Close Up-chinandega Ingles

7/30/2019 Close Up-chinandega Ingles

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Chinandegas Navigation

In the Sea of Globalization

24

envo

NICARAGUA

JOSE LUIS ROCHA

Chinandega used to be the City of Oranges. The

expression has survived what turned out to be anephemeral reality. Chinandegas orange groves have

been so decimated that the most extensive ones cover no

more than 8.5 acres. And in any case, Salvadorans no longer

want to come and harvest them, as they used to do in large

numbers in the seventies. Unfortunately the statistics from

that decade are very poor, making any attempt to estimate

how many Salvadoran emigrants there were back then very

uncertain. Based on data from the Higher Council of Central

American Universities (CSUCA), we can hazard a guess that

there were at least 10,000 Salvadorans in Nicaragua in 1970

and that the department of Chinandega was their most

profitable and popular option after Managua.

Yesterday they came here,

and now we go there

We know for certain that the eighties saw the peaking of

In Nicaraguas fertile northwest area of Chinandega,

people are constructing and deconstructing globalization.

Over 30% of the population has left the now orange-less City of Oranges

pushed out by cotton fields, fleeing the bad pay of the sugar cane plantations,

refusing to take it lying down when the peanut business turned its back on them.

They can now be found in many different countries:

the United States, Costa Rica, Spain, Panama

building globalization their own particular way.

intra-regional Salvadoran migration, a genuinely unavoid-

able phenomenon, with 22,230 Salvadorans coming toNicaragua seeking refuge from the war in their country. Or

to put it in the rhetorical terms of the times, the sons of

Farabundo Mart found shelter in the land of Sandino.

The torrential river of migrations then switched

direction, with Nicaraguans now going to El Salvador to work

on the sugar cane harvest, in henequen, in construction and

even in stalls selling pupusas, Salvadorans traditional

griddle-cooked stuffed tortillas. Chinandegans are found in

all these places, and many more besides. Has globalization

pushed them out and then attracted them, positioning them

as migrants to replace Salvadoran labor that left for the

North? And is it continuing to fling them in many other

directions, including overseas?Globalization has been reified and even anthropo-

morphized: globalization has its malcontents, it harvests

enemies, it came but will go. The most trustworthy authors

refer to globalization as a set of dynamics shapednourished,


2/13

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25

april 2011

We could say that globalization has

liquid dynamics and solid dynamics.

The former are more ephemeral and

trumpeted, while the latter are more

hidden and have the appearance of

being more long-lasting

speeded up, slowed downlocally. Chinandega and its people

are also constructing and deconstructing globalization. At

the end of the day, globalization is a set of centripetal and

centrifugal forces in which we drag and are dragged.

Fluid and solid dynamics

Abusing Polish sociologist Zygmunt Baumans metaphor, we

could say that globalization has liquid dynamics and solid

dynamics. The former are more ephemeral and trumpeted.

Theyre like tides that both expel and suck. The latter are

more hidden and have the appearance of being more long-

lasting. Theyre like humus that dissolves into the earth

and quietly determines energy, foliage and flowering.

One example of liquid dynamics is the free trade

agreements that dissolve tariffs and seek a more accelerated

circulation of merchandise. A marked US shift in the other

directiona return to less decontrolled markets, in other

words to tariff barriers and other never entirely abandoned

protectionist measurescould be a hammer blow to the

global markets, altering the tides of liquid globalization.

Small localities like the 4,662-square-kilometer department

of Chinandega are inserted into these tides with their

traditional sugar, globally-projected rum, now-extinct cotton

fields and the more recent replacement, its prosperous

peanut plantations. Such tides both attract and expel in a

place like Chinandega.

One example of the solid dynamics of globalization is

the cultural changes driven partly by access to information

technologies. These are cumulative changes that allow us to

think weve reached a point of no return. That humus is now

in the earth and has incorporated other nutrients that

together with pure water and the aligned planets producetwisted dynamics.

So many dispersed Chinandegans...

Chinandega is constructing globalization at the same time

as its being expelled and reinserting itself. But in what way

did Chinandegans insert themselves into the planetary-sized

economic and socio-cultural migration exchanges, which is

one of the aspects of globalization? And in what way are they

currently doing so?

Chinandega is Nicaraguas second highest emigrant-

emitting department, topped only by Managua. But while

Managuans weight among the total number of emigrants isthe same as its proportion of the total Nicaraguan population

(26%), the 2005 population census revealed that 11.5% of

all Nicaraguans living outside the country are from

Chinandega, whereas that department only accounts for 7.6%

of the population. In other words, the weight of Chinan-

degans among Nicaraguan emigrants is almost 4% higher

than their demographic weight, making Chinandega one of

the departments most notorious for its emigrants.

The other departments in Nicaraguas migratory top

five are Len (with 7.4% of the national population and 11%

of its emigrants), Estel (4% of the population, 6.4% of its

emigrants) and Rivas (3.2% of the population and 6% of its

emigrants).

Nicaraguan census data from 2005 shows the United

States as the destination for 38% of Nicaraguan migrants. If

we use the official figures from US censuses and surveys of

263,642 Nicaraguans living there in 2009 (8.7% of the

2,915,420 million Central Americans), it would mean the

total number of Nicaraguan migrants is somewhere around

694,000.

If we trust more in the figures of the Pew Hispanic

Center, which probably includes information gathered from

migrants who elude government data collection, the figurerises to 275,126 Nicaraguans legally residing in the USA.

And if we take the percentage of Nicaraguans among Central

Americans in the US to be not 8.7% but rather the 8.8%

determined by the Center, and apply that figure to the 1.35

million undocumented Central Americans, we end up with

119,000 undocumented Nicaraguans, for a total of 394,126

Nicaraguans in the US. That would mean a total diaspora of

1.37 million Nicaraguans in 2005, the year the last census

was taken in Nicaragua and most of the Pew Hispanic Center

estimates weve used here were made.

