Money Order Economy - Remittances in the Island of Utila

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

RIVERSIDE

Money Order Economy: Remittances in the

Island of Utila

A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction

of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Anthropology

David George Lord

December, 1975

Dissertation Committee:

Professor Eugene N. Anderson, Jr., Chairman

Professor Alan R. Beals

Professor Michael Kearney

David George Lord

1975

The dissertation of David George Lord is approved:

Committee Chairman

University of California, Riverside

December, 1975

Acknowledgements

I first became acquainted with the Bay Islands of Honduras while doing field research in a British Honduran fishing village in the summer of 1966. Sacasa Gough, a good friend and informant in Ambergris Caye, interested me in his home island of Roatan. Subsequently, I spent four months in 1972 surveying various sites throughout the Bay Islands as future research areas. Utila seemed especially suited to investigating a number of economic phenomena, and research was conducted there during September and October, 1973; and January through May, 1974, while I was on academic leave of absence from California State Polytechnic University.

Information employed in this study includes both quantitative and qualitative data obtained from a wide variety of sources through a variety of collection techniques. A major portion of the qualitative data were gathered via participant observation in the island where I lived first as a single male in a boarding house, and subsequently as a householder and family head in my own dwelling. I spent nearly five months of the research period as a secondary school teacher at the Methodist parochial "college," thus giving both my wife and myself a definite position within the community.

Data for Chapter II on historical background have been derived from literary sources and from many "old heads"--the elder generation of Utilians, aged 70 and up--who provided information on the island's past. Among those to whom I am indebted for their assistance in my study are Rev. F. Gideon Cooper, Mr. Edward Senhouse Rose, Mrs. Sarah Ann Bodden (all octogenarians), Mr. L. Dempsey Thompson, and approximately twenty other sometime informants who gave valuable information through life histories and open-ended interviews. In order to preserve their privacy, pseudonyms have been used except where such disguise would clearly be useless (e.g., Miss Hester, Chief of Police in Utila). To all of these people I tender a sincere thanks not only for the necessary temporal perspective of Chapter II, but also for the substance of Chapters IV, V, and VI.

Thanks are also extended to my colleagues Dr. Joan Greenway and Dr. Thomas Blackburn at California State Polytechnic University for their encouragement and criticisms in bringing this study to completion. Dr. Robert Thorne of Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Gardens, Claremont, gave the invaluable identification of plant materials referenced in Chapter III.

To the members of my committee I am deeply indebted for the guidance and nurturance they provided throughout the preparation of this study. I am especially grateful to Dr. Eugene Anderson, Jr., who was involved in every facet of the study and unselfishly gave an inordinate amount of time and energy to the project.

Finally, to my wife and helpmate Judith Bogdanoff-Lord, my daughter Christina, and to my parents, I gratefully acknowledge the tremendous support they have given me throughout the

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research and writing of this study. To them and to the people of Utila this is lovingly dedicated.

ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

Money Order Economy: Remittances in the

Island of Utila

David George Lord

Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Anthropology

University of California, Riverside, December 1975

Professor Eugene N. Anderson, Jr., Chairman

Utila, one of the Bay Islands off the north coast of Honduras, is representative of many societies throughout the world; it is an economically dependent society supported largely or entirely by remittance monies. Remittances, funds sent home by people who have emigrated or are sojourning out of country, have given rise to a sociocultural system resting heavily on traditional aspects of Utilian society and culture.

The contemporary interface between economy, society and polity shows that Utila was preadapted to requirements of a remittance style economy. Such things as the traditional importance of the nuclear family as the production and consumption unit, and a heritage of maritime activity in shipping and fishing are just two preadaptive features. Underlying these and other preadaptations were the extremely important orientations of individualism, commercialism, consumerism, and community atomism or non-cooperation.

Utila's remittance economy depends on males serving in United States or Scandinavian merchant marines, and therefore being absent for nine or ten months of every year. On the one

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hand, therefore, individualism fosters the independent action needed in shipping out and selling one's skills and labor. On the other hand, individualism allows continued nuclear family functioning even in the absence of males. Commercialism and community atomism have allowed loose social and political organization that easily accommodate male absenteeism. Finally, consumerism provides the impetus to continue in the remittance economy in order to acquire the various symbols of the good life such as land, a private dwelling, nice clothes and furniture, and so on.

