Teaching Geography Workshop 2: Latin America – Part 1: Guatemala

JIM BINKO: In this program, we see the powerful connection between geography as a field of study and some of the teaching processes and techniques that make geography come alive to students.

In our case study, we focus on Latin America--specifically, the country of Guatemala. Like so many of its neighbors, Guatemala has a history of political instability and cultural oppression. It is this turbulent past that historical geographer George Lovell must study in order to make sense of Guatemala's present-day struggles. As you watch the case study, keep our objectives in mind. We want to be able to explain the relationship between migration and cultural conflict.

This relationship is illustrated in: Standard 4: The Physical and Human Characteristics of Places and Standard 9: The Characteristics, Distribution, and Migration of Human Populations on Earth’s Surface.

Both standards address the changes that occur in a land and its people. For example, we will see that the indigenous Maya population has, in the past, experienced collapse, but is now growing very rapidly. At the same time, farmland has become scarce, forcing people to leave their highland homes in search of work in the cities.

As you watch the video, look for the factors associated with such rural to urban migration, as well as transnational migration. And finally, watch for the tools used by geographers to understand where people live and why. Later, in our classroom segment, seventh-grade teacher Randy Hoover focuses on Mexico, another Latin American country, to help his students answer the inquiry question: Why do people migrate?

NARRATOR: In the highlands of Guatemala, weary Maya Indians welcome a truce following the peace accords of 1996. A victim of the violence was Magdalena Gonzales, who lives in this house compound with her surviving grandchildren and their families. The pipes that carry this water to the village were an innovation brought by her son. He also led efforts to build a road and a school and a church.

(\speaking local language\)

TRANSLATOR: Wanting those kinds of things made him suspicious in the eyes of certain people. It caused rumors to go around that he's only doing that good work because he's a member of the guerrilla organization.

NARRATOR: The organization was Catholic Action. His son, Diego, was too young to remember his father and grandfather when paramilitaries entered his compound in 1982. They beat, bound and took away first his grandfather and then his father.

(\speaking local language\)

TRANSLATOR: I heard a shot, and I knew my son was dead.

NARRATOR: Ten years later, a human rights group exhumed 12 bodies at this site, among them, Doña Magdalena's son.

(\Magdalena shouting\)

(\wailing\)

NARRATOR: Diego, in the center, watched as scientists revealed the crushing blow to his father's head. Now, 20 years after the murders, Diego has grown up and moved to Guatemala City. His farm can no longer support him. He now sells fruit for five dollars a day. Tens of thousands of other Maya have migrated here, too. Rural-to-urban migration is a key regional feature in Latin America. Diego's siblings face the same problems.

“Poquito nos tocó a cada uno y por eso que cada uno...”

TRANSLATOR: Since we each got very little land, each one has to move wherever they can to support one's family. That is why we are scattered all over the place.

NARRATOR: The same forces that push Indians out of the highlands also led to the violence. What are those forces, and what are the prospects for change? The future for these children will grow out of Guatemala's troubled past. For a historical geographer, the past is fertile ground. George Lovell is researching patterns in both time and space to explain the collapse--and now the explosion--of Maya population.

After the conquest in the 16th century, the Spaniards had little interest in highland resources. They saw something in the hills more valuable than land. It was labor. The Spaniards saved Mayas' souls and forced their bodies to work silver mines and lowland plantations.

LOVELL: To supply them with ready pools of labor, Spaniards forced Maya Indians to build and to live in compact towns like this...

NARRATOR: And this...and this. The new settlements, called “congregaciones”, were laid out in classic Spanish-American grids and located in valleys. The dense urban settlement pattern helped decimate Maya population. The conquistadors brought from Europe a host of exotic diseases, like smallpox. The close living quarters and poor sanitation just accelerated the devastating illness.

Lovell estimates that the Guatemala Maya numbered two million before the Conquest and fell to 128,000 by 1625. It was part of the largest population collapse in human history, but when the Spanish Empire itself collapsed here, many Indians left the congregaciones to return to their age-old pattern of dispersed rural settlement. Gradually, their numbers, too, rebounded, to the point where many now fear a dangerous population explosion. George Lovell wants to know why.

The year 2000, and Doña Magdalena is now 92. With Diego now working in Guatemala City, she relies on one of her other grandsons, Paulino, still living in the compound.

George Lovell visits the Gonzales farm to see if growth of their family provides insights into the larger Maya society. Why did Diego have to leave? Why can't the land support the whole family? Harvests of corn have sustained life here for thousands of years. The size of Maya population was limited largely by the size of the corn harvest. The land has been good to the Gonzales family. Doña Magdalena now has 24 great-grandchildren. She has just divided the land into separate plots for her six grandchildren. But are the plots big enough for each family?

“Aquí es... ya empieza el de Diego Ezequiel...”

LOVELL (\translating\): This is the boundary marker between my land, which lies behind me, here, and over here, in front of me, is my brother Diego's land. You can see just how narrow the strip of land is.

NARRATOR: Paulino draws a simple map to show the layout. Doña Magdalena's husband once farmed five acres. Then it supported 11 people. Now it has to support over 30. How do they do it?

“Lo más que nos aguanta es hasta agosto...”

TRANSLATOR: We harvest our corn in January and in a good year, our corn can last all of the family--all nine of us--until August. If the corn runs out before August, what that means is we'll just have to start working to get money to buy the corn earlier.

