Spanish banks, Servin-Santander and Bancomer-BBVA. Five-star hotels the Hyatt, Holiday Inn, and the Fiesta Americana are U.S.-owned with minority local participation. Carrifour of France and Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club compete with Mexican national and Yucatán-based retail establishments. Multinationals dominate the exportassembly maquiladora industry and also participate as joint venturers with the local brewery (Modelo-Budweiser) and the steel mill (Siderurgica de Yucatán with Canadian participation). Because of its cultural, educational, and medical amenities, the capital city offers an attractive environment for international managerial and technical personnel, an attraction that is enhanced by the tranquillity and low crime rate enjoyed by the city’s residents. Mérida is one of Mexico’s three safest cities.22

Chapter Previews In chapter 1, “Yucatán’s Prelude to Globalization,” Edward H. Moseley and Helen Delpar survey the history of Yucatán from the sixteenth century to 1940, emphasizing those events that profoundly altered political and economic

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

14 / Eric N. Baklanoff

Fig. 9. Hotel Fiesta Americana, Mérida (photo by José Luis Ponce García).

conditions in the state: the Spanish conquest, the Caste War of the 1840s, the “Golden Age” of henequen production from 1880 to 1915, and the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1940. Although the authors concentrate on adaptation and resistance within Yucatán’s traditional culture, they also describe the state’s links with the rest of Mexico and with the outside world, especially the United States. Even before the arrival of the Spanish, the Maya of the peninsula conducted trade with other parts of the Mesoamerican world. The establishment of Spanish rule brought Yucatán into economic and cultural relationships with Europe and other sections of the Spanish empire, a process that was accelerated as a result of eighteenth-century reforms. With the expansion of henequen cultivation in the nineteenth century, Yucatán was drawn into the economic orbit of the United States, which became its principal trading partner. Thus, while in many ways Yucatán remained “a world apart” well into the twentieth century, its past offers numerous precedents for the globalization of the late twentieth century with all its upheaval and change. In chapter 2, geographer Michael S. Yoder looks at Yucatán from dockside, tracing development at the port of Progreso from its founding in 1870 through a series of modifications, concluding with a major expansion completed in 2002. Established to promote Yucatán’s burgeoning henequen production and rapidly linked to the hinterland by Mexico’s most extensive rail system, Progreso served as a center not only for fiber export but also for the import of goods destined for haciendas, small towns, and especially the show-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Introduction / 15 case city of Mérida. After 1915 the port city shared in the declining fortunes of Yucatán’s monocrop system, yet henequen continued to dominate exports for the next sixty years. By the 1970s, however, as a part of its effort to diversify the economy of the region, the Mexican government promoted the construction of a fishing fleet, protected by a secure harbor (Puerto Abrigo) and served by modern refrigeration facilities. The expansion of poultry and pork production in the state brought increased grain imports, while growing energy demands were linked to the arrival of more and more petroleum products. By the 1990s the rapid development of maquiladoras involved the use of containers and time-sensitive delivery systems between port facilities and the interior of the state. Some of the new assembly operators chose to build their plants near the port, especially in the expanding corridor between Progreso and Mérida. The promotion of tourism based on the arrival of large cruise ships also had an impact on Progreso. All of these changes led to the most recent port expansion, involving additional container facilities, an enlarged bulk storage capacity, and the dredging of the channel to accommodate deep-draft vessels. As an expanding gateway into Yucatán, Progreso has the potential to stimulate general development of the region as a whole and to serve as an integral part of the expanding global community. President Lázaro Cárdenas’s sweeping land-tenure reforms in the mid1930s shook Yucatecan society from top to bottom. In chapter 3 Louis Alfonso Ramírez analyzes the emergence of a new business elite in the region made possible by the more flexible social structure tied to the political hegemony of the PRI. Although not entirely divorced from the casta divina (the traditional plantation-based henequen oligopoly), the modern elites of Yucatán have come predominantly from middle-class backgrounds, among them descendants of Lebanese immigrants. At the heart of Ramírez’s research are case studies of four outstanding business leaders, entrepreneurs at the top of their privately owned companies with interlocking networks to other entrepreneurs. With the opening of the Mexican economy since the mid-1980s, Yucatán’s business elite confronts fierce competition from both national and foreign-based enterprises. Ramírez asks whether the state’s much-diminished business groups—formed in a crucible of collusion between political and economic power—can rise to the challenge of the new globalization. Chapter 4, by Eric N. Baklanoff, analyzes Yucatán’s dynamic maquiladora industry. In the perspective of the state’s henequen malaise and proximity to major U.S. Gulf ports, he reviews the policy context, both national and regional, that supported Yucatán’s becoming Mexico’s “other maquiladora frontier.” He demonstrates how these export-assembly operations have contributed to burgeoning manufacturing employment not only in Mérida but also in small towns and villages, mainly in the former henequen zone. Replacing cordage products, the value added by the recently established maquiladoras

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

16 / Eric N. Baklanoff now dominates Yucatán’s export-commodity profile. These assembly plants have become a vehicle for bringing women into the workplace out of traditional home-based roles. The high female-to-male ratio of employees that characterizes maquila hiring practices in Yucatán has implications for gender dynamics, especially in rural households. Mexico’s post-1982 trade liberalization policy, together with the devaluation of the peso, set the country’s maquiladora industry on a new growth trajectory. The export-assembly industry’s extreme sensitivity to the U.S. business cycle helps explain its meteoric expansion in the 1990s and its sudden contraction in 2001–2 in Yucatán as well as in Mexico as a whole. The outlook for Mexico’s (and Yucatán’s) maquiladoras will depend in part on the industry’s capacity to meet the new Chinese competition in the U.S. market. As wage pressure builds along Mexico’s northern frontier and Yucatecans gain experience and skills, the state may be in a position to attract knowledgebased “second-generation” maquiladoras. Among the thirty-two Mexican states, Yucatán and Oaxaca have the highest share of indigenous people, estimated at just under 40 percent of the population.23 Chapters 5 and 6 present micro studies of two Maya villages located in the state’s eastern “corn zone,” both affected by the expanding economic opportunities of Cancún’s tourism emporium. In 1999 Paula R. Heusinkveld first arrived in Tinum, a Maya village located just to the northwest of Valladolid. Experiencing the rhythm of daily life, she found many aspects of the town to be “traditional” as defined in the 1930s by Robert Redfield and Alfonso Villa Rojas. Most families lived in solares (large family compounds), surrounded by fruit trees, domestic animals, and various outbuildings. The men cultivated corn, beans, squash, and other staples in nearby milpas, while women dressed in impeccably clean huipiles prepared tortillas and tended to children and household animals. The Maya language still prevailed among the older generation, as did many of the legends and ceremonies of the pre-conquest era, practiced alongside Roman Catholic rituals. Tinum was, however, very much in a state of change. The development of the mega-tourist resort of Cancún in the 1970s brought employment opportunities for many of the young men of the village, first in construction and gardening and later in a wide range of services and manual labor. Although a few migrated to the coast permanently, the great majority chose to rent small apartments in Cancún and return to Tinum for weekends. Heusinkveld raises a number of questions:What is the impact of contacts with Cancún on the people of Tinum? What purchases are made with the money earned in the tourist center, and to what extent are those purchases changing long-standing customs and lifestyles? Although it is too early to draw any final conclusions, the author is guardedly optimistic that enduring Maya values can be preserved despite the arrival of so many of the material intrusions of the modern world.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Introduction / 17 Located in the vicinity of Chichén Itzá, Chan Kom is one of the most studied Maya communities in the Yucatán Peninsula. The encyclopedic ethnographic knowledge that this community has inspired starts its earliest chapters in the first decades of the twentieth century when Chan Kom was portrayed as a prototype of traditional peasant community. Almost a century later, Alicia Re Cruz’s chapter focuses on the place Chan Kom occupies in the global arena mainly due to emigration toward Cancún, the international tourist emporium. Emigration generates cultural change that transforms the political, economic, and cultural dynamics of community life at the same time that it regenerates Maya strategies to define cultural “authenticity” based on the rules of consumption marked by the tourism market. Depending on the type of experiences with migration and tourism, the Maya envision, perceive, and symbolically express the influences of Cancún in the political, economic, and ideological milieus differently. Emigration also promotes the development of “human capital” through the process of learning skills and acquiring new knowledge and capabilities required in the migrant’s work performance in the tourist service sector. Re Cruz analyzes how this human capital is invested by the Maya migrant group of Chan Kom in the planning of tourist programs for community development. In chapter 7, Edward Moseley focuses on Tixkokob, a municipality of fifteen thousand inhabitants only eighteen kilometers east of Mérida, in the very heart of the former henequen zone. The town and surrounding haciendas took on a facade of prosperity and modernization during Yucatán’s Golden Age, and then entered a long period of decline with the demise of henequen. A growing number of men and women found employment in Mérida, but Tixkokob continued to share in the general depression characteristic of the henequen zone as a whole. By 1998, however, a major new development came from outside: Russell Mills, having decided to close all of its sewing operations in Alabama, constructed a modern apparel plant on the outskirts of Tixkokob. By January 1999, when the facility opened, more than thirteen hundred young men and women, almost 10 percent of the total population of the town, were employed by the company. Some local observers feared that the maquiladora would interrupt the traditional lifestyle of the region, especially for mothers who had to leave their children to work on the assembly line. Members of the municipal council, however, were delighted by the stimulation of the economy and pointed to the fact that young men and women could stay in Tixkokob rather than commute to the capital or the Caribbean coast. By the 1990s the long period of henequen monoculture had finally been broken, and the future of the community was linked increasingly to the broader international system with its fluctuations and unknown directions. Considering the world shift toward a service economy where tourism is its largest international component, in the final chapter Kathleen R. Martín and

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

18 / Eric N. Baklanoff William A. Martín González explore an alternative form of tourism, evolving from Yucatán’s distinctive regional setting, rich environmental assets, and unique cultural features. In such developing regions as Yucatán, globalization has not necessarily meant generalized improvements in living standards for all, the enhancement of unique local culture, a sustainable environment, or the empowerment and inclusion of local peoples. The authors construct a model for building an open process of local community participation that would be a keynote to alleviating poverty, constructing socio-environmental sustainability, and surmounting the exclusion of local peoples. Such a model of development would lead to a collaborative framework between local villages and other communities, civil society agencies, public institutions, and private businesses. Unlike tourism that focuses upon major archaeological sites or mega-beach resorts, the proposed model emphasizes Maya culture, Yucatecan history, and the unique environmental contours of the region. The authors propose that such an approach to tourist development in Yucatán would complement other development efforts within the regional framework of the peninsula.

Notes The author wishes to thank Joy D. Baklanoff and Edward D. Terry for their helpful comments on this introduction. 1. Eric N. Baklanoff, The Dependent “Entrepreneurial” State: Public Enterprise and External Debt in Latin America, Universities Field Staff International, Latin American Series, no. 17 (1986). 2. “Politica económica para 1983,” El Mercado de Valores, December 20, 1982, 1322. 3. René Villarreal, “Las empresas publicas como instrumento de politica economica: La experiencia Mexicana,” El Mercado de Valores, June 24, 1985, 597. 4. Alberto Chong and Florencio López-de-Silanes, “Privatization in Mexico,” in Privatization in Latin America, ed. Chong and López-de-Silanes (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 2005), 349–405. 5. Mary Anastasia O’Grady, “Doing Business in Latin America,” Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2006, A13. 6. Enrique Krause, “Furthering Democracy in Mexico,” Foreign Affairs 85, no. 1 (2006): 54–65. 7. The country’s largest corporate employer, Pemex is overseen by fifty government agencies. Of the 140,000 total workforce, its 100,000-member union clings to decades-long privileges and rigid work rules. With Mexico’s petroleum reserves falling, the company needs to tap into equity capital and technical expertise that only multinational enterprises can offer. According to Luis Ramírez Corzo, director general of the oil monopoly, Pemex’s estimate for developing its deepwater reserves would require a $15 billion annual investment for fifteen years. Pemex also lacks the capital to build new refineries or to develop the nation’s vast natural gas reserves. See Elizabeth Malkin, “Mexican Oil Chief Seeks Expansion,” New York Times, March 3, 2005, C8.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Introduction / 19 8. Much of this section is based on Jeffery Brannon and Eric N. Baklanoff, Agrarian Reform and Public Enterprise in Mexico: The Political Economy of Yucatán’s Henequen Industry (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987). 9. United Nations, Food and Agricultural Organization, El henequen Mexicano (New York: United Nations, 1968), 1. 10. Thomas G. Sanders, Henequen: The Structure of Agrarian Frustration, American Universities Field Staff, North American Series 5, no. 3 (1977), p. 8. 11. Diario de Yucatán, March 16, 1990. 12. Othon Baños Ramírez, Modernidad, imaginario, e entidad rurales: El caso de Yucatán (Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico, A.C., 2003), 88. 13. Tourism statistics are included in Informes de gobierno, anexo estadístico (Mérida, 2004 and 2005). 14. Baños Ramírez, Modernidad, 65. 15. Banamex-Citigroup, Review of the Economic Situation in Mexico, October 2005, 451. 16. Baños Ramírez, Modernidad, 67. 17. “Family Remittances in a Regional Context,” Banamex-Citigroup, Review, March 2005, 128. 18. “Battered Tourist Areas a Major Blow to Mexico,” Wall Street Journal, October 21, 2005, A18. 19. “Regional Panorama,” Banamex-Citigroup, Review, October 2005, 448–54. 20. Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática, Censo general de población y vivienda, various decades. 21. James J. Biles, “Export-Oriented Industrialization and Regional Development: A Case Study of Maquiladora Production in Yucatán, Mexico,” Regional Studies 38, no. 5 (2004): 522. 22. Mérida: An Exceptional Place to Invest (Mérida: Department of Economic Development, n.d.). 23. “Socio-Political Indicators: Census 2000,” Banamex-Citigroup, Review, June 2001, 259.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

1 Yucatán’s Prelude to Globalization Edward H. Moseley and Helen Delpar

At the head of the staircase in the Governor’s Palace in Mérida is a mural in which a human form emerges from an ear of corn, symbolizing the creation of “Hombres de Maíz” as revealed in the Popol Vuh, sacred book of the Quiché Maya. In this and other murals in the palace, painted by Fernando Castro Pacheco between 1971 and 1978, the history of Yucatán unfolds in a dramatic procession of people and events: from pre-conquest times to the arrival of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century and the subjugation of the natives, to the rise of henequen cultivation in the nineteenth century and the impact of the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1940. The murals tell a tale not only of change, resistance, and accommodation but also of the projection of Yucatán’s people and products beyond the Maya zone to central Mexico, Europe, and the United States.1

Yucatán’s Pre-conquest Civilization The civilization of these “men of corn” reached a high point during the Classic Period (250–900 c.e.) as a ruling class of nobles and priests developed sophisticated mathematical systems, made complicated astronomical and calendrical calculations, and constructed ornate ceremonial centers that reached from northern Yucatán to the lowlands of Guatemala and Honduras. Yet the Classical cities and their advanced culture were made possible by the efforts of the common people who produced surplus corn and beans and provided manual labor to erect the monuments.2 Long before the Classic Period, a remarkably uniform folk culture, bound by a common language (Yucatec Maya), evolved across the flat limestone platform of the Yucatán Peninsula. Farmers settled near cenotes (sinkholes), which provided a reliable supply of water even in times of drought, and cultivated a mixed crop of corn, beans, squash and chili peppers in their milpas (farm plots). Domestic life centered on the nah, a simple dwelling of sticks and mud plaster, and other structures in a solar (family house plot) where women carried out the daily routine of grinding corn and preparing torti-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Prelude to Globalization / 21 llas. At the community level, shamans presided over ceremonies to manipulate the whimsical forces of nature in the Maya’s struggle for bountiful crops; especially important was the rite imploring the rain god Chaac to supply the all-important moisture to germinate the grains of corn. Despite the seeming continuity and stability of Yucatecan life, change occurred as city-states rose and fell, notably Chichén Itzá, which flourished as a major regional center during the Terminal Classic Period (800–1000), and Mayapán, which headed a loose confederation from about 1250 to 1450. Trade brought Yucatán into contact with central Mexico and other Maya-speaking regions as it exchanged salt, cotton cloth, honey, and slaves for obsidian, jade, and other goods.

An Obscure Corner of the Spanish Empire, 1547–1700 The first encounter between Spaniards and the Maya occurred during Christopher Columbus’s fourth voyage, in 1502. Off the coast of northern Honduras the Spaniards sighted a large canoe carrying trade goods: cacao, copper bells and axes, pottery, cotton clothing, and wooden swords with obsidian blades. However, it was not until 1527 that sustained efforts to occupy Yucatán began under the leadership of a veteran conquistador, Francisco de Montejo.3 Twenty years elapsed before the Spanish were firmly established in northern Yucatán; regions to the southeast were not subjugated until the late seventeenth century. As the king’s representative, Montejo assigned encomiendas (tribute-paying villages) to himself and to his trusted lieutenants. The conquistadores were not actually given ownership of the encomiendas, and in any case preferred to establish their base of operation in Mérida, founded in 1542 on the site of the Maya city of Tihó. The preeminence of the capital city and the desire of the elite to be at its heart followed long-established Roman and Iberian tradition. Similar conditions existed in the three other “European” towns— Campeche, Valladolid, and the frontier outpost of Salamanca de Bacalar—but it was Mérida that evolved as the primary center of Spanish power. Royal officials and members of the clergy were dispatched to Mérida on the heels of the conquest to defend the interests of the king and to convert the Indians to Christianity. The representatives of the crown quickly gained the upper hand over the encomenderos, but they and their heirs—never more than 150 at any one time—continued to occupy a central place in the evolving society. In most regions of Spanish America, encomiendas had disappeared by the end of the sixteenth century. In Yucatán they continued until the 1780s; generation after generation of elite Spaniards and Creoles (American-born whites) collected tribute from their assigned villages.4 The task of bringing Christianity to the Yucatecan Maya was entrusted to the Order of St. Francis, which was granted a virtual monopoly by the crown. The first eight friars arrived in 1544 and proceeded to set up mon-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

22 / Edward H. Moseley and Helen Delpar asteries, baptize native leaders, and teach their sons to read and write Maya in European letters. A second contingent arrived in 1549. Among them was Diego de Landa, who became notorious for his campaign to extirpate idolatry and human sacrifice in 1562, causing the torture and deaths of thousands, and for his destruction of Maya codices. Ironically, Landa is also remembered for his Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, written while in temporary exile in Spain. First published in 1864, it is a major source of information about Maya history and culture. Despite their best efforts, the Franciscans were never sufficient in number to minister to the widespread flock; there were only about thirty-eight friars for the entire peninsula in 1580, and half of them resided in Mérida or Campeche.5 Nonetheless, the order left an indelible mark throughout the peninsula. Maya domestic life eventually settled into a routine reminiscent of patterns before the conquest. Virtually all men tended their milpas of corn, and might grow cotton or henequen or raise bees. Women prepared tortillas, wove cotton into mantas (blankets), and looked after children in the traditional nahs. Corn and mantas were intended for household use and were also supplied to Spaniards as tribute or trade goods. Domesticated animals introduced by the Spaniards, such as pigs and chickens, added new sources of protein to the diet, especially on festival days. Matthew Restall’s study of Maya wills and other documents shows that colonial Maya sold and bequeathed land, though the cabildos (municipal councils) controlled community lands.6 As in other parts of Spanish America, the indigenous population declined dramatically in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, mainly as a result of disease and famine, but the Maya always outnumbered Spaniards and Creoles, who represented about 4 percent of the population in 1671.7 The number of mestizos (white-Maya mixed-bloods) and persons of African ancestry also remained small. Moreover, the administrative structure created by the Spanish government allowed for indigenous self-rule at the local level, where the cabildo of each municipality was staffed by Maya and headed by a batab (governor), often a member of the traditional nobility. These nobles also acted as intermediaries between the Maya and royal authorities.8 At the local level, indigenous officials were also in charge of the day-to-day operations of the parish church, which might be visited only occasionally by a Franciscan friar or by one of the few secular priests in the colony. The Maya accepted the ritual, saints, and other aspects of Christianity without completely abandoning pre-Hispanic religious practices, but evinced hostility to clerics who they believed had failed in the proper discharge of their duties.9

From “Second Conquest” to Caste War, 1700–1848 According to historian Nancy Farris, the changes that came to Yucatán in the eighteenth century amounted to a “second conquest.”10 With the accession

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Prelude to Globalization / 23 of the French Bourbon dynasty in Spain in 1700, numerous reforms were introduced, especially during the reign of Charles III (1759–88), that were intended to rationalize royal administration, encourage colonial economic growth, and increase royal revenue. In Yucatán the introduction of the intendant system in 1786 and the appointment of sub-delegates brought resident royal officials to Maya communities for the first time. Also significant was the liberalization of old commercial restrictions as Yucatán was permitted to trade freely within the empire in 1770. The province found new markets in Cuba for salt, salted meat, and cordage and other products made of henequen. Internal markets also expanded as a result of an increase in the peninsula’s population, both of Maya and non-Indians. By the end of the eighteenth century, the latter represented nearly 30 percent of the total and were concentrated in the larger towns.11 Until the latter part of the eighteenth century, acquisition of land by Spaniards and Creoles in Yucatán had been limited. Their estates had concentrated primarily on raising cattle, while the Maya remained the principal agriculturalists. With the rise in local and foreign demand, landholding by Spaniards and Creoles increased, as did their production of agricultural commodities such as corn, rice, cotton, and sugarcane. In a valuable description of Espita, some fourteen kilometers north of Valladolid, Rosemary Batt notes that by 1790 there were 306 “Spanish” (non-Maya) residents of the municipality who went on to establish estates devoted mainly to the production of sugar and rum for the local market. Labor for the new agricultural estates, especially in the northwest, was often provided by tenants, called luneros because they worked every Monday (lunes) for the owner in exchange for a plot of land to till.12 In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, support for Spanish laws and institutions that had protected the community landholdings of the Maya was weakened as a result of the spread of liberal ideology that extolled the benefits of private property held by individuals. This trend continued after Mexican independence was achieved in 1821. In 1825 the state legislature of Yucatán facilitated the alienation of terrenos baldíos (uncultivated or public lands) to individuals, and in 1841 it limited the size of landholdings that could be claimed by Maya communities.13 Land in excess of those limits could be declared baldíos. Seeing an opportunity to gain quick profits, planters pushed rapidly into the eastern and southern frontiers of Yucatán in the early decades after independence. Little attention was given to the fact that Maya communities depended on these “uncultivated lands” to support the system of shifting milpa agriculture. Rivalries between Mérida and Campeche that had begun in the early colonial period intensified after 1811 when the port of Sisal was inaugurated on the northwestern coast of the peninsula as a port for Mérida. By 1845 the value of goods shipped from Sisal was double that from Campeche. Municipal hostilities were temporarily averted as political leaders joined forces to op-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

24 / Edward H. Moseley and Helen Delpar pose the centralizing national government in Mexico City. In 1841 Yucatán adopted a new constitution that provided for virtual autonomy as long as centralists ruled in the national capital, and when an invading Mexican army was repulsed in early 1843 the streets of Mérida erupted in joyous celebration. Yucatán operated as a sovereign nation throughout most of the period from 1836 to 1847, but regional autonomy did not mean harmony between Mérida and Campeche; old grudges flared from time to time into open clashes. Both cities strengthened the enlisted ranks of their militias with Maya recruits from the surrounding countryside. In exchange for these levies, politicians and commanders placed guns and ammunition in the hands of the recruits and promised to lower taxes (including religious fees) and guarantee access to land by Indian villages.14 When those promises were later ignored, the stage was set for one of the most destructive native uprisings on the North American continent, the Caste War of Yucatán. The first torch was ignited on July 30, 1847, as Cecilio Chi, batab of Tepich in the far south, attacked the town, killing nearly all the whites and mestizos and burning their homes and cane fields. While the chronology and details of the ensuing conflict are well known, historians have differed on the causes of the war and the goals of the insurgents.15 Some early Yucatecans, writing from a Creole perspective, saw the uprising as motivated primarily by racial or ethnic hatred. Maya in the northwestern portion of the peninsula did not take part in the conflict, however, while insurgent leaders included nonIndians. More recent historians have emphasized dislocations caused by recent economic changes and in particular the assault on Maya lands. As a result, the conflict is often interpreted as an indigenous peasant revolt. Finally, historians also note that some insurgents included obligations to state and church among their principal grievances. An abortive peace agreement drafted in April 1848 included provisions for the reduction of fees for baptism and marriage, abolition of a hated head tax, free use of public lands, and a ban on their alienation in the future.16 Fighting raged throughout the south and east for the next eighteen months. Late in 1847, Jacinto Pat, batab of Tihosuco, took control of that town as well as Peto and Sotuta. The following year he captured Tekax and Ticul. Meanwhile, after a lengthy siege by forces under Chi, Valladolid was evacuated; more than ten thousand refugees left the city and were attacked by the Maya as they made their way to Espita. The religious center of Izamal fell in May, as did Bacalar, facilitating the Maya’s acquisition of arms and other war supplies from the British colony of Belize. Just as the insurgents seemed poised to attack Mérida, they pulled back, perhaps because of the approach of the planting season, though other reasons have been advanced as well. State troops now went on the offensive and recaptured Tekax and other towns. In December 1848, bolstered by arms supplied by Mexico and by a force of U.S. volunteers, they converged on Valladolid.17

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Prelude to Globalization / 25 The once proud city was a mere shell of its former glory, but its capture provided a major psychological boost for the Creole population of Yucatán. Difficulties continued to beset the rebels. Both Chi and Pat were murdered by their own people in 1849. In May 1849 Yucatecan forces recaptured Bacalar, depriving the insurgents of easy access to Belize. After an amnesty was extended, state authorities began to send captured rebels to Cuba as indentured servants, a practice that continued sporadically until 1861. On September 16, 1853, a group of Maya leaders, meeting in Belize with Yucatecan emissaries, signed an agreement whereby the Maya recognized the sovereignty of Yucatán but were to enjoy virtual autonomy over a number of isolated pockets in the wooded area south of the Puuc hills and east of Campeche. Inhabitants of these areas, numbering perhaps twelve thousand in the 1850s, came to be known as “Pacíficos del Sur.”18 It was in the more distant eastern forest that the heritage of the Caste War was most persistent. In 1850 rebel commander José María Barrera, a mestizo, led the nearly starving remnant of his followers to a site some 150 kilometers southeast of Valladolid where there was a cenote and a small cross carved into a mahogany tree. Juan de la Cruz Puc, a member of Barrera’s group, now heard voices emanating from the cross, which he relayed by means of a ventriloquist. Soon the Speaking Cross attracted a following that survived the disappearance of Juan de la Cruz in 1852, and the main site of the cult became known as Chan Santa Cruz. Barrera remained in charge of the settlement until his death in 1852, after which Venancio Puc ruled as political and religious leader. Soon afterward a large stone church was constructed as a shrine to the cross and was called the Balam Na, or House of the Priest.19 During the 1850s Yucatecan and Mexican armies undertook several expeditions into the region, destroying villages and uprooting cornfields, but the Cruzob, or children of the Speaking Cross, were not subdued and inflicted major casualties on the invading forces. They also mounted raids against frontier towns, massacring hundreds in Tekax in 1857 and capturing Bacalar in 1858. After a major expedition against the Cruzob in 1860 ended in disaster, authorities in Mérida abandoned attempts to subdue the “uncivilized savages” and turned to more important affairs at home. It was not until 1899, during the Porfiriato (the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, 1876–1911), that a major campaign was undertaken to reclaim eastern Yucatán. Led by General Ignacio Bravo, well-armed Mexican and Yucatecan troops repelled attacks and built roads and forts as they made their way to the Cruzob heartland. They occupied Santa Cruz on May 4, 1901. To the consternation of many Yucatecans, however, in 1902 the Díaz administration decreed the separation of the eastern region and its incorporation as the new federal territory of Quintana Roo, named after a Yucatecan hero of the independence era. Another major slice of the peninsula had been detached from the jurisdiction of Yucatán in 1858 with the formation of the state of Campeche. Dif-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

26 / Edward H. Moseley and Helen Delpar ferences over economic policy between Mérida and the old port city had not abated: indeed, at the very height of the Caste War, when all their revered institutions were threatened with total destruction, the Creole elites of Mérida and Campeche often pitted their militia units against each other rather than cooperate against the common enemy at their gates. After the separation of 1858, Campeche followed its traditional policies of trade with Veracruz and other Mexican ports while Yucatecan ports were oriented to Cuba and the United States. Although the political leaders in Mérida denounced the division and would contest it over the next two decades, the removal of the political intrigues stemming from municipal jealousies allowed them to devote their energies to a new model that would more closely integrate Yucatán into the world economy than ever before.

The Golden Age of Henequen, 1880–1915 The Caste War and its aftermath brought about a redefinition of the state of Yucatán and dramatically reshaped its society. Deaths, emigration, and the loss of land to Campeche reduced its population by more than half: from 594,635 in 1845 to 248,156 by 1862. The once prosperous plantation regions of the southern and eastern sectors of the state had lost their dynamism and many of their inhabitants; only about 15 percent of the inhabitants of Yucatán remained in those formerly thriving communities. For much of the rest of the nineteenth century the towns of the frontier served primarily as a buffer zone between marauding rebel bands and the Creole-dominated enclave of the west. Only about a fifth of the state was judged to be safe for normal economic activities. That “secure zone” was an arid limestone platform with few advantages for traditional agriculture.20 It seemed as if the Creole elite had been pressed to the rocky edge of the peninsula with little hope for the future. Yet they took a series of well-calculated steps to completely recast their state and its position in the world economy by expanding the production of henequen (also known as sisal). This first major foray by Yucatán into the North Atlantic market brought wealth to the landed elite and substantial change to the state, but it rested on the exploitation of landless peasants that made the henequen industry notorious for its abusive labor practices. Moreover, the henequen boom proved short-lived, as external events, in particular the development of substitutes for Yucatán’s fiber, drastically weakened the industry by the mid-twentieth century. Henequen had been produced in Yucatán on a small scale since pre-Hispanic times. Commercial production developed slowly but steadily during the nineteenth century, largely in response to the demand for cables and ropes associated with the growth of world shipping. As a result, sisal prices quadrupled between the mid-1850s and 1867.21 Hacendados in the secure zone responded to the price increase by steadily expanding their planting. Fortunately, unlike

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Prelude to Globalization / 27 other agricultural commodities, sisal thrived in the rocky soil of the region. The Caste War created a set of conditions that led the landed elite of the northwest to concentrate their productive energies almost single-mindedly on fiber production. Although some Maya communities were allowed to retain their garden plots, landowners made a systematic effort to plant former cattle and corn haciendas in henequen and to squeeze out milpas formerly devoted to subsistence agriculture. Within two decades the green fields radiated out from Mérida in all directions, forming an uneven quadrangle (approximately 160 kilometers from east to west and 96 kilometers from north to south) that came to be known as the “Henequen Zone.” While the eastern and southern regions of Yucatán continued to lose workers, the proportion of the total population living in Mérida and its surrounding municipios (townships) increased to 50 percent of the state total. Yucatán’s Golden Age extended from about 1880 to World War I, when henequen prices, production, and exports reached historic peaks. In 1880 exports totaled about 100,000 bales of 350 pounds (approximately 160 kilograms) each; by 1915 they totaled nearly one million bales.22 That period of accelerated growth, the so-called auge (boom), was based upon the economic elite’s total commitment to henequen exports. Two major demand factors— the rapid expansion of North American grain production and exports and the invention of the McCormick twine-binding reaper in 1878—provided a continuing stimulus to Yucatán’s premier industry, which enjoyed a nearmonopoly in the world fiber market. In 1910 henequen fiber headed the list of Mexico’s nonmineral exports, and Yucatán’s landed elite had achieved a level of prosperity rivaled by few of their counterparts in other Mexican states. The supply factors that accounted for the rapid transformation of the regional economy included the growth of capital stock, technical advances, and a steady expansion of the labor force. In the 1850s Yucatecans had invented a mechanical rasping or defibration machine that ended the arduous, laborintensive work of separating the fiber from the leaves of the henequen plant by hand. Later the machines were improved by the use of steam power, and by 1900 they were being built to Yucatecan specifications in the United States. In the 1880s landowners began to build narrow-gauge tramways on their estates to transport henequen from the fields to machine houses and to nearby railheads. Four railroad lines, financed and managed largely by Yucatecans, linked Mérida with the rest of the state and carried fiber to Progreso, the new port inaugurated in 1870 that displaced Sisal. From Progreso the railroads carried corn, beans, and other staples that had been purchased from foreign suppliers, since most haciendas in the henequen zone were devoted to monoculture. This period of exceptional henequen prosperity coincided with the socalled Golden Age of Globalization as well as with the era of Porfirio Díaz in Mexico. Economists and technocrats associated with the Díaz regime, who called themselves científicos, promoted the development of new export indus-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

28 / Edward H. Moseley and Helen Delpar tries in primary commodities and the construction of railroads and ports. Observing the positivist tenets of “Order and Progress,” the regime practiced fiscal orthodoxy and maintained political stability, two conditions deemed essential for the attraction of foreign direct investment and the placement of Mexican government bonds in the principal capital markets abroad. By various methods, communal Indian holdings devoted primarily to subsistence agriculture passed into the hands of large landowners. Debt peonage—the de facto permanent attachment of landless peasants to the agricultural estate— characterized the socioeconomic status of the rural masses, especially in the south, as never before.23 Yucatán reflected these national trends. As the number of landless peasants increased, many sought work on the henequen haciendas, where they were paid a daily wage and received a household plot. Purchases from the hacienda store were deducted from wages, but larger debts incurred to cover expenses for weddings, funerals, and religious festivals were not normally collected. State law, however, authorized prosecution of workers who left estates without paying their debts. While no historian doubts the harshness of the labor regime, it may have been mitigated by the paternalism of some hacendados and by the fact that hacienda residence allowed peons to avoid compulsory military service or forced labor on roads. Despite the prevalence of debt peonage, hacendados complained of labor shortages and contracted for laborers from outside the peninsula, notably Asians and rebellious Yaqui Indians deported from the Mexican state of Sonora.24 At the top of the social and economic ladder during the Golden Age was the casta divina, a group of thirty to forty families of planters and their bankermerchant cousins and allies. Below them were some three hundred families who owned small or medium-size estates. The most influential of all the members of the “divine caste” was Olegario Molina, whose origins were modest but who became a leading henequen exporter. In October 1902 his firm signed an agreement to act as the sole agent for International Harvester, the recently formed U.S. trust that was the world’s largest buyer of henequen. In exchange for large commissions and credits, Molina’s firm collaborated with International Harvester in driving down the price of henequen, though oversupply may have been a factor in the decline of prices after 1902. In 1903 Molina started purchasing large tracts of land, and by 1911 he had become the largest henequen grower in the state.25 Molina’s land acquisitions began as he took office as governor of Yucatán. Sharing the modernizing vision of Mexico’s científicos, Molina devoted his energies as governor to improvements in Mérida. During the Golden Age the population of the state capital rose from 36,935 in 1895 to 62,447 in 1910, making it Mexico’s fifth-largest provincial capital.26 Earlier governors had installed public lighting, introduced garbage collection, and inaugurated a new public market. Molina also embarked on a major program of urban improve-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Prelude to Globalization / 29 ments, the most important of which were the paving of Mérida’s streets and the construction of a sewer system. Another achievement was the construction of the Teatro de Peón Contreras, a magnificent neoclassical opera house. In 1904 Governor Molina inaugurated a splendid boulevard, the Paseo de Montejo, where wealthy planters competed in the construction of palatial homes. The most imposing was a massive stone structure commissioned by former governor Francisco Cantón that serves today as the museum of anthropology. In early 1906 President Díaz made a triumphal visit to Yucatán, giving his seal of approval to this outstanding example of “Order and Progress.” Later that year Díaz endorsed the reelection of Molina for an unprecedented second term (1906–10). Although he won handily, Molina soon left the state to assume the position of minister of development in the national government. Mérida boasted a small middle class made up of merchants, lawyers, doctors, teachers, public officials, and a variety of other professionals and businessmen. This gente decente (respectable folk) provided services for the plutocracy and became an integral part of the sophisticated urban society. They attended concerts, patronized a growing number of specialty shops, and participated in tertulias (literary discussions). With the arrival of new hospitals, automobiles, and the pleasure that came with the regular delivery of ice, by 1910 Mérida had achieved many of the features of a modern urban lifestyle. The auge attracted foreign immigrants to Yucatán. Among these were Spaniards, who numbered nearly fifteen hundred by 1910. Important from the beginning as entrepreneurs and technicians, they soon established a strong presence in the urban commercial sector. Cubans were another important group, totaling more than eight hundred in 1910. Although ties between Cuba and Yucatán had always been close, the turbulence associated with the island’s independence movement and the U.S. war with Spain prompted many to emigrate. Also significant were Lebanese, who were classified as “Turks” since they had lived under Ottoman control. Numbering 568 according to the census of 1910, the great majority of Lebanese immigrants established themselves as peddlers or petty merchants in villages and small towns in the interior of the peninsula where life was relatively inexpensive. While Yucatecan, Spanish, and German merchants saturated the markets of the socially prominent, the ambulatory Lebanese tradesmen directed their efforts to the groups at the bottom of the social ladder. Although often the targets of discrimination, the Lebanese eventually prospered, acquiring real estate and entering the fields of textile manufacturing and commerce.27 The prosperity and growth of Mérida in the last decades of the nineteenth century also brought the emergence of an urban working class. Railroad workers, mechanics, and industrial employees formed an elite of skilled workers. In Progreso the longshoremen and others involved with the shipping industry were among the earliest to form labor organizations. Shipping

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

30 / Edward H. Moseley and Helen Delpar supervisors, construction foremen, skilled artisans, and a number of serviceoriented positions tended to bridge the gap between labor and the lower middle class. Living primarily in the districts on the south side of Mérida, these urban laborers did not attend the opera or participate in tertulias, but they did frequent small cafés and cantinas and stroll with their families through the central plaza on Sunday afternoons. Most were caught up in the attractions of modernization and sought improved economic conditions and educational opportunities for their children. At the bottom of the social scale was a very large number of urban dwellers who performed grueling physical labor, loading bales of henequen, digging drainage ditches, collecting garbage, or working in the slaughterhouse. Still others swept the immaculate city streets or worked as gardeners and maids in the homes of the gente decente. During the auge, contacts between Mérida and Mexico and the outside world were more extensive than ever before. These contacts were furthered not only by expanding trade, the presence of foreigners, and the spread of telegraph and telephone service but also by improvements in education after 1860. Although most Yucatecans remained illiterate and many spoke only Maya, the number of public elementary schools increased, especially in urban areas. In 1908 there were 367 public elementary schools in the state, along with 61 private schools. Secondary and postsecondary education for males was offered at the Instituto Literario del Estado, founded in 1867, which embraced preparatory and normal schools as well as schools of jurisprudence and medicine. Interest in female education is reflected in the fact that 150 of the aforementioned elementary schools were for girls. The state-supported Instituto Literario de Niñas, established in 1877 and led for many years by feminist Rita Cetina Gutiérrez, offered primary schooling as well as training for prospective teachers. The increasing, if still limited, number of literate Yucatecans meant a larger readership for the press. The Revista de Mérida (1869–1914) began as a biweekly but became a daily in 1882 and had a press run of seven thousand copies at the turn of the twentieth century.28 Mérida’s more affluent residents had the opportunity to enjoy various types of spectacles. Spanish and Italian companies regularly visited the city to perform plays and operas; the Spanish operetta form known as the zarzuela was also popular. Motion pictures were shown in Mérida at an early date, and several films were shot there. Mexico’s first full-length motion picture, 1810, o los libertadores de México, was filmed in Yucatán and premiered at the Peón Contreras theater in 1915.29 Yucatecans enjoyed another type of spectacle that became popular in the 1890s after Cuban immigrants introduced baseball to the peninsula. Amateur teams made up of working-class youths, many of them Cubans, were organized under elite sponsorship. Upper-class teams were also formed, such as El Sporting (1892), composed of young men who had learned the game in American boarding schools and colleges. The two types of team faced off be-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Prelude to Globalization / 31 fore thousands in a short-lived Liga Yucateca (1905) when El Fénix and other working-class teams made short work of their upper-class foes.30 Yucatán’s image was also projected throughout Mexico and abroad during this period. The state displayed its natural resources and finished products at international expositions in Paris (1889) and Chicago (1893). The latter fair, held to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s first voyage, was also notable for its exhibits of photographs and other objects pertaining to ancient Maya civilization, especially reconstructions of structures at Labná and Uxmal. In 1906 Mexicans who had never visited Yucatán were able to catch glimpses of the state as motion-picture cameras recorded every detail of President Díaz’s visit.31 Most signs of urban life disappeared at the city’s edge; although many henequen plantations were centered on elaborate mansions with gas lighting and indoor plumbing, they were utilized only during the occasional visit by the hacendado and his family. With the henequen boom and extension of the rail system, however, a number of the formerly “Indian towns” of the henequen zone took on an air of sophistication and progress. Umán, Kanasín, Acanceh, and Tixkokob were all less than an hour from Mérida by train, and even more distant communities such as Izamal and Motul were well within the orbit of the capital’s influence. Railroad stations were much more than loading platforms for departing bales of fiber; they were also social gathering points and provided the latest news of the outside world. A small bourgeoisie emerged in the secondary towns, including merchants, bookkeepers, teachers, and small landowners that had not been eliminated by the expansion of henequen. This middle sector bought consumer goods from the city, organized schools for their children, and enjoyed an increasing degree of prosperity. Yet indigenous culture was virtually universal in dress, diet, and lifestyle in these secondary towns. Progreso was an exception and played a special role in the process of change. Not only was it more influenced by direct contacts with the outside world, but many of the elite families of Mérida constructed vacation homes along its beaches. Beyond the henequen zone, towns such as Tekax to the south and Valladolid to the east, still suffering the aftermath of the Caste War, were but lightly touched by the age of progress. Even the arrival of regular railroad service failed to generate economic growth, and the population continued to stagnate or decline.32

The Mexican Revolution and Agrarian Reform in Yucatán, 1910–1940 By 1910 cracks had appeared in the formidable facade of the Porfiriato. Adoption of the gold standard in 1905 and the panic of 1907 in the United States produced inflationary pressures and economic dislocation that affected elites

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

32 / Edward H. Moseley and Helen Delpar as well as members of the middle and lower classes. Working-class discontent was demonstrated by strikes at the U.S.-owned Cananea Copper Company in Sonora in 1906 and at textile mills in Puebla, Tlaxcala, and Orizaba and Río Blanco in the state of Veracruz in 1906–7. In the United States exiled dissident and anarchist Ricardo Flores Magón, founder of the radical Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM, Liberal Mexican Party), excoriated the regime for its despotism and exploitation of workers and peasants. After PLM activists launched abortive revolts in Mexico in 1907, Flores Magón was jailed for conspiring to violate U.S. neutrality laws. In a 1908 interview with James Creelman, an American journalist, Díaz stated that he would not seek reelection in 1910, the year in which he would celebrate his eightieth birthday. Although Díaz soon reversed himself, his 1908 statement opened the floodgates to a torrent of political activity as various leaders vied to succeed him. Among them was Francisco I. Madero, scion of a wealthy family from the northern state of Coahuila, who published a best-selling book, La sucesión presidencial en 1910 (1909), in which he argued that Mexico was ready for political democracy. As it became clear that Díaz intended to seek another six-year term, with the incumbent vice-president as his running mate, Madero decided to become a candidate himself.33 As Madero stepped into the political limelight, he traveled throughout the country and in June 1909 visited Yucatán, which was also experiencing political turmoil related to the current gubernatorial race. Upon his departure for Mexico City in 1906, Olegario Molina had installed Enrique Muñoz Arístegui as his successor in the governorship. Now Muñoz Arístegui sought another term as governor, with the backing of the Molina camarilla (political clique). By 1909, however, many members of the elite as well as middle-class elements in Mérida and Progreso had wearied of Molinista domination and backed the candidacy of Delio Moreno Cantón, nephew of former governor Francisco Cantón. Another opposition candidate was José María Pino Suárez, a newspaper editor who became a strong supporter of Madero during the latter’s visit to Yucatán.34 Muñoz Arístegui won the fraudulent election and took office on February 1, 1910, but the state remained tense. In June an uprising directed against the local political chief and the governor occurred in Valladolid. It was suppressed quickly, but in the henequen zone resident peons often reacted violently as landowners cut wages and speeded up labor routines because of declining prices. In March 1911 Pedro Crespo, a former state militia officer, launched a revolt, also directed against local officials, in Temax on the edge of the henequen zone and remained in arms for two years. In April workers on the state’s railroads, which had recently been merged into a single company, Ferrocarriles Unidos de Yucatán, formed a union and began an unsuccessful strike for improved working conditions. By this time the Díaz regime was on the verge of collapse. In April 1910

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Prelude to Globalization / 33 Madero had been nominated as the candidate of an Anti-Reelectionist Party to run against Díaz in that year’s election, but he was arrested during the campaign. Eluding his captors, he fled to the United States and called for an armed revolt against the government to start on November 20, 1910. The anti-Díaz movement began slowly, but after the fall of the important border city of Ciudad Juárez in May 1911, Díaz resigned and left the country. These events marked the start of the Mexican Revolution, which has fascinated and challenged historians for decades. Some have seen the revolution primarily as an agrarian movement, and some as an expression of economic nationalism on the part of those unhappy over the extent of foreign control of the economy. Others have belittled the significance of the revolution and have emphasized continuities between the Porfiriato and the policies endorsed by revolutionary governments after 1910. It has also been suggested that there were two revolutions: “One, which failed, was a radical, popular, and nationalist transformation of Mexican society aimed toward transmuting the changes wrought by the Porfiriato and . . . eliminating the vestiges of the old order. The other, which succeeded, was a modernizing, capitalistic movement.” More recent approaches focus on the culture and values of the masses, the presumed beneficiaries of the revolution, and efforts made by revolutionary elites to change them. By 2000 the revolution seemed sufficiently remote that attention could turn to the ways it had been historicized and memorialized.35 Complicating historical interpretations is the fact that, as numerous studies of events in individual states show, there were indeed many revolutions. In Yucatán, José María Pino Suárez became governor after the departure of Díaz but was soon tapped by Madero as his vice-presidential running mate. They took office on November 6, 1911, but were murdered in February 1913 when the Decena Trágica (Ten Tragic Days) ended in a counter-revolutionary coup led by Victoriano Huerta. In the campaigns that followed, as revolutionaries fought to oust Huerta (1913–14) and quarreled among themselves in the War of the Winners (1914–15), the main battlegrounds were in central and northern Mexico, far from Yucatán. Thus, by mid-1915, when Venustiano Carranza emerged as the victor in the recent internecine conflict, Yucatán had remained relatively tranquil. The casta divina resisted change even as they benefited from soaring henequen prices during World War I and proved unwilling to increase tax payments to the Carranza government in Mexico City. At this juncture Carranza dispatched a prominent general, Salvador Alvarado, with a seven-thousand-man army to assert the federal government’s authority over the recalcitrant state. Accordingly, in Gilbert M. Joseph’s phrase, the revolution came to Yucatán “from without.”36 Alvarado was a native of Sinaloa who had been raised in Sonora and been a supporter of the PLM. He has been described as a non-Marxian socialist who

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

34 / Edward H. Moseley and Helen Delpar had been influenced by the ideas of Henry George, but Joseph considers him a bourgeois reformer rather than a radical revolutionary. Like other northern revolutionaries, he was anticlerical and hostile to the Roman Catholic Church. As governor and military chief of Yucatán, he revived a state agency, the Comisión Reguladora del Mercado de Henequén (Commission to Regulate the Henequen Market), which had been established in 1912, and gave it a monopoly over henequen purchases. Since prices continued to rise, henequen growers benefited while Alvarado was able to send funds to Carranza and finance an ambitious program of internal reform. Alvarado also decided to enforce a 1914 decree nullifying all debts owed by peasants and in effect banned debt peonage. In 1915 he ordered owners of large and medium-size haciendas to establish schools for their resident workers. A provisional program of agrarian reform got under way as Alvarado sought to restore community lands (ejidos) to villages despite Carranza’s coolness to the program. Anticipating article 123 of the federal constitution of 1917, a new labor law in 1915 guaranteed the right to strike and promised better wages and working conditions to urban workers.37 Notable among Alvarado’s reforms were his efforts on behalf of women. In 1915 he issued a decree requiring contracts for domestic servants, most of whom were women, and requiring that they receive compensation in addition to food and clothing. Hoping to free prostitutes from the control of pimps, he outlawed brothels and set up independent health clinics for the women. In addition, he revised the civil code to allow single women to leave the parental home at age twenty-one as single men were able to do. Under his auspices Mexico’s first feminist congresses were held in Mérida in 1916. More than six hundred delegates attended the first congress, where moderates prevailed. Their call for improved legal and property rights for women was reflected in the new civil code issued by the Carranza government in 1917.38 To mobilize support for his policies and to support his political ambitions, Alvarado made use of the Partido Socialista de Yucatán (PSY, Socialist Party of Yucatán), which was founded as the Partido Socialista Obrero (Socialist Labor Party) in 1916 by a group of workers, artisans, and teachers. As it turned out, because he did not meet the federal constitution’s requirement that governors be natives or five-year residents of their states, Alvarado was unable to run for the governorship and left Yucatán in 1918 after a successor had been elected. Over the next four years two developments would shape the course of events in Yucatán: an economic crisis caused by falling henequen prices following the end of World War I, and the rise of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, who would pursue revolutionary initiatives in the state with a radicalism that surpassed Alvarado’s. Carrillo was a native of Yucatán, born to a middle-class family in Motul in 1874. Although his six-foot height and green eyes suggested Caucasian ancestry, he spoke Maya and claimed to be a descendant of Nachi Cocom, a