This figure is quite plausible: applying it to the 46% of

Nicaraguan emigrants who are in Costa Rica gives a total of

just over 477,000 Nicaraguans, close to the half million thatsome analysts have been talking about rather vaguely and

fearfully. In any event, this mixed bag of migrants includes

119,275 Chinandegans, which is equivalent to 31% of those

still residing in Chinandega. Theres also a pocket of 40,450


3/13

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26

envo

NICARAGUA

Migration toward the Northern empire

has a longer history and while it hasnt

stopped being replenished with new

blood, its flow has been more

measured than those toward Spain or

Canada

In contrast to the SJM 2010 survey, the 2005 Census in

the department of Chinandega gives less weight to

nontraditional destinations like Spain and Panama. It shows

Costa Rica and the USA as the main emigrant settling places

(40% and 28%, respectively), followed by El Salvador (12%),

Guatemala (11%), Honduras (2.7%) and Spain (1%). It also

reveals that 34% of migrants from the municipality of

Chinandega were in the USA , 33% in Costa Rica, 13% in El

Salvador, 10% in Guatemala and 2.3% in Spain.

In addition to the most glaring reason for the difference

in these figures, which is that no survey has the scope of a

census, certain other circumstances also help explain it. For

one thing, the census took data from the whole department,

thus including rural areas that the SJM deliberately excluded.

Spain and Panama may therefore be destinations with

greater weight among the urban population.

Another reason that may be much more decisive has to

do with the five-year time gap between the two instruments.

Nobody bathes twice in the same migratory waters. The

relative weights of different destinations change with time.

As the river of migrat ions never stops flowing and

transforming itself, the difference in figures could be due to

a change in destination trends.

One plausible hypothesis for the reduction of the

weight of the USA and the rise of Spain and Panama as

migratory destinations is a tendency over time. The five

years that passed between the 2005 Census and the SJM

2010 were determinant. According to the SJM 2010, 80%

of Chinandegan migrants in Spain left Nicaragua since

2005. Generally speaking, then, Spain is a more recent

destination and the flow has increased very rapidly in

recent years.

We could say something similar about the flow towardPanama, with 72% settling there during the same period.

By contrast, those who went to the United States in the last

five-year period represented only 37% of the total. Migration

toward the Northern empire has a longer history and while

it hasnt stopped being replenished with new blood, its flow

has been more measured than those toward Spain or Canada.

As a result, migration to the USA has lost its relative weight,

with Spain and Canada imposing an unusually strong presence

on the balancing scales.

Spain and Panama have emerged as desired destinations

in a context of increasing restrictions on migration to the

two traditionally most popular destinations: Costa Rica and

the United States. Costa Ricas new migratory law, Law8764 applies fines and other punishments to irregular

immigrants and those who lodge or contract them, spreading

a feeling of uncertainty among many undocumented

Nicaraguans residing there.

migrants just from the municipality of Chinandega,

equivalent to 33% of its population.

Like any estimate of this kind, these calculations have

their limitations. For example, the Pew Hispanic Center

applies surveys, not censuses. As for the Nicaraguan census,

it asks about migrants who left the surveyed households, by

definition excluding households that emigrated en bloc,

leaving no one to report their departure, and placing a huge

question mark over what happens when a household breaks

up: who informs about parents or brothers and sisters who

migrated when their family members were living in another

house and formed another household 10, 20, or 30 years ago?

In short, such inevitable glitches mean that the figures used

here are inevitably only an approximation of migratory reality.

Chinandega: Embarkation port

for multiple destinations

Chinandega emits different flows (to the United States, El

Salvador, Guatemala and Spain) and its border withHonduras at the closest point to El Salvador is a transit

route for emigrants leaving different parts of the country

and even transcontinental migrants. Chinandega is not only

second to Managua as the department with the greatest

absolute emission of migrants; it also ranks second for the

emission of under-age migrants, accounting for 9% of the

national total.

According to a survey conducted by the Jesuit Service

for Migrants (SJM) in December 2010 in which we

interviewed over 400 migrants or relatives of migrants from

the city of Chinandega, we discovered the following

geographical destinations: 35.3% live temporarily or

permanently in Costa Rica, 26% in the United States, 12.5%in El Salvador, 9.6% in Spain, 8% in Guatemala, 4.7% in

Panama, 2% in Mexico and 1% in Canada. Other destinations

in far fewer cases were Honduras, Colombia, Belize and the

Dominican Republic.


4/13

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27

april 2011

Spain is the alternative for those willing

to undertake more long-term, long-

distance migratory feats, because it

involves fewer risks and comparatively

low costs

The Nicaraguan government has taken no effective

measures to mitigate that feeling. At the end of 2010,

Nicaraguas legislative branch approved a law authorizing

the issuing of documents in the Nicaraguan consulate in San

Jos, the capital of Costa Rica. Out and out optimists hoped

this mandate would accelerate the regularization of

Nicaraguans there, but these documents were previously

authenticated in the Costa Rican consulate in Managua afterbeing issued in this country, and the Nicaraguan government

didnt negotiate a new authentication procedure for them in

Nicaragua. As a result, theyve ended up in a kind of legal

limbo and their issuing remains ineffective. Panama has

appeared as an alternative destination, with similar risks

and benefits, and with certain xenophobic outbreaks that at

least until a few months ago seemed not to have had excessive

repercussions on migratory policies and police persecution.

Spain: a new migrant magnet

Scanning northward, we can make out a filter produced by a

combination of factors that, while not impenetrable, doesmultiply the risks involved. Elements of it include rein-

forcement of the border wall between Mexico and the United

States; immigration policies penalizing illegal border

crossings; an avalanche of funds for detention infrastructure,

deportation and border patrols; reinforcement of the

patrolling by civilian paramilitary groups such as the Minute

Men and Ranch Rescue, among many others; and the

increasingly omnipresent and terrifying belligerence ofLos

Zetas, a criminal consortium dedicated to drug trafficking

and the kidnapping, extortion and even murder of migrants.

The activities ofLos Zeta have seen the American dream

truncated by the Mexican nightmare in a growing number of

cases.

Spain is the alternative for those willing to undertake

more long-term, long-distance migratory feats, because it

involves fewer risks and comparatively low costs. Spains

appearance as a destination is rooted in another essential

element: the accumulation of links between communities of

origin and destination. Over more than a decade, informal

sister city links have silently been woven between cities on

both sides of the Atlantic. People from Somoto tend to go to

San Sebastin, those from Ro Blanco and Muy Muy tend to

settle in Seville and Chinandegans have been attracted by

the magnet of Zaragoza. These migratory sister cities have

been growing at a more geometric than arithmetic rate.