Beyond consumerism men on leave are indulged in their heavy drinking and partying behavior; laws and social norms are not strictly enforced if they are breached by the men, and women generally tend to pamper male whims in order to make their stay at home enjoyable. This "rest and recreation" atmosphere in the island provides encouragement for men to participate in the remittance economy throughout their productive years (generally from age 18 to 55). Such an atmosphere serves as an intermediary reward for men until they can retire and reap the full benefits of the remittance system. Women and other stay-at-home islanders benefit from providing a relaxed environment through the continued flow of money into the island.

Social organization itself helps to perpetuate the remittance economy by providing motivation either to maintain the status quo by white Utilians, to try to move within the various social strata by "Spaniards," or to change social organization by Utila's colored population. In each case it is money, and what can be accomplished with money, that islanders believe would affect social organization; only through the remittance system could funds be obtained.

The underlying orientations noted above originally combined with an image of limited good (i.e., of diminishing opportunities for the good life) that arose during times of economic recession and depression. Assessing their social and economic condition from the resulting perspective, Utilians opted for a remittance economy when that opportunity arose at the start of the Second World War.

The option for a remittance economy was, and continues to be, the most logical and viable economic alternative open to islanders. Support for the remittance economy has subsequently derived both from the traditional society and culture, and from the new benefits accruing to those who participate in the overall remittance system. Ultimately, a system such as Utila's may prove to answer the needs of many underdeveloped countries throughout the world.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Acknowledgements iv

Abstract vi

I. INTRODUCTION 1

Economic Studies in the Caribbean 3

Remittances and Economic Studies in the Caribbean 5 Migration and Characteristics of a Remittance Economy 7

Specific Aims of the Study 16

II. PREADAPTATIONS FOR A REMITTANCE ECONOMY: HISTORICAL FACTORS 19

Presettlement 20

The Agricultural Phase 28

The Remittance Phase 36

Analysis 39

III. PREADAPTATIONS FOR A REMITTANCE ECONOMY: THE

PHYSICAL SETTING AND ITS LIMITATIONS 42

Department of the Bay Islands 42

Utila's Maritime Setting and Shoreline 43

Geology 47

Topography 48

Hydrography 49

Climate 51

Flora and Fauna 54

Conclusions 57

IV. REMITTANCE SYSTEM INTERRELATIONSHIPS: ECONOMICS 59

The Agricultural Phase: 1836-1941 61

Production and Consumption Bases 61

Trade 66

Land Ownership and Utilization 69

The Distribution of Wealth 74

Migration 76

The Remittance Phase: 1941 to Date 78

Production and Consumption Patterns 78

Land Ownership and Utilization 86

Page

Migration 92

Analysis 97

V. REMITTANCE SYSTEM INTERRELATIONSHIPS: SOCIAL

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ORGANIZATION 103

Stratification 105

Social Groupings 119

Religious Groups 120

Educational Groups 126

Economic Groups 129

Residential Groups 131

Informal Groups 139

Status and Role 141

Analysis 154

VI. REMITTANCE SYSTEM INTERRELATIONSHIPS: POLITICAL

ORGANIZATION 159

Local Level Politics 160

Utila's Larger Political Involvements 169

Analysis 177

VII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 180

Economic Studies in the Caribbean 181

The Interface between Economy, Society, and Polity 187

Contributions of the Study 199

REFERENCES 201

APPENDICES 207

LIST OF TABLES

1. Chronology of Events Important in Utila s History 21

2. Summary of Meteorological Data, The Bay Islands 52

3. Utilian-Owned Ships During the Fruit Boom 67

4. Per Capita Income Figures from Central America and the Caribbean 83

5. Visas Issued by the United States Embassy, Tegucigalpa 95

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

In the following pages a remittance economy--that of Utila--will be described in detail and hypotheses will be developed concerning the remittance economy as a type. Hypotheses will also be developed concerning the impact of Utila's remittance economy on the nature and structure of the local community.