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Prelude to Globalization / 35 sixteenth-century Maya noble who had resisted the Spaniards. In 1918 he became president of the PSY, renamed the Partido Socialista del Sureste (PSS, Socialist Party of the Southeast) as it sought to expand to other states, and linked the party to ligas de resistencia (resistance leagues) throughout the state and to a Liga Central in Mérida of which he was also head. Amid continuing turmoil in Mexico and in Yucatán the PSS gained a virtual monopoly of political power, and Carrillo became governor of the state in February 1922. As governor, Carrillo undertook a more vigorous program of land reform than Alvarado had. From February 1922 through June 1923 nearly 400,000 hectares were distributed to towns in the form of ejido grants. Haciendas producing henequen were not affected, but landowners feared for the security of their holdings. Meanwhile, the henequen industry remained depressed despite the efforts of the state purchasing agency, now known as the Comisión Exportadora de Yucatán (Export Commission of Yucatán). Only in 1923 did prices begin to rise as surpluses were liquidated. The Carrillo administration also embarked on a program of road building, using members of the ligas as construction workers. One of the roads completed during this period linked the railroad station at Dzitas with the ancient Maya ruins at Chichén Itzá, which were being excavated and restored by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C. Carrillo hoped to attract tourists to the site, but the governor also wished to disseminate information about the state’s Maya heritage. To this end he commissioned and distributed local editions of the Popol Vuh and the Chilam Balam, the latter the sacred book of the Yucatec Maya. Carrillo also promoted the formation of baseball teams throughout the state, viewing athletic competition as a means of mobilizing and integrating the male population.39 More controversial was Carrillo’s commitment to “rational education” in the public schools, that is, the introduction of socialist principles which emphasized the welfare of the collectivity over that of the individual. Even more of an uproar occurred as a result of his efforts to promote birth control in Yucatán. In 1923 Carrillo had a translation of a pamphlet on birth control by Margaret Sanger published in Mérida for wide distribution. After one of Sanger’s colleagues visited Yucatán, plans were made to set up two birth control clinics in Mérida. The pamphlet offended conservative Yucatecans, but Anna Macias has pointed out that it could be of little benefit to Yucatán’s many illiterates who lacked access to clean water and could not afford the devices recommended by Sanger.40 At Carrillo’s urging in 1922 the state legislature extended political rights to women, the first body in Mexico to do so. That same year, Carrillo’s sister Elvia, known as the “red nun” for her radical views, was elected to the state legislature, and Rosa Torre González, a former teacher and organizer of the 1916 feminist congresses, won a seat on the municipal council of Mérida.41 The sudden end of Carrillo’s administration came in the context of a

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

36 / Edward H. Moseley and Helen Delpar major revolt against the national administration of Alvaro Obregón (1920– 24). Led by Adolfo de la Huerta, the movement was caused mainly by opposition to Obregón’s choice as his successor, Plutarco Elías Calles, with whom Carrillo had been on good terms. When federal troops in Yucatán went over to de la Huerta, Carrillo was unable to obtain effective backing from his partisans among the peasants and the ligas, which turned out to be “paper tigers.” He and a handful of followers were attempting to flee to Cuba when they were captured and returned to Mérida on December 23, 1923. Although de la Huerta claimed that he tried to protect Carrillo, he and twelve others, including three of his brothers, were executed on January 3, 1924. Despite the initial success of the de la Huerta forces in Yucatán, Obregón defeated the rebels and was able to hand the presidency over to Calles in December 1924. In Yucatán the PSS remained dominant over the next decade, but the revolutionary impulse associated with Carrillo declined and the henequen elite regained strength. Meanwhile, the industry began to suffer from competition from foreign producers of fiber and from the economic depression affecting the United States. As late as 1920, only 14,000 metric tons of hard fiber were produced outside Yucatán. The situation changed radically after 1920 as plantings of sisal increased greatly in the richer soils of British East Africa and Java in response to high wartime prices and profits. By 1927 these regions accounted for almost half of world hard fiber production. In Yucatán the surface devoted to henequen contracted sharply, from 188,600 hectares in 1920 to only 97,435 by 1930.42 It was against this background that the national administration of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40) carried out far-reaching changes to Yucatán’s agrarian structure. Cárdenas, a native of the center-west state of Michoacán, has traditionally been considered the most radical of Mexico’s revolutionary presidents, whose agrarian reform policies, expropriation of the foreign-owned petroleum industry, and mobilization of peasants and workers transformed Mexico. In recent decades historians have qualified this interpretation—asking, like Alan Knight, whether Cardenismo was “juggernaut or jalopy”—and this revisionism has affected views of his actions in Yucatán as well.43 Cárdenas came personally to Yucatán in August 1937 to effect an agrarian reform that differed significantly from those undertaken by Alvarado and Carrillo.44 First, the reform involved the expropriation of the henequen haciendas, though owners were entitled to retain a pequeña propiedad (small property) of 150 hectares (later amended to 300 hectares). Second, while ejido grants had previously been awarded only to villages, peons resident on haciendas would now be eligible for grants as well. In 1934 these numbered some thirty thousand adult males. Third, whereas in most cases ejido lands were farmed by individuals, in Yucatán, as in a few other areas of Mexico, Cárdenas formed collective ejidos, which were considered more appropriate for a highly commercialized enterprise like henequen production. The federal Agrarian Bank was to meet the many financial needs of the new ejidos.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Prelude to Globalization / 37 Within a few weeks Cárdenas and his entourage had established 272 henequen ejidos, but their efforts were beset by problems. Many resident peons were not enthusiastic about the reform, as the worst abuses associated with their condition had been ended by Alvarado and Carrillo. Some ejidos did not receive all the land to which they were entitled or received land that would not yield henequen for years. Since former hacendados kept processing machinery along with their 150 hectares, the ejidos had to look to the federal government for assistance in securing access to machines. For its part, the federal government found itself unable to meet its financial commitment to the ejidos. As a result, in March 1938 Cárdenas approved a plan for administrative restructuring of the ejidos by placing them under a single Gran Ejido (Great Ejido), which would presumably be more efficient and reduce the needs for federal outlays. According to Ben Fallaw, few of these expectations were realized, but the Great Ejido did lessen the role of the federal government in Yucatán and strengthen the influence of state politicians. Two of Castro Pacheco’s murals memorialize the deeds of Alvarado, Carrillo, and Cárdenas, attesting to their prominent place in the regional pantheon of heroes. Whatever their shortcomings and failures, their policies substantially altered economic, political, and social conditions in the state. Debt peonage was ended, the vast henequen estates were broken up, and the deference and passivity so often evident in the days of the auge were no more. Meanwhile, the PSS and its leaders were incorporated into Mexico’s “official” party, known as the Partido Revolucionario Institutional (PRI, Institutional Revolutionary Party) from 1946. To be sure, Yucatán deviated from PRI hegemony early on, electing candidates from the opposition Partido de Acción Nacional (National Action Party) in the 1960s. In addition, except for the World War II and Korean War eras, henequen continued its decline, caused mainly by the emergence of synthetic fibers in world markets. By the 1970s Yucatán had become one of Mexico’s poorest states, sustained to a large extent by federal subventions. With the changes of the post-1982 era, much of the work of the hallowed revolutionary trio was undone, but it was unlikely that their heroic image would disappear.

Notes 1. Murales de Fernando Castro Pacheco en el Palacio de Gobierno y El Salón de la Historia de Yucatán (Mérida: Ediciones del Gobierno de Yucatán, 1981). 2. On the pre-conquest Maya see Robert J. Sharer, Daily Life in Maya Civilization (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996); and relevant articles in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, ed. David Carrasco, 3 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). 3. The standard source is Robert S. Chamberlain, The Conquest and Colonization of Yucatán, 1517–1550 (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1948). It should be pointed out that there were three individuals with the same name: the elder Francisco Montejo was granted the royal commission to carry out the conquest, but

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

38 / Edward H. Moseley and Helen Delpar both his son and a nephew played significant roles in the conquest. For Spanish efforts to subjugate the southeastern section of the peninsula, see Grant D. Jones, Maya Resistance to Spanish Rule:Time and History on a Colonial Frontier (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989). 4. For the evolution of Spanish society, see Marta Espejo-Ponce Hunt, “Colonial Yucatan: Town and Region in the Seventeenth Century” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1974); and Edward H. Moseley, “From Conquest to Independence: Yucatan under Spanish Rule, 1521–1821,” in Yucatan: A World Apart, ed. Edward H. Moseley and Edward D. Terry (University: University of Alabama Press, 1980), 83–121. 5. Matthew Restall, The Maya World:Yucatec Culture and Society, 1550–1850 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 401 n. 33. On the Franciscan missionary project, the activities of Diego de Landa, and the Maya reaction, see Inga Clendinner, Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatán, 1517–1570 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). For Landa’s actions as bishop of Yucatán in the 1570s, see John F. Chuchiak IV, “In Servitio Dei: Fray Diego de Landa, the Franciscan Order, and the Return of the Extirpation of Idolatry in the Colonial Diocese of Yucatán, 1573–1579,” The Americas 61 (2005): 611–46. 6. Restall, The Maya World, 110–20, 206–7. 7. Nancy M. Farris, Maya Society under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 65. 8. Restall, The Maya World, 61–62, 87–88. 9. Ibid., 148–65. 10. Farris, Maya Society under Colonial Rule, 355. 11. Ibid., 367–70, 397–98. 12. Robert W. Patch, “Agrarian Change in Eighteenth-Century Yucatán,” Hispanic American Historical Review 65 (1985): 21–49; Rosemary L. Batt, “The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Class in Espita, 1900–1924,” in Land, Labor, and Capital in Modern Yucatán: Essays in Regional History and Political Economy, ed. Jeffery T. Brannon and Gilbert M. Joseph (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991), 198. 13. Robert Patch, “Decolonization, the Agrarian Problem, and the Origins of the Caste War, 1812–1847,” in Brannon and Joseph, Land, Labor, and Capital, 55–56. 14. Nelson A. Reed, The Caste War of Yucatán, rev. ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 17–18, 28–40. 15. There is a large body of scholarship on the Caste War. In addition to the previously cited work by Reed, the first edition of which was published in 1964, see, for example, Moisés González Navarro, Raza y tierra: La guerra de castas y el henequén (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1970); Victoria R. Bricker, The Indian Christ, the Indian King:The Historical Substrate of Maya Myth and Ritual (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981); Terry Rugeley, Yucatán’s Maya Peasantry and the Origins of the Caste War, 1800–1847 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); and Don E. Dumond, The Machete and the Cross: Campesino Rebellion in Yucatan (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997). Influential earlier works include Serapio Baqueiro, Ensayo histórico sobre las revoluciones de Yucatán desde el año 1840 hasta 1864, 3 vols. (Mérida, 1878–87); and Howard F. Cline, Related Studies in Early Nineteenth-Century Yucatecan Social History, 3 pts., Microfilm Collection of Manuscripts on Middle American Social History, no. 32, University of Chicago Library, 1950. The historiography of the war and its

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Prelude to Globalization / 39 aftermath is discussed in Gilbert M. Joseph, Rediscovering the Past at Mexico’s Periphery: Essays on the History of ModernYucatán (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1986), 25–52; and Terry Rugeley, “Preface,” The Americas 53 (1997): vi–xi. 16. Dumond, The Machete and the Cross, 116–19. 17. The war between Mexico and the United States (1846–48) affected events in Yucatán in ways too numerous to discuss here. It was not until the war was over that the Mexican government was able to assist in the campaign against the rebellion (Reed, Caste War, 115). On the U.S. volunteers, see ibid., 122–24. 18. Barbara Angel, “Choosing Sides in War and Peace: The Travels of Herculano Balam among the Pacíficos del Sur,” The Americas 53 (1997): 525–37. 19. Reed, Caste War, 147–55, 213–14. 20. Victor Suárez Molina, La evolución económica de Yucatán, 2 vols. (Mexico City: La Universidad de Yucatán, 1977), 1:49–50. On population loss, see also Reed, Caste War, 141–42; and Joseph, Rediscovering the Past, 37–40. 21. Renán Irigoyen, “Fue el auge del henequen producto de la Guerra de Castas?” in Ensayos henequeneros, ed. Irigoyen (Mérida: Ediciones de Cordemex, 1975), 30; Allen Wells, Yucatán’s Golden Age: Haciendas, Henequen, and International Harvester, 1860–1915 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985), 33. 22. Wells, Yucatán’s Golden Age, 65. Wells offers the most complete account in English of the henequen boom. See also Eric N. Baklanoff and Jeffery T. Brannon, “Forward and Backward Linkages in a Plantation Economy: Immigrant Entrepreneurship and Industrial Development in Yucatán, Mexico,” Journal of Developing Areas 19 (October 1984): 83–94. 23. For a comparative survey of conditions in central Mexico, the south, and the north, see Friedrich Katz, “Labor Conditions on Haciendas in Porfirian Mexico: Some Trends and Tendencies,” Hispanic American Historical Review 54 (1974): 1–47. 24. On labor in henequen haciendas, see Wells, Yucatán’s Golden Age, 151–82; Joseph, Rediscovering the Past, 59–81; and Piedad Peniche Rivero, “La comunidad doméstica de la hacienda henequenera de Yucatán, México, 1870–1915,” Mexican Studies 15 (1999): 1–33. 25. Peniche Rivero, “La comunidad doméstica,” 7; Wells, Yucatán’s Golden Age, 67– 77; Joseph, Rediscovering the Past, 81–91. 26. Allen Wells and Gilbert M. Joseph, “Modernizing Visions, Chilango Blueprints, and Provincial Growing Pains: Mérida at the Turn of the Century,” Mexican Studies 8 (1992): 183. 27. Asael T. Hansen and Juan R. Bastarrachea M., Mérida: Su transformación de capital colonial a naciente metrópoli en 1935 (Mexico City: INAH, 1984), 31; Luis Alfonso Ramírez, Secretos de familia: Libaneses y élites en Yucatán (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1994), 178–80. Ramírez suggests that the number of Lebanese in Yucatán in 1910 may have been much higher. See also Eric N. Baklanoff, “Contra viento y marea: Los empresarios libaneses y el desarrollo del Yucatán moderno,” Revista de la Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán 218 (2001): 49–63. 28. Hansen and Bastarrachea, Mérida, 67; Edmundo Bolio Ontiveros, “Historia de la educación pública y privada,” Enciclopedia Yucatanense, 2nd ed. and supplements, 12 vols. (Mérida: Edición Oficial del Gobierno de Yucatán, 1977–81), 4:153–58. 29. Arturo Gamboa Garibaldi, “Historia del teatro y de la literatura dramática,” EnciclopediaYucatanense, 5:170–81; Carlos Martínez de Arredondo, “Yucatán, precursor

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

40 / Edward H. Moseley and Helen Delpar del cine nacional,” ibid., 317–23; Gustavo García, El cine mudo mexicano (Mexico City: Cultura/SEP, 1982), 37–38. 30. On the early history of baseball in Yucatán, see two essays by Gilbert M. Joseph: “Documenting a Regional Pastime: Baseball in Yucatán,” in Windows on Latin America: Understanding Society Through Photographs, ed. Robert M. Levine (Miami: North-South Center, University of Miami, 1987), 77–89; and “Forging the Regional Pastime: Baseball and Class in Yucatán,” in Sport and Society in Latin America, ed. Joseph L. Arbena (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1988), 29–61. 31. Suárez Molina, La evolución económica de Yucatán, 1:84; Helen Delpar, “Casting an Image of Modernity: Yucatán at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893” (unpublished paper); Luis Reyes de la Maza, Salón Rojo (Programas y crónicas del cine mudo en México) (Mexico City: Dirección General de Difusión Cultural, UNAM, 1968), 27–28. 32. Asael T. Hansen, “Mérida y el interior del estado,” Enciclopedia Yucatanense, 6:423–54; Allen Wells, “All in the Family: Railroads and Henequen Monoculture in Porfirian Yucatán,” Hispanic American Historical Review 72 (May 1992): 185. 33. For the background of the revolution, see Stanley R. Ross, Francisco I. Madero: Apostle of Mexican Democracy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955); James D. Cockcroft, Intellectual Precursors of the Mexican Revolution, 1900–1913 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968); Rodney D. Anderson, Outcasts in Their Own Land: Mexican Industrial Workers, 1906–1910 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1975); and Ward S. Albro, Always a Rebel: Ricardo Flores Magón and the Mexican Revolution (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1992). 34. For a detailed account of events in Yucatán, see Allen Wells and Gilbert M. Joseph, Summer of Discontent, Seasons of Upheaval: Elite Politics and Rural Insurgency inYucatán, 1876–1915 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996). 35. English-language works that illustrate the varying historiographical interpretations include Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); John Mason Hart, Revolutionary Mexico:The Coming and Process of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Ramón E. Ruiz, The Great Rebellion: Mexico, 1905–1924 (New York: Norton, 1980); Alan Knight, “Popular Culture and the Revolutionary State in Mexico, 1910–1940,” Hispanic American Historical Review 74 (1994): 393–444; and Thomas Benjamin, La Revolución: Mexico’s Great Revolution as Memory, Myth, and History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000). For the quoted lines see Stuart F. Voss, “Nationalizing the Revolution: Culmination and Circumstance,” in Provinces of the Revolution: Essays on Regional Mexican History, ed. Thomas Benjamin and Mark Wasserman (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990), 273–74. 36. The following pages rely heavily on two detailed accounts: Gilbert M. Joseph, Revolution from Without:Yucatán, Mexico, and the United States, 1880–1924 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); and David Arthur Franz, “Bullets and Bolshevists: A History of the Mexican Revolution in Yucatán, 1910–1924” (Ph.D. diss., University of New Mexico, 1973). See also Joseph, Rediscovering the Past, 94–123. 37. For Alvarado’s policies (in addition to Joseph, Revolution from Without; and Franz, “Bullets and Bolshevists”), see two essays by Ramón D. Chacón: “Rural Educational Reform in Yucatán: From the Porfiriato to the Era of Salvador Alvarado, 1910– 1918,” The Americas 42 (1985): 207–28; and “Salvador Alvarado and Agrarian Reform

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Prelude to Globalization / 41 in Yucatán, 1915–1918: Federal Obstruction of Regional Social Change,” in Brannon and Joseph, Land, Labor, and Capital, 179–96. See also Daniela Spenser, “Workers against Socialism? Reassessing the Role of Urban Labor in Yucatecan Revolutionary Politics,” in Brannon and Joseph, Land, Labor, and Capital, 220–42. 38. Anna Macias, Against All Odds: The Feminist Movement in Mexico (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982), 58–86. See also Stephanie Jo Smith, “Engendering the Revolution: Women and State Formation in Yucatán, Mexico, 1872–1930” (Ph.D. diss., State University of New York at Stony Brook, 2002). 39. Joseph, “Documenting a Regional Pastime,” 84–87. 40. Macias, Against All Odds, 87–103. 41. Sarah A. Buck, “Rosa Torre González,” in The Human Tradition in Mexico, ed. Jeffrey M. Pilcher (Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, 2003), 137–48. 42. On the henequen industry, see Siegfried Askinasy, El problema agrario de Yucatán (Mexico City: Ediciones Botas, 1936); Jeffery Brannon and Eric N. Baklanoff, Agrarian Reform and Public Enterprise in Mexico:The Political Economy of Yucatán’s Henequen Industry (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987); Antonio Betancourt Pérez, Revoluciones y crises en la economía de Yucatán, 2nd ed. (Mérida: Maldonado Editores, 1986). 43. Alan Knight, “Cardenismo: Juggernaut or Jalopy?” Journal of Latin American Studies 26 (1994): 73–107. 44. The following paragraphs are based on Ben Fallaw, Cárdenas Compromised:The Failure of Reform in Postrevolutionary Yucatán (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001).

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

2 Globalization and the Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso Michael S.Yoder

As nodes linking land and maritime transportation, and as points of interdependent economic articulation between the . . . core and . . . periphery, third-world port facilities develop and operate in a manner that reflects the long-term structural evolution of the global economy. —Christopher Airriess, “Global Economy and Port Morphology in Belawan, Indonesia”

In the contemporary era of globalization, as in earlier defining periods of capitalism, flows of money and goods are igniting dramatic changes in the local geographies of the regions and cities involved. Although the “command functions” of the new global economy are largely centered in the “world cities” of the more economically advanced core, localities throughout the global periphery and semi-periphery, including such places as the Mexican state of Yucatán and its port city of Progreso, participate in progressively stronger ways in the system, albeit from a position of relative dependence (Sassen 1994; Friedmann 1995, 21). As such, these secondary localities are increasingly reaching outward to forge economic links beyond their national boundaries, resulting in more complex connections between them and distant points of the world economic network (Amin 1995, 1–34; Knox and Agnew 1998, 259– 91; Simon 1995, 133). Decreased regulation of trade and reduced restrictions on foreign direct investment are two facets of liberalization that have strongly shaped the contemporary global economy during the past three decades, thus prompting statesmen, scholars, and the media to recognize an emergent global economy, replacing the traditional international economy (Amin and Malmberg 1995; Martin 1994). In this scenario, transportation linkages, including maritime ports, foster changing inter-urban and urban-hinterland relationships. As Keeling (1995, 125–26) notes, a given set of transportation linkages of a given city can make that city more poorly connected to its own country, and increasingly linked to foreign localities. The port of Progreso, thirty-two kilometers due north of Mérida, was opened in 1870 as an alternative to the somewhat remote port settlement of

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

The Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso / 43 Sisal, fifty kilometers northwest of Mérida. Sisal’s shore was too shallow to accommodate the larger ships transporting henequen fiber abroad, and the port was difficult to access from Mérida during the rainy season (Yucatán 1988, 304; Meyer-Arendt 2001). Progreso was in pre-Columbian times a Maya fishing village and a site of salt production, part of the province of Cehpech (Meyer-Arendt 1991). Today the city occupies a depositional barrier just offshore from the limestone shield that composes the Yucatán Peninsula, and it is separated from the mainland by a shallow, mangrove-lined lagoon (MeyerArendt 2001). Given the shallow shoreline of the entire northern Yucatecan coast, Progreso has always faced logistical shipping difficulties. However, its proximity to Mérida and the periodic dynamism of the northern Yucatecan economy have made it the peninsula’s primary site of maritime trade. As noted throughout this volume, the cultural and social effects of globalization in Yucatán are considerable, as the region’s character is shaped largely by influences emanating from distant locations. This chapter focuses on the changing nature of imports and exports handled by the port of Progreso in recent decades, the corresponding evolution of the physical infrastructure, and the transformation of activities in the port’s hinterland, as reflected in the region’s human landscape. Quite simply, it argues that the port’s morphology, or physical-spatial form, serves as a gauge of the changing nature of northern Yucatán’s involvement in the global economy. While Progreso is arguably a dependent locality whose fortunes are linked to the fate of activities in its hinterland, it clearly is also a catalyst for Yucatán’s stronger ties to the global economy. Progreso’s hinterland has witnessed the recent appearance of export-oriented assembly plants, particularly in Mérida and along the emerging Progreso-Mérida manufacturing corridor, and a gradual transformation of its agricultural landscape from henequen, historically the state’s primary export product, to one emphasizing a more diverse product base that includes meat production for domestic markets and specialty agricultural and seafood products for export. I trace the expansion of the port in four distinct phases since the 1870s, each corresponding to changes in northern Yucatán’s external relations. Such an analysis is intended not only to shed light on the effects of globalization on northern Yucatán but also to offer suggestions for updating traditional geographic approaches to the study of developing countries’ ports and their hinterlands, given the rapid transformations to localities that globalization brings about. The Yucatecan case study of port evolution and port-hinterland geography is an appropriate one for illustrating the dynamic and distinct nature of geographic change in a single locality of the global periphery, as well as how such transformations are linked to the different localities’ dependent development. It also is appropriate for examining Mexico’s changing geography of ports and shipping, characterized by increased volumes of imports and exports in the era of global trade deregulation, the enlargement of trading blocs, and

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

44 / Michael S. Yoder the expansion of telecommunications into the realms of production and consumption in the country since the late twentieth century (Posadas Hernández and Martínez Luna 1999, 169–70). Moreover, this case study is one indication that there is no universal pattern of geographic change in the relationship of port and hinterland. Much can be learned from individual case studies of port cities of the global periphery. Following a brief overview of contemporary literature relevant to porthinterland geography in the global periphery, this chapter outlines the phases of Progreso’s port development and the external linkages of the state that underlie each phase. First, as the Golden Age of henequen created a wellentrenched and affluent local elite in Yucatán in the late 1800s, the port was created. Second, during World War II there was a temporary recovery in henequen exports owing to disruptions in much of the world’s fiber supplies; Mexican authorities therefore carried out an expansion of the port to accommodate larger ships with the hopes of attracting more of them. Third, when Mérida’s industrialization expanded in the aftermath of the global oil shock of the 1970s, local businessmen and politicians optimistic about Yucatán’s future maneuvered for another port expansion to handle ever-larger shipments. Fourth, in the era of maturing globalization, the Yucatecan strategy of luring foreign direct investment in manufacturing, diversifying agriculture away from traditional henequen, and attracting tourism resulted in the most recent port expansion to accommodate containerization, huge increases in grain shipments, and cruise ships to the state of Yucatán.

Port-Hinterland Geography: Some Basic Considerations “Port geography is concerned essentially with what happens at the waterfront, across the frontier between land and maritime space, wherever trade is regularly carried out, whether that interface is set in a technologically primitive context or in the context of advanced transport systems” (Hilling and Hoyle 1984, 1). Generally speaking, studies of port geography have emphasized one of three themes: port-hinterland interactions, the port’s exterior connections, and port morphology, or the spatial configuration that evolves through time (Hoyle and Hilling 1984). Given that ports are key landscape features of the global economy, a “port-hinterland geography approach” should include all three themes and emphasize their interconnectedness. The hinterland, according to Hayuth (1982, 13), is “generally considered a tributary area, the ‘backyard’ of a port, and a functional region in which different internal parts are linked to a port.” No longer are these hinterlands simply networks of surrounding, adjacent urban and rural places, nor are they exclusively linked to one single port. Given the technological advances in shipping during the late twentieth century—namely, intermodal transportation and an associated feature, containerization—hinterlands are difficult to delineate.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

The Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso / 45 Inter modal transportation allows a given cargo to be transferred easily among different modes (maritime, rail, truck, air) en route to its destination. Hinterlands change frequently as external linkages and the products imported and exported become different. They often overlap with one another as containerization and intermodality enlarge a seaport’s reach (Hayuth 1982, 13). Likewise, as the case of Progreso illustrates, in the era of globalization the changing spaces of port hinterlands in the periphery of the world system affect the physical infrastructure of docks, wharfs, warehousing, and other morphological features. A port, then, acts as a “gateway” between a hinterland and its “foreland,” the places with which a hinterland trades (Bird 1980, 360–64). In a developing country a port can be an important gauge of how the evolving global economy can affect a given portion of that country through time. The shifting requirements of global capital since 1870 have led to enormous reconstructions of northern Yucatán, which in turn have led to Progreso’s morphological change. Since the beginnings of the mercantile period that peaked in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the broadening of maritime transportation networks has continually been a necessary precondition of wealth accumulation in the global economy. It is precisely through this ever-expanding maritime activity that the lesser-developed periphery has been incorporated into the modern global economy, first as a dependent source of raw materials for the core, and later as a source of low-wages for manufacturing (Mandel 1978; Wallerstein 1974; Amin 1995). As Airriess (1991, 183) has noted, port morphologies (their three-dimensional physical-spatial configurations) and porthinterland connections reflect the workings of the economic system of which the port is an active part. In the case of developing countries, port geographies serve as testimonies of “the penetration of western economic interests and accompanying transportation technologies into (such) peripheral resource regions” (Airriess 1991, 183). This perspective views ports as dynamic gateways, thereby expanding the notion of port-hinterland regions beyond static, closed systems. Thus they are increasingly viewed in the literature as playing a key role in the economic development of different regions. Their role in this regard is largely a function of the nature of transportation systems linking them to their hinterland (Hilling and Hoyle 1984, 1). Scholars and students alike increasingly recognize the importance of ports to the economic development of industrialized and developing countries alike. A port more often than not enhances the prospects for development of a region of a given country, especially if sufficient investment is made in enhancing its productivity, and therefore its competitiveness (Bird 1980, 364). While much of the literature on port-hinterland geography has emphasized the port as the dominant city of a region and the region’s dominant engine of development, Progreso represents a different scenario. On the one hand, the relatively small city (population 49,000 in 2000) is overshadowed

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

46 / Michael S. Yoder by development in Mérida (population 703,000 in 2000) and thus is dependent upon that much larger city (Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática [INEGI] 2000). On the other hand, given the increased foreigntrade focus of much of Mérida’s most recent development, its fortunes and those of Progreso are reciprocally dependent. As this chapter illustrates, the Yucatecan elite and the state’s government have historically considered Progreso’s port development a centerpiece of economic development strategies since its founding. As the nature of capital accumulation has changed from merchant capitalism to industrial capitalism to the present form marked increasingly by free trade and flexible, mobile capital, the spatial forms of port cities are dramatically changing. Likewise, urban systems, or the networks connecting cities with one another, are transformed by new modes of wealth accumulation, which in turn depend upon ports and shipping (Simon 1995, 133). Heightened flexibility in the movement of capital and information leads to decentralization of production across wider networks, thereby enhancing the role of strategically located ports in the global urban hierarchy. In other words, a port can be a catalyst of change in the character of a region’s economic development (Hilling and Hoyle 1984, 1–3). Such is the case with Progreso. The state of Yucatán attracts new assembly plants producing goods destined for export, and the state, along with the neighboring states of Quintana Roo and Campeche, experiences heightened levels of transportation of imported and exported goods (Administración Portuaria Integral de Progreso [API] 2001a). On the one hand, Progreso’s hinterland reach is expanding into these neighboring states; on the other hand, advances in transportation technology also mean that Progreso and other secondary ports of Mexico might easily be displaced by larger, more efficient container ports of the Caribbean Basin and the Gulf of Mexico (Harris 1994, 333). Such secondary container ports in developing countries, including Progreso, serve “niche carriers,” or feeder carriers that ship specific goods to and from particular localities, as opposed to serving as regional hubs (De Monie et al. 1998, 9–11). Given the flexibility of intermodal transportation, it is not only possible but feasible that small secondary ports specialize in this way, even when the demands on them frequently change (Keeling 1995, 115–18). Such has been the case with Progreso in recent years. De Monie et al. (1998, 19) recognize three primary factors that determine whether a port can develop a geographically expanded hinterland and foreland: the availability and quality of port service, the costs of cargo handling, and the quality of infrastructure. These determinants of port success underlie the Mexican government’s decision to initiate measures, beginning in the early 1990s, aimed at enhancing the country’s position in global maritime trade. Among the changes were privatization of some port functions and decentralization of others (Posadas Hernández and Martínez Luna 1999, 175;

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

The Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso / 47 Wilson 1997). Hilling and Hoyle (1984, 1–3) note a fourth factor of a port’s role in regional economic development: the level of industrialization in the vicinity of the port itself. Given Progreso’s proximity to Mérida, a large city with an abundant labor supply, industrialization has not yet materialized in Progreso itself to any appreciable degree, but it has emerged in a number of industrial parks on the north side of Mérida and along the Progreso-Mérida highway, suggesting the emergence of a Progreso-Mérida manufacturing corridor.

The Golden Age of Henequen and Progreso’s Beginnings Late in the nineteenth century, the northwestern third of the state of Yucatán became the world’s leading producer of henequen fiber for ship rigging, harvest binder twine, and other products. Henequen, an agave plant, was domesticated by the Maya in the area that is now the state of Yucatán, where it was used for fishnets, hammocks, cordage, paper, and cloth. Early in the nineteenth century, European merchants discovered the maritime usefulness of henequen, whereupon it became a tropical raw material largely under European (primarily Spanish) control. After Mexican independence, local hacienda owners maneuvered to control many facets of the world henequen trade for some time, resulting in the formation of a significant and conspicuous Yucatecan elite and a dependent and poor Maya workforce. Foreign corporate interests, especially the U.S.-based International Harvester, played a major role in restructuring and controlling Yucatecan economic fortunes, but with the active participation of the Yucatecan henequen oligopoly (Wells 1985, 1992; Chardon 1961; Brannon and Baklanoff 1987). The strong participation by local elites in this wealth-creating activity underscores the uniqueness of Yucatán among dependent regions of the periphery of the global economy. Although the Maya grew henequen in nearly all parts of the peninsula, circumstances of history and geography explain its concentration in the northwestern quadrant of the state of Yucatán, and correspondingly the strong connection of Progreso to its export-oriented hinterland. Henequen production was one of the few agricultural activities that could successfully be accomplished in northwestern Yucatán, given the zone’s semi-aridity and its thin, poor-quality soils. During the decades following the Caste War (1847–53), as Creole landowners rapidly expanded the production of henequen, they became painfully aware that the traditional port of Sisal did not offer the needed facilities and was too distant from the capital city. Juan Miguel Castro, a local politician, maneuvered to create a port as close as possible to Mérida using federal funds, to enhance the henequen trade which had been shipped through the somewhat remote port of Sisal (Yucatán 1988, 304). The success of this plan was staggering. In 1879–80, less than a decade after the new port was opened, Progreso produced 604,280 pesos in income and 33,279 pesos in ex-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

48 / Michael S. Yoder penses (Ferrer de Mendiolea 1977, 593). The three short wooden piers that composed the initial port infrastructure soon became insufficient to handle the growing volume of imports and exports. Despite the initial success of the new facility, shippers still faced major difficulties. Owing to the shallow waters of the gradually sloping coast, ships had to dock some three to five kilometers offshore, and smaller craft, or “lighters,” carried cargo between the ships and the piers, where the depth of the water was only eleven feet (Yucatán 2001a). Mexican president Porfirio Díaz’s backing of railroad expansion to boost Yucatán’s export economy would prove decisive to the creation and growth of the port of Progreso. In the 1870s, during the first decade of its existence, Progreso was linked to Mérida only by a primitive road. In 1881, however, the first railroad line between Progreso and Mérida was inaugurated, dramatically increasing the capacity to ship henequen (Ferrer de Mendiolea 1977, 528–30). The largest henequen haciendas were located close to, if not directly on, the various rail lines that crisscrossed northern Yucatán, in order to facilitate henequen shipments and the importation of foreign goods, such as grains, manufactures, and luxury goods. The construction of the rail network, financed in part by the state and in part by local henequen growers, also stimulated ruralto-urban migration by the Maya poor, which boosted the populations of Mérida and, to a lesser extent, Progreso (Wells 1992, 159–60, 163). Furthermore, as Wells (1992, 160) asserts, “the railway’s multidimensional impact became both tool and symbol of modernization in late nineteenth-century Latin America, not only in linking peripheral regions more closely to the international market, but also coupling semi-autonomous patrias chicas to an evolving nation-state.” In the case of Yucatán, however, the freedom from dependency on one product that the railroad theoretically should have provided failed to materialize. Periodic downturns in the henequen economy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries produced corresponding downturns in rail profits (Wells 1992, 162–63). Not until 1962 was Mérida finally linked to Mexico City by rail, so the extensive Yucatecan rail system was essentially a closed system linking outlying areas of the peninsula to Mérida and Progreso (De la Pedraja 1999, 33–34). To understand Progreso’s relationship with its hinterland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, one must examine how the rail network strengthened the hand of the henequen oligopoly. Because the wealthiest planters, the so-called casta divina, financed the bulk of the railroad network, they controlled the locations of the tracks and stations. This created a smallholder dependency on the more affluent planters not only for transporting the fiber but also for marketing it. The thirty-family oligopoly which controlled the rail system also controlled the import-export operations, much of the fiber processing, and the port operations in Progreso, including warehousing. The casta divina’s privilege was enhanced by the easy access it enjoyed to credit from international banks (Wells 1992, 162–72, 196–98).

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

The Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso / 49 To keep fiber prices low, deals were made between the U.S.-based agricultural machinery company International Harvester and the export house Molina y Companía. These agreements enabled International Harvester to reap handsome profits from the fiber it imported from Yucatán for binder twine for the North American grain harvests. It also forced many smaller producers of the fiber out of business, because they were indebted to large planters and did not enjoy the economies of scale of those larger producers. Larger planters often bought up those smaller haciendas that failed. In short, easy access to credit, control of rail lines, port facilities, and other facets of henequen marketing and distribution contributed to a concentration of production in fewer and fewer hands, which itself reinforced oligopoly control over rail and port facilities (Wells 1992, 162–72). Thus the port of Progreso, like the railroad, was an instrument of social class differentiation in northern Yucatán. The lucrative Progreso-Mérida rail line was owned primarily by the Escalante family, which held majority interest by 1902. This family also owned Mérida’s electric streetcar system, the main commercial import-export brokerage firm in Progreso, the docks and much of the warehousing for henequen in Progreso, and the lighters that took cargo between anchored ships and the docks. They also owned significant henequen land in northern Yucatán. Subsequent acquisitions of rail lines in northern Yucatán and the profitable Mérida-Campeche line enabled the family to control a significant portion of the henequen transportation infrastructure at Progreso and in the interior of the state (Wells 1992, 196–98). Investment in Progreso was clearly at the heart of the process of wealth concentration in Yucatán and the consequent lack of economic diversification of the state’s economy. By 1910 one-third of Mexico’s rail lines were located in Yucatán. Mérida was obviously the main hub, but Progreso was in effect a secondary hub, owing to its gateway role in the handling of Yucatán’s imports and exports, and a total of three rail lines linked it directly to its hinterland. Henequen fiber accounted for some 70 percent of Yucatán’s rail shipments throughout henequen’s Golden Age (1880–1915). The dependency of the relatively modern transportation infrastructure on export-oriented monocrop production was solid. As the gateway for exports, Progreso handled virtually all of this fiber. A recognition of henequen dependency led President Díaz to lift tariffs on imported agricultural products and manufactured goods, to encourage more ships to call on Progreso in hopes of further expanding exports (Wells 1992, 178–89). In spite of its intent, the policy generated little diversification of the local economy. Rather, the local economy saw the continued control of the monocrop economy by a small group of families, who tended to siphon profits from smaller producers, and, bowing to the will of International Harvester, to reinvest those profits back into henequen production and distribution ( Joseph and Wells 1982; Yoder 1993). During the five decades between 1875 and 1925, Progreso’s influence over Yucatecan development steadily increased. Henequen exports from Progreso

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

50 / Michael S. Yoder increased most years during this period, even while Yucatán’s percentage share of the global fiber market began to decline after 1901, owing to the internationalization of agave fiber production by European capitalists seeking multiple sources of the commodity and lower prices (Yoder 1993). Domestic trade in manufactured and agricultural goods between Mexico City and the Yucatán Peninsula increased during the period. This trade involved coastwise shipment of goods between Veracruz and Progreso, given the isolation of Yucatán from the country’s primate city and its environs. Thus maritime shipment remained the most feasible way to move cargo between Yucatán and central Mexico until 1962, when the rail line linking Mérida to Mexico City, by way of Tabasco and Campeche, was finally completed (De la Pedraja 1999, 33; Carey 1984, 1–4). The continued increase in both domestic and international cargo passing through Progreso was accompanied by some diversification of the town’s economy. By 1912 there were three hotels in Progreso catering to vacationers. The town and its beach had become the favorite weekend retreat of many of Mérida’s elite. Numerous weekend and summer homes were built in Progreso by wealthy henequen producers (Meyer-Arendt 1987, 2001). Coinciding with increased port activity, the town experienced some significant improvements in transportation infrastructure (particularly roads) linking the port to its hinterland. During 1924 and 1925, for example, Yucatán’s governor, José María Iturralde Traconis, initiated the widening and grading of the Progreso-Mérida highway. The project was financed through the Cámara Nacional de Comercio de Mérida (National Chamber of Commerce of Mérida), which began charging one peso per ton of cargo unloaded at the port. A subsequent governor, Professor Bartolomé García Correa, oversaw construction in 1931 of the bridge over the lagoon just south of Progreso. Whereas 100 percent of Progreso’s henequen exports went to the port by rail in 1928, by 1935 the proportion dropped to 87 percent, and in 1937 to 57 percent (Ferrer de Mendiolea 1977, 530–35). Thus in the early twentieth century Progreso became more than simply a maritime-rail transshipment point for henequen. Road traffic changed the character of the port and the town.

The 1936–1947 Port Expansion During the Great Depression, international fiber prices continued to fall and henequen production in Yucatán declined. In spite of this situation, President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40) approved a plan to expand the port facilities at Progreso. The motive for that decision seemed to be the president’s desire to stimulate a new henequen boom for Yucatán and to thereby benefit the campesinos of the region who had obtained land through agrarian reform (Chardon 1961, 44–45; Yoder 1993, 329), and to expand coastwise shipping. An infrastructure-related decision of the Cárdenas administration that had

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

The Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso / 51 strong social motivations and was relevant to Progreso was the creation of domestic shipping companies owned by dockworkers’ and sailors’ unions. Cárdenas desired to increase Mexico’s maritime shipping, even if the emphasis was primarily coastwise. Such shipping continued to be the most important means of transporting agricultural commodities and manufactured goods between Mexico City and Yucatán. Coastwise shipping involving small vessels and small cargoes, often less than 250 tons in weight, remained highly profitable until larger ships—those with a dead-weight capacity of greater than 500 tons—began dominating regional (Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico) maritime trade after World War II (De la Pedraja 1999, 30–32). Undoubtedly, this increased coastwise shipping, owing to Yucatán’s persisting isolation, influenced the decision in 1936 to expand the port. Arguably, by adopting the twofold approach of investing in the improvement of the shipment of henequen more than in increasing its productivity, and promoting the expansion of employee-owned maritime shipping, Cárdenas hoped to benefit two different sectors of the Mexican proletariat (namely, dockworkers and sailors), shore up support for his social-democratic economic policies, and solidify support for the ruling revolutionary party. Progreso, as a result of this thinking, would see a major construction project in the 1940s. President Cárdenas approved the expansion of the port in 1936 in the form of a two-kilometer muelle (pier) with both a rail line and road. The ninemeter-wide pier was built as a causeway with concrete pilings and concrete arches over them, and a 250-by-50-meter platform at the end to accommodate freight and docking (Ferrer de Mendiolea 1977, 609). The Danish firm Christiane and Nielsen was contracted to construct the expansion. The end result was that in 1947, eleven years after the work commenced, the expansion was complete and the port of Progreso could claim the largest pier in the world at the time (Yucatán 2001a). Upon completion, the federal government’s superintendent of maritime works oversaw the construction of warehouses and port offices by private Mexican construction firms. In 1968 the new port facility was officially inaugurated as the Puerto Abrigo Yukalpetén (Yucatán 1988, 304; API 2001a). In retrospect, the decision to expand the port proved to be a sound one. Compared to other large Latin American countries, Mexico was slow to expand its shipping capacity after World War II. Few Mexican-owned shipping firms regularly called on ports outside the country; most domestic shipping operations were owned by unions or cooperatives and financially unable to acquire sufficient fleets for international shipping. Thus most of the importing and exporting was carried out by foreign-owned lines, despite cargo preference laws requiring that Mexican-registered ships carry a portion of a given carrier’s foreign (imported or exported) cargo. Thus the demand for shipping services, even coastwise, exceeded the supply, in spite of (or perhaps, in part, because of ) the high rate of nautical accidents and cargo destruction and loss (De la Pedraja 1999, 3, 29–33).

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

52 / Michael S. Yoder Global economic depression before the war served to soften demand for Yucatecan fiber, as did the establishment by business interests of alternative supply regions of agave in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. Wartime disruptions of fiber supplies and shipments from Asia and Africa, however, contributed heavily to Yucatán’s renewed near monopoly of U.S. fiber imports (Yoder 1993, 328–33). By the time the new facilities at Progreso opened, exports of henequen and henequen products had increased from their pre–World War II lull, but not to their record high levels between 1910 and 1920 (table 4). The new port’s first few years saw fairly robust henequen activity, but beginning in its second decade, exports increased dramatically, and the state experienced an astonishing level of production in the early 1960s. Henequen cordage products continued to be Progreso’s primary export cargo until the 1970s, when agave from countries other than Mexico and synthetic materials offered fierce competition for Yucatán. Prices continued to stagnate, and there was a decided dip in production by the early 1980s. In 1977, for example, Banco Rural, which provided henequen credit, realized major losses, owing to the low price for fiber and low levels of per-hectare productivity. That year the bank paid producers 15.39 pesos per kilogram, yet it received only 6.46 pesos per kilogram in sales. Given that eighty thousand Yucatecan cultivators, 70 percent of whom were members of the collective ejidos, relied on henequen for their livelihood, the federal government decided it was best to initiate new economic activities to diversify Yucatán’s economy and create work for unemployed or underemployed campesinos (Mexico 1992, 8). Thus the henequen traffic that continued to define the port was predicated on state policies of manipulating prices and supplies of fiber. Norwegian ships typically exported the henequen cordage products by the 1950s. Six of these ships, along with the corresponding port facilities at Progreso, were sold in 1960 to the Mexican shipping company Transportación Marítima Mexicana (TMM) because of the declining profitability of henequen exports for the Norwegians. Foreign ships handled most of the coastwise shipping in later decades, owing to the small vessels of domestic carriers and to liberalization in the 1980s of laws that permitted foreign participation in coastwise hauling. Coastwise shipping diminished somewhat in relative terms after 1962 when the rail line linking Mérida and Mexico City was completed.

