Despite harsh immigration policies, remittances that Yucatecan migrants send back home are growing.
This year the total flowing from the United States is expected to reach almost US$200 million, or close to 4 billion pesos.
The general director of the Institute for the Development of the Mayan Culture (Indemaya) of Yucatan, Eric Villanueva Mukul, told El Financiero that remittances have increased 10 percent annually for the last three years.
Villanueva Mukul explained that according to official figures from the Bank of Mexico, in 2016 Yucatan received US$142.8 million, in 2017 the amount increased to US$154.58 million dollars and in the first three quarters of this year, US$151.4 million was sent.
The money tends to boost the economy of more rural Mayan communities.
Although the amount is less than what states such as Zacatecas or Michoacán receive, it’s a sign that the nearly 200,000 Yucatecans working north of the border are making a livelihood.
Indemaya urges family members who receive the remittances spend their money on entrepreneurial endeavors with the goal of becoming economically independent.
Food carts, cocinas económicas, sewing, embroidering and tailoring, grocery stores or pig farms are examples of Yucatecan entrepreneurism within reach of people helped out by remittances.
Cenotillo, Oxkutzcab, Peto, Muna, Tunkás and Motul, all in the southern part of the state, are villages most dependent on money from abroad.
An estimated 80 percent of Yucatan migrants are men between 14 and 29 and 60 percent are from indigenous communities.