What can be expected from these trends? Some family

links may weaken with time and distance. But community

links will be strengthened through the widening of the

networks. Remittances could become more voluminous, as

there is a far greater possibility of saving in Spain than in

Costa Rica for equivalent jobs, such as domestic work. There

was a great difference, Manuela Miranda told us, because I

left Spain with US$600-700 in hand. It wasnt the same in

Costa Rica. What did I earn? US$250. You can see the big

difference. The added value of growing migration to Spain,

in the hypothetical and unlikely case that Spanish and

European Union migratory policies dont succeed instemming that flow, would make its consumer power felt in

communities with sister links on the Iberian peninsula.

Percentages of Migrants by Country of

Destination and Area of Origin in Nicaragua

2005 Census SJM 2010

Nicaragua Chinandega Chinandega

Destination .

Costa Rica

El Salvador

United States

Guatemala

Honduras

Mexico

Panama

Spain

Canada

46

3

38

42

15

1

1

0

1

40

12.2

28

11

2.7

1

0.7

0.8

0.8

33

13

34

10

2

1.4

0

2.3

0

35.3

12.5

26

8

0.5

2

4.7

9.6

1

Urban and

rural

Dept. Munic. More urban

sample

Sources: 2005 Census and SJM 2010

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Characterizing those who left

Each destination has its own very different occupational

profile. Professionals find greater opportunities in Canada


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28

envo

NICARAGUA

and Spain, where they account for 33% and 18%, respectively,

of Chinandegans who have settled over there. These are very

high figures compared to the 9.4% in the United States,

5.6% in Panama y 3.5% in Costa Rica.

The opportunities, however, are very dissimilar in the

two professional-attracting countries. In Canada profes-

sionals, some of whom arrived as students, find jobs more in

line with their education in commerce, services and

administration, while in Spain the vast majority are dedicated

to domestic service, frequently caring for the elderly, whom

they spare from old peoples homes with the offer of a more

personalized and affectionate form of attention. The key

aspect explaining this difference is the fact that most of the

migrants who went to Canada trained as professionals there

and were thus better equipped to insert themselves as such

into the Canadian labor market.

Former housewives have a strong presence in Spain

(18%), El Salvador (17.6%) and Costa Rica (10%), where

they tend to become domestic workers, as reflected in the

considerable weight of domestic work as an occupation formigrants in those nations (64%, 19.6% and 32.6%,

respectively). In Spains case, the host of domestic workers

includes both professionals and people with previous

experience in paid domestic work.

The migrants who were the best paid in Nicaragua before

migrating are found in the United States, Spain and Panama:

9.4% of those now in the United States earned over 5,000

crdobas (about $250) a month, and over 20% of those in

Spain and Panama earned between $150 and $250. Most of

the people who chose these last two destinations tended to

be professionals who saw the possibilities of improving their

income exhausted in Nicaragua.

Of those surveyed, 27.7% had no children; 55% had oneto four children; and nearly 18% had over four. The

combination of youth and procreation is a powerful trigger

for migration. Adolescent maternity and paternity probably

exercise a catapulting force when they want a decent high

school education for their children. The early responsibilities

force them to seek a life and study once the divine

treasure of youth (proximity to the age of 30) starts

disappearing never to return.

It is striking in SJM 2010 that while 26% of the total

sample of migrants received no wages or had any other

income before migrating, this figure rose to 36% among 26-

to 29-year-old migrants. This is an age at which responsibili-

ties press with merciless insistence and the lack of income is

both a stigma and an imperative. In that age group, only

6.7% had no children, while that was true of 66% of migrants

aged 18-25. Following migration, that socio-demographic

condition of youth plus children is also a multiplier of

remittances: young fathers and mothers capable of doing

piecework, where the return is in part the result of ones

effort, send home juicier remittances.

Why else are they going?

Fear of the elections

Migration reveals a certain sensitivity to both natural and

artificial disasters, to rain-provoked flooding and to

earthquakes caused by demented policies. Presidential

elections are also a trigger for migration: Uncertainty about

whats to come? Deception with the devil you know and fear

of the devil you dont? A reaction to more of the same?

In the last years of Violeta Chamorros administration,

the number of migrants shot up. The magnet of promises

had lost its power of attraction and there were fears about

who would end up in the presidential chair. In our small but

representative sample, between 2001 and 2002in that

case when Enrique Bolaos took powerthe number of

Chinandegans who left the country nearly tripled, from 11to 31. And between 2005 and 2007the FSLNs return to

Presidential elections are a trigger for

migration: Uncertainty about whats to

come? Deception with the devil you

know and fear of the devil you dont? A

reaction to more of the same?

Countries of destination and monthlyincome in Nicaragua before migrating

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(in crdobas)

No

income

United States

Costa Rica

El SalvadorSpain

Panama

Source: SJM 2010

31.1

23.6

27.525.6

5.6

1,000

or less

1,000-

3,000

3,000-

5,000

5.7

16.7

7.85.1

0

39.6

52.8

60.848.7

72.2

14.2

6.3

3.920.5

22.2

9.4

0.7

00

0

over

5,000


6/13

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29

april 2011

Landits access and useforms the

structural basis of Chinandegan

migration. That basis is steadily

eroded by the increasingly smaller

landholdings inherent in the handing

down of plots to numerous children, thereduction in soil fertility, agricultural

mechanization and the exhaustion of

the agricultural frontier and with it the

solution used over decades: the

possibility of internal migration

powerit increased from 24 to 40. Political events play a

more explicit role in the decision of young people between

the ages of 25 and 29, as in the case of 27-year-old Damaris

who decided to migrate three years ago: The change of

government came and I was seeing that things were harder.

They were already looking ugly. They were saying that this

was going to happen, that that was going to happen. That

scared me and I said, Im off; I dont want to go through

that, because I experienced that in the eighties and I dont

want to go through it again. Disasters also have an influence

on the course of the migrant stream. In 1998, the year

Hurricane Mitch devastated the region, 23 of the 408

Chinandegans we interviewed left the country, in stark

contrast with the previous year, when just 7 left.

