They Never Come Back

For Mexicans on both sides of the border, the migrant experience has changed significantly over the past two decades. In They Never Come Back, Frans J. Schryer draws on the experiences of indigenous people from a region in the Mexican state of Guerrero to explore the impact of this transformation on the lives of migrants. When handicraft production was able to provide a viable alternative to agricultural labor, most migrants would travel to other parts of Mexico to sell their wares. Others opted to work for wages in the United States, returning to Mexico on a regular basis.This is no longer the case. At first almost everyone, including former craft vendors, headed north; however it also became more difficult to go back home and then reenter the United States. One migrant quoted by Schryer laments, "Before I was an artisan and free to travel all over Mexico to sell my crafts. Here we are all locked in a box and cannot get out." NAFTA, migrant labor legislation, and more stringent border controls have all affected migrants' home communities, their relations with employers, their livelihoods, and their identity and customs.Schryer traces the personal lives and careers of indigenous men and women on both sides of the border. He finds that the most pressing issue facing undocumented workers is not that they are unable to earn enough money but, rather, that they are living in a state of ongoing uncertainty and will never be able to achieve their full potential. Through these stories, Schryer offers a nuanced understanding of the predicaments undocumented workers face and the importance of the ongoing debate around immigration policy.

Written for a wide audience, They Never Come Back will make a timely and engaging addition to undergraduate courses on globalization, Mexico, labor migration, and U.S. immigration politics.... The book especially shines in its description of small-town life in rural Mexico, a critical part of the migration equation that is missing from most migration scholarship. Another strength of the book is a clear and concise writing style, which makes it accessible to a broad audience that includes students.... They Never Come Back tackles some big issues, telling the stories of a small group of people with broader lessons about continuity and change, tradition and adaptation and workers' daily struggles to survive., As the current national attention continues to focus on undocumented workers, this book will prove to be an accessible aid to general readers hoping to gain insight into the world of these workers. Schryer (emer., Univ. of Guelph, Canada) rightly points to the fact that though the economic integration of goods and capital has made tremendous progress in US-Mexico relations, people moving across the border have been the victims of a dysfunctional immigration policy. This dysfunction resultsin enormous human cost and consequences on both sides of the border; families and children experience great personal trauma, especially the undocumented who live in the shadow of fear. Through anecdotes from the lives of people of the Altos Balsas region of Mexico, Schryer illustrates the push and pull factors that have created the situation of the undocumented worker and the benefits to rural Mexican villages where migrant dollars help sustain local economies. A human account of the anguish and life journeys of undocumented workers, the book is written in an accessible manner, which will serve both readers and policy makers well as they try to peer behind the statistics and polemics surrounding the policy response to undocumented workers in the US.

Frans J. Schryer is Professor Emeritus at the University of Guelph. He is the author of several books, including Farming in a Global Economy: A Case Study of Dutch Immigrant Farmers in Canada and The Rancheros of Pisaflores: The History of a Peasant Bourgeoisie in Twentieth-Century Mexico.