The 1980s: Economic Diversification and Another Port Expansion Efforts to revive henequen output through the nationalization of privately owned manufacturing facilities were unsuccessful. Significant additional investments were made in the federal enterprise, Cordemex, during the late 1960s and early 1970s (Brannon and Baklanoff 1987, 97–100). Despite that

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

The Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso / 53

setback, both state and national officials desired to increase coastwise shipping, especially on the part of domestic companies. Thus they once again advocated the expanding of the port facilities of Progreso (De la Pedraja 1999, 32–34, 39). Such a policy seemed justified by the early 1980s when Progreso’s port capacity was burdened despite declining henequen exports. The continued isolation of Yucatán meant that rail and truck trips were relatively lengthy and risky, and therefore coastwise shipment of agricultural and manufactured goods to and from the port tended to increase in tandem with the state’s rapidly rising population, which doubled between 1950 and 1980 (Barke 1987, 64–66; De la Pedraja 1999, 156–61). Ironically, so strong was the region’s dependency on maintaining high levels of employment for Cordemex by the 1980s that Yucatán imported cheaper fiber from Brazil to maintain prior production levels. This importation of henequen further taxed the port’s cargohandling capacity (Keenan 1993, 22). The port of Progreso, whose platform of 43,000 square meters and shallow channel depth of sixteen feet could handle only small ships no more than 5,000 deadweight tons, was insufficient to accommodate the new economic activities and expanded trade that the state anticipated. The port only

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

54 / Michael S. Yoder

Fig. 10. The port of Progreso pier viewed from the beach (photo by Joy D. Baklanoff ).

had two available berths, one of which had cranes for lifting cargo. Particularly problematic was the port’s inability to handle containers, a technology that would define global shipping from the 1970s onward (API 2001a; Ports of the World 1973, 536). Stackable containers require abundant storage and handling space on the wharf itself (Hayuth 1982, 14–15). These limitations on the port’s competitiveness vis-à-vis other ports inspired Governor Víctor Cervera Pacheco to petition the federal government in 1985 for financing construction of a major extension of 4.5 additional kilometers to the pier, and a platform of 40,000 square meters with three berths and a channel depth of twentythree feet. This expansion would enable the port to accommodate ships carrying cargoes of 20,000 tons (API 2001a). Yucatecan henequen production declined in the 1970s and 1980s largely in response to weaker global demand. For example, by 1991 global fiber consumption was only 225,000 tons per year, of which Yucatán produced about 43,000 tons, or 19 percent. Of this 43,000 tons, 17,000 were unsold stock still in Yucatán, reflecting the glut in supply both locally and globally. Furthermore, the state’s expenditure on henequen production in 1991 was 100 million pesos, compared to 70 million pesos in income from sales (Mexico 1992, 25). While henequen production in Yucatán was declining rapidly in the 1970s

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

The Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso / 55

Fig. 11. Cranes at the expanded port of Progreso (photo by Michael S. Yoder).

and 1980s, manufacturing was beginning to employ an increasing share of the Yucatecan workforce, both in Mérida and in surrounding towns and villages. Manufacturing employment increased 129.6 percent in the state between 1970 and 1980 (Barke 1987, 66; Keenan 1993, 23). To further diversify the rural economy of Yucatán, the state began to promote pork and poultry production for the domestic market, and seafood and specialty agricultural products like honey for export. In 1985, for example, pork production was the leading activity in the traditional henequen zone, the northwestern portion of the state of Yucatán. That activity alone received 78 percent of the state’s investment in economic diversification. As a result, in 1986, hog farms in the henequen zone produced 57,581 head, or 5,182 tons of pork. The growth of both pork and poultry facilities required dramatic increases in grain imports to the state, including soy, sorghum, and corn, thereby contributing to the justification of the port’s expansion. By 1990, apiculture resulted in the production of some 10,000 tons of honey statewide, of which half was produced in the henequen zone (Mexico 1992, 33–34). In sum, pork, poultry, and honey shipments from the port, and the expectations of future increases in these shipments, played a role in the decision to expand the port. The first maquiladora in Yucatán appeared in 1982, and by 1989 there were eight (Yucatán 2001b). The expansion of both maquila and domestic manu-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

56 / Michael S. Yoder facturing in the 1980s played a role in the decision to expand the port (Torre Gamboa 2001; see chapter 4 in this volume). That expansion was completed in 1989. A very significant feature—the ability to handle containers—was added to meet an emerging shift in the state’s economy. Containerization is crucial to the maquiladora industry for safe, efficient, and reliable imports of components and exports of assembled goods; therefore, the expansion of both maquila and domestic manufacturing in the 1980s solidified the need for the port to accommodate containerization (API 2001b; see chapter 4 in this volume). During the first year of operation after the improvements (1989), the expanded port’s container facility handled 1,099 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) (API 2001c). This improvement would prove to be of great consequence in the 1990s, when the federal government was interested in streamlining port operations nationwide and lowering their operating costs. Furthermore, as a result of the expansion, the higher grain-handling capacity of 20,000 tons at a time contributed not only to more frequent and larger grain imports but also to greater efficiency and a decline in the per-ton price (API 2001b). By the time the port expansion was completed in 1989, federal officials were already thinking of further modernization as a key to attracting foreign direct investment and stimulating industrial and agricultural exports in general. While the larger ports were the immediate focus of attention, Progreso, too, would be affected by this strategy (De la Pedraja 1999, 156).

Progreso in the Global Economy: The Port Expansion of 2000–2002 Three interrelated facets of Mexico’s and Yucatán’s political economies of the 1990s would lead to another dramatic port enlargement at Progreso, carried out in 2000–2002. These include the failure of agave fiber to make a comeback in the world market, and the corresponding reliance of the federal and state governments on maquila manufacturing and agricultural diversification; the continued global proliferation of containerization, which made maquila manufacturing feasible in a remote locality such as Yucatán; and the twin Mexican government maritime port policies of decentralization and privatization. Due to a decreased global demand, competition with other source regions, and continued expansion of synthetic fibers, the henequen production in Yucatán continued to decline through the 1990s. By 1999 only 85,886 hectares of the state’s agricultural land, or 10.9 percent of the total, was dedicated to that crop. Furthermore, only 49,198 hectares of henequen (barely half that planted) were harvested, producing a value of 103 million pesos (approximately $11.4 million), or 11.7 percent of the state’s total agricultural output by value (INEGI 2000). By contrast, as indicated above, other aspects of the

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

The Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso / 57 agricultural economy made substantial advances. Meanwhile, the manufacturing sector grew at an impressive rate throughout the 1990s, and proportionally demonstrated the largest gain within Yucatán’s manufacturing sector (see chapter 4 in this volume). The majority of the maquiladoras are located within the city of Mérida and its immediate vicinity, especially in the industrial parks on the city’s north side and along the Progreso-Mérida manufacturing corridor. Three such parks have emerged along the Progreso-Mérida highway, at three kilometers, nine kilometers, and twenty-one kilometers south of Progreso, respectively. The largest, twenty-one kilometers south of Progreso (and nine kilometers north of the central business district of Mérida), is designated as an ecologically friendly park. In 1999 two-thirds of the state’s maquiladoras were located directly within Mérida’s immediate metropolitan zone, and nearly all the rest were within a thirty kilometer radius of the city’s center (Yucatán 2001c). Maquiladoras and seafood processing continue to be important activities, and their growth was a significant factor in the latest port expansion. However, the importation of grains and cereals as animal feed for the state’s mushrooming pork and poultry activities constitutes the most prominent feature of Yucatán’s external economic linkages, as well as Progreso’s primary port activity, both in tonnage and in value (tables 5, 6, 7, and 8). The annual tonnage increase in Progreso’s grain imports averaged 11.24 percent per year during the 1990s (API 2001a). To further illustrate the importance of grain shipments to Progreso, nearly all of which are destined for animal consumption (Torre Gamboa 2001; Yucatán 2001d), in the year 2000, farmers in the state of Yucatán produced 1.2 million hogs (83,000 tons of meat) and 48.3 million chickens (82,000 tons of meat) (INEGI 2001). This non-labor-intensive activity in Yucatán and surrounding states required the shipment of $444 million (approximately 4 billion pesos) of grains to Progreso. Thus, grain imports (a primary product) exceeded in value the $435 million (approximately 3.9 billion pesos) in Yucatán’s exports of clothing and textile products (secondary products) in 2000. The state’s livestock products are destined primarily for the domestic market and are shipped by a combination of truck, rail, and ship. Thus domestic coastwise shipments of general cargo, both imported and exported, as well as that of containers, continue to be important for Progreso. So, too, does coastwise transport of petroleum products by Pemex, the national petroleum company. Shipments of gasoline, diesel fuel, and kerosene arrive from the petroleum port of Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, by way of Ciudad Carmen and Campeche, two minor ports of the state of Campeche (API 2001b). In sum, since the 1980s Progreso has ceased to be primarily a henequen port, but serves as a secondary maritime transport center that handles a number of

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

58 / Michael S. Yoder

livestock, agricultural, and manufactured goods for international and domestic markets. The dynamism of maquiladora activity and the growth in exports of seafood products are mirrored by sizable increases in container handling and shipment at the port. Furthermore, a port’s competitiveness in a global economy depends upon quick cargo turnaround times and the ability to handle and

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

The Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso / 59

store containers. Between 1990 and 2000 the number of containers handled by the port of Progreso increased an average of 43.3 percent annually, from 1,636 TEUs in 1990 to 59,192 TEUs in 2000, after which time the number generally leveled off (table 9). By 2000 Progreso was Mexico’s fifth-largest handler of containers and the third largest on the Gulf Coast (Yucatán 2000; API 2001b, 2004). Containerization is one of the most essential features of transportationrelated technological development in the era of globalization, in developing as well as developed countries (De Monie et al. 1998, 1–11; Brookfield 1984, 61). For example, just-in-time ( JIT) delivery systems require minimizing storage and port turnaround times and provide for instantly trackable cargo locations and improved delivery scheduling. As a result of the global proliferation of JIT, Yucatecan economic development officials quickly recognized the need for Progreso to modernize and expand its container facilities in order to ac-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

60 / Michael S. Yoder

Fig. 12. General cargo platform, port of Progreso (photo by Michael S. Yoder).

commodate it and compete with other ports. These officials argued that for a locality such as Yucatán that is relatively remote from Mexico’s major population center, intermodal shipping is essential, and containerization is its cornerstone (API 2001b; Yucatán 2001d). Furthermore, a small regional port such as Progreso will at best be a destination for small-load feeder routes operated by small-scale carriers that serve “niche” markets or carry specialty cargoes for specific clients. Given the economies of scale of contemporary global shipping, secondary ports of this type require flexibility, lower labor costs, and containerization to be profitable. Thus, for a port to participate successfully in the global hub-and-spoke system of maritime shipping, efficient and inexpensive handling of containers by dockside cranes and sufficient storage space for containers are required (De Monie et al. 1998, 1–2, 8–9, 19; Brookfield 1984, 61–62; Hayuth 1982, 14). The flexibility associated with intermodal transport allows a secondary port in a developing country to expand its hinterland (Hayuth 1982, 13–15). As such, Progreso has been able to expand its role in the economic life of the entire Yucatán Peninsula by increasing its handling of cargoes not only for the state of Yucatán but for the neighboring states of Quintana Roo and Campeche (Yucatán 2000). Containerization, though essential to the success of maquiladoras in a relatively remote region such as Yucatán, will not automatically guarantee the success of a manufacturing industry. Throughout Mexico, government of-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

The Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso / 61

ficials at the state and local level work aggressively to attract foreign direct investment in export-oriented assembly plants. Such “entrepreneurial governance,” to borrow a phrase from David Harvey (1995), includes the aggressive marketing of place, the creation of a “labor-friendly” business climate, flexible planning, and the provision of tax breaks, inexpensive or even free land, free training of workers, and transport infrastructure (Gallardo 1996; Yoder 2000). Yucatán is involved in all of these facets of neoliberal governance, and Progreso’s evolution from the mid-1990s onward reflects it. The state of Yucatán pays the owners of maquiladoras 2 percent of each company’s payroll expenditures. These funds are earmarked for infrastructure, such as utilities, pavement, and electric lines. The state additionally pays for two to three months of training for new workers. While in training, the workers receive about 70 percent of their salary compliments of the state. Each month the state pays for the first 300 kilowatt-hours of electricity used by a given maquiladora, after which it offers a reduced price. In some remote interior localities, land is provided free to maquiladora owners as an incentive to bring work to the potential workforce and stem the rural-to-urban migration that Yucatán is experiencing. Officials of the Yucatán Dirección de Desarrollo Industrial (Department of Industrial Promotion) not only assist maquiladora owners in finding suitable land or space in industrial parks but also line up customs/import agents and legal assistance. Finally, the state government has successfully arranged a nonbinding “gentlemen’s agreement” with unions that has resulted in the latter’s absence in the maquiladora sector. This key promotional tool is used to attract foreign direct investment to the state, and it has certainly contributed to expectations for increased container traffic at the port in the future (Yuca-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

62 / Michael S. Yoder tán 2001d). In the case of Yucatán, an additional feature of neoliberal governance, described below, has been crucial: the decentralization of port administration and the privatization of many port functions. The new port facility, constructed by the Mexican construction company Industria Metalúrgica Pescarmona, S.A. (IMPSA) using rock dredged by the Dutch-Mexican joint venture Dragamex, includes a greatly enlarged platform, a new customs facility, and a berth for cruise ships and ferries (roll on– roll off—or “ro-ro”—vessels that handle truck trailers). Collectively these facilities cover thirty-six hectares. This represents a ninefold increase in the physical size of the port infrastructure. Mooring facilities are expanded from three to nine. The twenty-seven-hectare main platform at the end of the sixkilometer causeway now has a dedicated container area, a multiple-use terminal, and a bulk (grains) terminal. Multisur, a private Mexican company, invested $6.3 million in expanding the bulk terminal so that it can now handle double the previous 18,000-ton limit. The new tanker terminal can handle 40,000-ton vessels. In 2001, $15.8 million was to be spent on upgrading of cranes and other heavy port equipment for the container and multiple-use areas. Dragamex dredged the main channel an additional 15 feet—from 24.5 feet to 39.5 feet—and dredged a turning basin that is 47 feet deep. IMPSA used the dredged limestone rock from the channel and turning basin to form the foundation of the enlarged platform and widened causeway. The projected annual capacity of 12 million tons is four times the maximum tonnage the port could handle previously. For the year 2001 the federal government budgeted some $119 million in the expansion (API 2001b; Yucatán 2000). The port-expansion project of 2000–2002 followed changes in the national policy of port management. In 1993 the Salinas de Gortari administration (1988–94) passed legislation to privatize some aspects of port management and port ownership and established quasi-public Administraciones Portuarias Integradas (APIs, Integrated Ports Administrations). This legislation includes provisions for private companies to run the loading and unloading of cargo as well as the security and logistics of day-to-day port operations. In the case of Progreso, the port’s operations were reconfigured in 1995, at which time its API was established. This local federal entity, which falls under the secretary of Communications and Transportation, oversees scheduling of maritime shipments, coordination of truck pickups and deliveries, and port security. The federal government awarded contracts to Multisur for the creation of the grain terminal and the subsequent handling of grain cargoes, and to Navega, another private enterprise, for the stevedore function (loading and unloading of general cargo). In 2006, the port of Progreso awarded a twenty-year concession for management and operations of the container unit of the port to the Spanish company Terminal de Contenedores de Barcelona, S. A. (Yucatán 2006). The now-privatized TMM was awarded the contract to manage the cruise ship/ferry berth. In each case, the private firm involved in a given op-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

The Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso / 63 eration leases property from API, the actual owner of the port. Pemex is responsible for the petroleum/tanker berth and fluids terminal. API is responsible for monitoring the productivity of each of the different port operations, for security, and for inspection of cargoes (API 2001b). Clearly, the latest federally funded port expansion is distinctive not only in terms of its impact on and reflection of the evolving economy of the former henequen zone of northern Yucatán, but also for the business opportunities it offers private enterprise directly at the port. An examination of the port’s cargo logs for the summer of 2001 revealed that Houston, New Orleans, Jacksonville, Galveston, and Bienville, Mississippi, had become the most common points of origin of containers shipped to Progreso. However, according to the logs for August 2004, two-thirds came from Bienville. In 2001 and 2004, U.S. Gulf Coast ports such as New Orleans, Houston, Corpus Christi, and Galveston were the most important origins of grains arriving at Progreso. In June 2001, for example, a total of fifty-five ships called on Progreso. Forty-two were container ships, of which twenty-eight originated in the United States (primarily from Houston and Port Bienville, Mississippi), ten were coastwise shipments from Mexican ports, and four originated in the Caribbean Basin (Cuba, Haiti, and Guatemala). Of nine ships carrying grain, seven originated in the United States, one in Ghana, and one in Tampico. Of the forty-two container ships departing Progreso, twenty-five went to U.S. ports, eight to Mexican ports, seven to the Caribbean Basin (Cuba, Guatemala, Jamaica, Trinidad, and the U.S. Virgin Islands), and two to South America. Of the nine grain ships departing Progreso, eight went to the United States and one to the Caribbean (API 2001c). In August 2004 a total of forty-eight ships arrived in Progreso and fifty departed. Twenty-seven were container ships, of which eighteen originated in Bienville, three in Veracruz, and six in the Caribbean Basin (Cuba and Guatemala). Their destinations included Bienville (eighteen), Port Everglades, Florida (three), New Orleans (three), Veracruz (two), and Kingston, Jamaica (one). Of seven incoming grain ships, four were from the U.S. Gulf Coast, one from Canada, and two from Brazil. Of nine outgoing ships, two originated in Progreso, and both of these were destined for Tampico. The additional seven ships went to Corpus Christi (three), New Orleans (three), and Aruba (one) (API 2004). In sum, the data from 2001 and 2004 indicate that the port’s activity primarily involves direct connections with U.S. ports, and secondarily, coastwise domestic shipments. Tourism, and in particular the cruise industry, is an activity whose potential to stimulate Progreso’s economy is as yet uncertain, despite completion of the new passenger terminal early in 2002. Tourists to Progreso are interested primarily in side trips to the major archaeological sites in the state of Yucatán, and secondarily in day trips to Mérida (API 2001b, 2004; Torre Gamboa

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

64 / Michael S. Yoder 2002). The ships typically stay in port twenty-four hours, which is sufficient time for these side trips. Cruise-ship tourism already is having a social and cultural impact on Progreso. One internet site devoted to this type of tourism, for example, indicated that by 2002 several citizens of Progreso had come to depend economically on the arrival of tourists for selling souvenirs, providing taxi rides, and guiding local tours (Kane 2002). It is reasonable to assume that this fourth stage of the development of the port of Progreso will produce the most dramatic cultural change to date, as American and other first-world tourists converge on the small city.

Conclusion: Political Economy of Landscape Change and Progreso’s Four Stages of Port Evolution The political economy approach to geographic studies of localities is by and large concerned with documenting the spatial effects of capital accumulation through time in order to better understand how each phase of accumulation and its related economic activities, technologies, and institutions result in new geographical arrangements between and within localities (Sassen 1994, 2; Harvey 1995). Within a given country or city, the different ideologies of political actors or groups in the capital-accumulation process can result in corresponding landscape configurations that reflect and facilitate the economic and social policies implemented by each. David Ley (1987) demonstrated this in the cases of Liberal and Conservative Vancouver. In the case of northern Yucatán, distinct ideological orientations coupled with unique conditions within the world economy from the late nineteenth century to the present have led to dramatic changes in the economic landscape and the built environment. Lázaro Cárdenas established the system of collective henequen ejidos in 1937, initiating a more socially oriented form of governance in Yucatán. Despite the promise of modernization of the henequen sector, the new style of governance did not end the dependency on the crop but simply extended it under new management. Steps to expand the port facilities of Progreso between 1934 and 1982 were influenced primarily by that monocrop system, but a number of additional factors were already emerging. With the economic shock of 1982 the Mexican government initiated a major shift in economic strategy, giving more emphasis to private enterprise and foreign direct investments. In the case of Yucatán the policy was designed to reduce dependency on henequen and to promote economic diversification, especially in the dramatic increase of poultry and livestock production. The 1980s port expansion was a key feature of this neoliberal ideological turn and was viewed as necessary to accommodate the larger ships of world trade. Hyper-globalization and the fierce competition between different localities of the world for routine manufacturing in an era of “flexible accumula-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

The Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso / 65 tion” underlie the port expansion of 2000–2002. High unemployment and underemployment threaten the legitimacy of Mexican neoliberalism and prompted Yucatecan and national officials to attract as much manufacturing as possible, especially in maquiladoras. Those officials were also committed to further diversify the peninsula’s agricultural base to respond to new demands, both domestically and internationally, for a variety of products. Expanded tourism, including the accommodation of tour ships, was a part of the new strategy. The 2000–2002 port expansion reflects not only this strategy but also the continuing drive to privatize as many of the nation’s public enterprises as possible. It is significant that most of these policies are linked to an increased dependency on foreign direct investment. It remains to be seen whether the changes to the port will lead to sustained regional development and whether the expanded port will generate new wage-earning opportunities of its own. Containerization, a global phenomenon that the new port is intended to capture, tends to displace labor in ports. At the same time, it promotes the concentration of cargo functions to an increasingly smaller number of megaports around the world that have the capacity and competitiveness to handle high volumes of containers and to act as major global cargo hubs. Secondary ports in the developing countries generally find it difficult to compete with the global ports for anything more than specialized feeder lines (Harris 1994). It will be crucial to the future of Progreso, and to the economy of Yucatán as a whole, to avoid this situation. Although foreign direct investment, the number of maquiladora plants, and manufacturing employment are increasing in Yucatán, the tertiary sector of the economy accounts for a larger percentage of the state’s employment. In 2004, for example, services accounted for 41.8 percent of Yucatán’s economically active workforce, compared to 26.6 percent for manufacturing (INEGI 2006). In addition, it is questionable whether neoliberalism and its emphasis on foreign direct investment and maquiladoras will produce long-term economic growth in Yucatán as a whole or in Progreso in particular. Wages remain too low in virtually all sectors of the economy for such manufacturing to ignite a sufficient multiplier effect that would create a significant consumer base, especially in the rural communities of Yucatán. Furthermore, the manufacturing and tourist industries that benefit by drawing from the growing ranks of the rural unemployed are certain to accelerate the loss of traditional agricultural expertise among former campesinos unable to compete in the neoliberal agricultural economy dominated increasingly by agribusiness. Furthermore, as the popular press has widely reported throughout Mexico since late 2001, the demand for goods manufactured in many of the country’s maquiladoras, as well as tourism, are highly vulnerable to economic downturns in the United States. Jobs related to cruise-ship tourism will likely face vulnerabilities to the fluctuations of the economies of the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. Moreover, huge grain imports destined for the non-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

66 / Michael S. Yoder labor-intensive livestock sector will most likely produce only modest employment opportunities at the port. Progreso, however, will always be an important gateway for Mérida and northern Yucatán. The port expansion has clearly enhanced the stature of the port city among the nation’s ports of entry, and it will likely enhance the opportunities for the state of Yucatán to take on more complex forms of offshore manufacturing by companies based in North America, Europe, and possibly Asia. The port is perhaps the key stimulus for a renewed Yucatecan economy. The question remains whether such economic dynamism will be sufficient and reliable to generate the types of employment to finally free the region of its dependency on the fortunes of the developed countries.

References Administración Portuaria Integral de Progreso [API]. 2001a. Port of Progreso internet website, http://www.yucatan.gob.mx/progreso. 1. 2001b. Interview with Ing. Raúl Torre, Commercial Director, Port of Progreso. 1. 2001c. Unpublished internal port data. 1. 2004. Port of Progreso internet website, http://www.puerto-progreso.com. mx/estadistica/. Airriess, Christopher. 1991. Global Economy and Port Morphology in Belawan, Indonesia. Geographical Review 81 (2): 183–96. Amin, Ash, ed. 1995. Post Fordism: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Amin, Ash, and Malmberg, Anders. 1995. Competing Structural and Institutional Influences on the Geography of Production in Europe. In Post Fordism: A Reader, ed. Ash Amin, 227–48. Oxford: Blackwell. Barke, Michael. 1987. Yucatán, Mexico: Dimensions of Development, 1970–1980. Geography 72 (1): 64–67. Bird, James. 1980. Seaports as a Subset of Gateways for Regions: A Research Survey. Progress in Human Geography 4 (3): 360–70. Brannon, Jeffrey, and Baklanoff, Eric. 1987. Agrarian Reform and Public Enterprise in Mexico: The Political Economy of Yucatán’s Henequen Industry. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Brookfield, H. C. 1984. Boxes, Ports, and Places without Ports. In Seaport Systems and Spatial Change, ed. B. S. Hoyle and D. Hilling, 61–74. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley. Carey, James C. 1984. The Mexican Revolution in Yucatán, 1915–1924. Boulder: Westview Press. Chardon, Roland. 1961. Geographic Aspects of Plantation Agriculture in Yucatán. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences—National Research Council, Publication 876. De la Pedraja, René. 1999. Latin American Merchant Shipping in the Age of Global Competition. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. De Monie, Gustaaf, et al. 1998. Strategies for Global and Regional Ports:The Case of Caribbean Container and Cruise Ports. Boston: Kluwer.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

The Evolving Port Landscape of Progreso / 67 Ferrer de Mendiolea, Gabriel. 1977. Historia de las comunicaciones. In EnciclopediaYucatanense, ed. C. A. Echanove Trujillo, 3:507–626. Mérida: State of Yucatán. Friedmann, John. 1995. Where We Stand: A Decade of World City Research. In World Cities in a World-System, ed. Paul Knox and Peter Taylor, 21–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gallardo, A. 1996. El modelo neoliberal en la economía mexicana. In Memorias II: Simposium de estudios fronterizos, ed. Salvador Corrales, 115–21. Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico: Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF). Harris, Nigel. 1994. The Emerging Global City: Transport. Cities 11 (5): 332–36. Harvey, David. 1995. Flexible Accumulation through Urbanization: Reflections on “Post-modernism” in the American City. In Post Fordism: A Reader, ed. Ash Amin, 361–86. Oxford: Blackwell. Hayuth, Yehuda. 1982. Intermodal Transportation and the Hinterland Concept. Tijdschrift voor Econ. En Soc. Geografie 73 (1): 13–21. Hilling, D., and Hoyle, B. S. 1984. Spatial Approaches to Port Development. In Seaport Systems and Spatial Change, ed. B. S. Hoyle and D. Hilling, 1–19. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley. Hoyle, B. S., and D. Hilling. 1984. Seaports and Development Strategies. In Seaport Systems and Spatial Change, ed. B. S. Hoyle and D. Hilling, 461–69. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley. Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática [INEGI]. 2000. Anuario estadístico Yucatán, edición 2000. Aguascalientes, Mexico: INEGI. 1. 2001. Anuario estadístico Yucatán, edición 2001. Aguascalientes, Mexico: INEGI. 1. 2006. Encuesta nacional de empleo (series anuales), http://www.inegi.gob.mx/ est/default.asp?c=6284 (accessed June 4, 2006). Joseph, Gilbert, and Allen Wells. 1982. Corporate Control of a Monocrop Economy: International Harvester and Yucatán’s Henequen Industry during the Porfiriato. Latin American Research Review 17 (1): 69–99. Kane, Pamela. 2002. Progreso/Mérida Opens for Business. Cruise Guide, http://www. cruisemates.com/articles/cruiseguide/portsofcall/Progreso.cfm. Keeling, David F. 1995. Transport and the World City Paradigm. In World Cities in a World-System, ed. Paul Knox and Peter Taylor, 115–31. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Keenan, Joe. 1993. Is There Life after Henequen? Business Mexico, April, 22–23. Knox, Paul, and John Agnew. 1998. The Geography of theWorld Economy. 3rd ed. London: Arnold. Ley, David. 1987. Style of the Times: Liberal and Neo-conservative Landscapes in Inner Vancouver. Journal of Historical Geography 13 (1): 40–56. Mandel, Ernest. 1978. Late Capitalism. London: Verso. Martin, Ron. 1994. Stateless Monies, Global Financial Integration, and National Economic Autonomy: The End of Geography? In Money, Power and Space, ed. Stuart Corbridge, Ron Martin, and Nigel Thrift, 253–78. Oxford: Blackwell. Mexico, Government of. 1992. Programa de desarrollo regional de la zona henequenera de Yucatán, 1992–94. Mexico City: Programa Nacional de Solidaridad. Meyer-Arendt, Klaus. 1987. Recreational Landscape Evolution along the North Yucatán Coast. Yearbook, Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers 13:45–50.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

68 / Michael S. Yoder 1. 1991. Tourism Development on the North Yucatán Coast: Human Response to Shoreline Erosion and Hurricanes. Geojournal 23:327–36. 1. 2001. Recreational Development and Shoreline Modification along the North Coast of Yucatán, Mexico. Tourism Geographies 3 (1): 87–104. Posadas Hernández, Norma, and Victor Martínez Luna. 1999. Importancia del transporte marítimo-portuario nacional dentro del comercio mundial. In Globalización y reestructuración territorial, ed. Elsa Patiño Tovar and Jaime Castillo Palma, 169– 84. Puebla, Mexico: Programa Editorial de la Red de Investigación Urbana; and Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. Sassen, Saskia. 1994. Cities in a World Economy. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge Press. Secretaría de Fomento Industrial de México [SECOFI]. 1990–2000. Unpublished data. Simon, David. 1995. The World City Hypothesis: Reflections from the Periphery. In World Cities in a World-System, ed. Paul Knox and Peter Taylor, 132–55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Torre Gamboa, Raúl. 2001. Personal communication (Director of Commercial Operations, Port of Progreso). 1. 2002. Personal communication. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World System. Text ed. New York: Academic Press. Wells, Allen. 1985. Yucatán’s Guilded Age: Haciendas, Henequen, and International Harvester, 1860–1915. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 1. 1992. All in the Family: Railroads and Henequen Monoculture in Porfirian Yucatán. Hispanic American Historical Review 72 (2): 159–209. Wilson, Nicholas. 1997. Progreso Privatization Helps Yucatán Industry. Business Mexico, February, 42. Yoder, Michael. 1993. The Latin American Plantation Economy and the WorldEconomy. Review 16 (3): 319–37. 1. 2000. Northeast Mexico in the Global Economy: The Contemporary Urban Geographies of Three Mid-Sized Cities. Occasional Paper, Aldo Tatangelo Annual Lecture in the College of Arts and Humanities, Texas A&M International University, Laredo, April 18. Yucatán, State of. 1988. Los municipios de Yucatán. Mérida: Gobierno del Estado de Yucatán. 1. 2000. Ampliación para el Progreso. Mérida: Gobierno del Estado de Yucatán. 1. 2001a. Port Progreso. Videotape, Government of the State of Yucatán. 1. 2001b. Unpublished data, Dirección de Desarrollo Industrial. 1. 2001c. Censo de maquiladoras, estado de Yucatán. Departmento de Desarrollo Industrial. 1. 2001d. Interview with Ing. David Goff Rendon, Dirección de Desarrollo Industrial. 1. 2006, May 6. Creces en Yucatán infraestructura. Dirección General de Comunicación Social.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

3 A Wheel of Fortune Yucatán’s Entrepreneurial Elite from the Revolution to Globalization Luis Alfonso Ramírez

Between 1915 and 1992 the social, economic, and political structure of the state of Yucatán underwent a radical transformation. This involved the decline of one social group (the descendants of the old oligarchy based on henequen) and the rise of a new set of elites growing out of the political, economic, and social structure produced by the Mexican Revolution. Although not entirely removed from the traditional controlling class, the modern elite included new economic groups, some originating in the middle and lower strata of regional society and others coming from outside the peninsula. Of these newcomers, the most notable were professionals involved in business, descendants of Lebanese immigrants, and entrepreneurs who came from other parts of Mexico to invest in Yucatán. Also of great importance within the modern setting were those individuals who headed government-owned enterprises in the state. In recent years a growing number of business leaders have come as representatives of large national and international firms, including managers of maquiladoras. This chapter, however, will focus on the dynamics of local entrepreneurs who in 1992 still controlled more than half of the corporate groups in the region.1 More recently, in the era of globalization, their position of leadership has been severely compromised. Emphasis will be given to individual business leaders and their role in informal networks or coalitions rather than on the business community as a collective body. This approach is taken in part because, until recently, business associations such as chambers of commerce had very little influence as collective negotiating entities in state and federal politics.2 Therefore, major political strength in the business sector has rested with individual personages who negotiate through coalitions and are linked to powerful political officials.3 Key individuals who, for the most part, rose from the middle class beginning in the 1930s formed a part of the regional business elite and, through an accentuated process of social mobility, managed to occupy positions of great economic and political power. At the heart of this analysis are four case studies of outstanding business leaders, entrepreneurs at the top of their own pri-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

70 / Luis Alfonso Ramírez vately owned companies with interlocking networks to other entrepreneurs. No attempt is made to establish statistical generalizations; valid conclusions regarding the modern elite of Yucatán can be drawn from the examination of individual leaders and their interactions. The objective is to make a qualitative analysis for the purpose of developing a model with which to consider various hypotheses and explanations, rather than to propose a generalization based on a statistical analysis. The modern Yucatecan business elite can be best understood, however, by tracing its evolution from the Age of Green Gold.

Yucatán’s Traditional Elite By 1880, with the dominance of the henequen economy, leadership in Yucatán was firmly in the hands of the planter class. Linked to the Liberal Party and its national caudillo, Porfirio Díaz, the hacendados dominated politics, economics, and society throughout the peninsula. A group of thirty families made up the casta divina (a group of thirty to forty families of planters and their banker-merchant cousins and allies), with two clans forming the peak of that structure. Eusebio Escalante and Olegario Molina, together with their families and relatives, were the principal intermediaries in charge of henequen exports to the United States during the late nineteenth century. Their exporting houses generated sufficient capital to finance their own banks, railway companies, and barrios. It was not a harmonious sharing of power, however, but one of vicious competition in which rival camarillas vied for top offices in the state. Molina served as governor from 1901 to 1905 and then was appointed by President Díaz as national minister of economy (1906–10). Utilizing his political connections and economic power, and with assistance from his Spanish son-in-law Avelino Montes, the newly appointed minister succeeded in bankrupting Escalante in 1907. As the leading member of the casta divina well beyond the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, Molina remained the leading henequen exporter in Yucatán.4 The initial phase of the revolution did not greatly influence conditions in the southeast; in fact, henequen enjoyed a renewed boom as a result of the increased demand created by World War I. The casta divina continued to dominate Mérida and the surrounding countryside, its social power reflected in the grand mansions along the newly opened Paseo de Montejo. In 1915, however, General Salvador Alvarado led a Mexican army into Yucatán. With the primary goal of gaining control of the highly profitable henequen trade, Alvarado wrested political power from the casta divina in the name of the national government. He decreed the abolition of debt peonage but left the Maya workers as wage laborers on the haciendas.5 The years from 1918 to 1937 produced further political change and unrest, including the turbulent regime of Governor Felipe Carrillo Puerto (1920–23), when both urban and rural labor were brought under the banner of the Par-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Entrepreneurial Elite / 71 tido Socialista del Sureste (PSS, Socialist Party of the Southeast). Throughout that time, most members of the old elite continued to control their plantations and adapted to the new circumstances; they occupied lucrative economic positions and maintained a high standard of living. Some were able to diversify their capital despite political ups and downs, investing in urban real estate, commerce, and banking while maintaining title over their agrarian properties. The most astute also put part of their capital safely abroad, especially in New York City and Havana. Thus they continued as a dynamic elite that knew how to modernize activities and to manage credit, technology, and markets. This was a common story with the Porfirian oligarchy throughout Mexico. For example, the Creel Terrazas clan, having lost their immense latifundios in Chihuahua, became bankers and would evolve into some of the wealthiest industrialists in the country. Another example is the Braniff family, which reestablished its fortune and produced successful businessmen involved in real estate and construction in Mexico City.6 In Yucatán, however, many descendants of the old oligarchy experienced a marked decline in wealth and prestige; some failed to reinvest their fortunes owing to the loss of their political position during the revolution, while others had always lived far beyond their means. Thus some of the members of the old oligarchy were able to weather the storm of revolution, but many were not, sinking deeply into debt. Meanwhile, the greatly modified political arena provided an unrestricted route for social mobility; new families rose to prominence, thus setting the stage for the eventual transformation of the Yucatecan business elite.

Agrarian Reform and the Revolutionary Elite In 1937 President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40) moved against the landed oligarchy; accompanied by surveyors and engineers, he personally supervised the breakup of the haciendas and assigned collective ejidos (community lands) to landless peasants. Although this was a major blow to their economic dominance, the collapse of the landed oligarchy was not immediate. Former hacendados were allowed to retain a diminished core of land and buildings (the casco) at the center of their estates, along with defibrating and packing machinery. Many continued to play a role in the industrialized phase of henequen by investing in cordage factories.7 More importantly, in the decades following agrarian reform, individuals originating in the middle and lower strata of regional society began to play a prominent role in the economy. Their ranks included a number of recent immigrants, especially Lebanese, who initiated their commercial activities as peddlers, accumulated considerable capital, and took advantage of low real-estate prices.8 Other important new arrivals to the peninsula came from central Mexico and from Spain. Some joined members of the traditional elite in the cordage industry, while others invested in new opportunities afforded by the evolving regional economy.9

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

72 / Luis Alfonso Ramírez Following World War II the cordage industry fell on hard times, and the number of manufacturing plants declined rapidly.10 In 1953 cordage mill owners received government assistance to form Cordeleros de México, but the subsidized industry continued to operate at a loss. In 1961, once again with government assistance, the cordeleros consolidated all cordage mills into a single firm, designated as Cordemex. For more than two years it operated as a private enterprise, but throughout much of that time negotiations were carried out with the Mexican government for its nationalization. In mid-1964 the government paid 200 million pesos ($15.2 million) to the private holders and assumed another 120 million pesos in accumulated debts and unpaid taxes. The amount paid was more than double the value of the acquired factories, and there were widespread charges of corruption on the part of both government officials and the private sector. The announced objective of the giant federally controlled conglomerate was to provide a higher standard of living for the Cordemex workers and a more equitable share of wealth for the ejidatarios (campesinos with a legal membership in the collective ejidos, with social rather than private ownership rights) who supplied the raw fiber to the factory. It soon became obvious, however, that “the initial beneficiaries were the ex-mill owners, some of whom had been large plantation owners before agrarian reform.”11 It is noteworthy that the Mexican government’s purchase of the cordage mills provided a major infusion of capital in support of the Yucatecan elite, thus setting the stage for many of the enterprises that will be discussed later in this chapter. After 1964, wealth formerly tied up in sisal and cordage production was channeled into other activities, forming the basis for a structural evolution. By 1992, three generations and seventy-seven years had passed since the arrival of General Alvarado and the Mexican Revolution in Yucatán. At that time Yucatán’s largest industrial and commercial firms were directed by eighty-one principal groups.12 Nineteen of those enterprises were local branches of large national companies that dominated poultry, baked goods, beverages, plastic derivatives, cement, construction, food, and the stock market. Some large operations were still in the hands of the federal government, notably in communications, energy (Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex), and financial capital. In that year Cordemex continued as a federally directed monopoly, though with serious difficulties. Despite rapid changes that were under way, in 1992 forty-one out of the top eighty-one business organizations in Yucatán were either controlled by regional capital or had Yucatecan capitalists as majority stockholders.13 Of these entrepreneurial groups involved in cattle ranching, construction, tourism, commerce, automobile dealerships, and communications, twenty-three were owned or controlled by families with Hispanic surnames and of local middle-class origins who had risen socially in the course of one to three generations.14 Twelve entrepreneurial groups associated with industry, commerce,

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Entrepreneurial Elite / 73 and construction were in the hands of descendants of Lebanese immigrants. As indicated earlier, these families began their social climb from positions of poverty at the turn of the twentieth century. Five groups affiliated with tourism, industry, and automobile agencies consisted of families that began to achieve economic success during the Porfiriato, but since the twentieth century they were associated with commerce and industry rather than with haciendas. Four were families of Spanish immigrants, including descendants of the Ponce family that formed the Corporativo Peninsular.15 One of the fortyone, considered in detail below, was a descendant of the Olegario Molina clan, but none was a member of the Eusebio Escalante family.16 Finally, only one of the entrepreneurial groups of importance was owned by a family with a Maya surname and of humble origins. This Yucatecan elite formed a heterogeneous business sector, the product of more than half a century of social mobility that showed a tendency to consolidate family enterprises into corporate groups in which professional administration was still subordinated to the imperatives of family dynamics.

Entrepreneurs of Flesh and Blood This section will focus at the micro level on the dynamics and functions of the local business elite who in 1992 still controlled more than half of the corporate groups in the region. To be more precise, it will focus on four outstanding entrepreneurs and their informal networks as case studies of Yucatán’s dynamic modern business elite. This analytical framework is justified by the fact that formal associations of businessmen in Yucatán have had very little influence as collective negotiating entities in state politics as well as with the Mexican government since the association of cordeleros was left practically dismantled in 1964. At the time of the study (1992), chambers and business associations had just begun to gain political importance. With the fervor of the neoliberal reforms and modernizing tendencies, the Carlos Salinas regime (1988–94) sought to increase the role of national entrepreneurs while openly equating the interests of the nation with those of private capital.17 With one exception, the families of the four individuals selected for this study have climbed socially from the middle class beginning in the 1930s. They are outstanding representatives of the regional business elite who have managed to occupy positions of great economic and political power. In choosing them, I looked for examples of the most dynamic, changing, and diversified sectors of the contemporary productive structure of Yucatán.18 The first case study is that of a family of entrepreneurs associated with financial capital and industry; the second, with mass communications; the third, with tourism; and the fourth, with agro-industry, ranching, and maquiladoras. The first three have also associated themselves in various ways with the construction industry, and all four have been directly or indirectly connected to political power at

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

74 / Luis Alfonso Ramírez different times. Each man is an example of an entrepreneur found at the summit of a given business structure. As stated earlier, there will be no attempt to establish statistical generalizations of the numerical induction type. Rather, I believe that valid generalizations can be derived from a study of these leaders and from interactional models among them.19 Vicente Erosa Cámara, the son of a physician and born in the town of Cansahcab in 1919, chose to study law in Mérida. Through his work in a law office and later in the legal department of the local chamber of commerce, young Vicente became associated with the business world of the peninsula. He founded a credit union within the chamber that provided a strong financial base to acquire controlling interest in a number of enterprises. In 1944, at only twenty-five, Erosa Cámara was named president of the chamber of commerce. As a member of the PSS he was elected mayor of Mérida (1947–49), then state representative to the national congress. In the early 1950s the young lawyer aspired to become governor of Yucatán, but those hopes were shattered when the PSS was dismantled by the ever-increasing power of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI, Institutional Revolutionary Party).20 After that political setback, Erosa Cámara concentrated on his entrepreneurial activities. As principal promoter and majority shareholder of two major financial institutions at the regional level (Banco del Sureste and Financiera del Sureste), Erosa Cámara dedicated himself to the acquisition of businesses with problems of liquidity, including industries producing matches, candles, and soft drinks.21 He was especially active in the cordage industry, managing several manufacturing plants and playing an important role in the formation of Cordeleros de México. In 1964 he was the principal negotiator for the mill owners in the sale of Cordemex to the Mexican government. Erosa Cámara and his associates were successful beyond all expectations; the government paid more than double the value of the acquired factories, due in large part to corruption on the part of both politicians and the businessmen. These successful negotiations added to the astute lawyer’s already considerable fortune and cemented his place of leadership in the local business world. In the course of his various activities, Erosa Cámara established alliances with two other outstanding entrepreneurs (whose cases will be considered below). Their cooperative ventures lasted until the 1990s and focused especially on tourism, real-estate investments, and communications. At the same time, Don Vicente expanded his personal holdings, acquiring a small iron and steel mill and converting it into the only steel industry in the southeast of Mexico. In the 1970s he promoted the establishment of a ciudad industrial south of Mérida, and in the 1980s he established an industrial park for foreign maquiladoras north of the city, thus playing an initial part in the formation of an industrial corridor between Mérida and the port of Progreso. Erosa Cámara retired from his business activities in 1992 and died in 1994.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Entrepreneurial Elite / 75 Our second case study is that of an entrepreneur who established his connections to the business world by means of his university credentials rather than upon a financial base. Andrés García Lavin was born in Progreso in 1929 and later went to Mexico City to study public accounting. While pursuing an academic degree, he worked in the newly emerging field of television as an employee of Televisa, a corporation that grew to be the largest television network in Mexico. García Lavin gained the friendship of Rómulo O’Farril, the main shareholder of the emerging communications giant. Upon returning to Mérida in 1951, the young accountant formed connections with many important businessmen, including henequen industrialists. In a short time he was managing an important cordage mill, and later he acquired a small plant of his own. During those years he established a strong relationship with Erosa Cámara, who assisted the younger man in his early investments. García Lavin joined his mentor in the management of Cordeleros de México and participated in the lucrative sale of the cordage interests to the national government. In the early 1970s García Lavin promoted the first private television channel in the southeast, supported by his friend Rómulo O’Farril and another powerful figure on the national scene, Miguel Alemán Jr., son of former Mexican president Miguel Alemán. More significant for our purposes, García Lavin also brought into the ambitious enterprise his Yucatecan associate Erosa Cámara. Extending his holdings in other segments of communications, by the end of the 1980s García Lavin had succeeded in establishing the media conglomerate Servicios Informativos Publicitarios Sureste del Estado (SIPSE, Information and Publication Services for Southeastern Yucatán), which consisted of six radio stations, five newspapers, a fully owned television channel, and three additional TV stations. His principal partnerships in SIPSE were with Televisa and the newspaper chain Novedades. Over the next twenty-five years García Lavin developed a number of other businesses in cooperation with Erosa Cámara and another close friend and longtime business associate, José Trinidad Molina Castellanos. These holdings, primarily in tourism and real estate, included a fleet of air taxis that operated in Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas. The associates also formed construction companies and other enterprises connected to tourism, some of which were active for only a short while. Many were quite profitable, however, and by 1992 the three associates retained hotels and other properties on the beaches of Yucatán and Quintana Roo. José Trinidad Molina Castellanos, the third associate in the coalition just mentioned, did not rise from the middle class but from the very pinnacle of the casta divina. The grandson of one of Olegario Molina’s younger brothers, José Trinidad was born in Mérida around 1928. He did not attend a university but dedicated himself from an early age to his family’s business, primarily cordage mills and raw henequen exports. During the late 1950s he came to

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

76 / Luis Alfonso Ramírez know Erosa Cámara and García Lavin through those activities. Young Molina was charged with maneuvers to acquire illegally fiber from ejidos that were sold through the Banco de Crédito Ejidal and was accused of bribing governmental officials for preferential treatment in henequen exports.22 As might have been expected, he was closely associated with Erosa Cámara and García Lavin in the negotiations for the sale of Cordemex and benefited greatly from that arrangement. With the cancellation of his debts by Banrural, Molina diverted funds to other business activities, especially in horticultural exports. In the early 1970s he expanded into tourism, and by 1990 he possessed important holdings in tour buses, yachts, and hotels in Quintana Roo and Yucatán. It is important to note that this success was linked to the major development project at Cancún that was supported by the Mexican national government. As earlier indicated, at various times throughout this period Molina formed partnerships with Erosa Cámara and García Lavin in communications, hotels, real estate, and construction. Our fourth entrepreneur, Adolfo Peniche Jr., was born around 1938. He did not have close links to the other three we have discussed, but an association he formed with a rising political figure led to numerous profitable opportunities. Adolfo Peniche Sr., Adolfo’s father and a man of modest means, gained an important position within state business circles in the 1940s as manager of Henequeneros de Yucatán, a state enterprise that combined the production, defibration, and sale of henequen.23 By 1944 he had accumulated sufficient capital to acquire his own small cordage plant, and with profits from that enterprise he assisted his children in their entrance into the business world. Young Adolfo became aware of the increasing demand for poultry and eggs in the urban markets of Yucatán, and in the 1970s he invested in poultry breeding, focusing especially on the use of scientifically balanced feeds. In the early days of that enterprise he obtained important capital investment from the United States and worked in partnership with his brother Arturo and with a friend, Alberto Sauri. The business increased rapidly; by the 1980s it was the thirdlargest poultry enterprise in Mexico and the first to be listed on the stock market, with assets of $20 million. Adolfo Peniche eventually sold all of his shares in his profitable poultry business to a national conglomerate, the Grupo Desc. Meanwhile, he invested in a number of dairies and cattle ranches, this time in association with one of the most powerful political figures of the region, Victor Cervera Pacheco, head of the Confederación Nacional Campesina (CNC, National Campesina Confederation). He was appointed interim governor of Yucatán in 1984, serving in that office until 1987.24 Cervera in turn appointed Peniche to an important state economic post, thus providing a close working relationship that opened a number of joint ventures, including projects to improve the infrastructure of their ranches and to increase the size of their herds. At the same

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Entrepreneurial Elite / 77 time, the partners took advantage of a new state initiative, the Programa de Maquila de Exportación en Yucatán (Maquila Export Program in Yucatán), to establish their own maquiladora plant, thus gaining a foothold in the growing export-assembly industry. Between 1988 and 1990, however, Peniche distanced himself from local politics, giving primary attention to his many enterprises, including those held in partnership with the former governor. With the election of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988–94), Cervera was appointed national minister of agrarian reform. In 1991, from his powerful position on the national scene, the minister again placed his close friend in a key economic post in the government of Yucatán, thus assuring Peniche a continuing role as a member of the state’s economic elite.25

A Conceptual Framework: Coalitions and Action Sets A useful theoretical approach to the organizational structure of business operations is provided by a number of scholars who have examined entrepreneurs in various regions of the world.26 They have found that individual business leaders not only undertake speculative ventures on their own but often form coalitions that are more or less stable through time. Coalitions may remain latent for a long period of time but can be activated when specific goals or opportunities are identified. This process of active cooperation by members of a coalition has been identified as an “action set.” We might define an action set as the cooperation of two or more individuals who make an alliance in order to carry out an enterprise with specific goals intended to result in profit for each participant. An action set is not a legal corporation or a partnership but rather a specific venture undertaken through personal connections. Such a business arrangement will often have no single leader, nor will it be controlled by one ego; it is possible at times, however, to identify a “first among equals” for a specific project. Most studies indicated that coalitions were formed when two conditions existed: fluid social relations and the availability of resources. These situations often occur when national or regional power structures are modified, making it possible for those who have not previously had access to resources to exploit them. Coalitions, not individual activities, are presented as the most effective form of organization for obtaining benefits in the face of competition from other groups. Business coalitions demonstrate different characteristics, depending upon their membership with respect to class origin, capital availability, family size and background, and matrimonial alliances. The academic specialization of the individual coalition member is quite important, since this affects his initial work experience, especially if he comes from the middle class. Thus the coalition often facilitates social and economic mobility based upon dynamic strategies. Mobility and diversification in administration