From cotton to soy and peanuts

Structural factors have an even greater weight. These are

the factors of globalization seen from below. They started

incubating in the 1970s and their roots were explored by US

historian Jeffrey Gould when he researched land occupations

in Chinandega.

Landits access and useforms the structural basis of

Chinandegan migration. That basis is steadily eroded by

the increasingly smaller landholdings inherent in the

handing down of plots to numerous children, the reduction

in soil fertility, agricultural mechanization and the

exhaustion of the agricultural frontier and with it the solution

used over decades: the possibility of internal migration. The

replacement of Chinandegas traditional cropscotton and

basic grainswith highly mechanized crops that have a

meager demand for laboreucalyptus, soya and peanuts

reduced the intra-departmental options. The regionalizationof the labor markets resulting from the transposing of the

agro-export model onto the regional level explains the

transformation of the old system of internal displacements.

What did the agro-export model imply? Abundant

migrant labor available to harvest the big crops inserted

into the global market that sustained the national economy

and generated foreign currency. That reserve army then

withdrew back to its ever tinier smallholdings where it

scratched out a subsistence awaiting the next round of labor

demand from the big haciendas, considered the driving force

behind economic dynamism.

Today, Chinandegans no longer seek to insert themselves

into their own countrys big coffee plantations and can nolonger do so in the now non-existent cotton farms or in the

peanut-producing haciendas that replaced them, as they are

cultivated and harvested by a few tractor and harvest machine

operators. Instead, they cross the border and harvest

strawberries and melons in Costa Rica, cut sugar cane in El

Salvador and build houses in Guatemala. The absorption

role that Nicaraguan businesses or Nicaraguan-based foreign

businesses used to play is now reserved for those in other

countries of the region who have been deprived of their

traditional workers by northward migration. Due to its

border location, Chinandega, perhaps more than any other

department in the country, has become a prime supplier of

migrant labor that fills in for those from northern Central

America who already left for the USA.

Gone with the cottonLets take a look at history to understand how this

transformation occurred. The total number of waged workers

in Chinandega dropped from 73,000 in 1963 to 63,500 by

1971, paradoxically at the very time cotton cultivation was

doubling from over 55,000 to some 109,000 hectares. The

percentage of waged workers in Chinandega fell from 27.3%

to 21.6% of the countrys total and the average number of

workers per employer from 27 to 19. Chinandega became

characterized by the expulsion of internal migrants and fights

over land. According to a study by CSUCA, the profitability

differential between export crops and internal consumption

crops determined that the most fertile and accessible lands

were dedicated to export crops.Although there were abuses and expropriationssuch

as the case of Captain Ubilla, who took possession of the

common lands of San Jos del Obraje, also known as Las

Cuchillas, signing a supposed contract to lease them for five


7/13

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30

envo

NICARAGUA

For the majority of Chinandegan rural

laborers what changed with the influx

of cotton growing was the quality and

stability of work and their access to

hacienda land

yearscotton cultivation didnt involve a drastic trans-

formation of the legal land tenure structure. Gould observed

that in 1950, before the expansion of capitalism in the

Chinandegan countryside, less than 2.6% of the landowners

owned 65.1% of the land. The cotton boom did not

significantly alter land ownership patterns. Thus, in 1971,

2.1 percent of the landowners possessed 61.3% of Chinan-

degan soil.

The cotton boom did mean a change in land use, forms of

hiring labor and peasant access to land, as Gould found based

on statistics and declarations from peasant leaders who lived

through the metamorphosis of the cattle ranches into cotton

agri-businesses: In 1949, Chinandegan growers cultivated

less than 1,700 acres of cotton, but in 1955 they grew over

5,100 acres of the fiber. For the hacienda laborers and

tenants, the transformation of land use signified a loss of

access to hacienda land and a change from permanent to

seasonal labor. The growth of the cotton industry often meant

the loss of ones home and consequently the necessity to

squat on land of neighbors or kin.

Gould concludes by pointing out that for the majority

of Chinandegan rural laborers what changed with the influx

of cotton growing was the quality and stability of work and

their access to hacienda land. Few of the San Jos campesinos

had ever owned land. But before the cotton boom, nearly all

of them had planted their own corn and grazed their own

cattle on hacienda land. After 1950, however, elite cotton

growers needed all available land for their export crop and

denied the campesinos their traditional claim to the land.

The story is about two brothers who represent two

models of being a boss: a traditional one reaching its end,

and a modern one emerging with overwhelming success. On

the one hand, Bruno Aragn de Peralta, a product of the

hacienda, is possessed by the demon of lust and opposed to

all forms of technical progress, which in his opinion is a source

of sin and corruption. Hes capable of inflicting physical

punishment on his workers, but is the godfather to their

children and guarantees their survival. In him, says Vargas

Llosa in his very biased but frequently penetrating analysis,

is embodied the archaic ideal and the love of the old.

Bruno is a monumental father figure who has similar

attributes to the divinity: almighty and quick to both punish

and reward.

On the other extreme is Fermn Aragn de Peralta, a

civilized man of the world who was educated far from the

hacienda as an upper-class city dweller, proud of his cordial

manners, but inaccessible to the laborers and capable of

dispensing with their services and suddenly breaking what

he views as merely contractual relationships.

The Bruno/Fermn dichotomy represents the opposition

between agriculture and mining, feudalism and national

capitalism, hacienda and agri-business. Fermn triumphs

over all the feudal lords of San Pedro de Lahuaymarca, who

are descended from the conquistadors, but is in turn

liquidated by the imperialist Wisther-Bozart company. By

the end of the process, in San Pedro as in Chinandega, we

have witnessed the disappearance of Bruno Aragn de

Peraltas ideal farmhand, the communal Indian who is born

and dies within the microcosmos of his community,

preserving his tongue, his songs, his ancestral rites and

working the same land as his ancestors, who is naturally

virtuous and of pristine humanity. But if he changes, hebecomes vulnerable and could end up losing his soul.