Unlike many remittance economies, Utila's does not arise primarily from islander emigration to another geographical area, whether elsewhere in Honduras or to a foreign country. I am not, therefore, as one example, concerned with problems of assimilation or acculturation as are other students of remittance systems. Utilian males, upon whom the greatest burden of the remittance system falls, emigrate only in the sense of going away from the island. As merchant mariners, they are not subjected to a foreign culture (as urban migrants could be) that lures them permanently from their home. Their absence could be characterized as migratory labor--in the strictest sense--and yet Utila is much more than just a home base from which workers operate. Utila represents, in fact, an accommodation to limited local opportunities, and the forging of a viable economy and lifestyle

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from the merchants marine and remittances.

A primary focus of my investigation is, of course, the remittance aspect of Utila's economy, but this is not just an economic study per se. Rather, it is a close examination of the interface between economy, society, and polity in order to see how Utila continues to persist with such apparent facility. Just as importantly, that interface should have both predictive and postdictive value showing where similar systems might appear in the future and why they were likely to have developed in the first place.

In addition to investigating the phenomenon of remittance economics, and all that it entails, this study is also offered as a work that contributes insights into small community structure and functioning, island dwellers with their maritime background, and English-speaking peoples in a part of the Caribbean culture area that is politically attached to Central America.

I will let descriptive material in the succeeding pages carry the weight of how this study sheds light on small, island communities of English-speaking peoples in the Caribbean. The relevance to economic studies in general, and to remittance systems specifically, merits particular attention.

In the overview of economic studies in the Caribbean, immediately following, several general areas of investigation are enumerated which relate directly to findings in Utila but do not adequately explain systems such as Utila's. In the generalizations no reference is made to the actual mechanisms used by people like the Utilians to either develop or cope with their dependent economic status. The general areas are therefore refined in this study by emphasizing the importance of remittances and migration--dual aspects of a single phenomenon--to a dependent condition wherever it appears. Subsequently, the remittance economy is shown to be a strong, positive factor in the continuance not only of Utilian society but of other sociocultural systems in Asia, Africa, Europe and throughout the world.

Economic Studies in the Caribbean

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Adlith Brown and Havelock Brewster have recently surveyed the study of economics in the English-speaking Caribbean (1974). The result of their investigation is the observation that economic discussion has generally revolved around considerations of size and dependency, with the result that a number of hypotheses deriving from these two factors--hypotheses remaining largely untested--stand out in economic investigations. According to them (1974:52-53), the hypotheses deriving from various studies are:

First, that the level of economic activity is externally determined, and is outside the control of national decision-centres, public or private. Production, consumption and investment depend directly or indirectly on exogenous factors.

They then go on to say in the article

that consumption patterns, diverging widely and increasingly from production patterns as they do, provide the basis for continuing technological, and therefore economic dependency. Fifth, that the level of domestic saving is determined more by institutional characteristics, such as the value system, the distribution of income and the ownership pattern of the surplus than by the average size of disposable incomes.

In concluding their survey and inventory of the hypotheses coming from economic studies in the Caribbean, Brown and Brewster also observe (1974:53) that

the domestic price-level is determined from outside the system, principally by import prices and the effect of export propelled income generation on domestic supply. Eighth, that wage rates are, in effect, fixed throughout the economy above their equilibrium level by the export sector and as a result the path to full employment is obstructed. Ninth, that since industrial cohesiveness can be developed only to a limited extent on a national basis, the prospects for the creation of an internal economic and technological dynamic hinge on regional integration.

The analysis of Utila's economy is clearly relevant to the discussion of several of the preceding points (particularly the first, fourth, fifth, and seventh) and thus in some measure helps to test these hypotheses. For example, information in Chapter IV indicates that Utila's contemporary economy functions, or does not function, as the result of external demand for its single marketable commodity: the labor power of trained merchant mariners who work world-wide shipping lines. Should this demand diminish or disappear, Utila's economy would be sorely affected. Consumption patterns in Utila, established with the first settlers of the island, have enmeshed the local economy in consumerism--i.e., the tendency to spend or invest income in non-capital goods so that wealth does not in turn produce more income.