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

78 / Luis Alfonso Ramírez and investments have given better results than the concentration of capital or remaining in one single branch of economic activity. The slogan of the Yucatecan entrepreneurs could well be that of the Foreign Legion: march or die. Capital must never be kept for long in the same place. An extremely important factor in the success of a coalition relates to how it is tied to economic and political power on a national or regional basis. There never has existed a complete separation between the economic and political spheres of power; they are presupposed and mixed. No business strategies can be understood if we attempt to locate them outside the field of power. The point of connection is most often the practice of corruption, which is so common that it becomes a function of greater or lesser entrepreneurial competence.27 As a result of this melding of business and politics, the entrepreneur obtains infrastructure, credit, land, and the elimination of bureaucratic and judicial obstacles. Political favor gives advantage to some businessmen rather than to others. On the other hand, most business coalitions have made a concrete effort to balance their relationships with government in an effort to avoid becoming a pawn in the political struggle for power. Coalitions tend to remain outside formal political life, and their sources of capital remain diverse and often independent of public finances. This does not mean they do not obtain benefits from public finance, since they often continue to do so. The analytical framework based on other regions of the world has important parallels to the situation in modern Yucatán. All of the Yucatecan entrepreneurs I examined were members of the dynamic new elite that emerged out of the Mexican Revolution. They were owners and directors of formal companies (newspapers, television stations, agro-industry, ranches, tourist companies, etc.) and continued in powerful positions within the peninsula’s business world through 1992, the year of my survey. Once their personal enterprises were operating in good financial condition, however, they quite often left them in the hands of their children or professional managers and looked for alternative challenges and opportunities. In each case I examined, the entrepreneurs sought cooperative ventures with close associates, thus forming coalitions. These new associations were distinctly different from the traditional family enterprise or holding company and remained apart from the individual holdings of each member. The coalition of Erosa Cámara, García Lavin, and José Trinidad Molina was forged out of the negotiations between private cordilleros and the Mexican government, which resulted in the transfer of large amounts of capital into the hands of the former mill owners. Their successful negotiation, spearheaded by Erosa Cámara, and the resulting windfall profit may be defined as the first action set by that coalition. The three members did not form an incorporated business; their links were quite informal, and each member retained his personal, family, and corporate holdings.28 Throughout the years that followed,

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Entrepreneurial Elite / 79 the members utilized the coalition to take advantage of many investment opportunities as they surfaced, initiating a series of ambitious ventures or action sets. One example related to the development of real estate and construction of housing units. The coalition moved to acquire land, provide capital, and make credit arrangements. A company was formed for construction; but once the houses were sold, that part of the association was liquidated.29 Many action sets were initiated by the individual coalition member whose area of specialty was involved. García Lavin, for example, sponsored a number of projects in mass communications. Erosa Cámara and Molina assisted in these efforts, but eventually complete control of the resulting enterprises passed into the hands of García Lavin. By the same token, Molina concentrated his personal efforts on his cruise ships, and Erosa retained ownership of his steel mills until his death. Each member provided economic resources, exchange of favors, political influence, effective information, and resources for various opportunities. A cooperative spirit and flexibility sustained the coalition over a period of thirty years. In the light of statements in the literature on coalitions and action sets regarding links between business leaders and political power, it is instructive to focus on how our two major coalitions were linked to the political scene in Yucatán. After an early career in municipal politics, Erosa had aspired to be governor of Yucatán; but when those hopes were dashed, he turned to business. Indeed, all of the members of the first coalition avoided direct participation in public life or government office. It is quite clear, however, that from the very beginning their business dealings were greatly influenced by the political climate in which they functioned. The initial success of their negotiations with federal officials over Cordemex were of great importance in setting up the coalition. Later contracts for real estate and other enterprises were linked to political favor or information that gave them advantages, including the opportunities in the newly developed tourist region of Cancún. The coalition members remained out of office, but far from out of politics. In his initial business ventures in the 1970s, Adolfo Peniche followed closely the logic of corporate bureaucracy, utilizing centralized models and monopolizing tendencies. He raised capital by means of kinship ties—and later the stock market—always placing great emphasis on professional and scientific development, including modern systems of administration. When his close friend Víctor Cervera Pacheco was appointed interim governor of Yucatán in 1984, however, Peniche was awarded a key state cabinet position. Following this, the entrepreneur and the governor formed a coalition to exploit opportunities and to utilize resources that were directly and indirectly obtained by means of political power. The early action sets of this well-placed coalition were primarily in agricultural development and cattle ranching, but after 1988, with national emphasis on the expansion of export-oriented manufac-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

80 / Luis Alfonso Ramírez turing, they initiated an action set to establish maquiladoras in Yucatán. Their partnership continued as long as the formal political association guaranteed the flow of resources.30

The Regional Elite within the Mexican Nation, 1937–1982 To this point primary attention has been on the emergence of Yucatecan entrepreneurs within the state and regional setting, the rise of a dynamic new elite in the patria chica. Our case studies showed that there was a change from one organizational form to another; individual businessmen found themselves confronted by structures in which old social relations disappeared and new ones emerged.31 The most important single step in that process was when President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40) came to Yucatán in person and imposed a sweeping change in the structure of land ownership, a measure that influenced society from top to bottom, not only for the former hacendados but for the middle class, urban workers, and the ejidatarios. The progress of our entrepreneurs from that point has been explained largely in terms of family links, professional training, personal qualities, meaningful associations (the formation of coalitions), and important links to information and resources. These men of Yucatecan roots were able to forge successful enterprises and to retain a large portion of the major economic wealth of the region in spite of the arrival of many powerful new players. To understand better how this was possible, it will be useful to sketch in broad strokes the nature of the Mexican political and economic system as it evolved following the overthrow of the hacienda system. In effect, the new elite of Yucatán were able to flourish for well over a half century due in large part to the Mexican revolutionary system that evolved, especially its all-powerful single-party structure. As already indicated, President Cárdenas played a central role in the implementation of a wide range of new programs and ideals identified with the Mexican Revolution, emerging from the violence and romanticism of the more heroic era of Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. Especially important in setting the stage for changes after 1934 was the Constitution of 1917, which incorporated far-reaching concepts of agrarian reform, economic nationalism, and sweeping social changes for labor, education, and religion.32 It was Cárdenas, however, who came to personify many of the most heroic measures based on nationalistic ideals. Foremost was his devotion to agrarian reform, the application of the famous Article 27 of the constitution which greatly altered the landholding patterns of the nation as a whole and disrupted the power structure of Yucatán by the breakup of the henequen haciendas and the creation of collective ejidos. The second heroic action of the president came in 1938 with the nationalization of the subsoil oil riches of the nation, taking them from foreign capitalists who had been granted concessions under the Porfiriato, and creating the great symbol of Mexican economic na-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Entrepreneurial Elite / 81 tionalism, Pemex. A long series of other economic and social measures were enacted between 1934 and 1940, including benefits for the urban worker, expansion of rural schools, and heightened emphasis on the value of indigenous cultures. High protective tariffs, intended as an expression of nationalism to guard the new state-owned enterprises, also afforded protection for infant enterprises in the hands of Mexican citizens. Restrictions on property ownership, especially along the national borders and in the coastal regions, also reserved important resources for Mexican national businessmen, so long as they favored the official party.33 Building on the foundation of earlier leaders (especially Presidents Obregón and Calles), Cárdenas placed emphasis on building a strong political structure. With the weakening of the role of the army, the ruling party turned to the two most visible elements in society as foundations of the structure— the agrarian sector, organized into the CNC and urban labor, solidified into the powerful Confederación de Trabajadores Mexicanos (CTM, Mexican Workers Confederation). Cárdenas often had to compromise with local and regional caciques, including those in Yucatán, in the process of building the party machine. The revolution was being consolidated with great power in the hands of the central government dominated by a very strong executive.34 The power of the state and the party were strengthened by an orthodoxy, including an official set of heroes and images that reached their high point in the work of muralists such as Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. These orthodox expressions extended into the far corners of the nation; in the case of Yucatán, symbols of Maya folklore, agrarian reform, and social justice were imprinted on the walls of the state capitol (Palacio de Gobierno) by a talented Yucatecan artist, Fernando Castro Pacheco. He integrated regional and national symbols, one of the most effective examples being an idealistic representation of martyred governor Felipe Carrillo Puerto standing shoulder to shoulder with a heroic representation of Lázaro Cárdenas.35 By 1940 the power structure had produced a kind of secular religion founded upon the precepts of the revolution. Yet despite the public emphasis on agrarian reform, nationalism, and the ideals of the working man, a very important element within this seemingly rigid structure allowed the formation of an emerging business elite, both at the national and the regional level.36 The election of Manuel Ávila Camacho as president of Mexico in 1940 marked a turning point in the nation’s history that was to shape conditions for the next three decades. Although picked by Cárdenas as his successor, the new chief executive quickly moderated some of the more “revolutionary” aspects of the system, seeking compromise with the Roman Catholic Church, giving less attention to land distribution, and reducing the nationalistic and anti-capitalist posture that had evolved from the early days of conflict. It is important to note, however, that many of the fundamental aspects of the revolutionary program were sustained and strengthened. The symbolism was

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

82 / Luis Alfonso Ramírez continued, utilizing the new medium of television to supplement public events and the mural paintings that had won worldwide acclaim. The official party that had emerged from the turbulent years of conflict was consolidated and given a new name, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).37 The agrarian sector, represented by the CNC, and the labor sector, under a powerful CTM, continued to support the party and deliver the votes. Following the election of Ávila Camacho, however, the “popular sector,” comprising a broad range of interests, including business and professional persons, emerged as an important counterweight under its association, the Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Populares. Business interests were greatly favored by the climate of domestic stability and protection from outside competition that the PRI provided. With the passing of years the official party presented a solid and expanding front, controlling every branch of the federal government and reaching into every state and municipality of the nation. As noted, the PSS was crushed in Yucatán in the 1950s, eliminating Erosa Cámara’s chances to become governor. The well-organized mechanism of the federal government with the president exercising almost dictatorial power created what was in essence a oneparty state. The official explanation for this situation was simply that the vast majority of Mexican citizens favored the evolutionary progress of the revolutionary ideals embodied in the system. The Mexican press was quite cooperative, utilizing a system of self-censorship that rarely criticized the system and never the president. Economic growth between 1940 and 1970 was impressive; both foreign and domestic investors enjoyed the stability provided by government links to the unions, and native businessmen were favored by the continuing protection from outside competition through tariff barriers and import quotas. Many scholars in Mexico and the United States praised Mexico as one of the most stable and progressive nations of Latin America, and some described the political structure as a single-party democracy.38 The PRI proclaimed that it was consolidating the fruits of the revolution. In 1968 the Mexican nation prepared to demonstrate to the world its culture and its modernization by hosting the Olympic Games. A gigantic stadium and an impressive Olympic village were constructed near the campus of the national university south of Mexico City. A modern subway system (the metro), rushed into service prior to the arrival of the international athletes and spectators, provided a showcase not only for the rapidly growing city but also for the display of ancient cultural artifacts uncovered in the process of its excavation.39 But there were currents of discontent beneath the surface; student unrest and pressures from the political left had been building since Fidel Castro’s rise to power almost a decade earlier. Those tensions were unleashed on the night of October 2, 1968, with a massive demonstration near the heart of the city in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas (Tlatelolco). Police and military units

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Entrepreneurial Elite / 83 crushed the demonstration, killing some five hundred students and innocent bystanders; images of all of this were flashed throughout the world by television.40 Shortly thereafter, President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz tapped as his successor Interior Minister Luis Echeverría, considered by many to be responsible for the “massacre of Tlatelolco.” Echeverría’s election to the presidency in 1970 produced widespread criticism of the PRI, and a popular documentary exposing the hypocrisy of the system was entitled Mexico:The Frozen Revolution.41 Once in office, Echeverría launched an ambitious series of social and economic programs in which the central government became the primary force of mobilization for extensive changes in social services (especially rural health clinics), renewed land-redistribution programs, nationalization of a wide variety of enterprises, and a very ambitious system to control the production, distribution, and marketing of basic products. During his term (1970–76) there was widespread discussion of the revival of the more radical phases of the revolution, and some felt that the president longed to be seen as the reincarnation of Lázaro Cárdenas. Probably the most visible of these programs was the expansion of a gigantic state-controlled enterprise, the Compañía Nacional de Subsistencias Populares (CONASUPO, National Company for Popular Goods). Through this agency the federal government purchased and stored basic products, transferred them to state-controlled warehouses, and finally marketed them in state-owned retail outlets marked with a bright yellow-and-red logo. Highly subsidized and also highly inefficient, CONASUPO threatened small shop owners that pinched the middle class. Efforts by the United States to persuade the Mexican government to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) were roundly rejected; Mexico continued to sustain its economy behind protective measures.42 Land-tenure reform and organized seizures of private real estate by peasant groups raised expectations and soon led to a number of invasions by campesinos against private property. In Yucatán there were no major land invasions, since the ejido system had already replaced most private property in the rural areas. There was, however, an outbreak of violence in which ejidatarios protested mistreatment at the hands of federal officials. This reached a high point in 1972 with the death of a high-ranking Banco Rural official at the hands of irate campesinos in the town of Izamal.43 During the Echeverría sexenio there was growing discontent on the part of the lower middle class and rising criticism of the highly visible inequities of the economic system. Fruits of industrial growth were threatened and often erased by the rampant inflation linked to rising world petroleum prices. The Mexican press became bolder in pointing to the gap between official propaganda and the roughshod manner in which the “revolutionary family” engaged in election fraud and maintained a monopoly of power in league with corrupt labor leaders and compliant elements of the CNC. Press

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

84 / Luis Alfonso Ramírez self-censorship seemed to be breaking down when a series of highly critical articles were published in the leading Mexico City daily, Excelsior. In 1976 Echeverría boldly moved to close down its presses.44 Tensions were high throughout Mexico in 1976, and rumors circulated that the Mexican army might step in to prevent political and social violence. The solidarity of the PRI, however, held firm as José López Portillo and a host of his associates were swept into office between 1976 and 1982. The new chief executive was considered a moderating force as he attempted to defuse many tensions that had resulted from Echeverría’s reformist stance. On the other hand, many basic policies that had been launched by the former president were continued. Although President López Portillo considered joining GATT, he gave in to pressures to maintain the system of protection and economic nationalism. A major new development promised to overcome the severe economic strain, allowing both economic expansion and social benefits. Extensive petroleum reserves were brought into production along Mexico’s Gulf Coast, creating a national climate of near euphoria and self-sufficiency within the world setting.45 Revenues from petroleum, and especially anticipated future wealth estimated to rival that of the Persian Gulf, resulted in massive government spending. Despite warnings against succumbing to petroleum dependency, the Mexican government went on a spending binge, further fueled by readily available loans from international banks.46 A number of ambitious development schemes emerged, one of which had a direct effect on Yucatán and its business elite. In the 1970s, Mexico initiated a world-class tourist center on the sparsely populated Caribbean coast of Quintana Roo. The Fondo Nacional para el Turismo (National Fund for Tourism) initiated the $50 million project with assistance from the Inter-American Development Bank to provide the basic infrastructure around the pristine beach and azure waters of a little-known fishing island called Cancún. This in turn set off a rush of private investment in hotels, restaurants, and other tourist-related services. Rivaling the Brazilian miracle of a planned city in the interior of the nation some two decades earlier, Cancún by 1980 emerged as one of the most popular destinations for international tourists, and its airport soon became the second busiest in the nation, behind only that of Mexico City. Major infusions of private foreign capital played a part in these developments, often by the government’s bending restrictions in the Mexican legal system. The development of Cancún opened major opportunities for well-connected Mexican investors, including those from nearby Yucatán. It is within this setting that the members of our coalitions came to control hotels, air service, and other businesses in the booming mega-tourism center.47 Favoritism and links to political power strengthened the business elite. It is useful to reflect on the nature of the Yucatecan business elite at this

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Entrepreneurial Elite / 85 moment in history. The young men we have described rose out of the highly fluid and flexible times that followed the agrarian reform era of the late 1930s. Largely from middle-class families and with specialized talents or training, they moved quickly up the entrepreneurial ladder, taking advantage of opportunities and especially links with the power structure. By 1982 they had emerged as a favored component of an inflexible national system that reached into every nook and cranny of power at the regional and local level. They were protected by restrictive laws against foreign competition and were offered special privileges by well-placed persons such as the CNC leader Víctor Cervera Pacheco. Although never with the degree of monopoly on wealth and power that had rested in the hands of the hacendados of the late Porfiriato, the elite by 1982 constituted in effect a new casta divina. The situation led, however, to an emphasis on short-term profits rather than long-term capital investment projects, favoring real estate, commerce, and services where more flexible firms can operate. As a whole, Yucatán had a regional industrial structure of doubtful competitiveness in the coming free market of new products and foreign capital. Their favored position was soon to be challenged from the very center of power that had extended so many favors in the past. This, too, came as a result of major crises facing the nation and presidential leadership.

The Yucatecan Elite Faces the Threat of Globalization Long before 1992 there were challenges to the position of Yucatán’s new elite. These were linked to major changes on the international scene which in turn brought policy alterations on the part of the Mexican government. A major drop in world petroleum prices and rising interest rates that came at the end of President López Portillo’s sexenio triggered a major national external debt crisis. As a kind of departing swipe at the private sector, López Portillo nationalized all of the banks. With the 1982 election of Miguel de la Madrid (1982– 88), however, the economic crisis brought a reversal of many of Mexico’s basic nationalistic policies as well as fiscal austerity.48 Following a steep devaluation of the peso associated with the debt crisis and its aftermath, Mexico turned away from heavy state controls toward a market-oriented economy. Under President Salinas de Gortari (1988–94), divestment of governmentowned enterprises was accelerated and the banks were reprivatized. Building on Mexico’s accession to GATT in 1986, President Salinas initiated discussions with Canada and the United States for the establishment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Notwithstanding strong opposition to the agreement within the ranks of his own party (PRI), the Mexican president adopted the radical trade reforms. The United States Congress also passed the measure by a very close vote, and in January 1994 the trade agreement went into effect. Mexico’s profound trade liberalization and hospitable climate for foreign

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

86 / Luis Alfonso Ramírez investment had significant implications for Yucatán. The most far-reaching changes for the state included the privatization of Cordemex (by that time experiencing a deep financial crisis) and changes in the agrarian law (Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution), which made it possible for ejidatarios either to sell their lands or to acquire them as private property. Other national legislation affecting Yucatán was the expansion of the maquiladora system from Mexico’s northern border region to other areas of the country (see chapter 4 in this volume). As noted earlier, Yucatán also came to embrace this exportoriented manufacturing system in which many of the state’s business elite participated. By 1992 it was clear that many Yucatecan firms were no longer competitive. With the Ernesto Zedillo administration (1994–2000) the basic policies of Salinas and internationalization were continued and strengthened. Thus the protections of the closed regional markets and the political favors available through the well-connected coalitions were being threatened by opening the markets to outside investment and competition. Highly visible evidence of this was seen by the appearance of Burger King and Wal-Mart stores along the Paseo de Montejo in Mérida. More important were the numerous new export-assembly manufacturing plants in the industrial parks and in the small towns of Yucatán. The entrepreneurial culture that implies personal or regional values and informal models of social organization based on strategies such as coalitions is common not only in Yucatán but also in other regions of Mexico and Latin America. It is yet another of the challenges that has confronted the neoliberal modernizing attempts of the Salinas and Zedillo regimes. Could regional elites that were formed in a crucible of collusion between political and economic power, exercising domination over the economic areas, modify their methods of action and assume the role of the protagonists of free-market development that the federal government has been trying to promote? The answer to this question has begun to appear following the inauguration of President Vicente Fox (2000–2006), which ended more than seventy years of the PRI hegemony. Before the 1982 crisis, the Yucatán regional elite presented for over a century a hegemonic model of political-economic control. Three central themes sustained their worldview: God, property, and family. In 1980, of the one hundred most important enterprises in the state, Yucatecans were the majority owners or partners of eighty with bases for regional operations. There existed prominent regional banks and on their boards of directors sat the most important local businessmen. With the opening of the Mexican economy from the mid-1980s, the position of Yucatecan enterprises began to deteriorate as national corporations sought to advance to the southeast, integrating their operations into their natural markets. Bakeries, supermarkets, distilleries, and numerous bottling

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Entrepreneurial Elite / 87 companies came under their ownership and control. If the rules of the game were changing for Mexico’s businessmen, who had been accustomed to the protection of the federal government, the situation was even worse for numerous Yucatecan firms that had developed a parasitic relationship with the bankrupt and corrupt henequen economy. In 1992, of the state’s eighty-one largest industrial and commercial groups, forty-one were still controlled by regional capital or had Yucatecan investors as majority stockholders. In 2000, following Mexico’s accession to NAFTA and the devastating 1995 peso crisis (which forced hundreds of local firms into bankruptcy), only twenty-five of the hundred largest enterprises remained in local hands. By 2006, marking the end of the Fox sexenio, only fifteen of the hundred most important enterprises were owned and controlled by Yucatecans. Local businessmen were completely absent from the state’s financial sector. In sum, the Yucatecan business elite, which in 1980 controlled 80 percent of the hundred most important regional business enterprises, had been reduced to a mere 15 percent of the total a quarter century later. For the once powerful regional elite, the attrition of economic power within a single generation brought in its wake erosion of political and cultural influence. In a globalized world, the Yucatecan elite are struggling to survive, some through joint ventures with foreign investors. In the new era of globalization, Yucatán has indeed become an attractive place for international capital. Of the six southeastern states of Mexico (Veracruz, Tabasco, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Campeche, and Yucatán), Yucatán has attracted the greatest amount of foreign investment from 2000 to 2005—and, what is most important, external investment outside the maquiladora industry has been greater (I have excluded Quintana Roo from the listing of these states, because Cancún and the Maya Riviera have been among the greatest foreign investment sites in Mexico since 1980). Clearly, globalization has rapidly transformed the business elite of Mexico, and Yucatán is no exception. At the end of the Fox administration, the once dominant position of the Yucatecan elite—composed of businessmen such as those we have analyzed here—is in decline. Faced with globalization, the state’s elite have been compelled to yield larger areas of business to transnational capital as well as to powerful national monopolies. Consequently, the regional entrepreneurs, mounted on a wheel of fortune, are in a downward arc. To rise again, they will have to fight back by forging coalitions and social networks with their national and transnational competitors.

Notes This chapter was translated from the Spanish by Byrt Wammack and Edward D. Terry. 1. Arcadio Sabido, “La oligarquía henequenera: Algunos elementos fundamen-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

88 / Luis Alfonso Ramírez tales” (bachelor’s thesis in sociology, Instituto de Ciencias Sociales de Mérida, A.C., 1990). The author of this chapter has used the basic data from figures 10, 20, 21 and 25 in Sabido’s work but has excluded some firms and added new ones. As will be detailed below, of the eighty-one principal firms in 1992, forty-one were either the property of private regional capital or had Yucatecan investors as majority stockholders. 2. There is a major exception to this generalization. Until 1964 the association of cordeleros (cordage manufacturers) exercised considerable influence. In that year it was practically dismantled, however, with the nationalization of Cordemex. As will be discussed, this had a far-reaching impact on the economic structure of Yucatán. 3. With the neoliberal reforms and modernizing tendencies of the Salinas and Zedillo regimes (1988–2000), chambers of commerce and business or manufacturers’ associations gained in political importance. 4. Allen Wells, Yucatán Gilded Age: Haciendas, Henequen, and International Harvester, 1860–1915 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985); Allen Wells, “Family Elites in a Boom and Bust Economy: The Molinas and Peóns of Porfirian Yucatán,” Hispanic American Historical Review 62 (May 1982): 224–53; Gilbert Joseph and Allen Wells, “Verano de descontento, estaciones de sublevación: Hacia un análisis de la política de las élites y la rebelión rural en Yucatán, 1890–1915,” in Sociedad, estructura agraria, y estado enYucatán, ed. Othón Baños Ramírez (Mérida: Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, 1990), 233–56. 5. Gilbert Joseph, Revolution from Without (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). 6. Friedrich Katz, “Los hacendados y la revolución mexicana,” in Después de los latifundios, ed. Heriberto Moreno (Guadalajara: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1982), 113– 24; Mark Wasserman, Capitalistas, caciques, y revolución: La familia Terrazas de Chihuahua, 1854–1911 (México: Grijalbo, 1987), 335–36; María del Carmen Collado, La burguesía mexicana: El emporio Braniff y su participación política, 1865–1920 (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1987), 164–69. 7. The plants were expropriated in 1938 but were returned to their owners in 1942 by means of an agreement with Governor Novelo Torres. 8. Eric N. Baklanoff, “Contra viento y marea: Los empresarios libaneses y el desarrollo del Yucatán moderno,” Revista de la Universidad Autónoma deYucatán 16 ( July– September 2001): 49–63. 9. See case studies of entrepreneurs below. 10. Oscar Soberón Martínez, La industria henequenera de Yucatán: Los costos de desfibración (Mexico City: Centro de Investigaciones Agrarias, 1959), 21–23; Fernando Benítez, Ki: El drama de un pueblo y una planta (Mexico City: F.C.E., 1962), 222–23; Antonio Betancourt Pérez, Revoluciones y crisis en la economía de Yucatán, 2nd ed. (1956; Mérida: Maldonado Editores, 1986), 49–72; Enrique Aznar Mendoza, “La industria henequenera desde 1919 hasta nuestros días,” in Enciclopedia Yucatanense, 2nd ed., dir. Carlos Echanove Trujillo (Mérida: Ediciones del Gobierno del Estado de Yucatán, 1977), 3:727–787. Only twenty-four of these private plants were still in operation in 1988. 11. Jeffery Brannon and Eric N. Baklanoff, Agrarian Reform and Public Enterprise in Mexico:The Political Economy of Yucatán’s Henequen Industry (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987), 91–95. “Interestingly, eight stockholders in Cordemex held almost two-thirds of its stock, which was another indication of the failure of agrarian

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Entrepreneurial Elite / 89 reform to bring about the desired redistribution of wealth and income in Yucatán” (95). See section relating to the negotiation of Erosa Cámara below. 12. Sabido, “La oligarquía henequenera.” The data for the firms are from figure 10, pp. 121–24, and figures 20, 21, and 25, although some firms are excluded and new ones are included. 13. With respect to the Yucatecan consortia, the same families can be found in more than one firm, group, or association. 14. These and subsequent data are based on the surname of the family with the greatest control and share of interest in each business, while the remaining surnames were ignored. 15. The Corporativo Peninsular group dominates the soft-drink market in the peninsula and controls the distribution of automobiles. 16. As indicated earlier, Molina and Escalante were the principal intermediaries in charge of henequen exports to the United States during the Porfiriato, and both families controlled extensive enterprises throughout Yucatán. 17. The same policy seemed to be assured with the administration of Vicente Fox (2000–2006). 18. A more extensive analysis of these cases can be found in the following works by Luis Alfonso Ramírez: Secretos de familia: Libaneses y élites empresariales en Yucatán (Mexico City: Dirección General de Publicaciones del Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1994); “Corporativismo y reciprocidad: Cultura empresarial en el sureste de México,” Revista de Estudios Sociológicos (El Colegio de México) 12 (May– August 1994): 381–97; and “De buhoneros a empresarios: La migración libanesa en el sureste de México,” in Historia Mexicana (Ediciones de El Colegio de México) 43, no. 3 (1994): 451–86. 19. The objective is to make a qualitative analysis for the purpose of developing a model with which to consider various hypotheses and explanations, rather than proposing a generalization based on statistical analysis. 20. In earlier times powerful groups who controlled the PSS had been allowed to select candidates for governor, and they were accepted by the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR, National Revolutionary Party). This practice was continued for some time after the change in party name to the PRI but was eventually rejected in 1951 by that official party. 21. The factories were Palma, which produced matches; El Faro, candles; and Sidra Pino, a soft-drink-bottling enterprise. 22. The Banco de Crédito Ejidal was founded in 1955; in 1976 its name was changed to Banco de Crédito Rural (Banrural). 23. Henequeneros de Yucatán was a huge monopoly in the hands of the state governor. Peniche used the connection of his brother-in-law R. R., who, as a close friend of Governor Novelo Torres (1940–46), was named general manager (1942–46) of the large state enterprise. R. R. authorized his relative credit to obtain a small cordage plant of his own in 1944. See Ramírez, Secretos de familia, 389. 24. Víctor Cervera Pacheco would later be elected for a full term as governor of Yucatán (1995–2001). 25. This appointment came amidst serious strife within the official party in Yucatán. Peniche’s appointment (1991) came with the deposition of Governor Víctor Manzanilla Schaffer and his replacement by interim governor Dulce María Sauri (1991–

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

90 / Luis Alfonso Ramírez 93). From 1993 to 1995 the governor was Federico Granja Ricalde, who served for a year and a half. 26. William G. Davies, “Class Political Constraints and Entrepreneurial Strategies: Elites and Petty Market Traders in Northern Luzon,” in Entrepreneurship and Social Change, ed. Sidney M. Greenfield and Arnold S. Strickon (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1986), 166–94. According to Davies, often a single person, because of his age, power, money, or position, has greater decision-making power and is capable of equilibrating conflicts. Adrián Mayer, “La importancia de los cuasi-grupos en el estudio de las sociedades complejas,” in Antropología social de las sociedades complejas, ed. Eric Wolf et al. (Madrid: Alianza, 1980), 108–33; Jeremy Boissevain, Friends of Friends: Networks, Manipulators and Coalitions (London: Basil Blackwell, 1974), 171–91. Anton Block, The Mafia in a Sicilian Village, 1860–1960 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974), 151–65; Anton Block, “Coalitions in Sicilian Peasant Society,” in Network Analysis: Studies in Human Interaction, ed. Jeremy Boissevain and J. Clyde Mitchell (The Hague: Mouton, 1973). See also Jeremy Boissevain, “Patronage in Sicily,” Man, no. 1 (1966): 18–33; and Norman E. Whitten Jr. and Alvin W. Wolfe, Network Analysis (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1973), 717–46. 27. See especially Boissevain, “Patronage in Sicily.” 28. Their individual companies did not always grow larger because of the action sets, but the individual members of the coalition increased their earnings through new kinds of business outside the existing structure. After a few years the holdings would be left in the hands of one of the members, leaving the other partners as minority stockholders. In this manner, a dynamic economic interdependence was generated but each member had retained relative independence. 29. The situation in Yucatán paralleled quite closely the findings described by Boissevain and Mitchell in Network Analysis. 30. As indicated earlier, Cervera Pacheco was elected governor of Yucatán again in 1995, serving to 2001. 31. The most graphic illustration of this favoritism was the buyout of the cordage mills, which provided the new elite with major infusions of liquid capital at a crucial time. The appointment of Cervera Pacheco as interim governor in 1984 provided another example of the link between the private and public sectors within this favored system. 32. John Womack Jr., Zapata and the Mexican Revolution (New York: Vintage, 1969); Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 33. As has been discussed, Yucatecan entrepreneurs took advantage of many of those opportunities. 34. Dan A. Cothran, Political Stability and Democracy in Mexico:The “Perfect Dictatorship” (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994), 30–44. 35. Antonio Rodríguez, A History of Mexican Mural Painting, trans. Marina Corby (New York: Putnam, 1969); Alfredo Barrera Vásquez, Los murales de Fernando Castro Pacheco en el Palacio del Poder Ejecutivo de Mérida,Yucatán, México (Mérida, 1971). 36. William P. Glade Jr., “Revolution and Economic Development: A Mexican Reprise,” in William P. Glade Jr. and Charles W. Anderson, The Political Economy of Mexico (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963), 82–83.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Yucatán’s Entrepreneurial Elite / 91 37. Stephen R. Niblo, Mexico in the 1940s: Modernity, Politics, and Corruption (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1999); Howard Cline, Mexico: Revolution to Evolution, 1940–1960 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963). 38. Robert E. Scott, Mexican Government in Transition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964). 39. When first opened, the metro of Mexico City rivaled that of Moscow for its cultural displays and artistic designs. 40. Kenneth F. Johnson, Mexican Democracy: A Critical View, rev. ed. (New York: Praeger, 1978). 41. Many of the images projected in this very critical study were filmed in Yucatán. 42. Johnson, Mexican Democracy; Cothran, Political Stability. 43. Brannon and Baklanoff, Agrarian Reform, 116–120. 44. Johnson, Mexican Democracy. Echeverría took a strong position against many of the policies of the United States in Latin America and tended to alienate much of the private business sector by his international stance. 45. Relations between Mexico and the United States reached a low point during this time, in part because of personal feelings between López Portillo and Jimmy Carter. 46. See Cothran, Political Stability, esp. chapter 11. 47. Although political leaders in Yucatán assumed that Cancún would stimulate development in their state, there were eventually negative impacts on the state, especially on the air service and tourist trade in Mérida. 48. Many of the policies carried out during the de la Madrid administration were designed by his minister of economics, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who was elected president in 1988.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

4 Yucatán Mexico’s Other Maquiladora Frontier Eric N. Baklanoff

In the aftermath of its 1982 debt crisis, Mexico jettisoned its state-led, inwardlooking economic orientation. Beginning with President Miguel de la Madrid (1982–88), the nation’s political establishment set in motion a new global strategy that included fiscal austerity, a congenial climate for attracting foreign direct investment, trade liberalization and diversification, and privatization of state-owned enterprises. In Yucatán the protracted malaise that affected the henequen industry coincided with a political crisis that led to an interim governor replacing the elected one. During his first year in office, Interim Governor Víctor Cervera Pacheco (1984–87) committed his state to an “offshore” export-assembly initiative, the Programa de Maquila de Exportacíon en Yucatán (Maquila Export Program in Yucatán). In a propitious convergence of interests, the governor and authorities in Mexico City agreed that Yucatán had the potential to become Mexico’s “other maquiladora frontier.”1 In contrast to the longlived export-assembly operations along Mexico’s northern border, Yucatán’s recently established maquiladoras face the major U.S. ports along the Gulf of Mexico—their logical economic and geographic frontier. Since 1984 the maquiladora export-assembly industry has emerged as the centerpiece of Yucatán’s diversification drive. This chapter examines Yucatán’s dynamic maquiladora industry within the national setting. The first section reviews the economic basis of Mexico’s maquiladora industry since its origin in the mid-1960s as the Border Industrialization Program serving the needs of the country’s northern states. The second section views Mexico’s post-1982 maquiladora experience—its robust growth, regional dispersion, product configuration, and cyclical volatility. The third section highlights Yucatán’s advantages and reviews the policy context, both regional and national, that has supported the state’s candidacy to become an important export platform for “offshore” assembly operations. The fourth and fifth sections analyze Yucatán’s export-assembly industry from its inception in the mid-1980s to 2005. Topics include the industry’s growth trajectory,

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Mexico’s Other Maquiladora Frontier / 93 the spread of maquiladoras to small towns and villages, plant operating characteristics, and industry impacts. The fifth section also discusses extreme sensitivity of maquiladora output and employment to the U.S. business cycle.2

The Origin of Mexico’s Maquiladora Industry From 1942 to 1964, the bracero visa program allowed Mexican campesinos to enter the United States as seasonal laborers. Following the phaseout of the bracero program, the Mexican government in 1965 adopted the Border Industrialization Program, which was designed to reduce large-scale unemployment in the cities along the country’s northern frontier. Maquiladoras (export-assembly plants) offered foreign investors the opportunity to legally circumvent Mexico’s protectionistic measures such as high tariffs and quantitative import restrictions that supported the federal government’s inwardlooking import-substitution industrialization strategy. Based on maquiladoras, the Border Industrialization Program offered substantial incentives to U.S. and other foreign companies to operate along Mexico’s northern border. Aside from the presence of ample low-cost labor, incentives included up to 100 percent foreign ownership, waiver of import duties on raw materials and components purchased in the United States, and waiver of taxes on all machinery and equipment installed in the exportoriented plants. A special provision in the U.S. tax code limited import duties to the value added by the Mexican plants, that is, the difference between the value of imported raw materials and components (excluding machinery) moving south to the maquiladoras and the value of processed goods shipped north across the border. Initially, maquiladoras were required to locate within a narrow strip along Mexico’s northern frontier, but in 1972 the federal government relaxed this rule and allowed them to locate throughout the country. However, in 1982, 89 percent of the 585 plants and an equal percentage of total maquiladora employment of 127,000 were concentrated in the north.3 Maquiladoras are sometimes referred to as “offshore assembly plants” because both their imports and their exports were excluded from the country’s customs zone. They contribute to the Mexican economy primarily through the wages and fringe benefits paid the assembly plant labor force as well as the purchase of local services. Offshore assembly operations are a global phenomenon. They began in the 1950s in Hong Kong and Puerto Rico, followed in the 1960s with operations in Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. Since the 1980s, export-processing operations have spread to other developing countries, including China, Thailand, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Costa Rica.4 Export-assembly operations, including Mexico’s maquiladoras, result when multinational firms outsource components of their production to less-devel-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

94 / Eric N. Baklanoff oped, low-wage countries.5 Outsourcing involves an international division of labor in which the labor-intensive segments of the product can be geographically separated from the more capital- or skill-intensive operations. Globally, most export-assembly products are characterized by high value-to-weight ratios (e.g., textiles and apparel), along with electronic components and electronic consumer goods.6 Transport costs, although important, are not decisive in the outsourcing decision. A number of disadvantages can be cited for relying on export-assembly operations. First, maquiladoras tend to be very sensitive to business cycles in the leading trading partner’s economy (e.g., the United States). Second, maquiladoras are footloose establishments that can relocate to another country (e.g., China) if local costs rise. Third, maquiladoras may become “enclaves,” characterized by weak backward or forward linkages to the domestic market. Mexico’s maquiladoras have tended to generate weak backward linkages to local suppliers of goods and services. By contrast, the Asian Tigers— Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore—which started off as typical enclave manufacturers, eventually used export assembly as a springboard to broaden and deepen industrialization during the 1970s. Notwithstanding the legal advantages offered to foreign investors, Mexico’s maquiladora program was constrained by numerous bureaucratic impediments that affected the importation of inputs, the acquisition of foreign currency, and the repatriation of profits.7 Until the early 1980s the federal government required investors wishing to set up and operate a maquiladora to deal with numerous federal agencies. These included the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the General Bureau of Statistics, and the Mexican Social Security Institute—all of which were located in Mexico City.8

Maquiladoras in Mexico’s New Export Strategy Since the 1982 crisis, maquiladoras have been the most dynamic component in the Mexican economy. Employment in maquiladoras grew from 125,000 workers in 1982 to 1.3 million in 2000 before declining to just over 1 million in 2003. To put this growth in perspective, while real (inflation-adjusted) value added in maquiladoras expanded by 10.4 percent annually between 1990 and 2000, real gross domestic product in Mexico grew by only 2.9 percent per year over the same period.9 Notwithstanding its cyclical contraction between 2001 and 2003, the maquiladora industry contributed 55 percent of Mexico’s manufactured exports in 2003, and about one in every three manufacturing jobs were in maquiladora firms.10 Mexico’s current maquiladora operations are governed by the Decree for the Promotion and Operation of the Export-Oriented Industry of June 6, 1998, and its subsequent amendments. The year 1982 marked a turning point for Mexico’s maquiladora industry.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Mexico’s Other Maquiladora Frontier / 95 Until that year the Border Industrialization Program was an anomaly within an inward-looking national development strategy. Serving the needs of the country’s populated northern states, the maquiladora export-assembly operations were a significant exception to Mexico’s import-substitution industrialization policy. Responding to the country’s foreign-exchange crisis, President de la Madrid declared the maquiladora industry a priority sector of the national economy.11 In 1983 he issued a decree making it easier to organize and operate a maquiladora: a new single agency was created to oversee the industry, and its administration was decentralized out of the nation’s capital to the border states and other locations. Furthermore, the new decree allowed maquiladoras to be located virtually anywhere, and export-assembly operators were encouraged to locate plants in the less-developed parts of Mexico. President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988–94), de la Madrid’s successor, continued the strategy of promoting manufacturing exports. The Foreign Investment Regulation, published in 1989, made it easier for foreign maquiladora investors to own real property along the coastal and border zones.12 To further promote export-assembly operations, President Salinas issued a decree in December 1989 that simplified customs regulations and administrative procedures for maquiladora operators. Beyond this streamlining of the bureaucratic administration, several factors explain the accelerated growth of Mexico’s maquiladora plants and employment since the early 1980s. Before 1982 the peso became increasingly overvalued relative to the U.S. dollar. Propped up by international borrowing and rising oil exports, the overvalued peso inhibited U.S. investment in Mexico. After 1982, the sustained real (inflation-adjusted) devaluation of the peso greatly reduced the dollar-denominated cost of Mexican labor. Hourly wage costs in U.S. dollars fell below those of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea— the three newly industrialized Pacific economies that were among Mexico’s major competitors for foreign-owned assembly plants.13 Mexico’s decision to join the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 has become the central plank of its trade strategy. At a stroke the United States and Canada have allowed Mexican-based businesses, including maquiladoras, duty-free access to the largest market in the world. With the objective of promoting greater regional integration, NAFTA trading partners can enter the maquiladora processing zone duty free. By contrast, imports originating outside those member countries (e.g., Asia) are subject to tariffs as high as 25 percent.14 Also, once NAFTA had come into effect, Mexico was no longer subject to textile/apparel quotas in the North American market. This privilege gave an incentive to U.S. and other companies in this branch to transfer their operations from Asia to Mexico. In November 1999, Mexico signed a comprehensive free-trade agreement with the fifteen-member European Union (EU) that will eliminate all tariffs on their bilateral trade in industrial goods by 2007.15 This transatlantic accord

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

96 / Eric N. Baklanoff will put the EU roughly on equal terms with NAFTA and is expected to attract European investments into Mexico’s manufacturing sector. Maquiladoras have served as an engine of Mexican job creation, with their share of employment in total manufacturing rising from 11.5 percent in 1988 to 29 percent in 2002, peaking at 31 percent in 2000.16 Significantly, in every year during the fifteen-year period 1988–2002, maquiladora compensation per person exceeded the average for non-maquiladora manufacturing employees. With gross value of production exceeding $78 billion in 2002, maquiladoras generated 49 percent of Mexico’s total export sales.17 Mexico’s maquiladoras by industrial branch in 2002 were concentrated in electronics (20.3 percent of workers employed), auto vehicles and parts (20.1 percent), and apparel (19 percent). Together these three branches represented about 60 percent of total employment and 64 percent of maquiladora export value. While U.S. and Asian multinational firms dominate Mexico’s maquiladora industry, many plants (some of which are Mexican-owned) are independent subcontractors for the multinationals. Important qualitative changes have taken place in Mexico’s exportoriented assembly industry.18 Worker productivity (value added per employee) has been on the rise since the early 1980s, as has the average size of maquiladora plants. As a result of gradual transformation, numerous maquiladoras can now be classified as “second-generation” industry, characterized by incorporation of higher-technology production processes that demand a more highly trained workforce.19 The emergence of “second-generation” maquiladoras is reflected in a growing participation of technical and administrative personnel in the industry and in the rise of males in the industry’s gender ratio (the share of males in the maquiladora workforce exceeded 50 percent in 2003, up from only 27 percent in 1980). Because of the maquiladora industry’s export orientation, its performance is independent of the country’s domestic business cycle. Consequently, when Mexico experienced a deep recession in 1995, maquiladora investment and production continued to expand. On the other hand, because of its close dependence on the U.S. market, the maquiladora industry was the subsector of Mexican manufacturing most affected by the U.S. 2001–2 downturn. After robust expansion from 1993 to 2000, Mexico’s maquiladora industry suffered a severe contraction.20 The adjustment in maquiladora employment totaled 290,000 workers between the high and low reached during the cyclical decline. Likewise, the number of plants declined by 962 through closure or relocation to other countries. Of the three branches analyzed, electronics and apparel suffered disproportionally. For electronics, 120,000 jobs and 156 plants disappeared, while apparel saw the closure of 557 establishments and the loss of 84,000 jobs between its highest point in hiring in July 2000 and June 2004. In contrast, in the automotive branch only a small number of establishments closed and few jobs were lost. Clearly, maquiladora output is hypersensitive to

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Mexico’s Other Maquiladora Frontier / 97 changes in U.S. industrial activity, as reflected in the close correlation between value added in the maquiladora plants and the U.S. manufacturing index.21 The U.S. economic contraction was not the only cause of the recent decline in maquila activity. Between 2000 and 2002, real hourly wages (in U.S. dollars) in maquiladoras rose by an annual average of 8 percent in the border states and 9 percent in the non-border states.22 This rise reflected both the tightening of Mexico’s labor market and the appreciation of the Mexican peso. Another factor arousing concern of Mexico’s economic policy makers is the recent competition represented by the incursion of Chinese manufactured goods in the U.S. import market. Chinese exports of electronic products and apparel have shown a strong growth dynamic—two branches in which China gained U.S. market share since 2001 at Mexico’s expense. Adding to this is the concern that Beijing’s currency management, which fixes the value of the yuan to the dollar, gives Chinese exports an unfair advantage in the U.S. market. Put another way, the official undervaluation of the yuan, estimated as high as 27 percent, exacerbates China’s low-wage edge over Mexico.23 Finally, Mexico’s temporary advantage in the U.S. textile/apparel market disappeared at the beginning of 2005 when the global system of quotas established by the Multi-fiber Agreement was eliminated. In response to the federal government’s strategy to promote regional development since the mid-1980s, there has occurred a marked dispersion of export-assembly plants into new geographic locations in Mexico. Of the new maquiladoras established by states outside the border zone between 1994 and June 2000, Yucatán ranked second only to Puebla in new plants added.24 By 2001 the state of Yucatán accounted for almost 10 percent of total national production and employment in apparel maquiladoras.25 Notwithstanding the regional reconfiguration of export-assembly operations, national maquiladora employment has remained concentrated along the Mexico-U.S. border. To an important degree, the long-term prospects of Mexico’s maquiladoras rest on worker attitudes toward industry management. Based on a survey of 526 maquiladoras, most of them located near Mexico’s northern border, John Passé-Smith analyzed the relationship and attitudes of maquiladora workers toward the industry, the unions, and the government.26 Administered in two steps a decade apart (1989 and 1999), his survey reveals a remarkable stability in attitudes. Of particular interest are the 1999 results of job satisfaction questions having to do with employees’ contentment with working conditions (cleanliness, safety, noise levels), interaction with management (respect and exploitation), and the nature of the work and pay levels. Regarding worker/management relations, 60.5 percent of the respondents said the company treats workers with “much respect” and 29.6 percent said with “some respect.” On the nature of their work, 55.2 percent of respondents answered it “was interesting” and 38.2 percent said it was “OK, but not interesting.” Regarding remuneration, 37.6 percent of the workers said it was “good,”

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

98 / Eric N. Baklanoff 5.3 percent said it was “very good,” and 46 percent considered it “average.” With respect to working conditions, 80.8 percent agreed that the plant was “clean” and 15.8 percent that it was “more or less clean.” In trying to determine the long-run viability of expanded Mexican-U.S. relations, Passé-Smith asked a series of questions about business, NAFTA, and trust in the United States. The author was surprised that the respondents not only favored closer ties with U.S. unions but also viewed NAFTA with favor. Of the maquiladora workers surveyed, 59.2 percent thought NAFTA was either “very good” or “good” for the Mexican economy, while 30.5 percent believed it was “neither good nor bad.” They also showed more confidence in the United States as a country most likely to live up to its obligations in a treaty with Mexico as opposed to other countries listed (Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and Chile).

