Format:
1 online resource (219 pages)
ISBN:
9781442220690
Content:
In this unexpected story of a financial bubble and collapse, David Stoll puts a compelling human face on the global economic crisis. Tracing the desperate plight of Latin Americans moving north in search of higher wages, he shows how for the Mayas of Nebaj, an indigenous town in Guatemala that is running out of land, the biggest challenge is finding employment for their youth. The Nebajenses have tried to solve that problem by using U.S. development aid funds to smuggle themselves to the United States and earn enough to support their families back home. As their experience shows, migration streams to the United States have become a pyramid scheme in which migrants recoup their losses by transferring risk, and with it the increasing likelihood of losing everything they own, to their relatives and neighbors. Ever-deepening debt, Stoll convincingly argues, is the powerful engine driving undocumented migration to the United States.
Content:
Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- Part I: The American Dream Comes to the Cuchumatanes -- Chapter 1: Great Expectations in a Guatemalan Town -- Chapter 2: A Town of Many Projects -- Chapter 3: Nebaj Goes North -- Chapter 4: Indenture Travel -- Part II: The Nebaj Bubble and How It Burst -- Chapter 5: Borrowers, Moneylenders, and Banks -- Chapter 6: Projects and Their Penumbra-Swindles -- Chapter 7: Losing Husbands to El Norte -- Part III: Comparisons and Extrapolations -- Chapter 8: Dreams and Pyramid Schemes -- Chapter 9: The Right to Not Migrate -- Notes -- Bibliography.
Note:
Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources
Additional Edition:
ISBN 9781442220683
Additional Edition:
Erscheint auch als Druck-Ausgabe ISBN 9781442220683
Language:
English