NARRATOR: Like millions of other Maya, Paulino has to find other work for a good part of the year. That's why his brother, Diego, now lives in the city. He migrates seasonally for temporary employment. But are there really too many Maya for the land? Maybe the problem is the way the land is used.

George Lovell heads off to study the dominant industry of the highlands. Traditionally, it is marked by tall trees shading low shrubs like this. This is a coffee finca. Lovell talks to the workers and asks them how much they make.

¿cuánto pagan quetzales por diario?

“Eh, por... por día...más o menos,

TRANSLATOR: Only eight quetzales and 20 cents.

NARRATOR: Eight quetzales: $1.50 a day, is a meager wage by any standard. It is common across Guatemala. On coffee plantations like this, Lovell finds the geographic root of the violence and the migration. By the mid-1960s, just three percent of Guatemala's farmers controlled two-thirds of the arable land. At higher elevations, they grow coffee. On the hot coastal plain, they grow bananas and sugar cane like this. Most are cash crops for export. Very little money returns to the Maya, who support an exploding population on the small remaining land. Squalid housing, impoverishing wages and little land of their own led many Indians to want to better their situation, and with that desire came conflict. In a new millennium, the guns are quiet, for now. But the underlying problems remain. The Maya don't have enough land to support themselves, and there is little industrial growth to take up the slack. Guatemala's population will depend on its children, who will soon reach child-bearing age. Will their culture and economy change to encourage family planning? Will they have access to birth control? At current rates, the country's population will now double in just 24 years, compared with 120 years for the U.S. So as geographer George Lovell ponders the outlook for Doña Magdalena's great-grandchildren, he can only hope for a change in the balance of people to the land that supports them.

GIL LATZ: The challenges facing Guatemala, and much of Latin America, are linked by two important geographic issues: migration and cultural conflict. The people of Mexico and Central America often migrate. Why is it that they are compelled to move? For many, the reasons are economic "pull" factors. Maquiladora plants built near Mexico's border with the U.S. attract workers from across Mexico. Giant Mexico City is like a magnet pulling people out of the surrounding countryside.

There are also "push" factors that drive people away from their homes to other places, such as inadequate food or lack of employment. Another common "push" factor in Central America is cultural and social conflict--often over land use and ownership--such as we saw in the Guatemala case study. Geographers create and use maps, pursue on-site field work and conduct interviews to analyze social, economic and cultural conflicts, such as those experienced by the Mayan people in Guatemala, and in the Chiapas region of Mexico. As we look forward, political stability and economic progress will depend on how governments in this region address the current inequity in the distribution of land and many other resources.

SUSAN HARDWICK: In human geography, we look at geographic processes as they occur around the entire world. When we examine the process of migration, two things stand out. First, the rural-to-urban migration pattern we see in Guatemala can be found in nearly every region of the world.

Second, transnational migration--people moving across national borders--is now occurring at a higher rate than ever before. In South Asian cities like Delhi, the promise of jobs pulls people in from the surrounding countryside, creating crushing pressure on the city's infrastructure. Halfway around the globe in Mexico City, a flood of migrants from rural parts of Mexico have made this sprawling city one of the three largest metropolitan areas in the world. In major cities throughout the developing world, this is a familiar in-migration pattern.

We see a very different pattern when we look at migration of people across national borders. In the "new" Europe, where people can easily cross national borders using their standardized EU passport, the ease of migration has created a shifting sea of ethnic and national identities.

The immigrant author Salman Rushdie recently called the 20th century the "century of the immigrant." The skyrocketing rate of migration can seem a daunting challenge. Push factors-- economic, social or political conditions that push people out of their homes--shed a negative cast on migration. But we should remember that the pull factors that motivate and energize migration--job opportunities, political freedom and social mobility--represent hope for rich and poor migrants alike, and perhaps a chance to realize their dreams for a better future.

BINKO: The story of Guatemala is a compelling and especially moving example of the impact of human settlement, distribution and migration. But other Latin American nations can provide valuable comparative case studies. Our teacher, Randy Hoover, chooses to focus on Mexico, a regional neighbor also dealing with migrating populations.

As his seventh graders organize and analyze their data, notice the masterful way Randy utilizes inquiry-based teaching to bring his students to true understanding of push-pull factors and other forces influencing migration. As you watch, note Randy's use of group investigations to engage students in developing geographic perspectives. Be thinking also about how you might apply the inquiry process in your own classroom.

NARRATOR: Randy Hoover teaches seventh-grade world geography at Dover-Sherborn Middle School in Massachusetts. Today his class investigates Mexico and issues of migration.

HOOVER: Okay, our basic question that we're researching here is, why do people migrate? And specifically, we're focusing on Mexico.

NARRATOR: Randy posts the inquiry process that students will follow. This keeps them oriented to overall lesson goals.

HOOVER: So we're going to go into groups and you're going to figure out how to organize the information that you have. By presenting it to the class, you're going to be telling us your analysis. What conclusions did you come to? What patterns did you see? Things like that. And then tonight we'll follow up by having you basically answer this question, "Why do people migrate?" in the form of a writing assignment.

Before we go into groups, why don't we just kind of review what we know to this point.

NARRATOR: Today's class is the second day of a two-part lesson on Mexico. Now Randy tosses out a few questions in order to review the information they acquired yesterday in the research phase. What are some of the reasons that people migrate? What do we know at this point? People migrate to the border of Mexico and the United States because of maquiladoras.

HOOVER: What are maquiladoras? They're factories that are along the border that, um, manufacture products for the United States. So the answer, then, they're going to maquiladoras for what reason? To make money and work and stuff.