Yucatán’s Competitive Advantage A number of factors supported Yucatán’s candidacy to become an important export platform for an “offshore” manufacturing sector. As detailed in research by geographer James J. Biles, maquiladora representatives identified three primary factors that influenced their decision to locate in the state: availability of low-cost, qualified labor; government support and access to infrastructure; and proximity to parent companies and markets in the United States.27 These and other factors are elaborated below. • The Mérida-Progreso corridor is located near the leading cities along the Gulf, such as Houston/Galveston, Tampa, Mobile, New Orleans, and Bienville (Mississippi), as well as the Mississippi River navigational system. Because of Progreso’s favorable geographic position, it takes only thirty-four hours by sea to move cargo to U.S. Gulf ports. Flights to Houston and Miami from Mérida’s international airport take only ninety minutes. The distance between these Gulf ports and Progreso (around six hundred nautical miles) contrasts with Yucatán’s relative isolation from Mexico City (about a thousand miles by train or highway) and other large urban areas in the country. This isolation reflects not only distance but also the higher cost of moving raw materials and machinery between Yucatán and Mexico’s heartland. • In contrast to Mexico’s northern border region, Yucatán has low levels of industrial and urban pollution.28 • Following the collapse of Yucatán’s henequen industry, maquiladoras became an important alternative to alleviate high unemployment rates in the northwest quadrant of the state, the former henequen zone. This zone offered a potential reservoir of young workers, including females skilled in traditional crafts, notably in small cities and villages. At an average

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Mexico’s Other Maquiladora Frontier / 99

•

•

•

•

•

monthly salary of 2,300 pesos, Yucatán’s maquiladora workers earn half as much as their counterparts in northern Mexico.29 Furthermore, labor turnover of less than 2 percent per year in the state compares most favorably with an average annual turnover of 15 percent along the country’s northern frontier.30 The state of Yucatán subsidizes training of new maquiladora workers for periods of two to three months. To attract investors to interior locations outside of metropolitan Mérida, the state also offers free land to maquiladora owners. The federal government’s South Eastern Regional Program designated Mérida as a strategic city and the Mérida-Progreso corridor as one of Mexico’s priority growth poles.31 This program was part of President de la Madrid’s national strategy to promote regional development with emphasis on medium-size cities and new industrial growth poles. Mérida has emerged as the industrial, financial, academic, and medical center of southeastern Mexico.32 Because of its cultural and educational amenities, Mérida provides an attractive environment for the international managerial and technical personnel associated with the new industrial plants. This attraction is enhanced by the low incidence of crime in the state.33 For example, the incidence of crime in the state of Yucatán (2,148 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2001) is lower than the crime rates in neighboring Quintana Roo (4,044), Chihuahua in the north (4,979), and the Federal District (17,718). To support economic diversification, the federal government has invested in the state’s economic infrastructure. These projects include expansion of Mérida’s international airport, a natural gas line extended to Yucatán from the neighboring state of Tabasco, and the Federal Electricity Commission’s expansion of energy lines to meet power demand in the interior of the state. With federal assistance, a deep-water port was completed in Progreso in 2002 that accommodates large container vessels as well as cruise liners.34 Prior to these investments, the shallow draft of the state’s premier port was a major obstacle to the movement of cargo between Progreso and other Gulf ports, as it prevented large passenger ships from including Yucatán in their Gulf and Caribbean cruises. Joint promotion efforts by federal authorities, the government of Yucatán and private enterprise have supported the state’s maquiladora development.35 Mexico’s Secretariat of Commerce and Industrial Development (SECOFI) chose Mérida as the site for its Annual Maquiladora Industry Convention in 1985. State officials invited executives from fifty-nine firms to Yucatán from the United States, Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Italy, and the Netherlands, and also promoted maquiladora investment through business magazines with international circulation, such as Areas Development Magazine, Expansion Management and Latin Trade. Banamex-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

100 / Eric N. Baklanoff

Fig. 13. Yucatán Industrial Park, Mérida (photo by José Luis Ponce García).

Citigroup (Mexico’s leading financial institution) and the Bank of America (through its branches in the United States) have promoted Yucatán as a maquiladora center. • From 1984 onward, new industrial parks were established along the Mérida-Progreso corridor to serve the needs of the incipient maquiladora industry. The largest of these, the 495-acre Yucatán Industrial Park, is located at kilometer 10 of the Mérida-Progreso highway. Most of the park’s assembly plants are non-polluting. The park’s infrastructure features paved streets and walkways, electric power and gas, telecommunications, and a daycare center.36 The facility offers prospective investors a broad range of options and services, including site selection, turnkey operations, build-to-suit for lease or sale, start-up management, and project and engineering services. Yucatán Industrial Park’s U.S.-educated staff also can assist families of foreign managers to adjust socially to their new environment. Private investors organized these parks with public enticements in the form of land authorizations, preferential tax rates, and infrastructure services.

Yucatán’s Maquiladora Industry: Explosive Growth and Cyclical Contraction Yucatán’s first maquiladora plant, Ormex, S.A., was established in 1982. This U.S.-owned enterprise assembles orthodontic products for the export market. It was not until 1984, however, that the state (under Governor Cervera Pacheco) was fully committed to an “offshore” maquiladora program.37 Yu-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Mexico’s Other Maquiladora Frontier / 101 catán’s export-assembly initiative was carried out within a national policy agenda that favored both manufacturing exports and regional development. In 1986, four plants began operations under authority of the program, and from that year onward Yucatán’s maquiladora industry grew explosively until November 2000, when employment reached 34,507 (table 10), or 30 percent of the state’s manufacturing labor force. A discrepancy in maquiladora numbers and employees appears when comparing data included in the Quinto informe de gobierno (2000) with the statistics developed both by the Secretariat of Industrial and Commercial Development (SEDEINCO) and the National Institute for Geographic Statistics and Information (INEGI). My discussions with knowledgeable informants indicate that the figures cited in the Informes de gobierno were inflated, a standard practice during the second Cervera administration. The exaggerations result from the inclusion of a few establishments that failed to meet the rigorous guidelines defining “offshore” assembly operations. Significantly, maquiladora production was the most dynamic component of Yucatán’s economic expansion during the 1990s. While the manufacturing sector grew at an average annual rate of 5.8 percent during the decade, maquiladora output grew by a robust annual rate of 8.6 percent, with both rates exceeding the state’s gross product growth rate of 3.1 percent per year.38 Because of their export orientation, Yucatán’s maquiladoras were unaffected by Mexico’s peso crisis of 1995, a year when the industry’s employment expanded 25 percent more than during 1994. On the other hand, in response to the U.S. 2001–2 economic downturn (as well as intensification of competition from China), Yucatán’s export-assembly operations reversed course: from early 2001 both employment and plants in operation moved on a declining trend. Table 10 illustrates the evolution of the state’s maquiladora industry between January 2000 and May 2005. The number of operating plants grew steadily from 109 in January 2000 to 131 in October 2000, at which point the number roughly stabilized until July 2001. After a small increase in the number of establishments to 133 in August and September 2001, the number declined month after month until only 87 plants were operating by May 2005. Personnel occupied in the state’s maquiladoras rose steadily from 29,697 in January 2000 to 34,507 in November 2000, when employment reached its peak level. Thereafter employment declined, reaching a low of 28,001 in February 2002 before reversing the downward trend. In a delayed response to the strong U.S. economic recovery in 2003 and 2004, Yucatán’s maquiladora employment showed a healthy recovery in 2004 and reached 31,518 in May 2005. The third column in Table 10 represents the net contribution of the export-assembly industry to the state’s total output. Value added embodies mainly Yucatecan labor, including local technical and managerial services. It

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Mexico’s Other Maquiladora Frontier / 103 also includes production-related local services (described in the next section). Expressed in pesos of constant purchasing power (at 1994 prices), the value added rises more or less steadily from 50.8 million pesos in January 2000 to all-time highs of 78.3 million pesos in March 2001 and again in December of that year. Because of the considerable year-to-year variation in this component, I have constructed six-month averages for value added covering the period January–June for each of the three years. A comparison of maquiladora net output shows value added rising from 60.7 million pesos in the first half of 2000 to 70 million pesos in 2001 (a growth exceeding 15 percent) before falling to 62.6 million pesos on average in January–June 2003. It is important to point out that, notwithstanding decline in both plant numbers and employment during the first six months of 2000 and a similar period in 2002, value added in the last period exceeded the 2000 average. Expressed in a different way, the state’s maquiladora industry’s adjustment to the U.S. cyclical contraction came first through closure of small plants, second through employee layoffs, and third via a modest decline in value added. Viewed from management’s side, a decline in maquiladora output was offset partially by a rise in labor productivity (value added per worker).

Yucatán’s Maquiladoras: Characteristics and Economic Impacts The 1995–2001 State Development Plan identified the excessive concentration of economic activity in the capital city as the primary cause of disparities in employment and income in Yucatán. To promote a more equitable spatial distribution of economic opportunity and employment, state authorities set out to encourage maquiladora production in areas outside the municipio (township) of Mérida. According to James J. Biles, the state government’s location strategy succeeded in shifting the interregional distribution of income during the 1990s. By the year 2000, export-oriented maquiladoras accounted for more than 9 percent of all goods and services produced outside Mérida.39 In June 2004, following a decline in both the number of establishments and maquiladora employment, Mérida was the location of fifty-seven maquiladora plants and 9,959 employees, compared with statewide totals of eightyeight plants and 28,358 maquiladora employees (see table 11). Mérida’s plants (nearly two-thirds of the total) employed only about one-third of the state’s maquiladora workforce. The capital city’s plants, which averaged 175 employees, are smaller than those established later in Yucatán’s small towns and villages, which averaged just under 600 employees. Important small-town locations for export-assembly operations in the former henequen zone include Motul (one plant and 3,850 employees), Umán (seven plants and 2,503 employees), Tixkokob (one plant and 1,462 employees), Izamal (one plant and 1,160 employees), and Maxcanú (one plant and 937 employees). Outside the

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

104 / Eric N. Baklanoff

henequen zone, two eastern cities—Valladolid (three plants and 3,439 employees) and Tizimím (two plants and 1,221 employees)—were significant maquiladora sites. Tekax, a small southern town, had a single establishment that employed 1,143 persons. The dispersion of maquiladoras outside Mérida to small towns and villages allows employees to remain near their homes while earning higher incomes. In 2002 Yucatán’s maquiladora output was dominated by textiles and apparel (about 80 percent of total establishments), with jewelry representing a distant second product line comprising 10 percent of all maquiladoras.40 The remaining 10 percent of establishments manufactured export items such as electronic and orthodontic products. The majority of Yucatán’s maquiladoras are U.S.-owned. They include Createx, Oxford Industries (an Atlanta-based subsidiary of Lanier Clothes, Inc.), Stein Seal, Yachts of America, Ormex, PCC Airfoils, and the Russell Corporation, an Alabama entity that manufactures JERZEES (sports clothing) in Tixkokob. East Asian firms also have a strong presence in the state. They include Doulton; Hong Ho, a Taiwanese entity with operations in Valladolid; and Monty Industries, a Korean-based manufacturer that assembles jeans with the Lee label with plants in Motul, Tekax, and Hunucma. PCC Airfoils, a recently established U.S.-owned enterprise, may signal the beginning of “second-generation” maquiladoras in Yucatán.41 Located

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Mexico’s Other Maquiladora Frontier / 105

Fig. 14. Maquiladora Industrias Oxford de Mérida (photo by José Luis Ponce García).

in Mérida, the plant manufactures jet airplane engine components and turbines. The firm’s corporate customers include Boeing, General Electric, RollsRoyce, and Pratt and Whitney. Unlike the typical apparel operation, Airfoils’s gender ratio in June 2002 was 60 percent male and 40 percent female, and ten of the forty-two employees were engineers. In spite of the overall decline in the state’s maquiladora employment, Airfoils continued to expand its workforce during the balance of 2002, reaching fifty-two employees in October.42 In contrast to the overwhelming majority of Yucatán’s maquiladoras, which use sea transportation, Airfoils relies on air shipments for both its inputs and fabricated products. At the low end of the technological spectrum of export-assembly operations is Createx, which produces ladies’ undergarments carrying the Maidenform label.43 With plants in Mérida and Valladolid, 80 percent of the apparel maker’s workforce is female and only three weeks are required to train the factory operatives. At the time of my plant visit in June 2002, the employees worked forty-eight hours a week. Their take home pay averaged 100 pesos (or about 10 dollars) daily. Fringe benefits included a subsidized lunch as well as transportation from nearby villages. There have been societal consequences of the growth of the maquiladora industry in Yucatán. Associated with the burgeoning export-led industry, Yucatán has experienced a strong tendency for full-time female employment.44

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

106 / Eric N. Baklanoff Consequently, women have increasingly become the principal breadwinners in numerous households. Meanwhile, the husbands may be unemployed or underemployed, earning less than their wives. Other husbands may be absent from the home during weekdays while employed as construction workers in Cancún or Mérida. With the decline of the extended family, and grandparents no longer living in the same household, children are increasingly left alone or in the care of older siblings. Women working ten- to twelve-hour shifts in the maquiladoras are often too tired to help their children with assigned homework, let alone to prepare the family meals. As a result, older sisters are increasingly burdened with taking on the role of parents.45 To help their younger female employees, numerous maquiladoras, however, maintain guarderías (daycare facilities). Maquiladoras have recently emerged as the premier contributor to Yucatán’s exports (table 12). During the 1999–2000 fiscal year maquiladora exports were valued at more than 4 billion pesos, equivalent to around $440 million (using the then $1.00 = 9 pesos exchange rate). On the assumption that the industry’s net contribution to the state was roughly equal to the national average of 20 percent of total production, we can determine that net exports (the value added) were in the neighborhood of 800 million pesos (equivalent to about $89 million).46 The other important contributors to Yucatán’s commodity export profile were seafood (495 million pesos), textiles manufactured by non-maquiladora firms (244 million pesos), food and beverages (199 million pesos), machinery, equipment, and parts (143 million pesos), clothing manufactured by non-maquiladora firms (101 million pesos), and honey (53 million pesos). Leading export destinations for the state’s maquiladora industry include the United States, Canada, Italy, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Netherlands. A recent report by Banamex-Citigroup analyzed operating characteristics of maquiladoras by state in 2000.47 Yucatán’s maquiladora industry that year led the nation in its rate of growth, and its profitability (17.3 percent of value added) exceeded the national average (11.8 percent of value added). In Yucatán women comprised around 60 percent of the maquiladora workforce, above the national average of 50 percent in 2003. Average remuneration for maquiladoras in Yucatán represented 2.1 times the official minimum wage, compared with the national maquiladora average of 4.3 times the official minimum wage. Yucatán’s lower remuneration was similar to that of other recently established maquiladora sites such as Puebla and Aguascalientes. As I mention in the foregoing section, the substantially higher incomes earned in several northern states is partially related to the greater skill requirements and technological sophistication that characterize products such as transportation equipment and computers. By contrast, Yucatán’s establishments largely are concentrated in lower-skill, labor-intensive products such as textiles, apparel,

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Mexico’s Other Maquiladora Frontier / 107

and jewelry. Although Yucatán’s maquiladora plants averaged only 257 employees, (compared with the national average of 353), the ratio of technicians and administrative staff (13.3 percent of total employees) compared favorably with the Mexican average (12.5 percent). It is interesting to note that in Yucatán women occupy the majority of supervisory positions.48 To analyze the economic impact of the state’s maquiladoras, INEGI surveyed forty-five clothing and apparel plants in 1998.49 The analysis showed that of every dollar spent in the state by these establishments, about 50 cents went to salaries and benefits, 33 cents was spent on production-related services, and 5 cents went for locally purchased raw material inputs, for a total direct impact of at least $70 million that year. Wages in the forty-five clothing and apparel factories averaged $2,150 in 1998, for a total annual expenditure of about $41 million. Although backward linkage through locally purchased raw material inputs was low (a mere $2 million), the average maquiladora spent more that $310,000 on production-related services in Yucatán, for a total of over $26 million. This outlay indicates that local service providers of leaseholds, telephone, electricity, gas, water, and so forth were significant beneficiaries of these export-oriented plants. INEGI estimated indirect impacts through the expenditure-income multiplier of the maquiladora operations in Yucatán as substantial. A large demand for services (the tertiary sector) affects mainly establishments in the Mérida metropolitan area.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

108 / Eric N. Baklanoff

Conclusions In 1980, in the conclusion to my chapter titled “The Diversification Quest: A Monocrop Export Economy in Transition,” I suggested that “an exportoriented industrial strategy similar to Mexico’s Border Industrialization Program might appropriately be designed to fit Yucatan’s current situation.”50 I further noted that the success of such a labor-intensive industrial program would hinge in part on the Mexican government’s willingness to permit U.S.based firms to invest in Yucatecan manufacturing and to remove the tariff on raw materials and components imported by the newly established exportoriented plants. Following Mexico’s 1982 debt crisis, a new outward-looking development policy served the interests of both the federal government and the state of Yucatán. Driven by budgetary necessity, Mexican authorities were able to divest themselves of the distressed henequen industry while helping Yucatán take a new export path. In pursuing a national strategy of regional development, the federal government’s South Eastern Regional Program designated Mérida as a “strategic” city and the Mérida-Progreso corridor as one of Mexico’s priority growth poles. In 1984 Interim Governor Víctor Cevera Pacheco committed the state to an offshore assembly initiative, the Programa de Maquila de Exportación en Yucatán. Because of its proximity to U.S. Gulf ports, favorable policies, and other advantages, Yucatán presented an optimum candidate to become Mexico’s “other maquiladora frontier.” The year 1982 marked a turning point for the national maquiladora industry. As a part of a comprehensive strategy to liberalize trade, President de la Madrid (1982–88) declared the export-assembly industry a priority sector of the national economy. This new policy orientation, together with the real devaluation of the peso, set the maquiladora industry on a new growth trajectory. Despite the 2001–2 cyclical contraction, the industry contributed over half of Mexico’s manufactured exports in 2003, and about 30 percent of all manufacturing jobs were in maquiladora firms. Moreover, from the mid-1980s onward there has been a marked regional dispersion of export-assembly plants outside Mexico’s northern border, the “old maquiladora frontier,” into new geographic locations. Of the new maquiladoras established by states outside the north between 1994 and 2000, Yucatán was second only to Puebla in the number of plants. From its inception in the mid-1980s, the maquiladora industry has been the most dynamic component in Yucatán’s economy. By 2000 it employed a third of the state’s manufacturing labor force. The burgeoning export-assembly plants have offered new job and earning opportunities not only in metropolitan Mérida, but significantly in small towns and villages, mainly in the former henequen zone. Replacing henequen cordage products, the net proceeds (value added) of Yucatán’s maquiladoras in 2000 exceeded the com-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Mexico’s Other Maquiladora Frontier / 109 bined gross revenue of the next two most important commodities in the state’s export profile. Maquiladoras have become a vehicle for bringing women into the workplace out of traditional home-based roles. The high ratio of female-to-male employees that characterizes maquiladora hiring practices in the state has significant implications for gender dynamics, especially in rural households. The export-assembly industry’s extreme sensitivity to the U.S. business cycle helps explain its meteoric rise in the 1990s and its sudden contraction in 2001 and 2002 in Mexico and Yucatán. Although employment in Yucatán’s maquiladoras showed a healthy recovery from 2004 through May 2005, the industry will increasingly have to contend with Chinese competition in the U.S. market. Compared with the maquiladoras located along Mexico’s northern border, Yucatán’s nascent establishments are small in scale, are more labor-intensive (with 80 percent in textiles and apparel), and pay less to their employees. As wage pressure builds along the country’s northern frontier, and as Yucatecans gain experience and skills, the state may be in a position to attract maquiladoras requiring a greater knowledge base. These “second-generation” plants, of which PCC Airfoils may be the prototype, would incorporate an advanced technology, require a better-trained workforce, and provide higher remuneration to its Yucatecan employees. Notwithstanding the acknowledged drawbacks of the maquiladora development model, both Mexico and Yucatán have benefited from its adoption. Maquiladoras have not offered a unique solution to ending Yucatán’s protracted “henequen malaise,” but they have played a major role in the state’s comprehensive and robust diversification strategy.

Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank Joy D. Baklanoff, Paula Heusinkveld, Kathleen Martín, and Breck Myers for their helpful comments on this chapter. Among the numerous individuals whom I interviewed during my visit to Yucatán in June 2002, I wish particularly to thank Roberto Ponce, V.P. Business Development, Yucatán Industrial Parks; Ing. César Fonseca, Plant Manager, JERZEES Yucatán; Lic.Victoriano Duarte Dominguez, Director of Tourism, Tekax; Anthop. James Callaghan; and Ing. Ulises Pedroza, Manager, Cabos Marinos.

Notes 1. “Yucatán: La otra frontera maquiladora,” Expansion, Informe Especial, November 21, 1984. 2. The premier official source for information on the maquiladora industry is Mexico’s National Institute for Geographic Statistics and Information (INEGI). For

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

110 / Eric N. Baklanoff Yucatán, the main data sources are the offices of the governor and the Secretariat of Industrial and Commercial Development (SEDEINCO). I have also relied on analytical presentations included in the Review of the Economic Situation in Mexico, a monthly publication of Banamex-Citigroup, Mexico’s leading private financial institution. 3. Patricia A. Wilson, Exports and Local Development: Mexico’s New Maquiladoras (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992), 47, table II. 4. Ibid., 8, table I. 5. Gordon Hansen, “The Role of Maquiladoras in Mexico’s Export Boom,” unpublished paper, University of California, San Diego, and National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2002, 5. 6. Wilson, Exports and Local Development, 12. 7. Hansen, “The Role of Maquiladoras,” 4. 8. Wilson, Exports and Local Development, 28. 9. Hansen, “The Role of Maquiladoras,” 5. 10. “Manufacturing Industry in Mexico 2003,” Review of the Economic Situation in Mexico [hereinafter Review], March 2004, 116–22. 11. Wilson, Exports and Local Development, 40. 12. Ibid., 41. 13. William C. Gruben, “Maquiladoras and the Southwest Economy,” The Southwest Economy, F. R. Bank of Dallas, May 1989, 3. 14. Joel Millman, “Mexican Factories’ Growth Defies Tariffs,” Wall Street Journal, November 6, 2000, 25. 15. “Mexican-European Union,” Review, December 1999, 470. 16. Lourdes Rocha, “The Maquiladora Export Industry: A General and Sectoral Description,” Review, October 2004, 400. 17. Ibid., 400–403. 18. Wilson, Exports and Local Development, 42–45. 19. Carlos Rosales, “The Maquiladora Industry: Differential Regional Expansion,” Review, August 2000, 327–28. 20. Rocha, “The Maquiladora Export Industry,” 404. 21. Hansen, “The Role of Maquiladoras,” 22, figure 5. 22. Ibid., 12. 23. Most researchers believe that China has kept the value of its currency artificially low, thus implicitly subsidizing its exports and taxing its imports. See Chad P. Brown et al., “The U.S. Trade Deficit: Made in China,” Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Fourth Quarter, 2005, 5. 24. “Regional Development,” Financial Times, December 14, 2000, IV. 25. James J. Biles, “Export-Oriented Industrialization and Regional Development: A Case Study of Maquiladora Production in Yucatán, Mexico,” Regional Studies 38, no. 5 (2004): 519–34. 26. John Passé-Smith, “Maquiladora Workers’ Attitudes toward Government and Business at the Dawn of a New Era: Comparing Attitudes over Time” (paper presented at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies, Mobile, Alabama, February 28–March 2, 2002). 27. Biles, “Export-Oriented Industrialization,” 523. 28. Mexican Investment Board [MIB], Yucatán: Your Partner for Growth (Mérida, September 1999), 20.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Mexico’s Other Maquiladora Frontier / 111 29. Administración Portuaria Integral de Progreso, S.A. de C.V., Expansion for Progreso (Mérida, 2000), 5. 30. Roberto Ponce, Vice President, Business Development, Yucatán Industrial Parks, interview, Mérida, June 12, 2002. 31. “Yucatán: La otra frontera maquiladora,” 47. 32. Guy Puerto Espinosa, “Yucatán, mas cerca que nunca,” Diario de Yucatán, February 17, 2003. 33. “Socio-Political Indicators: Public Insecurity,” Review, June 2002, 248. 34. See chapter 2 in this volume. 35. Cuarto informe de gobierno (Mérida, 1999), 501–2. 36. Yucatán Industrial Parks (Mérida, n.d.). www.yucatanindustrialparks.com. 37. Luis Alfonso Ramírez Carrillo, Sociedad y población urbana enYucatán, 1950–1989 (Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico, 1993), 48. 38. Ampliación para el Progreso (Mérida: Gobierno del Estado de Yucatán, 2000). 39. Biles, “Export-Oriented Industrialization,” 523. 40. Secretaría de Desarrollo Industrial y de Comercio [SEDEINCO], “Lista de plantas maquiladores a Octubre 2002.” 41. Eng. Augusto N. Gonzalez, Process Engineer, PCC Airfoils, interview, Mérida, June 13, 2002. 42. SEDEINCO, “Lista de plantas maquiladores a Octubre 2002.” 43. Ing. Miguel Angel Díaz Moreno, Director of Mexican Operations, Createx S.A. de C.V., Mérida, interview, Mérida, June 12, 2002. 44. Luis Alfonso Ramírez Carrillo, Mujeres de Yucatán y Mérida (Mérida: Universidad Autonoma de Yucatán, 2001), 53–54. 45. Dr. Louis Alfonso Ramírez Carrillo, interview, Mérida, June 14, 2002. 46. Rocha, “The Maquiladora Export Industry,” 401. 47. Rosales, “The Maquiladora Industry,” 326–332. 48. Economia Hóy, May–June 1999, 5–6. 49. Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática, Maquiladoras in Yucatán (2001), www.msu.edu. 50. Eric N. Baklanoff, “The Diversification Quest: A Monocrop Export Economy in Transition,” in Yucatan: A World Apart, ed. Edward H. Moseley and Edward D. Terry (University: University of Alabama Press, 1980), 240.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

5 Tinum,Yucatán A Maya Village and the Lights of Cancún Paula R. Heusinkveld

Since the 1970 creation of the resort city of Cancún in the northeastern corner of the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico’s Caribbean coast has undergone drastic, irrevocable change. Over the following three decades, on land that had once been a swampy jungle, Cancún became a mega-resort with over 25,000 hotel rooms and more than 150,000 jobs, attracting a permanent, rapidly growing population of well over half a million people.1 The Cancún airport, built in the swamps of what was then only the territory of Quintana Roo, is now second in the nation only to Mexico City’s in volume of air traffic. The physical and ecological transformation of the area extending up and down the coast from Cancún is obvious: hotels, resorts, condominiums, and dive shops dot the coast for nearly a hundred miles.2 Just as dramatic but far more difficult to assess is the cultural transformation occurring in Maya villages in the area. Villages on or near the coast have undergone the most drastic change—so much so that in 1999 archaeologist Michael Coe noted with dismay, “The frantic development of tourism over the last twenty-five years has managed to spell the doom of Maya culture in this part of the peninsula.”3 One of the arguments used in 1970 in favor of selecting the site for Cancún was that “nothing would be destroyed,” since there were no man-made structures in the area now comprising the city of Cancún. But cultural change—always inevitable—is almost certain to accelerate rapidly when men and women from Maya villages work at a resort hotel or dive shop during the day and return to their communities at night or on weekends. Maya culture is rooted in—and evolved from—agricultural cycles over several thousand years. “Making milpa”—that is, cultivating corn in a small field hewn out of the jungle—has spiritual dimensions for Maya men apart from its economic function. Those Maya who work for cash wages in fast-paced Cancún are physically and spiritually separated from their community and the land. Thus any sustained movement away from the land can be expected to have an impact on Maya heritage, traditions, private and public rituals, and ultimately the cosmology on which the culture is based.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Tinum, Yucatán / 113 Notwithstanding the potential for major cultural disruption, there are some indicators that Maya culture is more resilient than Coe’s pessimistic assessment would suggest. In the face of changes in lifestyle brought about by working away from the land, increased contact with outsiders, and more cash in the villages, enclaves of Maya near the Caribbean coast continue to observe Maya rituals and religious practices. This is the case even in places such as the famous archaeological site of Tulum, Quintana Roo, visited by hundreds of tourists daily.4 The farther one moves away from the coast, the greater the likelihood that some fundamental elements of Maya culture will remain intact. This chapter explores issues of cultural continuities and change in one Maya community that lies inland, away from the overdeveloped coast but still within commuting distance of Cancún. The focus of this study is Tinum, Yucatán (population 1,940), twenty kilometers northwest of Valladolid and two and a half hours west of Cancún by car or bus.5 My one-month residence in Tinum in May and June 1999, together with a brief follow-up visit in August 2002, yielded dozens of interviews and informal conversations with Maya men who commute to Cancún, as well as their wives, children, neighbors, and friends. I also interviewed public-health workers, teachers, local policemen, and the municipal president, José Francisco Chan Coya. These interviews have yielded a clear picture of a village intent on preserving its traditions, despite the potential cultural disruption caused by working in Cancún. For the vast majority of Tinumeños (people from Tinum), Cancún represents a place of economic opportunity, but one without a viable or even desirable lifestyle. Cancún’s fast-paced lifestyle has not persuaded most people of Tinum to abandon their community or cultural heritage. Even so, the money brought back from Cancún results in an increasing desire to acquire manufactured goods and technology associated with modern society. The increasing availability of certain items (e.g., a television set) inevitably leads to changes in daily living patterns, and ultimately in some changes or realignment in values. These changes raise a number of questions that will be addressed in this chapter: In what sense does Tinum remain a Maya community? How is the village affected when an estimated 30 to 40 percent of workingage men spend Monday to Friday working in Cancún, then return to Tinum on weekends? How do Tinumeños react to various aspects of life in Cancún? What do they buy with their Cancún earnings to take back to the village? Finally, how might the community ultimately be changed by these factors? To what extent can Tinum maintain its cultural integrity?

A Portrait of Tinum Certain outward features of the village of Tinum remind us that the Spaniards arrived here in the 1540s. There is a central plaza with a Spanish-style municipal building on one side and a small Catholic church on the other. The town is laid out on a grid pattern characteristic of Hispanic towns throughout

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

114 / Paula R. Heusinkveld Latin America, with the strongest Hispanic influence near the center. Yet more than four and a half centuries after the Spanish conquest, and despite considerable mestizaje (cultural mixing), the village is still essentially Maya in several important aspects, including style of house, economic activities, gender roles, diet, handicrafts, language, rituals and celebrations, legends, and folklore. As one leaves the town center, cinderblock houses give way to the Maya nah, the single-room, oval-shaped structure made of vertical poles and covered with a palm-thatched roof.6 This nah sits at the front of each family’s solar, a large family compound generally surrounded by a limestone wall. The typical solar contains a separate nah for each additional room, which might include, for example, separate stick-and-thatch structures for the kitchen, extra storage space, and sometimes living space for married children. Until recently, the village economy has been based primarily on farming in the milpa, with corn as the primary food staple, along with squash, black beans, melons, and other fruits and vegetables. Well before the founding of Cancún, some men from Tinum occasionally sought additional work in the cattle country around the city of Tizimín, an hour to the north, where the soil is richer and less rocky. Other Tinumeños have supplemented the subsistence milpa with wage labor on henequen plantations or archaeological digs. Over the years, still others have found part-time work in Valladolid or Mérida. Since 1970, however, the resort city of Cancún has eclipsed all other sites in the peninsula as a magnet for those seeking employment for wages.7 Despite the steadily growing number of men from Tinum seeking work in Cancún, milpa agriculture continues to be the primary economic activity for a majority of working-age men in the community. Even so, employment opportunities in Cancún—both real and perceived—are luring an ever-increasing number of young men away from the milpa to seek work elsewhere.8 Compared to previous employment opportunities on henequen plantations or ranches, work in Cancún takes Tinumeños farther away from their land for longer periods of time, placing them in an environment that contrasts more sharply with their own cultural heritage. The potential economic and social consequences of this trend remain to be seen. Despite increased economic opportunities in Cancún, gender roles in Tinum have remained largely unchanged. While men tend the milpa and/or work in Cancún for wages, women tend the home, prepare food, and care for the children.9 The hetzmek ceremony, a Maya ritual similar in function to baptism, reflects these expected gender roles. The hetzmek for baby girls is held at the age of three months, to represent the three stones of the cooking fire in the traditional Maya kitchen. The hetzmek for boys occurs at the age of four months, to represent the four corners of the milpa, where the boy is expected to spend most of his working life. The continued observance of this ritual in Tinum is just one example of the resilience of Maya traditions. The diet in Tinum is another indicator of Maya culture. Handmade corn

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Tinum, Yucatán / 115

Fig. 15. Friends and neighbors cooperate in the construction of a nah (photo by Paula Heusinkveld).

tortillas are an essential part of breakfast, lunch, and dinner; they serve as bread, potatoes, and even as spoons. Traditional as the diet may be, women in Tinum welcome modern technology. Although a few choose to grind their own corn, most families take the nixtamal (kernels of corn soaked in lime) to the tortillería, where machines grind the corn into masa (cornmeal). For a few pesos more, they can have this masa made automatically into tortillas. The social function that formerly might have centered at a village well now occurs daily at the tortillería, where women socialize and exchange local gossip while

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

116 / Paula R. Heusinkveld 10

they await their masa. In this example, technology has only altered the meeting ground for socialization, which is so important in this Maya community. To supplement the diet, a typical family in Tinum raises chickens, turkeys, and a few pigs behind the house. Backyard gardens may also include avocado, lime, banana, and sour orange trees, as well as chiles and herbs for seasoning. Thus, consistent with Maya culture, many Tinum families continue to be nearly self-sufficient in the production of food.11 For those few items that cannot be produced in the milpa or at home, several small neighborhood stores offer limited selections of canned goods, snack foods, and soft drinks. Aside from these family-owned businesses, cash has had relatively little presence in the village until recently, since the economy was based largely on subsistence agriculture and barter. Because of the abundance of communal ejido lands surrounding the village and Tinum’s location off the main highway, this economic self-sufficiency has continued to a greater degree in Tinum than in some other Maya communities in the region. Another indicator of Maya culture is handicrafts. Nearly all women in Tinum continue to make huipiles, the loose-fitting white cotton dresses with brightly colored embroidery at the neck and hem. Many women in Tinum wear them every day, keeping them spotlessly clean even as they do housework. By contrast, inexpensive, ready-made clothing is more common for children as well as for men. As girls mature into adulthood and learn to take greater care with their clothing, they are more likely to wear the huipil, which is more costly and requires more care in cleaning. Some young women might wear Western clothing when their children are very young and then switch to the costlier huipil when they are older. Another handicraft activity that continues unabated in Tinum is the making of hammocks. Most Tinum women always have a hammock in progress; they report that it takes five or six weeks to make one within the free time available between all the other household tasks. Hammocks serve as beds at night and sofas by day; beds are practically unknown in Tinum. One of the strongest indicators of a particular culture is language usage. The first language spoken among older Tinumeños is Yucatec Maya. Although some older residents of Tinum are monolingual, or only minimally proficient in Spanish, bilingualism is now the norm among younger adults and children of the community. In 1999, when this study was undertaken, the majority of children in Tinum understood Maya well and spoke it with their elders. Yet the exclusive use of Spanish for instruction in the schools of Tinum, together with the increasing availability of television in the village bought with Cancún earnings, resulted in children’s increasingly favoring Spanish. Census figures from 2000 indicated that 75 percent of all Tinumeños knew how to speak Maya. However, a breakdown by age group revealed the rapid loss of Maya language ability among the younger generation. Of those Tinumeños over fifty years of age, 96.8 percent spoke Maya in 2000, but only 41.5 per-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Tinum, Yucatán / 117

Fig. 16. Maya girls sharing a hammock (photo by Paula R. Heusinkveld).

cent of children five to nine years old spoke Maya. In my return visit to Tinum in August 2002, Spanish appeared to prevail in most homes. Perhaps in response to statistics such as these, Yucatán’s state government has recently undertaken several projects designed to ensure the preservation of Yucatec Maya. Most notably, in late 2002 Yucatán’s state television channel began airing some news programs in Maya. Unlike some earlier programs aired by Protestant missions in the 1990s, the primary focus is not to teach beginning Maya but rather to reach an audience of native Maya speakers. As of this writing (2005), Yucatán’s Channel 13 airs two thirty-minute Maya newscasts daily, with local, state, national, and world news. A second state initiative, known as Aquí Estamos (literally, “Here we are”), or Wayanone in Maya, organizes bilingual programs and other events designed to raise consciousness of Maya culture. Although the long-range effects of these initiatives cannot yet be determined, it seems clear that these programs will help to legitimize Maya language use, increase interest in Maya culture, and offer practice in the Maya language for both native and non-native speakers.12 Schools in Tinum include a three-year kindergarten, or “kinder” (of which only one year is obligatory); a primary school (grades one through six), a secondary school (grades seven through nine), which was built in the early 1980s; and a new preparatory school, or bachiller (grades ten through twelve), which opened in 2000–2001. Whereas some teachers commute to Tinum each week from larger towns, most live in the village. Instruction is mostly by rote learn-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

118 / Paula R. Heusinkveld ing for about thirty students in each class. As noted above, all instruction is in Spanish. Attendance is excellent, perhaps in part because of a popular school lunch program sponsored by the federally funded Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (DIF, Family Development Program). Also, in the primary school and sometimes in the higher grades as well, students’ grades are docked if they miss class. Religion in Tinum reflects a classic syncretism of Roman Catholic and Maya rituals and beliefs. The large majority in Tinum is Catholic. Tinumeños attend Mass on a regular basis, honor the village’s patron saint (San Antonio de Padua) during the second week of June, make floral offerings to the Virgin of Guadalupe on December 12, and baptize their babies in the Catholic church on the village plaza. There are also two small but growing Evangelical Protestant churches. In sharp contrast to some communities in the state of Chiapas and elsewhere in the Maya world, the Catholics and Protestants of Tinum generally maintain cordial relations, including friendly soccer matches on Sunday afternoons.13 Notwithstanding the opposition of Evangelical Protestants to Maya rituals, Maya celebrations for rites of passage continue as an important part of Tinum life. One of the most characteristic of these is the hetzmek, mentioned earlier as the ceremony honoring baby girls and boys at the ages of three and four months, respectively. The hetzmek marks the first time the baby is carried on the hip; the baby is carried nine times counterclockwise around a table, then nine times clockwise. This ritual, accompanied by prayers and blessings on the baby’s behalf, is considered an important step on the way to proper formation of the legs and the future ability to walk. Both Catholics and Evangelicals also observe Christian baptism, albeit with many added Maya elements. The baptism may take place some months later in the baby’s life, or whenever it is convenient for the family. In many cases the hetzmek and baptism occur on the same day, particularly when extended family members live far from Tinum. Preparation for the baptism begins the day before the event at the home of the baby’s family. Neighbor women work together to prepare pollo pibil con relleno negro—a dish of pork, chicken, turkey, and hot chiles. This dish is cooked overnight in a pib, an open pit behind the house. The day of the baptism, following the actual ceremony at the Catholic or Evangelical church, women dressed in their finest huipiles gather to make tortillas, as men remove the large pots of food from the pib. After the communal meal, at a ceremony conducted in Yucatec Maya, an elder gives advice to the new parents and to the godparents. Gifts given to the godparents may include cases of Mexican beer and Coca-Cola, along with a large pot of relleno negro. This community ceremony reinforces the idea that “it takes a village to raise a child.”14 A quite different ritual observed in community form is the Ch’a-chaak, a

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Tinum, Yucatán / 119 rainmaking ceremony for males only. Michael Coe describes the ceremony as follows: The largest and most dramatic of the Yucatec Maya agricultural ceremonies is the Ch’a-chaak; its purpose is to bring rain during times of drought, and thus involves the entire community. The participants are only men, who withdraw for several days to the place on the village’s outskirts where the Ch’a-chaak is to be held. The rite begins after the h-men has consulted his zaztun or crystal. The altar is covered with fowl, venison, and sacred breadstuffs and drink, all set out in predetermined order; under the altar, and tied to its legs, are four boys, who croak like the wo frogs which are harbingers of rain in the Maya lowlands. Off to one side is an older man, chosen to impersonate the K’unk’u-chaak, the chief of the rain gods, holding in one hand the calabash from which he unleashes rain on the cornfields, and in the other a wooden knife symbolizing the lightning that accompanies downpours.15 In Tinum, a well-respected milpero (milpa farmer) is elected in each section of the village to be in charge of organizing a neighborhood Ch’a-chaak ceremony. At least once a year during his three-year term, or more often in case of drought, this man will seek the services of a h-men (a shaman who specializes in this ceremony) and make all necessary arrangements. In August 2002, Don Ildefonso Poot, the elected organizer of the Ch’a-chaak for his section of Tinum, lamented that one must go farther away to find a good h-men than in years past. Further, he worried that interest in the Ch’a-chaak seemed to be waning. Surely, as fewer men in Tinum make milpa, and as more Tinumeños work for cash wages, the importance of this rain ritual becomes less apparent to some Tinumeños. Nevertheless, as Don Ildefonso pointed out, the inclusion of young boys in the ceremony and the dedication and commitment of young men in the village should ensure the continuation of the Ch’a-chaak for the foreseeable future.16 A final measure of Maya culture is the persistence of certain legends. Don Patricio, proud owner of a large vegetable garden on the outskirts of Tinum, explained to me that each Friday during the growing season he leaves ears of corn in the four corners of the milpa for the aluxes, small dwarfs who protect the crops from thieves. Conversations with farmers of all ages convinced me that the practice of setting food out for the aluxes in the milpa continues unabated in Tinum. According to Tinumeños, the hapless thief sighted by an alux could either turn blind or drop dead on the spot. Another compelling legend is that of the Ixtabay, the mestiza female temptress, dressed in a huipil, who could intercept a man who is heading down a lonely road on his way home from the milpa. According to Tinumeños, if a

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

120 / Paula R. Heusinkveld man heeds the attentions of the Ixtabay, she could instantly transform herself into a serpent, wrap herself around the man, and drag him away to her cave. Although few in Tinum claim to have seen either an alux or the Ixtabay, tales of “sightings” by others are taken seriously. Don Adolfo, a village elder, repeatedly assured me that his late wife had seen three aluxes. Reported sightings of the Ixtabay are also rare, but these are enough to keep the legend alive. Passed down from one generation to the next, tales of the aluxes and the Ixtabay help to hold Maya values in place. A lingering belief in the Ixtabay is a powerful deterrent to adultery for the men of Tinum, even when they are working far away from the village. Tinumeños are not sure the aluxes are real, but they refrain from stealing, just in case they may be. As a result, Tinum is a remarkably safe place. An informal poll in several classrooms in the local primary school revealed that practically all children in Tinum believe in the aluxes. In a similar poll in Tinum’s secondary school, just over half of those present, including the teacher, indicated their conviction that the aluxes are real. In August 2002, before we sat down to a Sunday meal, my Maya host went to his garden to offer thanks to the alux for protecting the produce.

Contrasting Lifestyles in Cancún and Tinum In the preceding pages I have described some key aspects of Maya culture in Tinum. These include thatched-roof homes (nah, plural nahob), milpa agriculture, the extensive use of the Yucatec Maya language, tortilla-based diet, characteristic clothing (huipil ) for women, Maya handicrafts, rites of passage such as the hetzmek, Maya beliefs and ritual practices, and close ties to family, community, and tradition. Bearing all these in mind, we can more easily understand the magnitude of culture shock that occurs when a Maya from Tinum seeks work in the resort city of Cancún. In many ways the resort of Cancún is the antithesis of villages like Tinum. It is fast-paced, congested, anonymous, dangerous (with traffic and drugs), and frightfully expensive. The city was created as an artificial place to attract tourist dollars into the Mexican economy. It is a venue of “sun, sand, and sex” for tourists and a place where Mexicans can earn better wages than in their home communities. The permanent population consists mostly of Mexicans who have left their families and communities for the employment opportunities available in Cancún. In short, residential Cancún has no evolved communal history and little or no basis in any type of permanent community. Yet because corn prices are low and soil quality in the milpa is depleted, economic scarcity compels villagers to seek work in Cancún.17 Sources in Tinum report that the devastation of crops caused by Hurricane Gilbert in 1989 first sent large groups of Tinumeños to Cancún to find cash-paying jobs to buy corn and cover other expenses. As these Tinumeños soon discovered, jobs in Cancún can provide a steady year-round income, with less risk than the

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Tinum, Yucatán / 121 agricultural cycle of the milpa, or seasonal work on nearby henequen plantations or ranches. Even work as a gardener in Cancún pays better than the milpa these days. Although a few Tinum women work in Cancún, the large majority of commuters (at least 90 percent) are men. Estimates of how many workingage men from Tinum work in Cancún range from 30 to 40 percent. These men generally are hired as bricklayers, carpenters’ assistants, gardeners, or in other unskilled jobs that require no English, and indeed no literacy. The most common pattern is to work Monday through Friday in Cancún, where the men share small apartments, returning to Tinum for the weekends. Men arrive home early Saturday afternoon to spend time with their families. On Sundays, those who keep up their milpa go to work there. Some Cancún commuters choose not to make milpa but pay another milpero from the village to work their assigned plot of land. Then on Monday around 3:00 in the morning, a number of special taxis and minibuses round up their passengers in Tinum for the weekly trip back to Cancún.18 Another pattern—generally for employees of certain hotels and resorts—is to work three weeks straight, returning to the village for one week off. While a few try to live permanently in Cancún or even move their families there, they generally find both that they cannot afford to and that they do not like it. The most common complaints are the high cost of living and the anonymity. Villagers also complain about prejudice against Maya workers, especially from chilangos, that is, people from Mexico City. Though the people of Tinum all concede that Cancún is muy bonito (very pretty), frequent trips back and forth only confirm their conviction that the quality of life is better in Tinum. Indeed, most villagers in Tinum feel an aversion toward the lifestyle of Cancún. When asked to cite reasons why life in Tinum was better, the word most frequently mentioned was tranquilo (calm, tranquil). People of every age group—adolescents, young parents, grandparents, and village elders—stressed the tranquillity and safety of their village. Indeed, in early 1999 the health clinic in Tinum that is run by the federal government reported virtually no cases of stress-related disease in the previous calendar year. Nearly all deaths reported were attributed to old age, defined as over the age of eighty.19 Just as compelling a reason for preferring life in Tinum is the importance of a nurturing community. Whether for celebrating a life passage such as the hetzmek or baptism, or pitching in to help a neighbor in time of crisis, everyone in Tinum shares in the life of the village. For Tinumeños of all ages there is a strong sense of identity, security, and belonging. This strong identification as a member of a community is an essential value of Maya culture.20 By contrast, Tinumeños report life in Cancún to be crass and anonymous. Interviews with wives of men who commute to Cancún revealed that the city is especially difficult for Tinum women. Aside from the issues of safety and the high cost of living, they find life in Cancún alienating and lacking in

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

122 / Paula R. Heusinkveld purpose. Without their familiar daily tasks, their whole sense of identity is at risk. Doña Piedad Canul, an archetypal Maya housewife, tried life in Cancún for about a month. “All I did was sit there,” she complained. “I couldn’t water my plants, make my tortillas, or feed my chickens. I felt ridiculous, even sick, just sitting there all the time.” She was not in this world, she explained, for a life of idleness. Doña Piedad also complained about the high cost of living. Related to the problem of higher prices is the loss of self-sufficiency and the necessity of cash. As she pointed out, “In Tinum we have eggs, chicken, pork, limes, bananas, avocados, chiles, and cilantro right here in the yard. In Cancún it’s terrible; you have to use money to buy everything!” Several Tinum women complained that in Cancún there’s no place for children to play. Residential lots in Cancún are small (about sixty by thirty feet), and the busy streets are by no means a safe playground. Another problem in Cancún is the high rate of crime and petty theft. By contrast, the police chief of Tinum reported that over the past two decades he could scarcely recall any incidents of theft in the village. Surely, the aluxes are doing their job.21

Money from Cancún—What Does It Buy? If the primary attraction of Cancún for the villagers of Tinum is not the lifestyle but solely the employment opportunities to be found there, it stands to reason that what they take back to the village is money and the things that money can buy. Although village traditions and beliefs continue, the presence of more money in the village has had its effects. The changes in daily living patterns brought on by the increasing availability of certain consumer items and the trend toward acquiring more possessions may be likely to lead to shifts in values and their expression. To understand how the village is changing, we must consider what people are buying with their Cancún earnings. First and foremost are things for the children: clothing, shoes, medicine, toys, and a better diet. Parents say they want their children to have more opportunities—a better life than they themselves had. This includes education, and as Tinum fathers commute to Cancún they become painfully aware of the direct relationship between education and earning power. As stated, unskilled Maya workers in Cancún hold the lowest-paying jobs: gardener, construction assistant, and other jobs not requiring literacy. One result of commuting from the village to Cancún is an increased appreciation of the value of formal education. Over the past several years, interest in high school (grades ten through twelve) has increased, as well as the financial viability of paying for schoolbooks for a son or (less likely) a daughter.22 Until 2000, any student from Tinum who wanted to attend high school had to pay bus fare to Valladolid, at a distance of twenty kilometers. Now, with the new preparatory school in Tinum, education is a

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Tinum, Yucatán / 123 more viable option, especially for girls whose families would not allow them to travel to Valladolid. Another major category of spending is in the area of home improvements. Many Cancún workers learn the trade of bricklayer and then apply that skill to build new rooms for their own families or do contract work for others. Over the past several years, the trend toward home improvements has accelerated.23 More and more families are building cinderblock rooms, replacing dirt floors with cement, and adding furniture—tables, chairs, cabinets, even gas stoves and refrigerators. As anthropologist Robert Redfield pointed out, once a Maya family has a cinderblock house, there is suddenly a perceived need for furniture, better doors, locks, and other accoutrements.24 Redfield’s observations, made in the nearby village of Chan Kom in the late 1940s, indicate that the trend toward cinderblock homes began well before the founding of Cancún. Since 1970, however, the increased earning power made possible by Cancún jobs has led to a dramatic acceleration of this trend in Tinum and other villages in the area. Structural improvement thus creates its own set of needs and wants. Although these new structures provide additional space, they still do not replace the Maya nah. Even families who can afford to build a cinderblock living room and kitchen at the front of their lot inevitably retain the Maya stickand-thatch kitchen out back.25 There are practical reasons for this. Each room of the traditional Maya home is a separate structure, allowing for natural light and ventilation. This is especially important in the case of the Maya kitchen, a separate structure made of vertically placed sticks slightly separated to allow for the flow of air. The palm-leaf roof is fire-resistant because of a natural resin within the palm that crystallizes with continued exposure to smoke from the cooking fire below. Ana Maria, one elderly Maya woman in Tinum, explained in 1999 that she would rather cook on an open fire than use her new gas stove inside the house, because firewood is cheaper than gas, and ventilation is better outside. In August 2002, she and others reported they still preferred firewood to gas, using the latter only when it rained. According to the 2000 field research project of Lori Bonser and Peggy Willis in Tinum, villagers cited three main advantages of cinderblock houses.26 They are more comfortable in cold or rainy weather, provide storage space that is always dry and secure, and offer better protection against snakes and insects. Yet most families in Tinum agree that in hot weather the Maya nah continues to be more comfortable. And since Tinum lies well within the tropical zone, even families with cinderblock houses continue to spend most of their time outside in a palapa ( palm-thatch roof supported by poles) or in the nah. Acquisitions that depend on infrastructure, such as telephones and indoor toilets, have not come easily to Tinum. Even so, since the late 1990s a few families have installed flush toilets with a septic tank, “so that the children will have a better life.” As others see the advantages of flush toilets, this trend

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

124 / Paula R. Heusinkveld

Fig. 17. Traditional Maya kitchen (photo by Paula R. Heusinkveld).

is almost certain to increase. In the spring of 1999 there were only six telephones in the village. In 2000 a public pay phone was installed in the municipal building (city hall), but it has been unreliable.27 Therefore, since 1999, several families have purchased cellular phones in order to be in contact with family members in Cancún. Apparently this trend is at least partly the result of the poor service of the village caseta (traditional pay-phone service) in Tinum. In all likelihood, the trend to cell phones will increase as more villagers seek work in Cancún. Other typical purchases made with Cancún money include a variety of consumer items that make daily life easier: sewing machines for making clothes, bicycles for transportation, and even refrigerators, which make life more bearable in the hottest months. Sometimes these purchases can generate new ways to earn money in the village. For example, a family owning a refrigerator can start a small business out of the home selling cold soft drinks and bottled water. One family installed a cement patio behind their house and rented it out for quinceaños and other parties.28 Items purchased in Cancún (e.g., clothing, toys) can be sold to neighbors in the village as a secondary market. One family started a small grocery store with Cancún earnings, selling mostly refrigerated soft drinks and snacks. While the husband works in Cancún during the week, his wife manages the store. The name of the store, La Guadalupana (after the Virgin of Guadalupe), and the prominent Coca-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Tinum, Yucatán / 125 Cola logo painted on the exterior wall are clear symbols of the cultural syncretism that prevails in Tinum. As these small businesses develop, several outcomes occur. The women of Tinum have an opportunity to earn a little pocket money as they sell cold drinks and other items. Such small businesses also hasten the conversion of Tinum from a subsistence and barter economy to a cash economy. Seeing this, others in Tinum may begin to develop their own ideas for generating cash flow. As a result of this growing desire to find means of added income, observers note that Tinumeños have become somewhat busier over the past several years.29 Another major category of expenditure is home entertainment. Families buy radios, television sets, stereos, even a few VCRs. Of all the items purchased with Cancún money, probably the one with the greatest cultural impact is the television set. According to the field research conducted in Tinum by Andrew Whitham in the spring of 2000, television is affecting the lives of Tinumeños in a number of ways.30 Perhaps most significantly, television greatly increases confidence in Spanish-language ability for adult listeners as well as for children. Because there are few television programs in the Maya language, it is not yet clear to what degree the rising popularity of television might also diminish the Tinumeños’ proficiency in Maya. The state government’s initiatives to offer newscasts in Maya are likely to help to deter Maya language loss. In addition, television brings images of far-away places and lifestyles into the homes of the villagers, exponentially broadening their worldview. Seated in hammocks in their thatched-roof homes, Tinumeños can learn of current events and issues in Yucatán, Mexico, and the world. Notwithstanding the obvious educational value of television, this exposure to outside ideas results in a loss of innocence (as well as ignorance) that presents a mixed blessing. Whitham reported observing one family in Tinum staring open-mouthed at a program about transvestites. And on September 11, 2001, the horrific images of the terrorist attacks in New York struck terror into the hearts of the villagers. Some feared the apocalypse had arrived; others worried that tourism to Cancún would end and that Yucatán would crumble. One villager was too depressed to make milpa and eventually sought counseling.31 For better or worse, television also increases awareness of consumer products such as shampoo, cosmetics, and Western fashion. As of this writing, it appears that the exotic images seen on television are not luring Tinumeños away from their beloved community. Young people appreciate their village and the quality of life it affords. Yet television does influence the buying patterns introduced by the presence of more cash in the village. It also has an effect on patterns of social interaction. The Tinumeños interviewed reported watching television an average of two to four hours daily. Time formerly passed chat-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

126 / Paula R. Heusinkveld ting with friends and family is now spent watching television. Focus on television does appear to have displaced focus on other forms of activity. Whitham reported seeing Maya children punished for making too much noise during “television time.”

