Montgomery, David. “Guatemalan Pueblo Honors Emigres Who Help It Grow.” Washington Post. February, 8, 2010.
This article details the link between Ipala, Guatemala and its emigres in the United States through its reporting on their annual celebration of the Day of the Absent Ipalans during the town’s “annual five day festival in honor of” their “patron saint, Ildefonso.” Many of the villagepeople who left the small rural Guatemalan village send money back to the village in order to improve the lifestyles and chances of the family members and friends that they left behind. Moreover, some villagepeople return to Ipala, using the wealth that they acquired to establish new businesses in their native village. As a result of the money that emigrated villagepeople have sent back to the village, inhabitants of Ipala have begun to enjoy a higher standard of living as well as attend Guatemalan universities and find better employment. In addition, the village has acquired several modern conveniences such as paved roads and the beginnings of an infrastructure sufficient to support and promote touristic interest in the area. As a whole, Montgomery’s article presents the American emigres from Ipala as hardworking individuals pursuing the American dream in order to save and enrich their native country in the hope that they or their children can return to it and succeed.
This article relates to what we have learned in class through the fact that it demonstrate how much Latin America has not been industrialized and lives in the shadow of the United States. Prior to its residents’ emigration to the United States, the village did not really experience the benefits of the Industrial Revolution and existed in a state of erosive poverty. The fact that the village inhabitants thought of the United States when deciding on where to emigrate to find better economic opportunities shows that this village lived in the metaphorical shadow of the United States in a similar fashion as Mexico and Cuba did during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Similar to the trading relationships that Mexico and Cuba developed with the United States, the Ipalans have created their economic relationship with the United States in order to fix the unproductiveness of their economy.
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