From subjected farmhand

to rebellious peasant

In Chinandega, that Indian lost his soul of subjected

farmhand in anger, revolts and uprooting. Gould relates: As

the laborers discussed their unfortunate lot, Ramn Candia,

a foreman on the hacienda, declared that he was fed up with

working on the haciendas because the rich dont have any

heart anymore. The rich were no longer like the impetuous

but generous Bruno; they were now like the unctuous,

calculating and metallic Fermn. The appearance of theFermns led to revolts and land invasions: Regino Escobar

pointed towards some scrubland, saying, Look over there

thats peoples land. Weve always gotten kindling, lumber,

palm leaves and oil from over there. Lets go clear the land

Between Bruno and Fermn

Cotton substantially altered the agricultural laborers

relationship with the haciendas. This hybrid between laborer

and peasant known as lessee started to disappear and thelaborer-boss relationship took unexpected turns. This is the

same tragedy narrated in the novel Todas las sangres [All

the Bloods]byJos Mara Arguedas, although the novel is

told in an Andean setting narrated with moving magic.


8/13

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31

april 2011

Cottons brief rule of perhaps 20-30

years generated irreversible changes

in the worker-boss relationship that

now add to the characteristics of solid

globalization

and plant. Within two weeks, thirty peasants began to clear

and fence off 300 manzanas (510 acres) of the peoples land,

dividing it into lots of ten manzanas (seventeen acres) each.

This strategy didnt work because, as Gould puts it, the

Somoza group also had economic interests in the profitable

introduction of machinery that would reduce and even

replace human labor. This explains the National Guards

participation in the repression of peasants. The invasion of

the Deshons property floundered in the face of jail and

extortion. To obtain their release from jail, on June 21,

1977, the peasants signed an agreement granting the

authorities the right to incarcerate them and the rest of

their colleagues should they continue with the invasion. By

then 98% of all cotton was grown in Chinandega and Len, to

the detriment of basic foods such as rice, whose production

in Chinandega dropped from 72% to 40% of national

production between 1963 and 1971.

The death of king cotton

Cotton suffered the same fate as Fermn, overthrown by

bigger fish. It could no longer compete with the growing use

of synthetic fibers and US cotton production, practiced on a

large scale with state subsidies. In 1957, the cotton boom

ship that now add to the characteristics of solid globalization:

uprootingthe rupture of the umbilical cord with the

haciendaand the icy and transient contractual relations

that replaced warm eternal godparent-based relationships

The arrival of peanuts

In liquid globalization, the tides did their work of abduction.

A globalizing high tide expelled the Chinandegan cotton

fields from the world markets, but the ancient lands of the

cacique Agateyte got pretty much back on track through the

cultivation of sugar cane and had started to prepare another

form of reinsertion.

In 1975, the Somoza government estimated that

Chinandega and Len had 132,900 hectares with peanut-

growing potential, although all were in the category of good

or marginal and none in the optimum range. But that

volume represented 35% of the surface area with agricultural

potential. These indicators revealed peanut cultivations

adaptability to the climatic and physical conditions of

Nicaraguas northwestern Pacific region and served as thestarting point for the peanut adventure. In the 1974-75

cycle, a total of 2,100 hectares of peanuts were sowed with a

yield of 24.5 hundredweight per hectare. That year, all

peanut growing was concentrated in the municipality of El

Viejo, which still heads peanut production, followed by

Chinandega, Villanueva, Somotillo, Posoltega and Puerto

Morazn.

From those historical 2,100 hectares of 1974, peanut

farming expanded its coverage almost without interruption

until it accounted for 15,400 hectares in 1981. It suffered a

decline in the eighties, dropping to 980 hectares in 1988,

after which it rose again, peaking at 38,579 hectares in 2008.

That year, it achieved a production of 139,266 tons, an exportvolume of 77,973 tons of shelled peanuts, representing 56%

of the tonnage of peanuts produced in Nicaragua. In other

words, 44 out of every 100 tons remain in Nicaragua, an

enormous part of which is peanut shells because all of the

suffered a serious setback when international prices

plummeted from $33.40 to $26.81 a hundredweight.

But cotton growers were sustained by the Somocista

state for years by means of preferential exchange rates and

generous extensions on their loan payment periods. According

to Gould, a combination of state and private initiatives

prevented the price decline from ruining the industry and

allowed the elite to maintain its control over land and labor.

The free market didnt get a look in.The cotton debacle was impossible to avoid, however.

Having peaked at 212,380 hectares in 1978, the snow-white

cotton carpet shrank. In the eighties, if we exclude the very

exceptional year of 1980 immediately following the

insurrection, cotton only covered an annual average of 83,960

hectares. This was then reduced by half and in 1992-93

experienced a drastic drop from 35,840 hectares to 2,510,

from which it never recovered. From there it only tended to

drag out, with its meager production mainly reserved for the

domestic market. Exhausted and poisoned by pesticides,

the soils of Chinandega and Len had little left to give. Yields

had fallen from an average of 22,322 hectograms per hectare

in 1971-79 to 20,963 in 1981-89 and 18,532 in 1991-99.Cotton production took up just a few linesone day it

will be nothing more than a footnotein Nicaraguas long-

term history. But its brief rule of perhaps 20-30 years

generated irreversible changes in the worker-boss relation-


9/13

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32

envo

NICARAGUA

productionshell and nutis weighed, even though

exporters only take the gleaming peeled seed.

Production peaked at 173,523 tons in 2005, a year in

which the 30,735 hectares cultivated yielded a record

productivity of 56,457 hectograms of peanut per hectare,

considerably higher than the 36,098 of 2008 and 2009.

However, even the latter figure leaves us close to the 38,242

of the United States, slightly above the 33,165 and 23,520

of China and Argentina, and far higher than Indias 9,208,

all peanut colossus countries. In 2001, peanuts already

contributed 13% of the value of agricultural exports. By

2009, the crops weight had increased to 18%, only exceeded

by coffee (44%) and sugar cane (27%).

In 2008 Nicaragua was the worlds sixth largest shelled

peanut exporter, behind only India, the United States, China,

Argentina and Holland. If Chinandega were a country, it

alone would be in sixth place, with almost 60,000 tons in the

world market, well ahead of Brazil, the seventh largest, which

only exports around 45,000 tons. Three out of every four

Nicaraguan peanuts are Chinandegan, while almost 10% of

Chinandegas cultivable area is covered in peanut plantations.

Our main buyer is Mexico, which so far this century has

accounted for half of Nicaraguas shelled peanuts. In 2009,

Mexico paid us $56.8 million for our exports, around a quarter

of which was for peanuts that it then bagged, labeled as

snacks and sold nationally or re-exported at enviable prices.