Changes in the Village In sum, the widespread practice of commuting to Cancún has affected daily life and priorities in Tinum in several significant ways. On the positive side, the standard of living in the village has increased somewhat. Tinumeños are using their Cancún earnings as a bid to provide a better life for their families back in the village. As a result, many children of Tinum are better fed and better clothed than they were prior to the founding of Cancún, and daily life for many families is a little easier. Furthermore, new trades and skills (e.g., bricklaying) have been imported to the village. These new skills generate additional income for Tinumeños, making possible more durable housing for those who desire it. In general, there are now greater options to earn money. Young men who finish secondary school have a greater range of opportunities beyond working in the milpa. They can seek work in Cancún or farther down the coast of the “Maya Riviera.” As stated earlier, increasing awareness of the value of an education results in more young people being better prepared to continue their educations and enter careers. In a twist that is ironic to Western eyes, education—with the resultant opportunities for employment far from home—may be the greatest threat to the long-term survival of the cultural integrity of the village. However, at the same time, increased economic opportunities pose a number of threats to Maya culture. First, and perhaps most significantly, cash jobs in Cancún draw Maya men away from the milpa. Cultivation of corn and the observance of agricultural cycles lie at the heart of Maya culture. When men stop making milpa, they lose a measure of their sense of connectedness to the land. Also at risk are all the rituals, ceremonies, and folk wisdom associated with the agricultural cycle. As the number of young men who abandon the milpa to seek work in Cancún increases, the fear grows that the village will no longer be self-sufficient in food production. The municipal government is using communal lands and public funds to promote diversification for crops such as papayas, limes, and other fruits.32 Yet because of climatic problems and competition in the market, this project appears to have enjoyed very limited success. Thus the flight of the workforce to Cancún continues to pose a growing concern. If the village could no longer produce its own food, there would be long-term implications for diet, gender roles, and family structure, as well as the loss of traditional ties to the land. Just as the continued shift away from the milpa puts Maya agricultural cul-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Tinum, Yucatán / 127

Fig. 18. Friends pose in front of a store financed by Cancún earnings (photo by Paula R. Heusinkveld).

ture at risk, the cash and consumer goods brought back from Cancún may contribute to the erosion of Maya values. As noted, the economy is in a steady shift from a primarily barter to a cash-dependent basis. After all, one cannot buy a television set with corn or frijoles. In a culture where family and tradition have always been valued most highly, it is difficult to say to what extent these trends are desirable or not and to what extent they threaten Maya values. How does a culture such as the Maya cope with increasing contact with the larger society? There are no clear answers to this question. The increasing availability of cash from Cancún has social implications as well. As some families use their Cancún earnings to buy things ranging from furniture to electronics, other families, entirely dependent on the milpa, struggle to produce enough to feed their children. Thus in recent years the gap between the haves and the have-nots has widened. This growing inequity has the potential to erode the sense of community, possibly leading to increased pressure to work in Cancún.33

Cultural Continuities among the Maya Despite the trend in Tinum toward the importation of mass-produced goods and technology and the resulting changes in daily living patterns, current evidence suggests that the inner life of the community remains mostly in-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

128 / Paula R. Heusinkveld tact. This includes the deep-rooted beliefs and legends, some ritualistic celebrations, and communal rites of passage. Men return home to Tinum each weekend from Cancún for the sense of identity they find in their community. The Tinumeños love their village and are intent on preserving what is most precious about it. The multigenerational nature of community celebrations and rituals reinforces cultural continuity. Other aspects of Maya culture that continue unchanged in Tinum include the tortilla-based diet, traditional crafts, and strong emphasis on family and tradition. Anthropologist Paul Sullivan summarized the areas of change and continuity among the Yucatec Maya as follows: “Maya identity may be problematic, the use of the Yucatec Maya language may be in decline, and Maya may be living in ever more urban settings, but repeated studies from various corners of the peninsula confirm that cosmology, conceptualizations of space and time, curing beliefs and practices, and laboring upon the land and in the forest continue to be intimately connected and mutually reinforcing.”34 In their resolve to continue in the ritual life of the village, Tinumeños show remarkable consistency with indigenous peoples in Chiapas, Guatemala, and elsewhere. Throughout the Maya world, people living in close-knit communities have tenaciously held to their rituals, communal celebrations, and underlying cosmologies. Speaking of the Zinacantan Maya in Chiapas, Harvard anthropologist Evon Vogt wrote, “What is most valued and most vital to the culture has been reinforced, for the ritual life is, if anything, more intensified and elaborated than ever before.”35 This pattern of cultural retention appears to hold in Tinum as well. Anthropologists have argued that one reason for the survival of Maya culture over two millennia is its marked ability to assimilate elements from invading cultures without losing what is essential to its own. Despite the tenthcentury invasion of Toltec culture from central Mexico, and notwithstanding the Hispanic conquest of Yucatán and imposition of Catholicism in the sixteenth century, key features of Maya culture have persisted into the present. Anthropologist Victor Montejo, a Jakaltec Maya from Guatemala, has written eloquently about the tenacity of Maya culture: Mayas have faced much adversity throughout almost five hundred years of Western domination. They have met these extreme hardships with effective strategies of cultural survival. Each ethnic group has managed to save, transform, and continue different aspects of that ancient Maya culture that give all modern Maya people their common Maya identity. The Maya tradition as we know it today has undergone many dramatic changes and syncretic transformations. If the Mayas who confronted the Spanish invaders managed to rebuild and continue their cultural heritage in spite of the tremendous violence of the conquest, we, the modern

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Tinum, Yucatán / 129 Mayas, must take pride in our cultural traditions and make them an integral part of the building process of a Guatemalan national culture.36 Montejo penned these words in reference to the Maya of Guatemala, who have persevered in maintaining their cultural heritage despite egregious assaults against their communities during the civil war of the early 1980s and years of forced exile following that violent period. In contemporary Yucatán there is no comparable intentional assault by any institution upon Maya communities; rather, the main threat is the advance of contemporary society brought about by increasing contact with the outside world, especially Cancún. It is too early to assess the degree to which this increased contact may erode Maya culture in Tinum. Some trends are undeniable, yet even as Tinumeños adopt and adapt goods and technology from the outside world, they continue to celebrate cultural practices in community. Further, their resistance to assimilation into the fast-paced Cancún lifestyle is not the result of provincialism, ignorance, or stubbornness. Tinumeños understand that their values and priorities work for them. Cancún and the money earned there may affect the way the Maya of Tinum conduct their daily lives, but until now it has not shaken their underlying system of beliefs and values. Maya culture has survived for millennia. If history is any guide to the future, the people of Tinum, rather than being overwhelmed by Cancún, appear to be continuing the enduring Maya practice of adopting, adapting, and integrating elements of the outside culture that fit into their own, assimilating rather than being assimilated. Despite the appearance of an unequal match, it remains to be seen to what degree Maya culture will prevail.

Acknowledgments I gratefully acknowledge those individuals who facilitated the field research in Tinum: Dr. James Schulze and Lisa Rock, who offered us the use of their comfortable nah in Tinum in May and June 1999; Doña Piedad Canul, who mothered and fed my husband and me throughout our stay in Tinum, and who hosted me for a return visit in 2002; Robert Erdman, who facilitated many key interviews and helped to pave the way for our entry into the community; and to all the Tinumeños who opened their homes and shared their lives with us for this project. My understanding of Maya culture was deeply enriched in 2002 during the National Endowment for the Humanities summer institute, “Maya Worlds: Cultural Continuities and Change,” conducted over six weeks in Guatemala, Chiapas, and Yucatán. I am deeply grateful to the NEH for its generous funding, and to all my teachers and fellow participants in the institute for their in-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

130 / Paula R. Heusinkveld sights. Also, I am grateful to Dr. James Schulze of Central College, Pella, Iowa, for sharing the results of field research conducted by his undergraduate students of cultural psychology in Tinum in the spring of 2000. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the late Ed Moseley, who provided ongoing advice and encouragement on this chapter until his death in March 2005. For sharing their perceptions of changes in Tinum since this study was first undertaken, thanks also to Juan Vásquez of Mérida, Juan Hau of Tinum, Alan Van Bodegraven, and especially Lisa Rock. Finally, a special thank-you to cultural analysts Jamie O’Boyle and Margaret J. King for their insightful questions and editorial assistance on the final drafts of this chapter.

Notes 1. Yucatecan journalist Roger Manzanilla provided these data on Cancún jobs and population during a series of interviews in his home in Puerto Juárez, Quintana Roo, May 20–25, 1999. 2. As of this writing (November 2005), Cancún was just beginning to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Wilma, which battered Cancún in October 2005. Ninety percent of Cancún’s infrastructure was affected by the hurricane, and well over 100,000 jobs were lost. As the Mexican government promised to infuse massive financing for the reconstruction of this premier tourist destination, it appeared that workers with construction skills would be in high demand, while those in service industries would be temporarily displaced. 3. Michael Coe, The Maya, 6th ed. (London: Thames & Hudson, 1999), 237. 4. In April 1999, I interviewed two members of a syncretic Maya-language church at the southern end of the coastal town of Tulum, Quintana Roo, only two or three kilometers from the famous archaeological site. The two young men were part of a twenty-four-hour team who guarded the entrance of the church to prevent outsiders from entering without permission. In order to enter one was required to purchase a votive candle, remove one’s shoes, and leave all photographic equipment and tape recorders with the guards. These young men explained to me that they believed in the Maya wind god, Ik’, as well as Jesus and the Virgin Mary. 5. This and other census data on Tinum in this chapter come from the Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas Geografía e Informática [INEGI], XII censo general de población y vivienda (2000). In 1999 the asphalt town-to-market road that connects Tinum with Valladolid was essentially one lane, with occasional pull-outs where one vehicle could wait for an oncoming vehicle to pass. In 2000 this road was improved and widened to two lanes. Most residents of Tinum do not own cars and therefore take the second-class bus (“combis”) to Cancún. Those relatively well-to-do Tinumeños who provide this combi service take the old highway from Valladolid, with all its villages en route and the inevitable topes (large speed bumps). Taking the modern four-lane toll road from Valladolid to Cancún is a financial impossibility, as tolls would consume a large percentage of weekly earnings. 6. The art of building a nah has been passed down through dozens of generations. We can see from Maya motifs at the ninth-century city of Uxmal that the Maya-style house has changed little in the past thousand years. To build a nah, family and friends

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Tinum, Yucatán / 131 work together to go into the jungle to find four perfectly forked trees for the corners of the house. In the most traditional nah, no nails are used at all, just the bejuco vine for binding. Supple smaller branches must form the roof supports. The main part of the house needs nearly two hundred vertical poles. The building of a nah is an excellent example of Maya people working in community. 7. With tens of thousands of jobs lost in Cancún in the wake of Hurricane Wilma in October 2005, it seems probable that Tinumeños will look to Mérida, Valladolid, and other cities across the peninsula for temporary employment. 8. Despite steady population growth in and around Tinum, the migration of workers to Cancún has meant that there is no shortage of land for making milpa. Between 1980 and 2000 the population of the town of Tinum itself increased by 32 percent. In the entire municipality of Tinum the population increased by nearly 100 percent in the same time period, primarily due to growth of Pisté, the town adjacent to Chichén Itzá. Data are from INEGI, XII censo general. 9. One interesting consequence of men’s working in Cancún is that women sometimes must do the necessary work in the milpa. However, a more common practice for Cancún commuters is to hire other men to do their milpa work. Observations on changing gender roles come from Lisa Rock, who has conducted field research in Tinum since 1989 to the time of this writing (November 2005). 10. The water supply for Tinum now comes from two deep wells, one at either end of the town, that were dug in the 1950s. Most families have a water tank (tinaco) for a backup supply for those frequent times when the municipal pumping equipment is turned off or out of order. 11. For discussion of the importance of self-sufficiency for the Maya, see Victor Montejo, Voices from Exile:Violence and Survival in Modern Maya History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 169. 12. Data on Maya language use are from INEGI, XII censo general. For a discussion on the declining use of the Maya language in the Yucatán Peninsula, see Paul Sullivan, “The Yucatec Maya,” in Ethnology: Supplement to the Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 6, ed. John Monaghan and Barbara Edmonson (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000), 209–11. Juan Vásquez, a professional guide and native speaker of Maya, provided the information on current government initiatives to preserve the Maya language and culture. 13. The most extreme example of religious conflict in Maya communities might be found in San Juan Chamula in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. In the words of Gary Gossen, “Between 1974 and 1977, authorities banished at gunpoint all of the Protestant convert population of 3000, contending, correctly it seems, that this was a serious challenge to community autonomy and separate ethnic identity.” “The Chamula Festival of Games: Native Macroanalysis and Social Commentary in a Maya Carnival,” in Symbol and Meaning beyond the Closed Community: Essays in Mesoamerican Ideas, ed. Gossen (Albany: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, SUNY Albany, 1986), 228. 14. These notes come primarily from my observations at a baptism in Tinum in May 1999, with additional insights from Lisa Rock via personal correspondence in November 2005. 15. Coe, The Maya, 238–39. A second source on the Ch’a-Chaak is a photodocumentation made in Tinum in April 1999 by Dr. James Schulze of Central College, Pella, Iowa.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

132 / Paula R. Heusinkveld 16. Interview by the author with Ildefonso Poot in his home in Tinum, August 4, 2002. 17. Following the terrorist attacks of September 2001 in the United States, Cancún suffered a sharp drop in hotel occupancy, causing unemployment to rise throughout the peninsula. By midsummer 2002, when I revisited Tinum, levels of tourism were reported to be nearly back to normal. 18. In addition to my own interviews with Doña Piedad Canul and other people of Tinum, I have drawn information from Andrea J. Parrot, “Faces of Tourism in Cancún: The Lives of Mexican Workers in Search of Better Opportunities,” field research project conducted in Tinum and in the resort of Cancún in spring 2000 for a cultural psychology course under the supervision of Dr. James Schulze, Central College, Pella, Iowa. 19. Data provided at DIF Clinic, Tinum, Yucatán, May 28, 1999. 20. Carol Hendrickson discusses the importance in Maya culture of belonging to a community in Weaving Identities: Construction of Dress and Self in a Highland Guatemala Town (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 98 ff. 21. Whether the gradual erosion of safety in Tinum in recent years is real or perceived, Tinumeños have become more vigilant. Most families in Tinum have dogs to alert them to would-be intruders. Often at least one family member stays home to protect the family compound. Personal correspondence from Lisa Rock, November 2005. 22. This positive attitude toward formal education is in marked contrast to attitudes found in some highland Maya communities in Guatemala, where some indigenous parents discourage or even forbid their children to attend school. See Robert S. Carlsen, The War for the Heart and Soul of a Highland Maya Town (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997), 136–37. 23. Lori Bonser and Peggy Willis, “Home Building in Tinum,” field research project for a cultural psychology course in spring 2000 under the supervision of Dr. James Schulze, Central College, Pella, Iowa. 24. Robert Redfield, A Village That Chose Progress: Chan Kom Revisited (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950), 27. 25. For a discussion of the continuity of lifestyle despite masonry houses in Chan Kom, see ibid., 27–32. 26. Bonser and Willis, “Home Building in Tinum.” 27. Lisa Rock, personal communication, November 2005. 28. The quinceaños (lit., “fifteen years”) is a coming-out party and special birthday celebration for a fifteen-year-old girl. Prevalent in all Hispanic countries, the quinceaños usually includes a Catholic mass, followed by an elaborate reception and dance for family and friends. 29. Lisa Rock, personal communication, October 2003. 30. Andrew Whitham, “‘Siempre te amaré’: Television Viewing in the Village of Tinum, Yucatán,” field research project for a cultural psychology course in April 2000 under the supervision of Dr. James Schulze of Central College, Pella, Iowa. 31. Comments on the Tinumeños’ reaction to September 11 come from Alan Van Bodegraven, a frequent visitor and astute observer of life in Tinum, via personal correspondence, November 2003. 32. This information is based on my interviews with municipal officials in Tinum

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Tinum, Yucatán / 133 in May 1999 as well as personal correspondence with Lisa Rock in April 2002 and November 2005. 33. In Chan Kom, Yucatán, conflicts developed between those who continued to make milpa and those who worked in Cancún for wages. The former accused the latter of not being “true Maya.” During a brief return visit to Tinum in August 2002, I found no evidence of this type of conflict. For a discussion of this issue see Alicia Re Cruz, The Two Milpas of Chan Kom (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996). 34. Sullivan, “The Yucatec Maya,” 216. 35. Vogt quoted in Coe, The Maya, 236. 36. Montejo, Voices from Exile, 242.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

6 Chan Kom Tourism and Migration in the Making of the New Maya Milpas Alicia Re Cruz

Tourism has proved to be an intriguing global platform within which “hosts” and “guests” combine and articulate their cultural baggage. In the process, images and cultural representations are created and reinterpreted within the socioeconomic and ideological postulates of the tourism rationale. At the same time, the phenomenon of tourism exemplifies the dissolution of cultural boundaries, examined by many as the product of globalizing currents. “Crises of representation” has become a very popular expression among postmodernist discourses, within which it embeds the multiple meanings and symbols encapsulated in the unbordered nature of our cultural world (Lyotard 1984; Jameson 1984; Harvey 1991; Marcus and Fisher 1986; Said 1978). The conceptual arena of this study is framed within this unbordering milieu applied to current globalizing trends, tourism and migration. The focus of the study is the analysis of the phenomenon of tourism development in Mexico and the outmigration process among Maya communities in the Yucatán Peninsula. The analytical window of the ethnographic data is centered on the concepts of labor and production and how these are transformed due to the articulation of migration and tourism. Mexico greatly satisfies the global demand for vacationing in exotic places; in particular, the Caribbean region provides tourists with the uniqueness of the sand beaches and water colors. Cancún is the most acclaimed tourist emporium in this region. Although Cancún represents American-style entertainment in an exotic landscape for many, it also becomes the gateway to Maya culture. Waitresses dressed with huipiles (traditional female Maya dress), pyramid-shaped hotels, and shopping malls spiced with pre-Hispanic Mayastyle paintings and sculptures are a few among the many remainders of the connection between Cancún and Maya culture. The Maya community of Chan Kom and the international tourist emporium of Cancún are the two major cultural landscapes in this study. Although Chan Kom and Cancún are embroidered in the same current globalizing fabric, each represents different cultural contexts. Chan Kom is located at the heart of the north-central part

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Chan Kom Tourism and Migration / 135 of the Yucatán Peninsula and is flanked by two impressive archaeological sites. It is located about 14 kilometers south of Chichén Itzá and about 90 kilometers west of Cobá. Chan Kom is located 9 kilometers off the Mérida-Cancún highway, 132 kilometers from Mérida and 290 kilometers from Cancún. Cancún represents a complex tapestry of different ethnic groups, social classes, and nationalities that color the multicultural composition of our international tourist world. Fascinated by the opportunity to experience the tropical exoticism, thousands of tourists visit Cancún annually. At the same time, attracted by the opportunity “to advance,” “to modernize,” and “to prosper,” hundreds of Maya move to Cancún to become the underlying base of labor for the development of tourism. Tourists and Maya have to cross different cultural and socioeconomic borders in order to experience Cancún. In their travels, tourists and Maya migrants bring their cultural packages with them, and they learn, from each other, to conceptualize the value and position of “culture” within the capitalist code of consumption. Through their experiences as migrants in Cancún, Maya learn the crucial role that Maya cultural “authenticity” plays in the economic success of the tourism enterprise. Tourist brochures depicting the turquoise waters and the white sand beaches are quite often framed by pyramids, chacmols (reclining figures with flexed knees), and other representations of the glorious ancient world of the Maya. With this, tourists are symbolically invited not only to enjoy the paradisiacal landscape of Cancún but also to consider it as the entrance to the ancient Maya culture. Most tourist vacation packages include visits to major archaeological sites such as Tulum and Chichén Itzá. This has promoted the proliferation of artisan stands not only within the archaeological sites but also along the way to the sites. The communities nearest to Chichén Itzá (i.e., K’aua, Piste, X-Calacop) have specialized in the production of wooden sculptures, replicas of ancient Maya designs for tourist consumption. The knowledge acquired as migrants in Cancún—what can be considered “human capital”—is invested in the planning of economic strategies for local development, mainly focused on the exploitation of cultural attractions for the tourist clientele in Chan Kom. Inspired by Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), some studies denounce the culture of tourism as a new form of colonialism (Nash 1995). Indeed, many indigenous people have come to view tourism as a “new form of sugar” (Rajotte 1987), that is, a new form of exploitation of the indigenous populations by external forces. Other studies emphasize the detrimental impact of tourism among indigenous communities, particularly in the loss of “authenticity” of culture. However, these critiques render “culture” as static and deny people their history (Greenwood 1989). In contrast to these positions, the present study explores the unbordering global condition of our world as it is expressed in Cancún’s tourist ideology. Cancún is sustained by the infrastructural support of Maya migrant labor and legitimized by the international tourist ideology as a search for the “exotic

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

136 / Alicia Re Cruz other.” This framework brings Chan Kom’s and Cancún’s cultural realms into dialogue and negotiation. Certainly, the tourist culture embeds rules of production and consumption radically different from those encapsulated in the milpa (cornfield) ideology that Maya experience in their communities. The dialogue between Cancún and Chan Kom cultural ideologies has different outcomes. Most peasants in Chan Kom reject Cancún influences by elaborating folk stories denouncing the urban dangers. On the other hand, migrants survive in Cancún by “Mayanizing” it, utilizing the ideological basis of their peasant Maya background. And the current political leaders in Chan Kom, with a long experience as successful migrants in Cancún, utilize their human capital to plan local development strategies. With this, Chan Kom’s political leaders adapt the lessons in “culture” consumption learned in Cancún’s international tourism market to their community’s life. Thus, this analysis focuses on Chan Kom’s social fragmentation, provoked by outmigration to Cancún, which cannot be understood without the interconnection between the social realms of Cancún and Chan Kom.

Chan Kom: Origins as a Maya Peasant Community Chan Kom is named for its central cenote (in Yucatec, chan means “little” and kom means “kettle”).1 Remnants from the pre-Hispanic past are visible on the stones from masonry buildings and in the low mounds dispersed around the cornfields. Robert Redfield and Alfonso Villa Rojas (1934) reported that Chan Kom’s first inhabitants were descendants of the Maya who took the side of the Yucatecan government during the Caste War of 1848.2 Chan Kom started as a milperio, a type of camp set up at the milpa during periods of agricultural labor. These first peasants came from Ebtun, forty-five kilometers away. During the Mexican Revolution (1910–20) many peasants were displaced; the settlement attracted refugees from other communities. After the revolution, Chan Kom received the first legal grant of ejido property and was also assigned pueblo status, a legal and political entity independent from Ebtun. Chan Kom started with 251 inhabitants in 1930 (Redfield and Villa Rojas 1934, 13); it reached 530 in 1972 (Elmendorf and Merrill 1977, 1978) and 682 in 1989–90 (Re Cruz 1996b). The census taken by the Public Health Department (Secretaría de Salud Pública) in 2006 indicated a population of 625 individuals. Chan Kom has been the focus of ethnographic attention since 1924, when the Carnegie Institution began a twenty-year investigation in and around Chichén Itzá. Redfield and Villa Rojas (1934) initiated the ethnographic gaze, looking at the contemporary Maya of Chan Kom as the model of “peasant” society within the “folk-urban continuum” conceptual model for development (Redfield 1941). Concerned with this process of change, Redfield (1950) returned to Chan Kom to test the conceptual bases of his folk-urban

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Chan Kom Tourism and Migration / 137 continuum. What he found was acidly criticized by Victor Goldkind (1965, 1966), who, under the conceptual umbrella of homogeneous “peasant” society, discovered social schisms that resulted in the Protestant exodus from Chan Kom to neighboring communities. Mary Elmendorf ’s (1972, 1976) focus on women’s productive and reproductive roles opened a different ethnographic window to the study of change in the Maya community. The latest chapter in this Chan Kom ethnographic encyclopedia analyzes the impact of outmigration to Cancún in the socioeconomic, cultural, and political dimensions of community life (Re Cruz 1996a, 1996b). Crucial in the analysis of the current impact of Cancún’s economic and cultural system in Chan Kom’s community life is the understanding of the community economic development that parallels a long history of social confrontations. The history of Chan Kom’s social frictions and clashes is as old as the community itself (see Re Cruz 1996b). The Mexican Revolution reached Yucatán in 1915; with it came the program of agrarian reform that drove some peasants to repopulate areas of the peninsula that had been abandoned during the Caste War. Maya from Ebtun had the need to seek new lands to cultivate milpa. Chan Kom was born in the 1910s as a settlement of a group of Maya that split from Ebtun. By 1935 it was a Maya community, independent from Ebtun, with its own political offices. Chan Kom was the political and administrative center for a series of peripheral comisarias (hamlets). Milpa was the economic activity that unified everyone in the community, because every household, in one way or another, depended upon milpa for survival. The milpa productive system was characterized by communal cooperation in working the land, building the houses, and organizing village life. However, as Goldkind indicates (1965, 1966), there was an increasing socioeconomic differentiation. “Rich” was the synonym for those engaged in commercial enterprises (the buying and selling of grains, hogs, and cattle), while “poor” was equal to milpero (milpa worker). Chan Kom’s founding families—the Tamays, Pats, Caamals, and Cimes—constituted the high-status families in the village. By the 1940s, the Cimes’ political and economic control over the village had eclipsed that of the other families. Peasants looked to other highstatus families for political leadership to oppose the Cimes’ power. The Protestant missionaries, a collateral effect of the Carnegie project in the area (Sullivan 1989), contributed to the expansion of Protestantism in the community, which paralleled the expansion of cattle development. The Pat family members, enemies of the Cimes since the foundation of the village, became the main members of the directive council of the Protestant group. The old enmity between the Cimes and the Pats was religiously expressed in the confrontation between Catholics and Protestants. The religious division of the community was also tied to the emerging source of wealth, cattle raising. By 1940, according to a new law, all cattle had to be fenced in. This restricted the economic initiatives of small cattle own-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

138 / Alicia Re Cruz ers, most of them from the Pat family, because of the high cost of fencing. The small cattle owners opposed the fencing of the land; they had the support of the poor milperos. The socioeconomic competition between the Cimes and the Pats resulted in an open confrontation between Protestants and Catholics. In people’s memories, it was a religious battle in which Protestantism was defeated. The Pat people followed the well-worn path of those who had contested the cacique’s authority—ostracism and migration. The socio-religious clash ended with the Protestant exodus from Chan Kom in the 1950s. The elite group, the Catholics, believed the defeat of the Protestants was proof that God was on their side, and they used this proof of their righteousness to attempt to mobilize the peasantry in their favor. With the initial migration of young people toward Cancún in the early 1970s, a new fissure began to open the structural social schism in the community. This social confrontation flourished in the 1980s when those early migrants, most of them members of the Cime family, accumulated enough capital to build their own capitalist enterprises in Cancún. The increasing enrichment of these families did not go unnoticed by the landowners and cattle owners, who remained in the village and controlled the political offices. The Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI, Institutional Revolutionary Party) candidate appointed by the migrant group won the political election in 1987. The PRI candidate elected by the milpero group lost. The migrants’ victory in the political election aggravated the social confrontation. Chan Kom had to face a serious social irony: the political leadership was in the hands of individuals “on the move,” migrants not fully settled in the community.

The Economic and Ideological Power of Milpa Production The political and economic developments in Chan Kom leading to the PRI monopoly of the political offices in 1987 greatly contributed to Chan Kom’s division in two social groups, los Antiguos and the migrants, expressing different worldviews, representing different modes of production. Los Antiguos were the community Maya who cultivated milpa and observed the agricultural ritual cycle in accord with Maya and Catholic traditions (see Re Cruz 1996a, 1996b). The migrant group was made up of those who left and abandoned the traditional cultivation and care of the milpa. Deposed from their political leadership, los Antiguos’ ideological weapon to counteract the new political and economic power in the community was to question the migrants’ Maya identity. That is, in los Antiguos’ discourse on who is Maya and who is not, the migrants are non-Maya because they no longer work the milpa, or if they do (in the case of the temporary migrants), they have to accommodate the agricultural-ritual cycle to their job contracts and demands in Cancún. Indeed, milpa is a concept that binds Maya people to the whole culture. Then, milpa, by itself, contains its relational network and surround-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Chan Kom Tourism and Migration / 139 ing cultural context. Milpa is the system of Maya relationships wherein the individual who produces corn, the sociocultural Maya order, and corn itself are intimately linked. Production, elaboration, and final consumption of corn are stamped by the characteristics of the place and space where these activities are undertaken and consequently by the male and female labor involved. The milpero, via rituals, needs to be granted divine permission to work the lands of nature. Corn is brought up from nature by male hands. Once it is harvested, women’s hands transform corn into something “cultural,” into tortillas, which for the Maya are la fuerza (the strength), the energy that moves people to work and to live. In addition, the ritualization of the agricultural cycle connects milperos with their ancestors. Milpa supplies the Maya with their sources of survival and subsistence in an ecological zone apt for hunting and collecting herbs, building materials, and firewood as well as agriculture. Thus, milpa provides the Maya with their cultural survival as well. Because it is planted by male hands, corn is conceived as following the Maya life cycle, from its birth to its maturity and death in the fields, and having an afterlife nurturing the human bodies through the tortillas produced by female Maya hands. Corn production encapsulates the gender complementarity. Corn appears to be animated, or endowed with life, precisely because it embodies the social and the ideological milieus of Maya peasant life. Thus, los Antiguos legitimize their Maya identity by calling themselves milperos because they continue to be attached, economically and culturally, to milpa work. This Maya identification mark is carried by the Maya migrants to Cancún. Because of this, migrants continue to identify themselves as Maya, explaining that their milpas are not in Chan Kom anymore, but in Cancún.

Migration and Tourism: The Makeup of Maya Cancún The Mexican government has encouraged and supported the growth of tourism in the peninsula since the 1960s. In the 1970s a federal financial agency initiated the infrastructural project to develop Cancún (Cardiel Coronel 1989). Cancún was transformed from a small settlement of two hundred people into a luxurious tourist complex. Cancún developed as a tourist center through different stages. It started with a government economic policy favoring national and international economic investment in the hotel industry. Cheap labor was needed to build the hotel area, and the Maya population in the Yucatán Peninsula was targeted as the source for that labor. For the peasants, Cancún represented an alternative to the economic uncertainty of milpa production resulting from the irregularities of the weather pattern. With the development of Cancún, outmigration and wage labor were added to the repertoire of economic possibilities.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

140 / Alicia Re Cruz This economic alternative allowed the articulation with the agricultural cycle, as peasants could now migrate to Cancún right after the harvest and return to the community during the intense agricultural work. This type of migration was undertaken mainly by unskilled peasant Maya who were recruited for the construction work. In addition, work in Cancún became an alternative for the younger generation of Maya, given the rigors of milpa production. Most of the young Maya who decided to migrate in the 1970s attained the peasant dream of becoming rich in the city. Some of these are now owners of fruit stands, bakeries, and other types of business enterprises in Cancún. These successful migrant Maya in Cancún now monopolize the political offices in Chan Kom. I visited Chan Kom and Cancún between 1999 to 2004 for my ethnographic documentary on the contemporary Maya.3 Throughout these short visits and through interviews with the political leaders of the community, I witnessed the marks of the migrants’ human capital in the plans for local economic developments. Following are some excerpts from my interview with Angel Cime, the president of Chan Kom in 2001: “Chan Kom, in about ten years, will become a very important place. Touristically speaking, because we are very close to Chichén Itzá, which is about fifteen minutes away from here and we have the airport of K’aua about fifteen minutes. So all of that is very beneficial for us. Chan Kom will be a very prosperous municipality with lots of jobs. We have right here a cenote that in the old times people used to take water out to drink, and in that cenote a tunnel has been discovered so we hope it can become another tourist attraction for Chan Kom.” During a three-week stay at Chan Kom in June 2006, I was very interested in updating the information regarding plans to develop this tourist project. I encountered Chan Kom submerged in the same sociopolitical rift, this time severely accentuated by ferocious competition of PRI and PAN (Partido de Acción Nacional, National Action Party) political campaigns due to the national political elections on July 2. I learned that what Angel Cime had identified as a tourist project had become an “ecotourism” enterprise. Having a PAN national government for the past years has been a major reinforcement for the current empowerment of the PAN in Chan Kom. This has deeply accentuated the PAN rivalry against PRI, which continues to be the community political leadership. The PRI/PAN fights in Chan Kom blocked the realization of the project in the community. The tourism development plans were brought to Muchucux, a smaller community within the municipio of Chan Kom. A cooperative of forty-two families in Muchucux is working on “the ecotourism project,” as they call it. It integrates a set of five traditional Maya stick-and-thatch houses, a big central kitchen, and communal bathrooms. This complex is located near a cenote. The cooperative leader is a forty-year-old Maya with long experience as a migrant in Cancún, where he worked in restaurants and hotels. Today there is a library with a computer room in Chan Kom: ten com-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Chan Kom Tourism and Migration / 141 puters with internet access. In addition, about fifty families have bathrooms built in their houses. These are the result of government programs that local PAN followers use as examples to demonstrate how much the PAN cares for the well-being of Maya peasants. The slogan used by the local PAN to advertise the vote for Felipe Calderón, the PAN candidate for the national political elections, was “Vote por Felipe Calderón, porque el ejidatario merece lo major” (“Vote for Felipe Calderón, because the ejidatario [member of a collective ejido] deserves the best”).

The “Mayanization” of Cancún Maya migrants describe Cancún during the early 1970s as a milperio; it resembled the monte (forest) that peasants are used to exploring to make milpa. Generally, the Maya use the term milperio to refer to an portion of land with a high concentration of milpas. Most Maya communities originate as a milperio that later develops into a community. Just as the peasants ventured into the forest, sometimes miles away from the community, to work in the milpas, the contemporary migrants ventured to the unknown terrain of Cancún. Migrants’ perceptions of Cancún as milperio corresponds to a conceptual geographical parallel, since both places share the important factor of being a long distance from the residential community. Furthermore, both work systems— the milpa in Chan Kom and wage labor in Cancún—represent the productive source of survival for the contemporary Maya. In the 1970s, in its early stages of becoming an international tourist emporium, Cancún had to face the problem of housing the avalanche of migrants. Certainly the development of residential areas for the migrant community was not contemplated in the Cancún hotel development fever. Migrants had to clear the forest and sometimes invade milpa lands to create their own housing. For the peasant Maya this was not an unfamiliar activity, since the rural milpas also require clearing the forest. However, these housing areas contrasted with the residential area of downtown Cancún. Lack of social services, such as electricity, sewers, running water, and public transportation, characterized these migrant neighborhoods, called areas populares.4 In the migrants’ worldview, milpa continues to be the source of their economic as much as their ideological survival in Cancún, but it is now anchored in a much different economic and cultural system. In the urban milpa, women and men perform their productive roles as wage workers and actors in the tourist system. Cancún’s milpas (restaurants, hotels, construction) and their products (wages and money) are commodities, the result of the split between the producer and the product. For the Maya peasant, cultivation of corn links the present with the past in a continuing cyclical motion in the same way that “the Corn People” emerged after successive cyclical attempts to create the most perfect humankind possible.5 Corn, then, as product, encapsulates the

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

142 / Alicia Re Cruz pure essence of the Maya ethnic identity—the producer. However, this intimate interconnection between product and producer in the Maya ideology does not exist in the urban milpas. In Cancún, the product of migrants’ labor (wages and money) is disconnected from the Maya identity of the worker; product and producer belong to different cultural rationales. Chan Kom’s peasants are aware of the different relationship between worker and product when migration to Cancún occurs. This split between product and producer is clearly conceptualized by the Maya within their cultural rationale as it is expressed through the notion of uay in the Maya oral tradition. Uay is a male witch who has the ability and knowledge to transform into an animal.6 Maya believe that uays enter homes and handle food, poisoning it. The next day, after the food is eaten, the residents become sick and sometimes even die. The uays go to the city to visit, and there they transform themselves into animals that can fly. According to Don Luis of Chan Kom, “When the Uay Kot flies, uyhh!, you have to see how he does it, like a plane, so that when he passes through here, it is as if it was drizzling. Then, when he goes, he looks for merchandize in other places” (quoted in Re Cruz 1996b, 69). The uay kot is the individual who can transform into an eagle. Stories and rumors anonymously identify leaders of the migrant group, particularly those who have stores in Chan Kom and in Cancún, as current uay kots. These Maya are envisioned as uay kots who bring Chan Kom’s products to Cancún in exchange for Cancún’s commodities. This is quite a compelling Maya interpretation on the effects of Cancún’s commodification of Chan Kom’s tradition and community life.7

The Inferences of Tourism in the Peasant Milpas Mexico was dominated by the PRI political leadership until Vicente Fox (2000–2006) of the PAN became president of the Mexican Republic. Traditionally, Chan Kom’s officers were chosen by the peasants in public elections; the candidates were mostly associated with the PRI. The elections in 1987 were very special. It was the first time Maya were voting with the system by ballots; it was the first time there were two candidates of the same political party, the PRI. The representative of the migrant group won the election. The migrant political leadership in Chan Kom has been greatly benefited and strengthened by the national PRI support. This connection is nurtured by a series of negotiated exchanges from which the traditional Maya peasants feel excluded. Community political leaders, who are successful Maya migrants in Cancún, become an exemplary model of the “migrant dream.” Thus, the community PRI political leadership becomes a very effective tool in motivating outmigration. This, coupled with the economic opportunities that Cancún offers, promotes the access to cash capital that migrants may invest in buying items for the milpa that are heavily advertised by the government,

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Chan Kom Tourism and Migration / 143 such as herbicides and fertilizers. The PRI political connection with the migrant leadership has moved the peasant group in Chan Kom to turn toward PAN, PRI’s major national political opponent. While in Cancún, migrants become acquainted with the idea that Maya culture can be sold, negotiated, advertised, promoted, and packaged. They accommodate their tradition, their milpa ideology, to the cosmopolitan Cancún landscape within which their concept of tradition becomes commodified. They identify other Maya by their physical appearance. At the same time, they are identified in the tourist market as Maya because of their customs, as some workers are asked to wear their traditional dress as part of their jobs in restaurants and hotels. When Maya migrants participate in any Maya or Catholic ritual in Chan Kom, they mostly contribute with money, while most of peasant Maya contribute with their labor or any type of ingredient needed for the performance (i.e., flowers, corn, tortillas, etc.). Migrants are very proud to promote the proletarianization of milpa, since they prefer to pay other milperos to work their lands in the community while they are working in Cancún. La fajina is a colonial institution based on forced communal labor wherein every adult Maya has to serve in community projects periodically. Since migrants are not in the community, they are trying to impose a new system to overcome their absenteeism in la fajina work by paying someone whenever they are required to work for the community. The community’s traditional group, los Antiguos, takes these changes as an assault to Maya tradition and interprets the proletarianization of la fajina as another sign of de-Mayanization among the migrants. At the same time, the attempt to transform la fajina into a “thing” that can be paid for becomes an outcome of the application of the market rules learned in Cancún. In essence, Cancún opens a new socioeconomic and cultural dimension for the migrant Maya wherein almost all aspects of social life become commodified, transformed into a “thing,” which, in their travels back to Chan Kom, they bring within their cultural package. Tradition becomes a “thing,” a commodity that legitimizes migrants as Maya, while los Antiguos use tradition as “the knowledge” they exercise to be Maya. Different conceptualizations of milpa—the corn milpa and the Cancún milpa—contribute to the different political connotations of Maya tradition. The different ideological universes that peasant milpa work and migration represent in the community are clearly documented in Chan Kom’s folklore nurtured the way peasants perceive Cancún. An abundant number of stories circulate around Chan Kom with regard to the dangers Cancún hides for the Maya: stolen children, murderers, people being run over by cars, rapes. In this manner, Cancún is re-created in Chan Kom’s popular voice as a monster, a threat to the individual Maya’s survival as much as a threat to the Maya ideology’s survival as embodied in the milpa system. The current community’s political leaders have accumulated a complex corpus of human capital through their experiences as migrants in Cancún.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

144 / Alicia Re Cruz In addition, they are familiar with the historical interests that Maya archaeologists and anthropologists have shown for Maya culture, and for their community in particular. During my fieldwork in Chan Kom (1989–90) I asked a member of Angel Cime’s family for his version on the history of the community. In response to my query, he went inside his house and came out with a copy of Chan Kom: A Maya Village, written in 1934, to indicate that the book could provide all the information I requested. The autobiography of his grandfather, Don Estaquio Cime, is reproduced in the book by Redfield. This response was a clear sign of power legitimation. It ratified the power that the written word has, which, at the same time, has become a rebuttal against los Antiguos’ accusations of holding offices illegitimately because of the migrants’ abandonment of milpa work and its ritual demands.

Conclusion As seen from Chan Kom, Cancún is a dangerous entity that de-ethnifies Maya people. The urban Maya are thought to be members of another kind of society where they fall prey to the dangers of money, stress, and physical violence. Indeed, for los Antiguos, Cancún is a threat to the traditional order. However, for the migrants, Cancún represents an inexorable transition to a new form of sociocultural order that allows them to be more “modernized,” more “civilized” than their peasant counterparts. At the same time, migrants are exposed to new economic rules and ideological discourses centered on the consumerism rationale of the tourist experience. Furthermore, migrants learn and develop skills and special abilities through their experiences as migrants in Cancún. This constitutes what I call “human capital” that the community’s political leaders invest in conceptualizing economic local projects, mainly focused on the tourism developments. Thus, in the same way that Maya migrants in Cancún learn how tourism can be seduced by nationally sponsored versions of Maya history and culture, they apply this knowledge and human capital to sponsor local versions of Maya tradition and culture.

Notes Sections of this chapter were previously developed in the author’s chapter “Milpas of Corn and Tourism Milpas,” in Lifeways in the Lowlands: New Approaches to Maya Archaeology, ed. Jennifer Mathews and Bethany Morrison (University of Arizona Press, 2005), and in her article “Milpa as an Ideological Weapon: Tourism and Maya Migration to Cancún,” Ethnohistory 50, no. 3 (2003): 489–502. 1. Given the limestone geological composition of Yucatán, the rainwater filters through the rock, eroding it and creating caves and cenotes. A cenote is a natural well formed by the collapse of the limestone shelf. 2. The Caste War was an indigenous revolt that started in 1847 and lasted until 1901, although the Maya rebels were finally pacified in 1937. Despite being defeated

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Chan Kom Tourism and Migration / 145 by the dzuloob (whites), the macehualoob (descendants of the rebel Maya) currently exhibit organizational and cultural characteristics of their ancestors who participated in the Caste War. This Maya movement was focused on the Cruz Parlante (“Speaking Cross”), a messianic phenomenon guided by ancestral prophetic words and visions (Reed 1964; Bricker 1977; Burns 1977; Sullivan 1989). 3. The title of the video ethnographic documentary is The Maya Dreams of Chan kom. This visual ethnography presents the relationships and dialogue between Chan Kom and Cancún and shows how the economic, political and ideological outcomes of this dialogue are expressed in the internal community dynamics. 4. The development of the human geography of Cancún, particularly focused on the “Mayanization” of the landscape, is further analyzed in Re Cruz 1996a. 5. This is a reference to the Popol Vuh (see Tedlock 1985). 6. The contemporary uay is related to the pre-Hispanic uayeb, the anomalous and malicious five-day month of the ancient Maya calendar. 7. This case is similar to the one Michael Taussig analyzes in South America, focused on the transformation on the use of folklore and cultural symbols as a way to express the transformation from peasant lifestyle to proletarianization within capitalist production systems (see Taussig 1980).

