In the little Hoctun village – an hour drive from Merida, the capital of the southern state of Yucatan – it is common to see people wearing the “Dallas Cow Boys” caps and jerseys. It is also very frequent to see picture frames of Dallas landmarks decorating the living room walls of the houses.
Yes, this Mayan municipality of nearly 6 thousand people has a strong connection with northern Texas, especially with cities like Dallas or Carrolton. People talk about them with such a familiarity as if they were there, standing on the Harry Hines Boulevard or Lemmon Street. This is most likely because, since the seventies, the Hoctunenses embarked on a migration track to Texas in search for better conditions of life.
However, both the US and Mexican media have barely reported on this fascinating migration pattern. This is the reason why the Heart of Mexico team traveled during the month of June 2016 to the remote village of Hoctun.
The migration history of Hoctun commenced when the production of the Henequen plant waned down. The Hoctunenses started to abandon the crops to work like construction laborers or maids in Merida, Playa del Carmen, and Cancun, or traveled to California and Northern Texas.
Migration has brought new challenges to the community: some families have fallen apart raising children without a father figure. Migration has also propelled the use of alcohol or domestic violence. But in many cases it has improved the town economic and social conditions due to the benefit of remittances; this is especially reflected in better education and health care access.
The Mayan township San Jose Oriente – located about six miles away from Houctun – has also experienced a similar transformation. In this little village of barely a thousand residents, women have critically participated in the migration process. Since the year 2000, some of them left the traditional embroidery work to find jobs in the maquiladoras or textile factories in Merida. This situation has created new tensions in San Jose, especially because these women are now economically independent and they are able to face new gender roles.
Migration is definitely encouraging the growth of a younger generation who is leading cultural innovations within the community. This group is composed, for example, of teachers who returned to their town to instruct in Mayan or a psychologist who came back to open a community center, in order to enable cultural activities and to provide counseling for the families. These young professionals also facilitate tools for people to adapt to the new changes and to defend some of their rich traditions. It seems these leaders are contributing to building a promissory future for the Hoctunenses.
This was our second experience studying Mayan migration, and so the challenges were bigger than the previous year. We integrated Anthropology students to each one of the students’ teams in order to provide broader contextual explanations for the stories. As a result, our students were able to comprehend the complexity of their stories and to produce beautiful narratives about the Hoctun migrants.
It is a fact that the ethnographic method and techniques are necessary today to empower the emerging discipline of narrative journalism. This task has not been easy. It has required expensive resources; high quality of international teamwork and logistics; sharpening new teaching-collaborative methods, among other things.
In addition to this, international education is an innovative trend to approach higher education, but it is still a blurry concept that requires constant revision. However, it is certainly true that the HOM project is elevating the concept to the next level.