So Mexico buys our peanuts then re-sells us what are then its

peanuts at a great profit. In 2003, Nicaragua sold Mexico

over 19 million kilograms of peanuts and Mexico sold us just

over 19,000 kilograms. But the Nicaraguan peanuts were

sold at 0.70 cents a kilogram, while the Mexican ones cost

over twice as much at $1.62. The elitesunsurprisingly

would like a different deal, but they lack the guts to negotiate

it. Perhaps they should be sent to a Dale Carnegie type

course to learn that the secret lies in attitude.

A piece of the peanut pie, anyone?

The Nicaraguan elites are also part of the problem in another

sense. Although the agrarian reform of the 1980s upset the

agricultural ownership structure, their presence and options

are still determining. In 1971 there were 6,675 agricultural

exploitations in Chinandega, while 30 years later the

National Agricultural Census (CENAGRO) registered a total

of 11,546. The multiplication of farms was one of the effects

of the reform. The surface area of the farms appears to have

dropped from 319,207 to 318,513 hectares, although the

census didnt register the size of 308 of Chinandegas 11,546

farms.

In 1971, haciendas of over 350 hectares accounted for

61.3% of the cultivable area and just 2.1% of agricultural

properties. Thirty years later, this size range accounted for

just 35.9% of the land, with the under-7-hectare and 7-to-35

hectare ranges rising from 2.7% to 5% and 11.5% to 19.3% ofthe cultivable surface, respectively. At the same time as this

multiplication of small- and medium-sized properties,

however, there was also a preservation of or regression back

toward large properties.

It should be noted that while previously 2.1% of the

farms swallowed up 61.3% of the land, that same 2.1%a

total of 243 farms ranging from 223 hectares to over 350

hectaresnow hogs 46% of the land. While still a fair way

below the idyllic times of 61.3%, compensation for and the

return of expropriated properties have added up to such an

extent that they determine who has ended up with the

biggest slice of the peanut pie. The champions who ended

up with the peanut laurel wreaths are both scarce and refined.The fact is that the elites are like children who are tyrannical

at home but shy in public.

According to CENAGRO, only 92 of Chinandegas 11,546

farms grew peanuts in 2001, with 37% of the peanuts grown

Get a grip on your enthusiasm, peanut farmer

The reality these figures express has generated unbridled

optimism that should, in the best of cases, be reined in by

the eternal deflators of third-world triumphs: prices, brand

ownership, access to the pie and the generation of public ills

such as unemployment and labor instability.

Lets take a closer look at the issues of prices and brands.

In 2008, Nicaragua obtained $90 million for its peanuts,

while Australia obtained only 12 times less by exporting a

20th of the Nicaraguan volume. How can we such explainsuch disproportion? Quite simply, Australia sells with a brand

name and very presentable bags. Nicaragua sells in boxes,

wholesale and in an anonymity that isnt very lucrative.

Australia obtained $1,821 a ton; Nicaragua just $1,155.

Australia sells with a brand name and

very presentable bags. Nicaragua

sells in boxes, wholesale and in an

anonymity that isnt very lucrative.

Australia obtained $1,821 a ton;

Nicaragua just $1,155


10/13

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33

april 2011

on farms larger than 140 hectares and 66% on farms larger

than 35 hectares. The 19 biggest farms absorb 62% of the

total surface area dedicated to peanuts in the department.

Cotton farmers like Carlos Deshon Duquestrada became

peanut farmers. Cukra Industrial and COMASA are the two

largest peanut producing and exporting companies in

Nicaragua. The Cukra group was a pioneer in peanut

cultivation, starting up in Nicaragua three decades ago when

it was a branch of Chiquita Brands. In 1997 it was acquired

by four big producers and its board of directors only has

room for high-powered gentlemen: Alvaro Lacayo Robelo,

Farid El Azar Somarriba, Gustavo Argello Tern and

Ronaldo Lacayo Cardenal.

The plague of unemployment

The other problem is the displacement of labor. Lets look

at a comparison between sugar cane and peanuts, products

that together account for over a fifth of agricultural

Chinandega. Lets take the case of the San Antonio sugar

refinery, easily the most prosperous, oldest and most

enormous agricultural company in the department. Its

largest hacienda in Chinandega covers 15,250 hectares,

10,676 of which are dedicated to cane cultivation. In the

year of the agricultural census, it hired 700 full-time workers

and 4,200 temporary ones for agricultural labor. Sugar cane

has a high demand for seasonal work, so the refinery employs

six temporary workers for each full-time one. In other words

the seasonal work added 600% more workers. On average,

each worker can take on 1.8 hectares.

Now lets take a look at the biggest peanut hacienda in

Chinandega: a farm covering 560 hectares, 660 of which were

used to grow peanuts. It employed just 50 full-time workersand 30 temporary ones. In other words, the seasonal work

added only 60% more workers10 times less than sugar

caneto the workforce. To the pride of the foremen and

peanut owners, each worker took on an average of nearly 7

hectares, which is 3.8 times the hectare-per-worker yield of

sugar cane cultivation.

The panorama is no more encouraging for the other

crops. Of the 11,546 production units in Chinandega, 5,735

hired an average of 1.5 full-time workers and 7 temporary

workers. If we add an average of 3 workers from each

household, this gives us 11.5 workers per farm. Remember

that in 1971, after the drop in employment due to the effects

of cotton cultivation, we were talking about 19 workers per

employer. The fragmentation of farms has its effect on that

indicator: the smaller the production unit the fewer hired

employees. But the 2001 calculation has an advantage

because it includes family labor, which was not mentioned

and perhaps not included in the 1971 calculation.

Lets assume that each farm corresponds to a single

owner, a false supposition that adds another advantage to

the situation in 2001, due to the currently large number of

farms. Well also exclude from this calculation the range of

farms that cover less than 7 hectares, which in 2001 almost

exactly coincided with the 5,501 farms that that didnt hire

any labor. So in 1971 the 3,028 farms of 7 or more hectares

gave jobs to 57,532 farmhands, while in 2001 the total

number of employees had risen by 24,495 to a total of 82,027

(8,756 full-time, 40,508 temporary and 32,763 from the

owners household). This is an increase of 42.6% for a rural

population that increased by 80% in the same 30-year period.