References Bricker, Victoria. 1977. The Caste War of Yucatán: The History of a Myth and the Myth of History. In Anthropology and History inYucatán, ed. Grant D. Jones, 251–58. Austin: University of Texas Press. Burns, Allan. 1977. The Caste War in the 1970s: Present-Day Accounts from Village Quintana Roo. In Anthropology and History in Yucatán, ed. Grant D. Jones, 259–73. Austin: University of Texas Press. Cardiel Coronel, Cuautemoc. 1989. Religion y sociedad en el Sureste de Mexico. Mexico: Cuadernos de la Casa Chata. Elmendorf, Mary L. 1972. Mayan Women and Change. CIDOC cuaderno no. 81. Cuernavaca, Mexico: Centro Intercultural de Documentacion. 1. 1976. Nine Mayan Women: A Village Faces Change. Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman. Elmendorf, Mary, and Devorah Merrill. 1977. Socioeconomic Impact of Development in Chan Kom, 1971–1976: Rural Women Participate in Change. Unpublished manuscript prepared for the World Bank Population and Human Resources Division, Development Economics Department. 1. 1978. Socioeconomic Impact of Development in Chan Kom, Yucatán, 1971– 1976: A Preliminary Study. Paper presented at the 1978 Society for Applied Anthropology Meetings, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico. Goldkind, Victor. 1965. Social Stratification in the Peasant Community: Redfield’s Chan Kom Reinterpreted. American Anthropologist 67:863–84. 1. 1966. Class Conflict and Cacique in Chan Kom. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 22:325–45. Greenwood, Davydd J. 1989. Culture by the Pound: An Anthropological Perspective on Tourism as Cultural Commoditization. In Hosts and Guests:The Anthropology of Tourism, ed. Valene L. Smith, 171–85. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

146 / Alicia Re Cruz Harvey, David. 1991. The Condition of Postmodernity. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell. Jameson, Fredric. 1984. Postmodernism and the Cultural Logic of Capitalism. New Left Review 146:53–92. Lyotard, Jean-Francois. 1984. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Marcus, George, and Michael Fisher. 1986. Anthropology as Cultural Critique. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Nash, Dennison. 1995. An Exploration of Tourism as Superstructure. In Change in Tourism: People, Places, Processes, ed. Richard W. Butler and Douglas G. Pearce, 30– 46. London: Routledge. Rajotte, Freda, ed. 1987. Tourism: A New Type of Sugar. Honolulu: University of Hawaii. Re Cruz, Alicia. 1996a. The Thousand and One Faces of Cancún. Urban Anthropology 25 (3): 283–310. 1. 1996b. The Two Milpas of Chan Kom: Scenarios of a Maya Village Life. Albany: State University of New York Press. Redfield, Robert. 1941. The Folk Culture of Yucatán. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1. 1950. A Village That Chose Progress: Chan Kom Revisited. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Redfield, Robert, and Alfonso Villa Rojas. 1934. Chan Kom: A Maya Village. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution. Reed, Nelson. 1964. The Caste War in Yucatán. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. London: Routledge. Sullivan, Paul R. 1989. Unfinished Conversations: Mayas and Foreigners between Two Wars. New York: Knopf. Taussig, Michael T. 1980. The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Tedlock, Dennis. 1985. Popol Vuh. New York: Simon and Schuster.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

7 From Tallapoosa to Tixkokob Two Communities Share Globalization Edward H. Moseley

After a series of campaigns from 1528 to 1542, Francisco de Montejo succeeded in conquering Yucatán and establishing his capital of Mérida on the ruins of Te-Ho. He took immediate steps to consolidate control of the surrounding countryside, awarding encomienda grants to his loyal followers. In that process he established the Indian town of Tixkokob only eighteen kilometers east of the provincial capital, near the post-classical Maya center of Aké. The Franciscans moved into the area, building an imposing church and convent and instructing the natives in the basics of Christianity. Under the encomienda system the natives furnished a variety of products, including cotton cloth, to their Spanish masters. In the late nineteenth century Tixkokob emerged as a major center of henequen production and shared in the prosperity of Yucatán’s Golden Age. Following the Mexican Revolution and the demise of henequen, however, the town and surrounding countryside entered a period of great depression, made even more devastating after 1988 by the federal government’s removal of the social safety net for the campesinos. Early efforts to diversify the economy and reduce dependency on henequen were only partly successful. On March 27, 1814, almost three hundred years after Montejo invaded Yucatán, Andrew Jackson’s Tennessee Volunteers crushed the dissident Creek “Red Sticks” at Horseshoe Bend, a prominent position on the Tallapoosa River in eastern Alabama. Peaceful Creeks, many of whom had supported Jackson, were allowed to retain their lands after the battle, but in 1832 the entire Creek population was forced to cede its territory to “civilized” migrants from Georgia and Tennessee. By the early twentieth century the river provided an opportunity for industrial development, and in 1902 Benjamin Russell constructed a small textile mill in the newly established town of Alexander City. The enterprise grew into one of the most successful textile operations in the United States. Alexander City was a company town operating under the patronal hand of the Russell family. Between 1985 and 1990, however, the textile industry throughout the United States had fallen on dif-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

148 / Edward H. Moseley ficult times, forcing Russell Mills to close all sewing plants in Alabama and seek lower-cost production units in Latin America. In 1998, Tixkokob and Alexander City, separated by great distance and a gulf of cultural differences, were linked by the forces of globalization and changes in investment and trade policies of both Mexico and the United States. Russell established an assembly plant in Tixkokob that employed some thirteen hundred workers. The two small communities of Alexander City and Tixkokob were caught up in the era of globalization and faced new realities that had far-reaching consequences for both.

Tixkokob: From Encomienda to the End of the Henequen Era After the founding of Mérida, Francisco de Montejo followed the traditional Spanish policy of concentrating the native population into communities for purposes of control, economic service, and religious conversion. Only eighteen kilometers east of the provincial capital, Tixkokob was brought into the encomienda system, whereby Indians were assigned to provide service and tribute to the members of the conquering elite. In the case of Tixkokob the tribute included corn, wax, honey, and most important, cotton cloth mantas (blankets). The town gained fame as a center for the manufacture of fine hammocks.1 The role of the Franciscans was of major importance in Tixkokob; under their oversight the Republica de Indios was formed and the natives (at least the sons of the Maya nobility) were educated in Roman Catholic doctrine and rituals. An imposing church was constructed on the east side of the town square, along with a convent and other ecclesiastical buildings. The religious role of Tixkokob was given additional importance because of its location on the principal route between Mérida and the sacred shrine at Izamal. The friars supervised the civil authority of the cabildo (town council) and advocated Indian rights, especially against the encomenderos (persons who receive tribute from an Indian village). Despite prohibitions against all other non-Indians from entering the town and the efforts of the Franciscans to support that position, over the decades large numbers of Spanish, Creoles, mestizos, blacks, and other racial mixtures entered Tixkokob and the surrounding countryside. Some obtained land grants, while others simply occupied vacated territories after the decline of the native population. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the newcomers established corn and cattle haciendas that supplied food and other provisions to the population of the nearby provincial capital. As many as one hundred Maya lived on some of the haciendas, but the vast majority continued to reside in traditional communities, engaged in the production of corn, beans, squash, and chili peppers in their milpas; they quickly added citrus trees, chickens, and pigs to the household compounds.2 When the Maya of the southern and eastern regions of the peninsula re-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

From Tallapoosa to Tixkokob / 149 volted during the Caste War, vowing to kill or expel all whites and their allies, virtually all of the natives of Tixkokob and its neighboring villages remained loyal to the state government in Mérida and to their Creole masters on the haciendas. The rebel forces pushed to the very outskirts of Tixkokob, but retreated in early 1848, leaving the town and the outlying estates under Creole domination.3 With the end of the Caste War the region of the northwest entered a new era; in the very heart of the henequen zone, Tixkokob was caught up in the new craze. By 1870 many of the former mixed cattle and corn production centers were converted to the cultivation of the thorny green plant. The Yucatecan elite expanded landholdings, opened “factories in the field” to supply the growing market for binder twine, and built impressive country homes that reflected their opulent lifestyle. The boom which was well under way by 1880 continued through World War I. Between 1870 and 1890 Tixkokob developed as one of the major partido seats (a kind of prefecture) in the henequen zone, fully caught up in the system of “green gold.” Linked to Mérida by rail, planters and prominent citizens of the municipality were able to travel to the state capital in thirty minutes at a cost of about fifty centavos. The small town bustled with activity, reflecting the optimism of expanding exports and increased prosperity of an emerging middle class made up of small merchants, civil servants, clerical personnel, and schoolteachers. Despite the facade of modernization around the central plaza, however, the vast majority of Tix kokob’s residents lived in the traditional nah (a single-room oval structure made of vertical poles and covered with a palm-thatched roof ) and followed a lifestyle akin to their rural cousins.4 Conditions on the outlying haciendas presented a different set of circumstances. Hacendados and their families lived in Mérida, while overseers administered the day-to-day operation of the estates. Maya laborers had been allowed to produce their own corn and other subsistence crops, but with the wave of henequen expansion, planters took over many of the milpas. Corn, a vital element in the diet and in the spiritual life of Maya communities, had to be purchased in the tienda de raya (company store), thus tying the peons to the haciendas by a sense of dependency and mounting debt. In contrast to the natives of Tinum, the Maya of Tixkokob and other parts of the henequen zone lost some of their traditional values and symbols, including the “making of milpa.” They shared very little of the fabulous wealth of the era of green gold.5 President Lázaro Cárdenas chose the town square of Tixkokob to proclaim, on August 8, 1937, his agrarian reform for Yucatán. In the vicinity of Tix kokob, as in other sections of the henequen zone, his radical program—the expropriation of the haciendas and the formation of collective ejidos (communal properties)—was carried out with little planning and even less administrative care.6 Changes in land tenure not only brought initial disruption to the

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

150 / Edward H. Moseley productive system but also failed to provide a solution to the problems of the Maya campesinos. From the late 1930s to the 1982 Mexican debt crisis, Yucatán’s economy struggled under the dual dependency of a shrinking, inefficient monocrop system and growing federal subsidies. Tixkokob, like many other communities in the henequen zone, simply went into economic decline.7 The national fiscal shortfall, associated with the debt crisis, was followed in the early 1990s by the federal government’s divestment of Yucatán’s henequen industry. In a convergence of interests, national and state leaders set about to accelerate the state’s economic diversification. With the backing of President Miguel de la Madrid (1992–98), Interim Governor Víctor Cervera Pacheco (1984–87) committed his state to the Programa de Maquila de Exportación en Yucatán. Since his first year in office in 1984 the maquiladora export-assembly industry has emerged as the centerpiece of Yucatán’s diversification drive (see chapter 4 in this volume). As elected governor (1995– 2001), Cervera Pacheco worked to locate assembly plants not only in Mérida but also outside the state capital, reaching into small towns and villages in the henequen zone. By 1998 he could point to considerable progress in assembly operations in thirty different municipalities.8 One of the small towns selected for a maquiladora that year was Tixkokob, with approximately fifteen thousand inhabitants and a very high unemployment rate. It was through this move that Tixkokob was joined with a small town on the Tallapoosa River that had been home to a very successful textile operation for almost a century. The shared experience would have farreaching consequences for both communities.

A Company Town on the Tallapoosa Following his victory over the Red Sticks at Horseshoe Bend (1814), Andrew Jackson promised the peaceful Creeks, many of whom had supported his campaign, that they would be allowed to retain their homes and hunting grounds in eastern Alabama. In 1832, however, the Treaty of Cusseta stipulated that the entire tribe would be removed to Oklahoma: the infamous “Trail of Tears.” Scotch-Irish settlers from Georgia and Tennessee pushed into the area to claim title to the recently vacated land. Unlike Alabama’s fertile Black Belt, where cotton plantations depended on slave labor, most of the farms along the steep banks of the Tallapoosa were small, and settlers were poor whites with very few or no slaves.9 The river’s industrial potential had been recognized as early as 1798, and in 1844 the first textile mill was established on the waterway at Tallahassee. The Civil War interrupted industrialization in Alabama; following that conflict, much of the state’s economic activity was concentrated on the Alabama and Coosa rivers, where steamboat transportation was more practical, leaving the Tallapoosa in the shadow of development. After the turn of the twentieth century the Alabama Power Company

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

From Tallapoosa to Tixkokob / 151 built a series of hydroelectric dams, providing ample electricity for industrial production and accelerating changes in the lifestyle of people in the region. Lakes covered many farms and forced families to move to towns, often finding employment in newly established cotton mills. Alabama’s political and business leaders, as well as many municipal governments, promoted textile factories as “the economic salvation” of the state, stressing to prospective investors the attraction of cheap labor and tax incentives. By 1920, textile mills throughout the state employed 17,700 workers, over 10,000 of them women and children. All along the Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Chattahoochee valleys, weaving and spinning operations became a basic part of economic and cultural life; mill towns attracted poor families seeking to escape the drudgery and uncertainty of farming the land. In 1928 the average farm laborer earned $34.12 per month, but in the mills the farmer, his wife, and each working child could earn more than $13.00 a week.10 In 1902 Benjamin Russell establish a steam-powered textile mill employing twelve workers in Alexander City, a small settlement in northwestern Tallapoosa County on the Columbus and Western Railroad. By 1912 the young lawyer had reached an agreement with the newly emerging Alabama Power Company that allowed him to convert from steam to electricity; at the same time, the contract gave him a franchise to furnish power to the town. Selling his interest in the local telephone company, Russell purchased all of the outstanding stock in the mill, thus making it a wholly owned family enterprise. As it expanded between 1914 and the 1920s, Russell Mills attracted additional workers from nearby farms and became the primary source of employment, especially for women and children in the Tallapoosa community. As with so many other mill towns, Alexander City offered an escape for downtrodden tenant farmers or small landowners whose cotton crop could not service the mortgage. New technology was brought into the mill’s operations. In 1927 a weaving plant and a dyeing operation were added, and by 1932 Ben Russell realized his dream of achieving a complete vertical operation (from raw fiber to finished fabric to garment) in his mills.11 With the death of Benjamin Russell in 1941, his oldest son, Benjamin C. Russell, took control of the mills.When Benjamin C. Russell died in 1945, his brother, Thomas D. Russell, stepped into the leadership role, serving as president, chairman of the board, and CEO until 1968 and continuing as chairman and CEO until 1972.12 During World War II Russell Mills received important defense contracts to supply underwear and other garments to millions of GIs, sailors, and marines. A foundation established in 1941 provided funds for hospitals, public schools, recreational facilities, and an imposing municipal library; the foundation also provided college scholarships for many bright, impoverished students. By 1945 the Tallapoosa-based industry was one of the leading textile producers in the United States. Despite a number of setbacks, due in large part

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

152 / Edward H. Moseley to competition from Japan and Hong Kong, by 1960 Russell had expanded to six mills, employing thirty-seven hundred workers. By that time it was one of the largest manufacturers of T-shirts and athletic wear in the world, and outdistanced all competition in sweatshirts and long underwear.13

Survival in a Changing Industry: 1960–1991 The years between 1960 and 1991 were a time of great difficulty for the U.S. textile industry. As prices for raw materials and labor increased, competition was mounting from China, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. Nike, a major competitor for Russell in the sale of athletic wear, contracted with suppliers overseas. After 1981 President Ronald Reagan’s Caribbean Basin Initiative gave countries in Central America and the island nations of the Caribbean incentives to penetrate the U.S. market. Despite dire predictions and the closing of many plants in other regions of the United States, between 1960 and 1990 Russell prospered and continued as a leader in the textile industry while retaining many of its traditional characteristics of a family-owned enterprise. When Thomas D. Russell stepped down as president in 1968 he was followed by his son-in-law Eugene Cleveland Gwaltney, who led the company until 1982. During Gwaltney’s tenure, in 1973, the official name of the enterprise was changed to Russell Corporation. Dwight L. Carlisle Jr., the first president outside the family circle, followed Gwaltney in 1982. The new leader had long-standing ties to the company and was recognized as an effective manager, serving from 1982 to 1991. He replaced old machinery, funded research, and installed a number of new processes, making Russell the most modern knitting facility in America. At a time when many textile companies were closing their U.S. operations, the Alexander City firm experienced growth in sales and underwent an unprecedented expansion. Business Month named it the best-managed company in the nation in the $500 million to $1 billion range, and Shearson-Lehman-Hutton dubbed Russell the number one textile and apparel stock of the 1990s.14 Prior to 1960, all Russell operations had been in Alexander City. In the following three decades, however, the corporation carried out major expansions into small towns throughout southern and eastern Alabama: sewing and knitting plants were set up in Dadeville, Ashland, Sylacauga, LaFayette, Geneva, and Columbia, all communities with populations of between fifteen hundred and six thousand. Only one new location (Montgomery, with a population over 250,000) represented a step into a “big” city. In the late 1980s Russell crossed into the Florida panhandle (Mariana, Milton, Niceville) and initiated other operations in Georgia and North Carolina. Many of the plants established after 1980 were acquired from previous competitors. By 1990 Russell Corporation was still firmly based in Tallapoosa County, with some seventyeight hundred workers in a variety of facilities. By that date, however, the firm

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

From Tallapoosa to Tixkokob / 153 had thirteen additional manufacturing operations, bringing the total employment to almost twelve thousand.15 One might even view the rapidly growing sewing plants scattered throughout the small towns of Alabama and neighboring states as a kind of “internal maquilador.”

Corporate Adjustments to International Reality: 1991–2000 The 1992 U.S. presidential campaign focused in part on the pending North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Many business circles hailed the proposal for a liberalization of business, financial, and trade restrictions among Canada, the United States, and Mexico as the prelude to great prosperity. Labor unions in the United States denounced the plan, however, and Reform Party candidate Ross Perot predicted that NAFTA would bring from the south a “great sucking sound” as jobs were drained from the United States. In Mexico, amid turbulent economic and political conditions, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari strongly advocated the agreement and was able to gain the support of organized labor. In 1993 newly elected President Bill Clinton announced his support of NAFTA in spite of strong opposition from organized labor and skeptics within his own party. The measure narrowly passed in Congress in January 1994, largely because of support from the Republican side of the aisle. Between 1991 and 1999 many textile plants throughout the United States closed in the face of increased competition from foreign suppliers, including those from Mexico and Central America. Some of the industry’s traditional giants were unable to adjust; Fruit of the Loom was forced into chapter eleven bankruptcy, and Puma shut down all operations. On the other hand, a number of companies shifted to offshore production, joining the earlier move to take advantage of the maquiladora arrangement or going to the Far East. One of these was Nike, an aggressive player in the field of athletic equipment.16 Despite signs of doom in the garment industry, Russell Corporation seemed to be riding above the storm. John C. Adams, who had been with the company for fifteen years, took the leadership in May 1991 and seemed to follow in the traditional steps of success. Sewing operations were opened in several additional small Alabama towns, including Wetumpka, Brundidge, Prattville, and Fort Payne. By early 1996 the total number of Russell employees reached 18,247, with about half in Alexander City. The workforce there was still composed mainly of women, up to 80 percent by one estimate. Funds continued to be devoted to research, and the latest technology was applied to operations. Much of the activity in Alexander City focused on supplying cut material for the sewing plants in other locations. Executive Vice-President Jim Nabors pointed out that despite the flood of imports, Russell had found ways to cut costs and save jobs. He stated: “In fact, during the same year that Russell’s competitors have laid off thousands of Alabama apparel workers,

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

154 / Edward H. Moseley Russell has added 1,200 new jobs.” Nabors also indicated that customers preferred the “higher quality” of Russell products made in the United States to imported articles, strongly implying that the firm would not join its competitors in going offshore.17 Although traditionally a manufacturing company, by the late 1990s Russell began to place much more emphasis on advertising and marketing. In 1996 the company announced its own line of products, including the JERZEES brand to be sold in Wal-Mart. Other special brands were prepared for Disney. The big red-and-blue “R” soon began to be displayed prominently on athletic wear and company vehicles, helping to project the image of a strong company.18 Adams was pleased with these measures and with steps that allowed the corporation to provide competitive pricing in athletic shoes and other products, thus spreading beyond textiles. The emphasis on marketing and public relations continued; on October 5, 1999, Russell announced the formation of American Sportswear S.A., a joint venture with a Brazilian firm based in São Paulo. This partnership was set up to expand Russell products into Mercosur (the Southern Common Market) and Chile.19 On the surface, things seemed to be working for Russell as a traditional “American” company. Sewing operations in the many small Alabama towns and in neighboring states were assembling cut materials from Alexander City, seemingly integral parts of a growing and prospering industry; Russell stock continued strong. It was clear to management, however, that the pressures from competition offshore required drastic measures. In early 1996 the company broke tradition and joined the ranks of its competitors by establishing a small sewing plant in Choloma, Honduras, some twenty miles north of San Pedro Sula. By early 1997 that plant employed 152 sewing operators with projections to expand to 600. At the same time (February 1997) Adams announced that the company would open a similar facility in the state of Yucatán.20 This decision was to have a profound impact on the town of Tixkokob. In October 1997 the Russell board announced that a search would get under way for a new company chairman. John Adams retired on April 1, 1998, after a career of twenty-one years, expressing faith in the company and its workers. That same day, John F. “Jack” Ward, previously senior vicepresident of Sara Lee Corporation, a specialist in international sales, was appointed president, and three weeks later he was elevated to chairman of the board. Ward promised he would make difficult but necessary decisions. By June he was ready to place a comprehensive plan into action. Stressing major difficulties of the previous year and continuing problems in 1998, he promised to meet global competition by making Russell a true international company. To emphasize the role of Latin America in his plan, Ward named Juan Ruiz de Vifiaspre as vice-president of manufacturing for Latin America. A native of Puerto Rico, Ruiz had served with Ward at Sara Lee Hosiery. Opera-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

From Tallapoosa to Tixkokob / 155 tions in Honduras continued, and construction began on facilities in Yucatán. Up to that time, however, no public announcements had been made relating to the closing of any Alabama plants; instead, company publications continued to feature pictures of busy workers in a number of facilities. In December 1998 Russell stock dropped from 243 to 18, and by early 1999 it was clear to management that sacrifices would be a part of the prospects for the coming year. A number of top executives resigned in early 1999, and a new organizational structure was implemented. With little forewarning, sewing plants were closed in 1998 in Slocomb, Alabama, and Columbus, Georgia, followed the next year by facilities in Marianna, Florida and Greenville, Alabama.

Russell’s Maquiladora in Tixkokob It is here that the two ends of our study are joined. As Russell viewed its competition in the United States and its falling share of the market in key products, company officials believed they had little choice but to close the noncompetitive sewing operations in a number of the small towns in Alabama and move corporate headquarters to Atlanta, and to expand manufacturing facilities in Latin America, especially Honduras and Mexico. The JERZEES plant in Tixkokob set up operations in July 1998 and was in full production by the end of the year. On January 28, 1999, Russell held the formal inauguration of that facility. Ward and other company officials were welcomed by Tixkokob alcalde Manuel Guerra Malaver and Yucatán governor Cervera Pacheco for the occasion. To the delight of the local population, and as a reflection of national support for industrial expansion in the region, Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo dropped down into the community by helicopter to share in the ceremonies. At no time since the visit of President Cárdenas in 1937 had the nation been so focused on Tixkokob. As the dignitaries toured the plant, Ward emphasized the importance of the Yucatecan operation as an integral part of a worldwide company employing more than fourteen thousand people. Later in the day over a thousand prominent regional leaders attended a luncheon in the newly opened convention center in Mérida, ironically on the grounds of the defunct Cordemex facility.21 In November 1999 Russell Corporation invited members of the International Advisory Board of the University of Alabama School of Business to visit its Tixkokob facility. The group of approximately thirty business and academic leaders (including the author), guided by International Advisory Board member José Luis Ponce García, a leading Yucatecan entrepreneur, took time to view the surrounding countryside and the municipality of Tixkokob before touring the sewing plant. Soon after they passed Pemex stations and open-air restaurants on the outskirts of Mérida, the landscape reflected

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

156 / Edward H. Moseley the sad condition of the former plantations; an occasional agave plant towered above the limestone landscape, and thorny bushes disrupted the onceneat rows. Many of the fields were abandoned, while others had been cleared for pastures or truck crops. A shrinking number of fields continued to provide leaves for antiquated defibrating plants such as the one at hacienda Aké, just five kilometers from Tixkokob’s central plaza. At that facility leaves were processed two days each week, furnishing a meager existence for campesinos in the surrounding countryside. Also on the grounds of the former hacienda was a small twine factory where the raw material was turned into small balls of binder twine. Some twenty-five workers, stripped to the waist and sweating profusely, tended the unprotected machines, breathing the air filled with fine particles of fiber. These remnants of the era of green gold and cottage industries such as hammock weaving provided what little employment was available for the men who did not take the bus to Mérida or the Caribbean coast. By late 1999, Tixkokob with its population of fifteen thousand had every appearance of a traditional rural Yucatecan community. The large Roman Catholic church dominated the clean and well-shaded central square, with the town hall and other municipal buildings facing it from the north and west. Houses outside the immediate center of town were the traditional nahs, enclosed by whitewashed stone walls and furnished with hammocks and other traditional items, as well as Singer sewing machines. The population was predominantly Maya both ethnically and culturally, but with a major exception: unlike the towns to the south and east where the traditional huipil remains widespread, most of the women in Tixkokob wore modern dresses or slacks. The streets were filled with vendors offering slices of watermelon and pineapple, pork skins, and corn on the cob. A loudspeaker blared out in support of a Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party) presidential candidate, and every utility pole was plastered with campaign posters. Cars and trucks competed with bicycles and three-wheeled human-powered taxis. Behind the church the public market offered a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, flowers, and freshly cut meat, along with plastic tableware and toys. On the outskirts of Tixkokob we entered the newly completed modern manufacturing facility of JERZEES Yucatán.22 The Russell sewing plant was in full operation, employing 1,385 workers from Tixkokob and surrounding towns. Air-conditioned and well lit, the plant was comparable to the most modern U.S. facilities. Most of the employees (47 percent men and 53 percent women) had only an elementary or junior high education, but they seemed well trained for the operation of the equipment. The company issued a set of operating principles to apply in Yucatán as well as facilities in all other countries. That document stated: “Russell will provide reasonable wages and benefits that match or exceed the prevailing local industry practices and that are at

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

From Tallapoosa to Tixkokob / 157

Fig. 19. Meeting room at the JERZEES plant. Eduardo Tello, Eric Baklanoff, and members of the town council (photo by Edward H. Moseley).

or above legal mandates.” The corporation further pledged to abide by high ethical standards, environmental regulations, hours of work, and all child labor laws. The average age of workers in late 1999 was 24.3 years. Wages were in compliance with Mexican national laws, which also mandate social security and a package of other benefits. Although far below pay for comparable work in the United States, the income and the working conditions were attractive to the young men and women in the former henequen zone. Plant manager Carlos Rivera stated that in Tixkokob and the surrounding area the JERZEES facility is the employer of choice. In early 2000, company official Ben Fanning stated that in the first year of operation the attrition rate was only 4 percent.23 In addition to the sewing stations, where employees worked in teams, the single-story building contained a cafeteria, mechanic’s shop, supply area, shipping facilities, rest rooms, first-aid station, and conference room. Within the company compound a soccer field was provided, along with an attractive pavilion to be used for recreational and social events by employees. A visit to the parking lot gave an insight into local economic conditions: there were three automobiles (all owned by the management staff ), five or six motorbikes, and hundreds of bicycles. Many workers arrive on the public buses. As it did in Alexander City in the early twentieth century, Russell set

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

158 / Edward H. Moseley about from the very beginning to become involved with community affairs in Tixkokob. One of its first steps was to contribute tables and chairs to the municipal library. A survey confirmed that additional needs include ceiling fans and improved lighting as well as more chairs and tables. During testing of candidates for employment it became apparent that many of them had vision problems, and management officials contacted optical companies to arrange free eye examinations and the opportunity to purchase glasses.24 Russell established a secure link between its Tixkokob plant and the home offices and production facilities on the Tallapoosa. Materials from the cutting operation in Alexander City are shipped by trucks with the big Russell “R” to Port Bienville, Mississippi. From there they go by container vessels to the expanding port facilities of Progreso, then by truck to Tixkokob. Once the finished products have been completed and packaged, the process is reversed, with all of the JERZEES being returned to the United States for distribution and sale. The choice of Port Bienville, a remote spot near the mouth of the Pearle River, would seem an unlikely one for the shipments, but Governor Cervera Pacheco and Captain David S. Humphreys, owner of the Linea Peninsular, Inc., worked out the arrangement to handle most of the maquiladora shipments of Yucatán and Campeche. With little of the overhead that would be encountered in New Orleans or Mobile, the fleet of three container ships moves back and forth in a regular pattern, utilizing the most modern tracking facilities.25

A Company and Two Communities in the Era of Globalization What has been the impact of these major structural changes on Russell Corporation? How will these developments affect Alexander City and the other small communities in Alabama and neighboring states? Finally, what will their impact be on Tixkokob, the state of Yucatán, and Mexico? Regarding the decision to go offshore, Nancy Young, Russell’s vicepresident for public relations, stated in January 2000 that NAFTA was not as important as a number of other factors, especially the competition from overseas imports. “It was a matter of survival for Russell,” she concluded.26 It is important to remember that U.S. textile producers had established maquila operations on Mexico’s northern border more than twenty years before Russell shifted sewing operations to Honduras and Mexico. Some say the change might never have taken place if the “family” structure in Alexander City had remained unchanged. As Thomas D. Russell had stated in 1960, however, the company followed principles “for the benefit of its employees and the community in which it is located—as long as they are consistent with sound business practices.”27 By 2000 the corporation seemed well positioned to face the new reality of the textile industry with its global competition.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

From Tallapoosa to Tixkokob / 159 Over the next three years the company continued along the same line: whereas in 1998 virtually the entire workforce was in the United States, by 2002 around six thousand workers remained in the United States and almost nine thousand were in international operations. According to the company’s annual report for 2002, “Our workforce has become predominantly global while total employment over the last five years has been reduced.” By that time virtually 100 percent of the assembly operations had been internationalized. One of the major steps taken was to expand operations in Honduras by constructing a highly efficient textile factory at a cost of $50 million, allowing the expansion of the workforce from four thousand to “a much greater number.”28 The company’s most important strategic change was probably its shift away from being a textile-manufacturing operation. Emphasis was put on brandname athletic wear such as JERZEES, Mossy Oak, Cross Creek, Discus, and Bike. Annual reports in 2002 and 2003 highlighted the fact that Russell furnished uniforms for many major-league baseball teams, including the Atlanta Braves and New York Yankees, and to all of the athletic teams of Auburn University. Thus from 1998 to 2003 the company was successful in its effort “to transform the company from a great domestic manufacturing company into a great market-driven company with global reach.” Sales grew from $1,164,328,000 in 2002 to $1,186,263,000 in 2003, and net income increased from $34,306,000 to $43,039,000. JERZEES “became number one in the blended t-shirt category and in knit sport shirt category in 2003.”29 Despite the relocation of sewing operations to Latin America and the shift of some corporate offices to Atlanta, Alexander City remained a prosperous community. Most of the sewing plants had already been moved from the Tallapoosa site before they were transferred overseas, and there was an actual increase in the capital-intensive weaving and cutting operations. Jobs lost in the community were at the lower end of the pay scale, thus creating problems for unskilled workers who did not have the option to move to other parts of Alabama to take advantage of the major growth in automotive and aircraft industries with much higher wages. Concurrently with the closing of textile plants in Alabama, the state has emerged as a major player in the South’s motor vehicle industry. After Mercedes-Benz’s decision in the early 1990s to locate its U.S. international headquarters in Tuscaloosa County, four other foreign-based automotive companies built assembly plants, and these were joined by dozens of their supplier firms. International integration has contributed to shifting Alabama’s workforce into higher-skilled positions as well as to the state’s low unemployment rate. Unemployment in Alexander City has remained quite low, but some of the displaced textile workers suffered from the changes, both economically

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

160 / Edward H. Moseley and psychologically. Business and professional groups in the town were more disturbed by the shifting of high-visibility executives to Atlanta. Many businesses closed in the downtown section of Alexander City, and some citizens blamed Russell for the vacant storefronts. These changes had begun, however, long before the company’s decision to go offshore. Alexander City maintained a viable downtown area, centering on the Russell Library and supported by a growing community college giving emphasis to technical training. One of the most important assets to the local economy is found along the Tallapoosa River that spawned the textile mills almost a century ago. Lake Martin, created in 1925 when the river was dammed, provides a vast area of fresh water for fishing, water sports, and other recreational activities. Many new homes are being built along the shoreline, including vacation cottages and an increasing number of permanent homes for retired citizens, many of them former military personnel. These retirees bring their pensions and a new vitality to the lands where Creek Indians once lived. Not surprisingly, the Russell family is playing a major role in the newly emerging prosperity in the Tallapoosa community. Much of the land around the lake is controlled by the Russell Land Company, headed by “Little Ben” Russell, grandson of the founder of the dynasty. Real estate loans can be arranged through the First National Bank, also headed by a member of the family, and building materials can be purchased at the Russell “Do-It” Center.30 By 2000 Alexander City and Russell seemed to have adjusted well to major shifts brought about by globalization. Attitudes among business leaders remained positive between 2001 and 2004. In the smaller Alabama communities, however, the impact of the offshore move has been devastating. Sewing plants have been closed in Greenville, Lafayette, Dadeville, and many other locations. Those communities did not enjoy the same long-range relationship with the Russell family that Alexander City did, and sewing operations were rapidly phased out only a few years after being established. Older unskilled workers will be unable to adjust or find employment in other, more prosperous and growing cities or in high-tech industries that might be attracted to their towns. The “good old days” when high school graduates or dropouts could depend on a vacancy at the local factory have come to an end. In most of those communities there is a new awareness of the impact of the global market, and the displaced workers are more likely to blame NAFTA and the “sucking sound.” The situation in Alexander City remained positive between 2000 and 2004. Susan Foy, president of the local chamber of commerce, indicated in September 2004 that the city had plans for new developments but still valued the presence of Russell Corporation and its impact on the town.31 Eric Baklanoff and I visited Tixkokob and the JERZEES plant again in June 2002 and talked with town officials and workers at the plant. The alcalde and members of the municipal council were most positive regarding impact of the plant

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

From Tallapoosa to Tixkokob / 161 on their community. They indicated that it brought to the town not only the much-needed payroll but also a spirit of hope for the younger generation. The pace of commerce was increasing, and small businesses in the town market were prospering. Workers at the plant agreed, pointing out that their wages, though low by U.S. standards, were above average in the region, especially prior to the opening of the maquiladora. This did not mean that all feelings were positive relating to the new trends. Mérida resident Eduardo Tello Solis, a longtime friend of the University of Alabama, lamented that the traditional Maya could no longer hear the birds singing in the open air and experience the other pleasures of nature. One of the strongest criticisms came from the parish priest, Amilcar Carrillo Gomez, who feared that the absence of mothers from the home would be detrimental to traditional family values. No doubt the question of changing gender roles within the family also came into play, but where many of the families could count on two incomes from JERZEES, there could be a major shift in consumer habits and an overall change in lifestyle.32 Shortly after midnight on September 21, 2002, Tixkokob, along with most of northwestern Yucatán, was struck by Hurricane Isidoro, one of the most powerful storms to hit the region in recorded history. In Tixkokob, one of the first responses came from JERZEES with the distribution of food, clothing, and other supplies, in keeping with its tradition of community service that had been so important for the previous century in its home on the Tallapoosa. After only six years, it is still too early to evaluate the impact of JERZEES Yucatán on the former henequen-zone village of Tixkokob. Russell’s presence there is still very much in the honeymoon stage. The modern plant is a major contrast to the rope factory at Aké, and the working conditions are far better than in the milpa or the weed-choked henequen fields. Almost fourteen hundred young men and women of Tixkokob and surrounding villages no longer have to go to Mérida or Cancún for employment opportunities. The bicycles outside the plant slowly are being replaced by motorbikes as the prosperity of the workers increases. Competition from other regions of Latin America (especially Honduras) and from China make it impossible to project the future of Russell’s operations in Yucatán.33 At the present time, however, Tixkokob seems to benefit greatly from the new industry that is providing jobs for its citizens and contributing to the development of the community in a meaningful way. It is just as impossible to predict Russell’s future in Alexander City. A global economy creates a constantly changing landscape for all manufacturers. Yet Russell is currently producing more fabric in Alabama than ever before in its history of more than a century.34 As Tixkokob has benefited from new jobs, the sewing operations outside the United States have allowed Russell to remain competitive in a global marketplace and to increase business.35

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

162 / Edward H. Moseley

Notes 1. Robert S. Chamberlain, The Conquest and Colonization of Yucatán, 1517–1550 (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1948). 2. Ibid.; Robert W. Patch, Maya and Spaniard inYucatán, 1648–1812 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993); Nancy M. Farris, “Indians in Colonial Yucatán: Three Perspectives,” in Spaniards and Indians in Southeastern Mesoamerica: Essays on the History of Ethnic Relations, ed. Murdo J. MacLeod and Robert Wasserstrom (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 1–39. 3. Nelson Reed, The Caste War of Yucatán (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1964); Moisés González Navarro, Raza y tierra: La Guerra de Castas y el henequén (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1970). 4. González Navarro, Raza y Tierra. 5. Jeffery Brannon and Eric N. Baklanoff, Agrarian Reform and Public Enterprise in México:The Political Economy of Yucatán’s Henequen Industry (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987). 6. González Navarro, Raza y Tierra; Ben Fallaw, Cárdenas Comprised:The Failure of Reform in Postrevolutionary Yucatán (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001). 7. Jeffery T. Brannon, “Yucatecan Political Economy in Broader Perspective,” in Land, Labor, and Capital in Modern Yucatán: Essays in Regional History and Political Economy, ed. Jeffery T. Brannon and Gilbert M. Joseph (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991), 243–49. 8. Eduardo Tello Solis, “Maquiladoras,” paper presented at the University of Alabama, January 1999. 9. Harvey H. Jackson III, Rivers of History: Life on the Coosa,Tallapoosa, Cahaba, and Alabama (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995), 2, 98–99. 10. Ibid., 100–113; Wayne Flynt, Poor but Proud: Alabama’s Poor Whites (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989), 3–35. 11. The Story of the Russell Manufacturing Company: Alexander City, Alabama, 1902– 1952—Fifty Years of Progress (Alexander City, Ala.: Outlook Publishing Company, 1952), n.p. 12. Conversation with Thomas B. Saunders, editor of the Russell Record, February 2, 2000. 13. Thomas D. Russell, “Russell of Alabama,” speech delivered in December 1960, 19–22. 14. Alexander City Outlook (Special Edition), February 24–25, 1990. The company’s name changed from Russell Manufacturing Company (1902–62) to Russell Mills, Inc. (1962–73) to Russell Corporation (1973); “Russell Corporation,” Alexander City Outlook (Special Edition), February 1996. 15. Lane Saunders, “Russell Corp. Goes International with Scotland Plant,” Alexander City Outlook (Special Edition), February 24–25, 1990. 16. Thomas Byron Saunders, “Russell: A History of Growth and Success,” Alexander City Outlook, February 1996. 17. Russell Record, November 1, 1996. 18. T. B. Saunders, “Russell: A History of Growth and Success.” 19. Russell Record, October 1999. Ownership in the joint venture was divided

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

From Tallapoosa to Tixkokob / 163 equally between Russell and Companhia de Tecidos Norte de Minas, of São Paulo, Brazil. 20. The documentation supporting changes in Russell’s management and corporate strategy is derived from Russell Record, various issues from January–February 1997 to November–December 1998. 21. Diario de Yucatán, January 29, 1999. 22. “JERZEES Yucatán,” pamphlet prepared by Russell Corporation for International Advisory Board’s visit, November 1999; Russell Record, Summer 1999. 23. Personal comments by Ben Fanning to author in Mérida, early 2000. 24. Pamphlet relating to Russell company policy, sent to author, January 2000; author conversations with Russell officials Carlos Rivera and Ben Fanning, November 1999. 25. Author’s visit to Port Bienville and discussion with Captain David S. Humphreys, April 1999. 26. Nancy Young, phone conversation with author, January 2000. 27. Russell, “Russell of Alabama.” 28. Russell Corporation annual report, 2002. 29. Russell Corporation annual reports, 2002 and 2003. 30. Author’s conversation with Lewis Archer and observations during visit to Alexander City, September 15, 2004. 31. Author’s conversation with Susan Foy and visit to Alexander City, September 15, 2004. 32. Author’s conversation with Amilcar Carrillo Gomez and Eduardo Tello, June 2002. 33. The decision to expand the operation in Honduras seems to be related to reports by company officials in the previous years that production was more efficient in that region than in Yucatán and Campeche. 34. E-mail from Nancy Young to Eric Baklanoff, June 27, 2005. 35. On April 17, 2006, Russell Corporation and Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., announced that Berkshire would acquire Russell, to be effective August 2, 2006. According to Nancy Young, this merger should have no bearing on the operation of Russell’s Tixkokob plant in the foreseeable future. Telephone conversation between Nancy Young and Eric Baklanoff, June 28, 2006.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

8 Embracing Community An Alternative Tourism for Yucatán Kathleen R. Martín and William A. Martín González

Since the mid-1950s, tourism has become one of the most rapidly growing industries within the global economy. As of 2000 it is the world’s largest service industry and the largest single component in the international services account (Clancy 2001b, 128). As part of this global growth in tourism, Mexico has become a major destination. Among Latin American countries, in 2000 it had the greatest volume of tourists and the largest earnings from tourism. In 2000 an estimated 20 million tourists visited Mexico, spending $8 billion (U.S.) (Clancy 2001a, 1). In that year more Mexican workers were employed in the tourism sector than in any other sector of the economy except agriculture (Clancy 2001b, 129). Especially important for the Mexican economy, tourism consistently ranks among its principal sources of hard currency. In Mexico’s southeast, the Yucatán Peninsula has long attracted tourists seeking a culturally distinct and less-urbanized place to visit.1 In the 1970s, however, the three states of the peninsula (Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Yucatán) received an increasing number of tourists after the development of the mega-resort of Cancún in Quintana Roo. In the 1980s and 1990s, tourism oriented toward beach resorts continued its growth in Quintana Roo, southward along the coastal Cancún-Tulum corridor, and on the nearby islands of Cozumel and Isla Mujeres. The development of resort tourism on the east coast has spurred tourist development elsewhere in the peninsula.Within Yucatán itself the long-standing principal attractions for tourists are two of the most famous archaeological sites of the ancient Maya, Chichén Itzá and Uxmal. Because of the increasing number of tourists visiting these ancient Maya sites, Yucatán receives more than half of all the international visitors who tour the archaeological sites of Mexico (Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática [INEGI] 1997, 373). For many international visitors, Yucatán represents an authentic, distinct Mexico strongly rooted in its ancient Maya past and a continuing indige-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Embracing Community / 165

Fig. 20. University of Alabama group viewing the Pyramid of the Sorcerer at Uxmal (photo by Joy D. Baklanoff ).

nous present. For many Mexican tourists, Yucatán is an interestingly distinct region within their diverse nation. For tourists uninterested in the allure of large-scale beach resorts with all the amenities of home, Yucatán is an appropriate alternative destination. For those who choose to bypass the “sand, sea, sex, suds, sun, and surf ” appeal of the mega-resort of Cancún, Yucatán promotes a more profound intercultural experience. Tourists are drawn to Yucatán to experience the state’s history, see its ancient Maya archaeological sites and contemporary Maya communities, view its scenic countryside, enjoy its pristine coastline, and explore its parks and bio-reserves (a reserve for plants and animals). The growth in tourism, however, has some troubling potential consequences. It threatens to destroy the fragile ecological and cultural resources that initially attract tourists to Yucatán, as has occurred elsewhere in the peninsula, particularly on the east coast in the resort area (Hale 2000;Wiese 2000). Also, it seems to have provided too few economic benefits for Yucatecans. Jobs produced in tourism for local people are usually basic service jobs that offer only low wages, few benefits or stability, and little opportunity for socioeconomic mobility (Secretaría de Desarrollo Social 2000). Given Yucatán’s growing tourism industry and the financial rewards it brings, could an alternative model of tourism be developed that would benefit

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

166 / Kathleen R. Martín and William A. Martín González Yucatecans more? Could such a tourism also be structured to provide social and ecological sustainability? Are there factors that demonstrate the feasibility of a new kind of tourism as suitable for the Yucatecan economy and society? We maintain that a community-based and socially and ecologically sustainable tourism could be developed that would foster widespread local economic benefits for Yucatecans and their communities. Further, we believe that the structure of the Yucatecan economy and current trends within it would allow for such a tourism to be developed. In particular, we propose tourism that embraces the local community by engaging the active involvement of local people, respecting their community traditions and utilizing local resources with an accompanying revalorization of a grass-roots development approach. We think that such a community-based model could better ensure ecological and social sustainability. We define development as a planned process to undertake efforts to improve the conditions of human life. We consider development a process that balances the need for improvement in the material conditions of human life while preserving natural resources and ecosystems for the present and future. In addition, we maintain that the process of development should be based on free and informed choice by the communities involved and that such development be self-directed and self-managed. While much has been written about development and long-term ecological sustainability (Crumley et al. 2001; Primack et al. 1998), less emphasis has been placed on the long-term social sustainability of human communities. We believe the sustainability of both the ecology and human communities to be paramount in any scheme of development.

The Global Context of Development Since the 1982 Latin American debt crisis, many national economies in the region have adopted structural-adjustment policies under the auspices of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Among those who direct the control of production, finance, and trade, a new credo has taken root which maintains that privatization and globalization of economies— especially by the freeing of world market forces from constraints—are necessary to achieve economic growth, overall development, and prosperity (Román Morales 2001, 11). The structural-adjustment policies of the World Bank and the IMF have by and large been homogeneously applied in the developing world. Specifically, under the directives of these policies, debt-burdened Latin American nations were to pay their international debts punctually and achieve equilibrium between national fiscal and balance-of-payment accounts. They were also to curtail expenditure by eliminating subsidized public services, removing market-protective measures granted national producers, and diminishing

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Embracing Community / 167 the power of agents such as labor unions, which were considered to be potentially unfavorable to market competition. Since the advent of structural-adjustment policies in the early 1980s, the world financial market has tripled and the international commodity market has doubled its volume of operations. Yet data from the Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD, United Nations Development Program [United Nations 2001]) belie the validity of structural-adjustment policies as they affect the lives of many people. PNUD statistics demonstrate that for many, life has become more rather than less impoverished, their quality of life thus diminished. Global economic polarization continues to grow despite a tripling of world per capita income since 1975. The income gap between developed and developing nations has tripled since 1960, and one hundred nations have had stagnant or receding economies since then. The number of people whose economic level was classified as extremely poor grew from 819 million in 1980 to 1.3 billion in 1995 (Boltvinik 1995). Further structural-adjustment policies have brought no significant increase in employment, and the distribution of income has been consistently concentrated in fewer hands. Thus for many people in the developing nations, poverty has grown significantly as their living conditions have continued to deteriorate (Román Morales 2001, 15). The prevailing view within the international financial community, however, maintains that structural-adjustment policies provide the most beneficial path for development (Narro Monroy 2001). The persistence of these policies in the face of evidence of their failure, however, has incited debate globally. At its February 2002 conference in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the second World Social Forum offered an alternative to structural-development policies. It proposed an alternative path for development built upon solidarity at the societal bases, the cultivation of human rights, recognition of democracy as a universal value, and the social control of speculative capital. Additionally, the forum put forth a strong platform of environmental defense, emphasizing the care of ecosystems as part of development and identifying the Earth as the common home to all species and forms of life (Boff 2002). Although there was no public document produced at the end of the World Economic Forum in January 2002, UN secretary general Kofi Anan made a strong closing statement. He stressed that to improve the material and quality of life conditions for the majority of humanity, world leaders needed to deepen their political and financial commitment to the eradication of poverty and the achievement of local development and environmental sustainability. Anan called upon world leaders to increase their budgets to finance such efforts substantially (World Economic Forum 2002). As discontent with structural-adjustment policies grows, even some of the main financial beneficiaries of these policies have become increasingly critical.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

168 / Kathleen R. Martín and William A. Martín González Well-known entrepreneur George Soros denounced the fundamental immorality of financial markets, the ineffectiveness of government controls, and the inadequacy of prevailing economic perspectives (La Jornada 2002). He instead called for a new view on development that would surmount what he termed “market fundamentalism,” of which he is critical because it reduces public interests to corporate interests, development to economics, and economics to short-term financial profit.

Development Policy in Mexico Mexico, like many other nations influenced by the demands of structural adjustment, has profoundly redefined its developmental policies. As the Mexican state has become displaced as the main pivot in development, policies have steadily shifted from a state-directed, endogenous, internal focus toward a complementary or subordinate economic integration within the regional framework of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The state’s role in planning and development has been curtailed from leadership to normative and regulatory functions. The state has also drastically reduced its economic role by privatizing or liquidating most of its previously owned and managed enterprises, over five hundred major companies (with the notable exception of Petroleos Mexicanos, the national oil-producing entity). Although the state is still an actor in development within the nation, it has become increasingly subordinated to extra-national financial and commercial interests. In Mexico the implementation of structural-adjustment policies since 1982 has led to macroeconomic growth yet simultaneously to endemic poverty and increasing income gaps between those who earn the most and those who earn the least, consolidating a growing base of structural poverty. According to Alonso (2001), INEGI revealed that from 1994 to 2000 the richest 10 percent of households netted 38.1 percent of national income, while the poorest 10 percent received only 1.5 percent. Mexican households classified as below the poverty line increased from 69 percent to 76 percent during those years. Thirty percent of Mexicans survive on an income of one U.S. dollar per day. A paradox is that while many Mexicans have become poorer and the production of basic goods and services on a per capita basis has remained practically stagnant during the last twenty years, the five hundred principal business conglomerates, which generate over 54 percent of the GNP, have grown steadily in assets, earnings, and buyouts (Arroyo Picard 1997). The Plan Nacional de Desarrollo 2001–2006 (PND, National Development Plan) states that exports have grown at an annual average of 18.2 percent from 1994 to 2000, thus consolidating Mexico as the tenth-largest world export power. But the PND also states that the current economic model has not diminished but

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Embracing Community / 169 has instead accentuated inequalities among Mexicans (Presidencia de la Republica 2001a, 34). With the evident growth in inequality and poverty, Mexico is in an economic crisis. Responsibility for this crisis has been ascribed to various sources, including the dismantling of the nationalistic, state-controlled development model; the overspending and transitional political malfeasance of the Salinas administration (1988–94); the collapse of the Mexican banking system; and the orthodox adoption of structural-adjustment policies. In the watershed Mexican federal elections in 2000, Vicente Fox became the first opposition party candidate to win the presidency. As his administration (2000–2006) took form, Mexican developmental policy centered on the internationalization of the economy, the consolidation of a formal democratic political regime, and the installation of a business-oriented national leadership. Education that focused on achieving these national objectives became the cornerstone of social policy (Presidencia de la Republica 2001a). Within this context, the new elected government faced serious developmental challenges, with the most pressing among them an environmental crisis; an incomplete transition to democracy; slow, erratic, and inequitable economic growth; and regional inequities and disarticulations. To address these compelling national issues, the Fox administration proposed three central policy plans: the Plan Nacional de Desarrollo 2001–2006 (PND, National Development Plan), the Programa Nacional de Educación 2001–2006 (PNE, National Education Plan), and the Plan Puebla Panamá (PPP, Puebla-Panama Plan). While the PND is the central planning document and the PNE focuses on educational planning, the PPP is perhaps the most important for developmental policy in Yucatán and in all of southern and southeastern Mexico.2 The PPP focuses on compensating historical, regional development inequities in the Mexican south (including the three states of the Yucatán Peninsula), where the most serious poverty exists. Thus it targets the region from the state of Puebla, the gateway to the Mexican south, and southeast through Central America to Panama. As such the PPP was not only created to develop the region that possesses some of the nation’s poorest communities but also extends internationally to develop the impoverished nations of Central America.3 The region of the proposed PPP includes 102 million square kilometers and 63 million people. It has important petroleum assets, 34 million hectares of virgin timber, more than half of Mexico’s water reserves, rain forests, and an immense and complex cultural diversity, particularly of indigenous peoples. The PPP has three goals. First, it seeks to develop the transportation and industrial infrastructure in the region, thus improving its capacity for export industries. Second, it seeks to serve as a catalyst to shift the region’s economy from agriculture to manufacturing, including assembly-plant industries (maquiladoras). Finally, it proposes to ensure private control over the vast

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

170 / Kathleen R. Martín and William A. Martín González natural resources in the region for the management of bio-resources and highvolume tourism (Action for Community and Ecology in the Rainforests of Central America [ACERCA] 2001). Administratively, the PPP is to consolidate business partnerships for investment, trade, and tourism. As President Fox’s six-year term drew to a close, the PPP’s progress as a long-term, mega-development project rested with the incoming Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, elected in July 2006. At the time it was proposed, the PPP encountered opposition from many of the same groups that opposed NAFTA: labor, environmental, campesino, and indigenous groups. By 2002 the PPP was mentioned less frequently in official state documents. Some projects with the PPP, however, did advance during Fox’s term. A regional energy plan moved forward as the governments of Mexico and Guatemala signed an agreement in 2006 to connect power lines between the two nations, thus allowing Mexico to export electrical power to its southern neighbor. This accord marked the first step in establishing a regional energy grid ultimately linking Mexico and the Central American nations (fnsnews@nmsu. edu 2006). It seems likely that particular projects within the PPP may be implemented during the current presidential term if not necessarily labeled as part of the original PPP.

Yucatán: Potential for Eco-Cultural Heritage Tourism Yucatán lies within the region targeted by the PPP, yet it is located somewhat off the mainstream of communications and transportation corridors, oil extraction and refining, resort tourism, and industrial and bio-resource development proposed by the PPP. Nonetheless, Yucatán does possess a certain centrality as an important regional pivot linking the Gulf (and with it the southern United States), the Caribbean, southeastern Mexico, and northern Central America. Yucatán has had a history of remoteness from the Mexican federal government and its policy-making bureaucracy. Historically, its geographic isolation and its cultural distinctiveness from the Mexican heartland have slowed its full incorporation into the republic. While throughout the twentieth century it integrated more thoroughly into the Mexican state, Yucatán retains a certain distance and distinctiveness from the rest of the republic. With its geographic and cultural distance from the Mexican heartland Yucatán seems to have had a paused developmental rhythm of its own. Yucatán is distinct within its region, showing a more diversified and more locally controlled economy than either of its two neighboring states, Campeche and Quintana Roo, both of which rely heavily on single sectors of their economies. Campeche depends on oil extraction and refining, contributing 57.30 percent of its gross state product (GSP) in 2000. Quintana Roo depends on high-volume tourism, especially the mega-resort of Cancún, contributing

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Embracing Community / 171 53.74 percent of its GSP in 2000 (INEGI 2002, 29). The oil industry and high-volume tourism are extra-regionally owned and managed, leaving little local decision making vested in either Campeche or Quintana Roo. In contrast, Yucatán possesses a more diversified local economy based on a dense regional network of towns and villages that are linked to Mérida, the state capital and largest city. Mérida and its outlying network of towns and villages have a significant role in the service sector of Yucatán’s economy. Commerce, restaurants, hotels, transportation, communications, and financial and government services contributed 71 percent to the GSP in 2000 (INEGI 2002, 29). The small and medium-size service enterprises that compose much of Yucatán’s mixed economy contribute greatly to employment, income generation, and fixed-capital formation. In these three categories, Yucatán ranks among the three principal states in Mexico (INEGI 1997, 272). Its endogenous regional economy is also spurred by a steady inflow of cash through worker remittances (mainly from Cancún), federal government subsidies, and a growing diversified national and international tourist trade. In Yucatán, as in Mexico as a whole, the primary economic sector has been steadily declining since the advent of structural-adjustment policies. Although agriculture, livestock, and fishing employed more than 22 percent of the nation’s workforce in 2000, their contribution to the GNP steadily dropped from 6.3 percent in 1993 to 4.1 percent in 2000 (Román Morales 2001). The declining contribution of these activities to the state’s economic production is also evident, dropping from 7.9 percent in 1993 to 5.0 percent in 2000, although they continue to contribute slightly more than the national average (INEGI 2002, 29). Between 1982 and 2000, numerous maquiladoras were installed in Yucatán. While the contribution of the secondary sector to Mexico’s GNP was 28.0 percent in 2000, its contribution to the GSP of Yucatán was 24 percent that year (INEGI 2002, 29). Between 1986 and 1995 Yucatán rated twelfth in the installment of new maquila enterprises among the thirty-two states of Mexico, representing 1.7 percent of this kind of business (INEGI 1997, 273). Despite this small percentage, Yucatán is being increasingly drawn into maquiladora manufacturing. Of the new maquiladoras established in the Mexican interior (i.e., non-U.S. border) states between 1996 and 2000, only Puebla exceeded those of Yucatán (see chapter 4 in this volume). It should be noted, however, that the maquiladora model is not without its shortcomings, such as low wages, little job security, and few benefits or possibilities for advancement. Critics of the maquiladora industries consider them as feasible enterprises despite their low salaries only if extended-family household economies are augmented by other sources of income or if basic goods are provided through such activities as agriculture, fishing, or animal husbandry. Within an extended-family household context the cash income provided by maquiladora

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

172 / Kathleen R. Martín and William A. Martín González employment is a useful complementary source of income, but it would be difficult to support a family on the wages of maquiladora employment alone. Yet it seems unlikely that either the diminishing primary sector or the emerging secondary sector will provide a viable economic base for Yucatán’s future development. The state simply cannot depend on a mixed economy of the maquila industry, agriculture, cattle raising, and fishing to supply employment and generate income. With these limitations, Yucatán could benefit from a strengthening of its local tertiary sector: service. Tourism could become a much stronger component in Yucatán’s development, given its growing volume and potential impact on generating income and employment throughout other sectors of the local economy. Over time, the Mexican state—sometimes in combination with the private sector—has begun to invest in Yucatán, primarily in a transportation infrastructure and secondarily in developing the archaeological sites of the ancient Maya. During the 1990s especially, the national government undertook major improvements in Yucatán’s transportation system. One project lengthened the ocean dock of the port city of Progreso to allow deeper-draft ships to visit this essentially shallow-water port. The longer dock made possible stopovers by larger ships bringing tourists and carrying cargo (see chapter 2 in this volume). Additionally, during the 1990s improvements were made in Yucatán’s air and highway transportation systems. A new airport was constructed in eastern Yucatán near Valladolid, providing a more accessible gateway to the ancient Maya site of Chichén Itzá and also to the new maquila plants opening around Valladolid. The number of international airlines and flights serving the gateway city of Mérida has also increased steadily. Although much debated, since 2006 there has been discussion among top-level state officials to add a reliever airport west of Mérida, presumably to bring economic development to parts of the old henequen plantation zone. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a greatly expanded road system, augmenting the existing east-west toll road, was constructed within Yucatán so that no destination within the state is now more than half a day’s drive distant. State transportation projects have also brought improved roads and paved parking to some of the less-accessible and less-developed Maya sites (e.g., Ekbalam in north-central Yucatán and Oxkintok in the southwest), placing them more directly on the tourist path. The expanded road system, however, has had some negative consequences for Yucatecan communities and cultural resources. New road construction has damaged archaeological sites such as Oxkintok, where the road was built too close to the site. In the effort to speed tourists’ passage from one major cultural attraction to another, the new roads have also bypassed some towns that once drew at least a drive-through tourist business because of their proximity to the old main roads.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Embracing Community / 173

Fig. 21. Entrance to the Quadrangle of the Nuns at Uxmal (photo by Joy D. Baklanoff ).

Since the mid-1990s, state-sponsored projects have also sought to upgrade for the purposes of tourism some of the best-known Maya archaeological sites in Yucatán, including Chichén Itzá, Dzibilchaltún, Mayapán, and Uxmal. Each of these sites has received at least some of the following: new entrances, museums, public restrooms, restaurants, and upgraded or at least more structured crafts markets. Yet in some cases, serious conflicts have arisen among local people over the distribution of state-provided resources, resource ownership, and state management in the upgraded archaeological zones (Castañeda 1996, 2004, 2005). The transportation projects have helped establish Yucatán as a potential pivot for developmental integration in the region of the Gulf, southern and southeastern Mexico, and the greater Caribbean region. These projects have also established the transportation infrastructure necessary for tourism to prosper. Upgrades in the archaeological zones have enhanced Yucatán’s most obvious tourist resource. Yucatán has become not only an enhanced tourist destination in itself but also a tourist gateway to the entire peninsula. Yet Yucatán’s growing tourist industry seems to have provided too few benefits for local people and communities. For Yucatecans, employment in the tourist sector has offered only basic service jobs that provide low wages, few benefits, and little possibility of socioeconomic mobility. Critics also note

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

174 / Kathleen R. Martín and William A. Martín González that infrastructure improvements in local communities often come only as an accompaniment to upgrades in services to the archaeological sites that attract tourists (Ardren 2004). As the tourist industry is currently structured, few Yucatecan municipalities have services to support more than drive-through tourism. Tourists most often travel to Mérida, to a few of the coastal beach towns, or to those archaeological sites that offer lodging and food. Because there are no hotels and few restaurants to allow them to pause in their journey, visitors typically stop in Yucatecan towns only to buy beverages or gas. At best, tourists briefly visit the town centers and local markets, spending little time or money. Yet Yucatán has an impressive potential resource base for the development of ecological and cultural-heritage tourism. The state’s combination of cultural, ecological, and archaeological/historical resources for tourism is exceptional. Especially notable, however, is its regional distinctiveness within Mexico. Yucatán’s uniqueness is rooted in the Yucatec Maya culture both past and present. From Mérida to the smallest hamlet in Yucatán, the ethos of Yucatec Maya culture is everywhere present. Out of sixty-two officially classified indigenous groups in Mexico, the Yucatec Maya are the second most populous linguistic group, with 1.5 million speakers (the Nauatl are first, with 2.5 million speakers dispersed throughout northern and central Mexico). The largest number of Yucatec Maya speakers are concentrated within Yucatán (Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes 1998b). With the exception of Mérida and small cities such as Progreso and Valladolid, many of Yucatán’s remaining 103 municipalities are largely Maya villages and towns. In large part, the cultural presence of the Maya, past and present, creates Yucatán’s distinctiveness. Also notable is Yucatán’s ecological diversity. The state has a coastline of estuaries, beaches, and shallow ocean waters bordering the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. With the recent declaration of Rio Lagartos in the east and Ria Celestún in the west (Rio refers to a freshwater river, Ria to a mixed saltwater/freshwater estuary) as ecological sanctuaries, Yucatán’s largely undeveloped three-hundred-kilometer coastline has the potential to become an integrated ecological sanctuary, encompassing the unique ecosystem of the northern plain of the Yucatán Peninsula (INEGI 1997, 29). In addition to its coastal ecology, the state has a variety of other environmental zones, including the tropical low forest jungle and extended plains of farm and grazing lands. Since much of the Yucatecan countryside remains as forest, prairie, or farming areas, long stretches of road still pass through impressive rural scenery. Yucatán possesses a subtle ambience that combines the beauty of the natural world with the charm of small towns and villages. Its strong, deeply rooted, distinctive regional history and character are reflected in its still largely undeveloped cultural resources. Many towns and villages have historical build-

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Embracing Community / 175 ings, including unexcavated ancient Maya sites, colonial churches, or grand houses from the late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century plantation era.4 Some of the larger Yucatecan towns have busy food and crafts markets. Yucatán has a renowned regional cuisine distinct in Mexico and a newly enhanced crafts tradition in basketry, ceramics, wood carving, and paper and soap making. Even its largest city, Mérida, is known for its urban vitality while retaining a cityscape of a distinctly human scale. The city has become a popular destination particularly for European tourists. In addition to the Yucatecan places that draw tourists, the state also has events that do so. Town festivals such as ferias or vaquerias celebrate rural life with regional dances, music, foods, and cattle-roping and horseback-riding events. Yucatecan cities commonly sponsor poetry, theater, and other literary events that highlight the richness of their local culture. It is not only the ethos of Maya culture, Yucatán’s ecological diversity, and a rich regional culture that attracts tourists but also Yucatán’s ambience as a slower-paced, less stressful, and generally pleasant place for visitors. We maintain that Yucatán has the resource base to develop more fully the kind of eco-cultural tourism that already draws visitors. To support an augmentation of the existing tourism, the state possesses a regionally based small to medium-size private service sector upon which tourism could be, and in some cases is being, built. With the improvements in the transportation sector, all of the state is linked and accessible. Yucatán seems uniquely fit for a growing eco-cultural tourism focusing primarily on international visitors but not without appeal to fellow Mexican tourists.

An Alternative Tourism for Yucatán: Embracing Community With the potential of growth in eco-cultural tourism, however, comes the need to pursue tourism that is locally developed and managed which benefits local people and communities, promoting long-term social and ecological sustainability. Consequently, we have developed a model that adheres to these goals by embracing local communities. In particular, we suggest the enhancement of locally owned and locally managed eco-cultural resources in Yucatecan towns and villages. Such improvements in the Yucatecan tourist industry could stress small “bed and breakfast” kinds of inns that would allow visitors to stay overnight in towns and villages. Similarly, the establishment of local restaurants could allow more tourists to eat in town either as overnight guests or as travelers passing through the area. While some modifications would have to be made in local style of lodging and food service to accommodate visitors’ expectations, such changes need not be significant. Most tourists attracted to the ambience of Yucatán would not expect the local inn of Maxcanu to be like a Holiday Inn, a Hilton, or a Ramada. Nor would they expect the local restaurants in Kinchil to be like a McDonald’s, a Burger King, a

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

176 / Kathleen R. Martín and William A. Martín González Sanborn’s, or even a Vips. Such a model for “bed and breakfast” local tourism would foster development in rural areas by providing employment for people in their own towns. With the development of this kind of local tourism,Yucatecans would have more economic options. They would not need to leave their hometowns to migrate to the Caribbean coastal resorts or commute to more distant urban areas in search of work. Such migration often causes social fragmentation within local communities by pitting those who migrate against those who stay in the community as their varying interests and identities collide (Re Cruz 1996, 2003). Small local hotels and restaurants would also allow tourists to stay longer and spend more money. Studies of cultural-heritage tourism in Chiapas found that tourists of modest means who stay in an area for a longer period of time actually generate more income for the local economy than do high-end tourists who pass through quickly (Van Den Berghe 1994). Local attractions within and near the villages and towns could also be developed or upgraded. These include local historical and archaeological sites, crafts and produce markets, churches, former haciendas and other architecturally or historically significant buildings, local eco-parks, bio-reserves, and wildlife sanctuaries. Town festivals and cultural events could also be highlighted. Some evidence suggests that such a locally based, locally planned, and locally managed tourism is already under way. In the eastern Yucatecan town of Dzitnúp, local people have developed their beautiful cenote as a tourist site.5 The income generated by tourist visits to this lovely water resource is used not only to maintain the cenote but also to sponsor community improvement projects (Kray 1998). Umán, a sizable town near Mérida, has established an eco-park on its outskirts demonstrating native plants and animals. The minimal admission fees charged are allocated for park maintenance and expansion. Umán’s municipal authorities hope that as the park becomes more popular it will generate funds for community projects. In Yaxuna the local ejido (an organization of communal land ownership and management) maintains a small hotel and uses the profits for community benefit (Bascopé 2004). In the neighboring state of Quintana Roo, the ejido in the town of Coba operates the parking concession and tricycle taxi services to the nearby ancient Maya site (Kintz 2004). Interestingly, vis-à-vis our model of a locally developed and locally managed tourism, in both of these latter cases a long-standing mechanism for community cooperation, the ejido, was the vehicle for tourist development. As yet, however, many Yucatecan archaeological, colonial, late-nineteenth-century, and early-twentieth-century landmarks and significant ecological features have not been restored or employed for new uses to benefit local communities (INEGI 1997, 373). In Yucatán, an approach to tourist development that is locally based, locally planned, and locally managed has several advantages. Since such an approach

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Embracing Community / 177 is rooted in local people and communities, more Yucatecans would have a voice in how their towns, locales, and futures develop. This model would thus avoid the difficulties posed by tourism that is not locally controlled, such as “El Mundo Maya” (“The Maya World”). A major tourist promotion, “El Mundo Maya” draws visitors by packaging a pathway of tours through Mexico and Central America, marketing local Maya communities and the ancient Maya archaeological sites. In such promotions, indigenous people are regarded as commodities rather than as people or communities. They are viewed without reference to their own identities, visions, and histories. Thus, Maya people have had no voice in the development of a tourism in which they and their ancestors are marketed as the central attraction. Using the model of locally developed and locally managed tourism, it would be possible to niche-market eco-cultural tourism to individuals with specific interests using computer-generated models. Tourists interested in tropical ecology or colonial architecture, for example, could be given selfdirected tours (including information about roads, sites, attractions, tours, lodging, and food) focused on that interest. Yucatán’s state tourism agency, which actively collects data, is well equipped to provide such information. Since this model of tourist development is small in scale and locally controlled, potential disruption to communities could be minimized. In addition, both townspeople and tourists would benefit from the enhancement of historical and archaeological sites and the preservation of eco-parks, bioreserves, and wildlife sanctuaries.6 The development of ecological and cultural resources could help preserve Yucatán’s unique heritage and unite people as they share the caretaking of a common history and cultural heritage. Income generated from the inns, restaurants, and eco-cultural sites would enhance improvements to the local household economies. The public-service infrastructure could be improved so that the entire community would benefit albeit at the behest of tourism. A spin-off market in crafts or other kinds of community-based production could generate additional income. A few Yucatecan towns, such as Halacho and Dzitya, have artisan cooperatives geared to marketing their basketry and wood-carving crafts to tourists. In Halacho, the basket makers have sought out market sites located on nearby major highways. Transportation accessibility, eco-cultural attractions, and a local servicesector economy provide the base from which locally planned and locally managed eco-cultural tourism could be developed in Yucatán. Such tourism would provide long-term benefits for the local communities by generating income for people within their local communities, contributing funds for community-wide benefit, enhancing or developing ecological and cultural resources, and most importantly, having the local communities themselves develop and manage the kind of tourism they deem most beneficial. For this kind of tourism to succeed, an infrastructure of support must be

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

178 / Kathleen R. Martín and William A. Martín González in place. In particular, some training, capital investment, and project-planning coordination would be necessary. We would like to suggest a small workinggroup initiative composed of those knowledgeable about Yucatán who also possess productive, established relationships with local communities, civil society organizations, and the public and private sectors as the initial central planning group. Its first task would be to commission a field survey to identify communities willing to engage in and sites appropriate for eco-cultural tourism. It would also be useful to survey the opinions of national and international visitors to Yucatán in order to identify the kinds of attractions that bring them to the state. Following the completion of these surveys, discussions could take place between the working group and local communities to determine the suitability and profile of potential projects. As the selection of projects was finalized, plans would be made regarding the necessary financial requirements as well as the provision of training to local people or gaining the expertise needed to begin utilizing the eco-cultural resources properly. Involving local communities in all stages of development planning is essential to its ultimate success. Funding from a locally controlled community consortium that would draw its funds from international, state, and private-sector sources would provide financial support for the startup of the selected projects. Grants and low-interest loans as well as training and technical assistance would be available through a community-oriented public/private agency established for this purpose. Oversight of the projects would be achieved through periodic evaluation with necessary corrections. In addition to a trained local staff, a consultative community body representing the actors involved in the development process would make the final decisions regarding the disposition of the projects. It is important to note that a consortium of public, private, and NGO sectors is critical not only to draw upon their resource and knowledge base but also to mitigate the problems inherent in their participation. The public sector has crucial resources but potentially opens the door to partisan political maneuvering and control, especially from outside local communities. The private sector also has resources, but it may bring with it the desire for quick results and profits such as potentially high interest rates on loans. Some NGOs specialize in eco-cultural tourism development, but NGO participation holds the possibility of instability and organizational infighting (Fisher 1997). In a consortium held together by strong local community participation, however, the potentially divisive interests of the various sectors could be mollified to complement each other in shared local development objectives. Although our model embraces local communities in tourism development, it cannot be assumed that local Yucatecan communities are without conflict themselves. To one degree or another, every Yucatecan community has divisions within it that derive from differing political allegiances, religious preferences, wealth differentials, resource ownership disputes, and long-standing

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Embracing Community / 179 personal or familial animosities. As the projects develop, another concern for Yucatecan communities would be the possibility that envy would arise, generated by perceptions of unequal distribution of resources or benefits from the projects, thus creating a potential for social disruption. Yet while political, religious, socioeconomic, and personal animosities may splinter a community, other factors may help unite it. Many Yucatecans share the need to augment their household income. Many also share an interest in their cultural heritage and in preserving the natural world and their Maya culture (Ardren 2002). In addition, Yucatecans often have strong bonds to their communities and would welcome the opportunity for an improved standard of living without having to migrate to urban areas or the beach resorts to find employment. Community-based systems for collective organizing and decision making such as the ejido or a reprise of the fajina (obligatory labor on behalf of the community) could be brought into play to implement our model of community-based tourism. A model like the one we have presented here would overcome obstacles by cooperation, patience, persistence, and local support from the Yucatecan communities engaged in tourist development. Keynotes to this entire process would be building from local communities and facilitating broad local deliberation and participation, local self-management, and social control of the basic resources involved. Just as important would be progressive involvement in a collaborative framework of local communities, civil organizations, and the public, NGO, and private entities.

Conclusions Among Latin American countries, Mexico has the greatest volume of tourists and earnings from tourism, attracting an estimated 20 million tourists who spend $8 billion (U.S.) per year (Clancy 2001a, 1). The Mexican tourism sector employs more workers than any other sector of the economy except agriculture (Clancy 2001b, 129). And particularly important for the Mexican economy, tourism consistently ranks among its principal sources of hard currency. Yucatán has become an important component of the Mexican tourist industry primarily because of its ancient Maya archaeological sites, hosting more visitors to its archaeological zones than any other state in Mexico. At present, however, Yucatán’s growing tourism industry has not benefited many Yucatecans involved in this sector, giving only low wages, few benefits, and little opportunity for socioeconomic mobility. Additionally, the increasing volume of visitors threatens to damage the very places tourists come to experience—Yucatán’s ancient Maya archaeological sites and contemporary Maya communities, its scenic countryside, largely undeveloped coastline, bio-reserves, and parks—as the increase in tourism has elsewhere in the peninsula (Hale 2000; Wiese 2000). An expansion of the state’s tourism, however,

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

180 / Kathleen R. Martín and William A. Martín González is needed, since Yucatán cannot exclusively depend on its traditional agricultural, cattle-raising, and fishing industries or on the new maquila industries alone to boost the state’s economy. Because of its transportation accessibility, eco-cultural resources, and vital locally based service-sector economy, Yucatán seems a suitable locale to develop eco-cultural tourism. Such tourism would be based on the state’s ecological, cultural, and historical attractions and would embrace local communities by fostering local development and management of tourism in the state. Local communities would become the guardians of the state’s ecology and the caretakers of cultural and historical sites. Accommodations for visitors in Yucatecan towns and villages would draw them to rural areas rather than having rural people be drawn to urban areas or beach resorts to find employment. Yucatán already attracts tourists interested in more meaningful intercultural experiences rather than those who seek the familiarity and comfort of the beach resorts. An enhancement of Yucatán’s ecological and cultural resources would augment its small but already established community-based eco-cultural tourism. Models of tourist development that center on long-term social and ecological sustainability are likely to provide continuing benefits for the involved communities and preserve the environment as a living entity. With local participation and management, communities will more likely be able to safeguard their interests. Finally, the model of eco-cultural tourism suggested here for Yucatán would provide economic and material improvements to local people and communities that would improve their quality of life and foster development within the state and region. With continued practice and fine tuning, this model which seeks to embrace community could be applied to develop a locally based, locally controlled, socially and ecologically sustainable tourism to the growing tourism industry in Mexico and elsewhere.

Notes 1. Unless otherwise stated, “Yucatán” refers to the state of Yucatán, one of the thirty-two states in the Republic of Mexico, rather than to the Yucatán Peninsula, a geographical area comprising the states of Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Yucatán. 2. The PND considers Mexico as experiencing significant demographic, economic, political, and social transitions. Thus it calls for a new governmental focus on addressing the opportunities of globalization while minimizing its negative effects. The PND’s vision for Mexico in 2025 targets four main goals: a high quality of life, a healthy environment, equal opportunities for all Mexican citizens, and strict observance of the law. In order to achieve these goals, the PND focuses especially on good government, healthy public finances, and an educational revolution. The PNE focuses on a major reform of the public educational system. It seeks to reshape education toward job training for an internationalized economic milieu and the preparation of the citizenry for the consolidation of political democracy.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Embracing Community / 181 3. The PPP was inaugurated by President Fox in March 2001 and by the presidents of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama in June 2001. A few weeks later the project received backing by the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, and the IMF. A presidential commission headed by Florencio Salazar was established in order to direct federal funds, attract foreign investment, and work with the seven Central American governments in the implementation of the plan. According to Salazar, $440 million (U.S.) were to be invested in the PPP during 2001 (ACERCA 2001). 4. Yucatán’s early-twentieth-century plantation economy was based on the production of henequen (Agave fourcroydes), a succulent that grows well in the thin, stony soil in the northwest part of the peninsula. With the demise of the world market for henequen in the 1930s, many of these plantations were abandoned. Yet their houses and outbuildings remain standing; many of these structures are architecturally interesting and historically significant. A business consortium has converted the plantation main houses in several former haciendas to upscale hotels and restaurants, but scores of such buildings remain untouched. 5. A cenote is formed by the collapse of land (often underground cave roofs), which then becomes filled with water. The resulting cenotes are quite common in some parts of Yucatán. Some are of considerable size and quite beautiful in the variety of plant and animal life they attract to their waters. The ancient Maya used them not only as water sources but also as part of religious rituals. The word cenote is a Spanish interpretation of the Yucatec Maya word for these sinkholes, tz’onot. 6. Although there are special concerns regarding the development of archaeological sites in particular (Ardren 2002, 2004; Freidel 1989; Juarez 2002; Pi-Sunyer, Thomas, and Daltabuit 1999), these historical and cultural resources are vital to any growth in the tourist industry.

References Action for Community and Ecology in the Rainforests of Central America [ACERCA]. 2001. New Corporate Development from Southeastern Mexico to Panama. http:// asej.org/ACERA/ppp/ppp.php#newcorporatedev. Alonso, Jorge. 2001. Expectativas y decepciones. In Fox a un año de la alternancia, ed. Joaquin Osorio Goicoechea. Guadalajara: ITESO. Ardren, Traci. 2002. Conversations about the Production of Archaeological Knowledge and Community Museums at Chunchumil and Kochol, Yucatán, Mexico. World Archaeology 34 (2): 379–400. 1. 2004. Where Are the Maya in Ancient Maya Archaeological Tourism? Advertising and the Appropriation of Culture. In Marketing Heritage, Archaeology, and the Consumption of the Past, ed. Yorke Rowah and Uzi Baram, 103–12. Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press. Arroyo Picard, Alberto. 1997. Economía mexicana en 1996: Una nueve etapa postcrisis? La política social de Ernesto Zedillo: A dos años. Mexico City: El Observatorio Social. Bascopé, Grace. 2004. Personal communication. April 2. Boff, Leonardo. 2002. Cual globalizacion? Paper delivered to the World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, Brazil, February 22.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

182 / Kathleen R. Martín and William A. Martín González Boltvinik, Julio. 1995. Modelo economico pauperizante. La Jornada, February 17. Castañeda, Quetzil E. 1996. In the Museum of Maya Culture:Touring Chichén Itzá. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1. 2004. Art-writing in the Modern Maya Art World of Chichén Itzá: Transcultural Ethnography and Experimental Fieldwork. American Ethnologist 31 (1): 21–42. 1. 2005. Tourism “Wars” in the Yucatán. Anthropology News 6 (5): 8–9. Clancy, Michael. 2001a. Exporting Paradise: Tourism and Development in Mexico. New York: Pergamon. 1. 2001b. Mexican Tourism: Export Growth and Structural Change since 1970. Latin American Research Review 36 (1): 128–50. Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. 1998. La diversidad cultural de Mexico— Los pueblos indigenas y sus 62 idiomas. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. Crumley, Carole L., ed., with A. Elizabeth van Deventer and Joseph J. Fletcher. 2001. New Directions in Anthropology and Environment: Intersections. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press. Fisher, William F. 1997. Doing Good? The Politics and Antipolitics of NGO Practices. Annual Review of Anthropology 26:439–86. [email protected]. 2006. Mexico and Guatemala Move Forward with Regional Energy Plan. June 20. Freidel, David. 1989. Situating the Archaeologist in the Field: Yaxuna. Human Mosaic 24 (1): 1–2, 17–23. Hale, Lauren. 2000. A Dynamic Simulation Model of Population Impacts on the Environment: A Fisheries Model. In Population, Development, and Environment of theYucatán Peninsula: From Ancient Maya to 2030, ed. W. Lutz, L. Prieto, and W. Sanderson, 204–27. Laxenburg, Austria: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática [INEGI]. 1997. Estadísticas del medio ambiente. Mexico City: INEGI. 1. 2002. Sistema de cuentas nacionales. Mexico City: INEGI. La Jornada. 2002. Soros: En EU todos somos complices de la crisis. September 4. Juarez, Ana. 2002. Ongoing Struggles: Mayas and Immigrants in Tourist-era Tulum. Journal of Latin American Anthropology 7 (1): 34–67. Kintz, Ellen. 2004. Personal communication. April 2. Kray, Christine. 1998. Embodied Practice and Ethnic Bodies: Cultural Reproduction in Yucatán. Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association meetings, Philadelphia. Narro Monroy, Jorge. 2001. Estado y desarollo. Renglones 47. Pi-Sunyer, Oriel, R. Brooke Thomas, and Magali Daltabuit. 1999. Tourism and Maya Society in Quintana Roo, Mexico. Latin American Studies Consortium of New England Occasional Papers. Published jointly by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of Connecticut; Latin American Studies Program, University of Massachusetts; Center for Latin American Studies, Brown University; and Council on Latin American Studies, Yale University. Presidencia de la Republica, Mexico. 2001a. Plan Nacional de Desarrollo 2001–2006 [PND]. http://pnd.presidencia.gob.mx. 1. 2001b. Plan Puebla Panamá [PPP]. http://ppp.sre.gob.mx.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Embracing Community / 183 Primack, Richard B., David Barton Bray, Hugo A. Galletti, and Ismael Ponciano, eds. 1998. Timber,Tourists, and Temples. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. Re Cruz, Alicia. 1996. The Two Milpas of Chan Kom. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press. 1. 2003. Milpa as an Ideological Weapon: Tourism and Maya Migration to Cancún. Ethnohistory 50 (3): 489–502. Román Morales, Luis Ignacio. 2001. ¿Qué es el ajuste estructural? Racionalidad e inrracionalidad de las políticas económicas de libre mercado. Guadalajara, Jalisco: ITESOSIMORELOS. Secretaría de Desarrollo Social [SEDESOL]. 2000. Quintana Roo: State Level Indigenous Profile. http://www.sedesol.gob.mx/perfiles/estalal/quintana_roo/00_ summary.html. Secretaría de Educación Pública. 2001. Programa Nacional de Educación 2001–2006 [PNE]. Mexico City. United Nations. 2001. Programa de Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo [PNUD]. New York. www.undp.org. Van Den Berghe, Pierre L. 1994. The Quest for the Other: Ethnic Tourism in San Cristobal, Mexico. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Wiese, Peter. 2000. Environmental Impact of Urban and Industrial Development: A Case History, Cancún, Quintana Roo. Environment and Development in Coastal Regions and in Small Islands. UNESCO website: http://www.unesco.org/csi/wise/ cancun1.htm. World Economic Forum. 2001. www.weforum.org. CNN.indepth specials.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Contributors

Eric N. Baklanoff is Board of Visitors Research Professor Emeritus of Economics at The University of Alabama, where he also served as Dean for International Programs from 1969 to 1974. Before joining Alabama, he directed Louisiana State University’s Latin American Studies Institute and Vanderbilt University’s Graduate Center for Latin American Studies. He has published eleven books, among them Expropriation of U.S. Investments in Cuba, Mexico and Chile (1975), The Economic Transformation of Spain and Portugal (1978), and Agrarian Reform and Public Enterprise in Mexico:The Political Economy of Yucatán’s Henequen Industry (with Jeffery Brannon, 1987). He was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Palo Alto, California, and has been the recipient of eight other postdoctoral awards. Helen Delpar is Professor of History Emerita at The University of Alabama. She has published extensively on Mexican and Colombian topics and is the author of “The Enormous Vogue of Things Mexican”: Cultural Relations between the United States and Mexico, 1920–1935 (1992), which won the A. B. Thomas Award of the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (SECOLAS); and Red against Blue:The Liberal Party in Colombian Politics, 1863– 1899 (1981). She is also the coauthor, with James D. Henderson and Maurice P. Brungardt, of A Reference Guide to Latin American History (2000). She served as secretary-treasurer of SECOLAS on two occasions and as president of the organization in 1984–85. Paula R. Heusinkveld is Professor of Spanish at Clemson University. Dr. Heusinkveld’s lifelong interest in cultural anthropology and in Maya culture dates back to 1968. In the spring of 1999 she spent part of her sabbatical living among the Maya of Tinum, Yucatán. She also did field research throughout the Yucatán Peninsula for the 2000 Spanish-language edition of the Michelin Guide to Mexico and Guatemala. In summer 2003 she was a participant in the six-week National Endowment for the Humanities seminar, “Maya Worlds: Continuity and Change,” held in Guatemala and Mexico. Kathleen R. Martín is an Associate Professor in the Department of

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

186 / Contributors Sociology/Anthropology, Florida International University. As a cultural anthropologist she has worked in Mexico on research projects concerning community development and NGOs, the role of gender in political participation, and medical beliefs and practices among the urban lower-income groups. In 2007 she published a book (University of New Mexico Press) entitled Discarded Pages:Araceli Cab Cumí, Maya Poet and Politician, a life-narrative account with translations of the works by Sra. Cab Cumí. Dr. Martín is a recipient of grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Inter-American Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the North-South Center, and the Organization of American States. The late William A. Martín González was a Mexican architect and urbanist. He had a long trajectory of expertise in university teaching, research, and project design concerning water resource management, regional development, urban planning and design, citizen participation, and community development in both institutional and NGO settings. A doctoral candidate in Educational Philosophy at the Jesuit University of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, he was recently nominated for a Knight Fellowship in Community Building at the University of Miami. The late Edward H. Moseley was Director of International Programs and Professor Emeritus of Latin American history at The University of Alabama. He was coeditor (with Edward D. Terry) of the volume of essays Yucatán: A World Apart (1980) and coauthor (with Paul C. Clark) of The Historical Dictionary of the United States–Mexican War (1997). A past President of the Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies, Moseley was active in Partners of the Americas, as Senior Advisor for the Kellogg Fellowship in International Development, and was Executive Director of the Alabama-Guatemala Partners of the Americas. Luis Alfonso Ramírez is a research anthropologist at the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán. He is a member of the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores de México (National Research Council of Mexico) and has been awarded the National Prize for Research in Social Sciences. He is the author of ten books, including Secretos de familia: Libaneses y elites empresariales en Yucatán (1994) and Mujeres deYucatán y Mérida (2002), and also of some fifty articles on regional development, studies of gender, of the elite, and of corruption. Alicia Re Cruz is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Texas. She has conducted ethnographic research among the Yucatec Maya since 1986. Her research interests include displacement (immigrants and refugees), Hispanic community in Texas, gender dynamics, and the effects of tourism among native communities. Re Cruz has written The Two Milpas of Chan Kom (1996) and has produced the ethnographic documentary Los otros: Maya Migrants in Cancún in collaboration with Melinda Levin. Michael S.Yoder is Associate Professor of Geography at Texas A&M University in Laredo. Among his published works are an article in Review (ed.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Contributors / 187 Immanuel Wallerstein) in 1993 on henequen production in Yucatán and the region’s incorporation into the global periphery, as well as numerous articles and book chapters on political economy with emphasis on northern Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico border. In the summer of 2004 he received a grant from the Texas Center for Border Enterprise at Texas A&M International University to conduct comparative research on the planning and financing of international bridges spanning the Rio Grande.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Index

Agrarian Reform (in Yucatán), 3–5, 35–37, 71–72. See also Cárdenas, Lázaro agriculture (in Yucatán): Colonial, 22– 23; pre-conquest, 20 aluxes, 119–20 Alvarado, Salvador, 33–34, 70, 72 baseball, 30–31, 35 Banco Rural, x, 3, 7, 52, 83 baptism in Maya communities, 118. See also hetzmek ceremony Border Industrialization Program: disadvantages, 94; incentives for investors, 93 Calderon, Felipe (president 2006– ), 2, 141, 170 Cancún, 134–144; Creation in 1971 of world-class mega resort, 10–11, 84; description of, 112, 120–122; Hurricane Wilma, 12, 130n2; investment and hotel capacity, 11; and Maya commuters and migrants, 120–122, 141–144; tourism ideology, 135 Cancún-Tulum corridor, 11–12, 164 Cárdenas, Lázaro (president 1934–40), 3, 36–37; reforms in Yucatán, 50–51, 64, 149 Carnegie Institution, 136–37

Carrillo Puerto, Felipe (governor of Yucatán, 1922–23), 8, 34–36, 70, 81 Caste War, 24–25, 47, 136–137, 149. See also Speaking Cross Cash economy: conversion to by Mayas, 122, 124–25, 126–27 casta divina, 48, 70, 85 Castro Pacheco, Fernando: murals by, 20, 37, 81 Ch’a-chaak rain-making ceremony, 118–19 Chacmols, 135 Chan Kom, 134–144; cinderblock houses, 123; cultural conflicts, 133n33 Catholics, 138. See also Protestantism Cenote, 136, 181 Chi, Cecilio, 24–25 Chiapas: and religious conflict, 131n13 Chichén Itzá, 7–8, 12, 135–36, 140, 164, 173 Coe, Michael, 112, 119 colonial administration, 21–23 comisarias, 137 containerization, 54, 56, 59–63, 65 Cervera Pacheco, Víctor (governor of Yucatán 1984–87 and 1995–2001), 8; and Maquila Export Program in Yucatán, 92, 100, 108; and port expansion, 54, 76, 79, 85, 108, 158

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

190 / Index Cordemex, x, 3; investment in, 6–7, 52– 53, 72, 74, 79; organization of, 5–6; privatized, 86 corn milpa, 143 Corporativo Peninsular, 73 de Gortari, Carlos Salinas (president 1988–94), 7; market oriented reforms, 85; privatization of port ownership and management, 60; termination of Cordemex and collective ejidos, 7, 73, 77 de la Madrid, Miguel (president 1982– 88), 1; designated Mérida as a strategic city and the Mérida-Progreso industrial corridor as a priority growth pole, 13; gave priority status to Mexico’s maquiladora industry, 95, 108; inaugurated the Henequen Rationalization and Integral Development Program, 7; reversed Mexico’s nationalistic economic policies, 85 de Montejo, Francisco, 147–148 desfibradoras, 4 Díaz, Porfirio. See Porfiriato Echeverría, Luis (president 1970–76): his ambitious social and economic programs, 83; policies toward Cordemex, 6 ejido, 4, 7, 34–35, 71, 80, 136 Elmendorf, Mary, 137 encomieda, 21, 147–148 Erosa Cámara, Vicente, 74, 78 evangelical Protestants: in Chiapas, 131n13; in Tinum, 118 fajina, 140, 143, 179 Folk-urban continuum, 136–137 Fondo Nacional Para Turismo (National Fund for Tourism), 10–11, 84

foreign investment (in Yucatán), 9, 13, 87, 104 Fox, Vicente (president 2000–2006); ends PRI hegemony, 86–87, 169 García Lavin, Andrés, 75, 78 GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), xii, 83–85. See also de la Madrid, Miguel Goldkind, Victor, 137, 140, 143–44 hammock making, 116 henequen, 23; decline of, 36–37; during the Mexican Revolution, 33–35; Golden Age of, 26–27, 49; oligopoly control of, 47–49 hetzmek ceremony, 114, 118 h-men (shaman), 119 huipiles, x, 116, 134 International Harvester Co., 28, 47, 49 Ixtabay, 19 K’aua, 140 Landa, Diego de, 22 Lopez-Portillo, José (president 1976– 82), 84–85 Madero, Francisco I., 32–33 maquiladora industry (in Mexico): Chinese competition in U.S. market, 97; sensitivity to U.S. business cycle, 96– 97; worker attitudes toward, 97–98 maquilador industry (in Yucatán): contribution to exports, 107; economic impacts and geographic dispersion, 103; explosive growth and cyclical contraction, 100–103; female employment, 105–06, 171; number of plants, employment, and value added, 102; U.S. investment in, 104

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

Index / 191 “Massacre of Tlalteloco,” 83–83 Maya community, 134, 137, 141; compared with life in Cancún, 120–22; cultural continuity of, 127–29; culture, 122–29, 134–35; diet, 115–16; gender roles, 114; handicrafts, 166; ideology, 134, 143; identity, 134, 139; language, 116–117; legends, 119–20, 112, 114; religion, 118–19; ritual, 143 Mérida: founded, 21; growth in late 19th century, 28–30; in 1975, ix; population in 2000 and amenities, 13, 43– 44, 46, 49–50, 57, 135; rivalry with Campeche, 23, 26 Mérida-Progreso industrial corridor, 43, 57, 74, 98–100, 108, 171 Mexican Revolution (in Yucatán), 32– 37; milpa agriculture, x, 112, 119–20, 136–39, 41, 143; new regional elite emerging from, 78–80, 136–137. See also Ch’a chaak Molina, Olegario, 28–29, 32, 70 Molina Castellanos, José Trinidad, 75, 78 Monte, 141 Montejo Francisco de, 21, 37n3 Muñoz, Arestegui Enrique, 32 NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), xii, 85, 87, 95–96, 158, 168, 170 nah (traditional Maya home), 114–115, 123, 130–31n6 National Development Plan (PND, 2001–2006), 161 neoliberalism, xiii, 61, 65 PAN (Partido de Acción Nacional [National Action Party]), 2, 140–142 parcelas, 5–6 Partido Socialista del Sureste (PSS), 35– 37, 71, 74 Pat, Jacinto, 24–25

Pemex (Petroleos Mexicanos), 63, 72, 81, 168 Peniche Jr., Adolfo, 76 pequeñas propriedades, 4–5 Pino Suárez, José Medina, 32–33 pollo pibil, 118 Porfiriato, 25, 27–28, 31–33, 80 port hinterland geography, 42–45 PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party [Partido Revolucionario Institucional]), 3, 82, 138, 142 pre-Conquest Maya Civilization, 20–21 Programa de Maquila de Exportación en Yucatán (Maquila Export Program in Yucatán), 77 Progreso, 8, 27, 31, 42–66; contemporary port connections, 63; port morphology, 43, 45, 46–48, 50–56, 62– 64; primary port activities, 57–59, 61; tourism, 50, 63–64; and U.S. Gulf Coast trade, 63 Protestantism, 137–38; Protestant missionaries, 137; Protestants vs. Catholics, 137–38 Puerto Abrigo Yucaltepén, 51 Quintana Roo: designated as a state in 1974, 10; economic structure compared with Yucatán, 12, 25, 170; population and labor force, 11 railroads, 21, 31–32, 48–50, 53, 57 Redfield, Robert, xiii, 123, 144 religion: in Tinum, 118–19; in Chiapas, 131n13; in Tulum, 130n4 Russel, Benjamin (founder of Russel Mills), 151 Sisal, port of, 43, 47 social and ecological sustainability, 9, 166, 180 South Eastern Regional Program, 99, 108

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.

192 / Index Speaking Cross, 25 St. Francis, Order of, 21–22 syncretism. See religion synthetic fiber, xi; in competition with henequen, 56 Tinum, Yucatán: commuters to Cancún, 20–22; cultural continuity, 113– 20, 127–29; entrepreneurship in, 116; schools in, 117–118; Telephones in, 124–25; television, effects of, 125–26 tourism (in Yucatán): community-based tourism, 175–177, 180; cruise ship tourism, 8–9, 64; ecological and cultural heritage tourism, 8–9, 174–177, 180; five-star hotels, 9; visitors to archeological zones, 8–9 Tulum, 135

Uay Kot, 142 Villa Rojas, Alfonso, 13 Vogt, Paul, 128 Wayanone, 117 Whitman, Andrew, 125–26 women: Alvarado reforms, 34; education, 30; political rights, 35; working for maquiladoras in Yucatán, 106, 109 Yucatán Industrial Park, 100 Yucatec Maya: efforts to preserve language, 117; loss of, 116–17, 125 Zedillo, Ernesto (president of Mexico 1994–2000), 86, 155

You are reading copyrighted material published by the University of Alabama Press. Any posting, copying, or distributing of this work beyond fair use as defined under U.S. Copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. For permission to reuse this work, contact the University of Alabama Press.