Poor with no rich to exploit them

There are many considerations that can aid an educated guessthat the disproportion is worse than these cold numbers

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Land Tenure Structure in Chinandega in 1971 and 2001(by strata of farms)

Stratum

Less than 7 hectares

From 7 to 35From 35.01 to 350

More than 350

Situation in 1971 Situation in 2001

Farms

3,647

2,092794

192

% of Farms

54.6

31.312

21

Area

12,230

52.669111,781

279.331

% of Area

2.7

11.524.5

61.3

Farms

5,822

4,0041.280

130

51.8

35.611.4

1.2

% of Farms Area

22,909

88.162181,237

163.411

% of Area

5.0

19.339.8

35.9

Source: Authors calculations based on studies of CIERA 1980 and CENAGRO 2001


11/13

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34

envo

NICARAGUA

A brilliant sixth place in the top ten of

international peanut growers may

seem like insurance against crises, but

in fact amounts to a crisis in itself

reflect: full-time jobs are now more buffeted by rotation

(still full time, but not permanent), the temporariness is

reduced to ever shorter periods, and the self-employed (the

32,763 household members working on their own farms) are

person and hectaretranslates into the tragedy of

unemployment: a technical triumph expressed as an ethical

and political failure. Technological advances do not expand

leisure: they displace labor, making life itself superfluous.

In the unpolluted world of development plans and

grandiloquent slogans, peanuts are one of the panaceas for

sitting gracefully in the great parlors of globalization. A

brilliant sixth place in the top ten of international peanut

growers may seem like insurance against crises, but in fact

amounts to a crisis in itself.

In practice, not even cornucopias overflowing with

peanuts or those who lavish praise on other exportable

delicacies can avoid the indissoluble Schumpeterian

dichotomy of creative destruction. In the case in hand,

creative insertion into the market and the application of

technology that maximizes yields per person and area

translate into the destruction of employment. This

dichotomy is updated in the exercise of the centripetal and

centrifugal forces of globalization: centrifugal because of the

expulsion of workers and centripetal because of the pull

toward big global cities or toward small villages from which

those (Salvadorans, Guatemalans) currently in the large cities

set off.

Lenin and Kautsky got it wrong

Lenin might accuse us of economic romanticism for lamenting

the decline of agricultural employment. In this field, he

agreed with his adversary, the renegade Kautsky, a Marxist

theorist who in On the Agrarian Question attacked the

proposal to limit the use of mechanical threshers so as not to

expel labor, given that this conservative friendship for the

labourers is nothing more nor less than reactionaryutopianism. The threshing-machine is of too great an

immediate advantage for the landlord to be induced to

abandon its use for the sake of profits in the future. And so,

the thresher will continue to perform its revolutionary work;

it will continue to drive the agricultural labourers into the

towns, and as a result will become a powerful instrument for

the raising of wages in the rural districts, on the one hand,

and for the further development of the agricultural machine

industry, on the other.

Kautsky calculated that elements of cultural attraction

added to these forces of economic expulsion. He argued that

the more capital development progressed, the more

accentuated the cultural difference between the city and thecountryside became, and the greater the countrysides

backwardness with respect to the city, the greater the

enjoyment and distractions the city offered compared to the

countryside. Like Lenin, Kautsky had an optimistic vision

underemployed and have to complement their annual income

by going to El Salvador, Costa Rica and Guatemala.

A first attempt to spontaneously balance this

imbalance was in the form of rural-urban migration, followed

by emigration from Nicaragua to Central American countries,

or even to the other side of the Atlantic. Gould told us about

the land struggles that impregnated the conflicts of the

seventies, but there were simultaneous struggles over both

wages and working conditions. The current struggles

simply for workare flatter and embody the cynical saying

repeated by businesspeople at the drinking table: The worst

thing that can happen to poor people is not having rich people

to exploit them.

The peanut triumph

and employment failure

Chinandega appears to be both triumphant and a failure,

harvesting peanuts but also unemployment. The peanuts

are a snack to better swallow the myth of progress againstwhich political philosopher John Gray alerts us: Secular

societies are ruled by repressed religion. Screened off from

conscious awareness, the religious impulse has mutated,

returning as the fantasy of salvation through politics, or

now that faith in politics is decidedly shakythrough a cult

of science and technology. The grandiose political projects of

the 20th century may have ended in tragedy or farce, but

most people cling to the hope that science can succeed where

politics has failed; humanity can build a world better than

any that has existed in the past. They believe this not from

real conviction but from fear of the void that looms if the

hope of a better future is given up. Belief in progress is the

Prozac of the thinking classes.For Gray, progress is an ethical and political superstition.

What has been gained at a certain moment can also be lost,

and over time surely will be. Or in our particular case, what

is experienced as an advance on one levelproductivity per


12/13

CLOSE-UP

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35

april 2011

In Chinandega there was noappearance of either increased wages

or the great developments in

agricultural mechanization promised

by the myth of progress

of the migration from countryside to city and the citys

attracting force. Kautsky believed waged workers would

have greater employment possibilities in the city than in

the countryside, could more easily form their own family

and could enjoy greater freedoms and more civilized living

conditions. The bigger the city, he stated, the greater these

advantages and thus the greater its force of attraction.

But in Chinandega there was no appearance of either

increased wages or the great developments in agricultural

mechanization promised by the myth of progress that

dogmatic Marxists have believed in as much as, if not more

than, capitalists (Lenin once said that the soviet was

communism plus electricity). What actually materialized

was pure, hard unemployment. In the inter-census period of

1995-2005, Chinandega became a little bit more urban, with

the urban population rising from 58% to 59.7%. Considering

that the rural population only grew by 624 inhabitants per

year, partly as a result of migration to the city, we might have

expected a greater urbanization rate, if only to comply with

the predictions of forecasters and demographers for 21st-

century Nicaragua and Kautz and Lenins suppositions

regarding the attraction of cities. But the population of urban

Chinandega grew by only 1% a year.

And this had nothing to do with the use of condoms.

Despite the cost in lives and forced displacements of first

the 1978-79 insurrection and second the US-financed war of

the eighties, Chinandegas urban population grew by 5.8% a

year between 1977 and 1995, a case in which the theories of

Kautsky and Lenin did apply. Given this rate, the 1% annual

growth between 1995 and 2005and even more, the meager

0.4% growth of the rural populationappears to be a wonder

of population control that would make Chinandega an

emblematic case for the United Nations Population Fund,the only case in Central America of advanced demographic

transition, placing Chinandega alongside Chile, Argentina

and Uruguay.

But this most efficient population control is the result

of migration, not of the dissemination of contraceptives, sexual

education, prevention of teen pregnancy, reduction of the

reproductive period, or, fortunately, homicides. And of course,

this form of control only applies to the places from which the

emigrants departed, because a reduction in one place leads

to an increase in another.

Why are they going if this governmentsgoing to make things better?

All of the dynamics that we have analyzed, stressing the

centrifugal forces, are structural in nature and weigh much

more than politicians fleeting promises. Regardless of the

prevailing government administration, its unscrupulous

promising of things it has never even dreamed of providing

or its rhetorical ability to dissimulate the lie and dress up

theft as achievement, migration always renews itself through

new recruits.

Over 50% of the migrants whose data was collected by

the SJM 2010 left the country between 2005 and 2010, with

90% leaving in the last 15 years and 70% in the last 10. The

migration is relatively new and a growing number of people

are added each year. The Living Standards Measurement

Survey (EMNV 2005) also registered an overwhelming

presence of fresh migration, showing that over 56% had left

in the five years previous to the surveys application (2000

to 2005), a figure that was 78% between 1995 and 2005.

From whichever angle they are viewed, these figures

show migration continuing in an ascending line that refutes

statements like the one made by Ronaldo Chvez, one of the

FSLNs alternates in the Chinandega municipal government:

Migration has been dropping as this government has been

building liaisons with the other neighboring countries. The

figures also give the lie to the even more overwhelmingcertainties of Argentina Gaitn, the FSLNs municipal

political secretary in Chinandega: It is my belief that

starting in 2007 and 2008 the migrant rate has been falling

considerably, as weve been working to generate employment.

And as you and we must know, Chinandega is a department

that has income, thats creating businesses, micro-businesses,

but thats also prospering with the support this government

is providing to many women through loans in the Zero Usury

program and through the solidarity production bond, all of

which is generating a migratory containment. Because if

they give me a cow and a chicken to rear in my house so I can

push ahead, it means that as a woman I have that benefit, so

I wont go, and of course my husband wont go either. Now,with the Zero Usury program, in which we give loans to

women, I can also create my own micro-business and start to

work. That also generates migratory containment.


13/13

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36

envo

NICARAGUA

This party-based optimism is an example of the myopic

vision concentrated in liquid globalization and its short-term

changes, including agreements in the framework of the

Central American Integration System (SICA); commercial

exchanges with Venezuela; and programs that distribute

cows, hens and seeds that last about as long as a candy at the

school gatesone or two government administrations at best.

These perceptions are based on focusing ones view on a single

point.

Our country offers us no way to improve

The politicians and those who swallow their conceited

optimism look at the country through an ideological prism

that distorts the facts. But the existence of this perception

is not without its value as a sociological input. The illusion

of a Nicaragua going full steam aheadwhether to insert

itself into the global markets, as the Bolaos administration

promised, or towards a Christian, socialist and solidarity-

based future, as proclaimed by FSLN slogansexplains the

absence of specific migratory policies and the sluggishness of

consular protection.

Globalized, Chinandega style

With threads tauter and longer-lasting than those of business

networks and mergers, clusters and regional free trade

agreements, these survival strategies through transhumance

are weaving solid globalization, whose macro and micro

expressions through the effects of remittances we will

analyze in a coming article. Over 30% of Chinandegans left

the City of Oranges, were expelled from the cotton fields,

fled the bad pay of the sooty cane fields and refused to bow to

impotence when the peanut fields turned their backs on

them. They are constructing globalization their own way.

It remains to be seen how they reinserted themselves

into dynamics with a global reach and also helped their

relatives do so. The employee/employer and farm/farmhand

dichotomies have been replaced by contractor/laborer

dichotomies that lack the solidity of their predecessors.Contracts are like one-day blooms, bosses are intangible

corporate conglomerates and flexibilization evaporates the

rules of the game. The volatility of these institutions makes

them ideal for evading the rebellious struggles of the old

way. The business/employer is a category that maintains its

economic weight, but its socio-political protagonism has been

claimed by other structures and dynamics. The world of

work has been knocked off its pedestal by the world of

consumption. Well take a closer look at all of this in the

continuation of this analysis of the migration of Chinan-

degans.

Jos Luis Rocha is a researcher for the Jesuit Service for

Migrants of Central America (SJM) and a member of the

envoeditorial council.

Laziness and non-independent brains that just process

party slogans are as much to blame for the suffering of

migrants as the opportunism of officials looking for bribes

and the criminals who kidnap them. The words of Jenny

Serrano, whose brother lives in Miami, help plant our feet

firmly back on Chinandegas sun-baked ground: The truth

is that people who are poor and dream of being and doing

something better in this life have to emigrate. Because

unfortunately our country doesnt offer them that something,

and if it does, its only to certain people, a very small group,

shutting the doors on many young people with or withoutqualifications.

With or without Zero Usury, as Lesbia Ramrez explained,

the indebtedness that follows on from a lack of opportunities

and unfortunate events is a frequent motivation for

migrating: I went because I was in debt. A friend of mine

had lent me money to work. I was only able to pay it because

my daughter helped me later. The money was from a friend

who lives in the States and had lent it to me and I didnt

want to fall out with her over it because it made me feel

ashamed. I traveled to Panama as a trader and ended up

with a problem. They gave me merchandise that wasnt

what Id asked for. They were flip-flops and they gave me

another style. That merchandise was awful and I losteverything: twelve dozen pairs of flip-flops and other products.

I lost nearly $700, which was money I owed. So I got

desperate and went to Costa Rica to work and save and be

able to pay my friend back.

Todays contractor/laborer dichotomies

lack the solidity of their employer/

employee or farm/farmhand

predecessors. Labor contracts are

like one-day blooms, bosses are

intangible corporate conglomerates

and flexibilization evaporates the rules

of the game

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