An April 17 article about economic forces driving migration from Mexico gave incorrect figures on the country's gross domestic product. In terms of 2005 dollars, Mexico's GDP grew from $767 billion in 1993 to $1 trillion in 2005.
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Behind the Debate: Propelled to Protest, Driven to Migrate
Jose B. Flores crossed into the United States illegally 10 years ago.
(Manuel Roig-franzia - Twp)
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Still, the past 13 years haven't been all bad economic news for Mexico. Spurred by NAFTA, Mexico's gross domestic product has ballooned, multiplying nearly seven-fold, from $108 billion in 1993, the year before NAFTA implementation, to $748 billion in 2005. But Mexican economists say that enviable growth rate wasn't enough to overcome the seismic impact of baby boomers flooding the job market and that employment created by NAFTA often did not pay enough to dissuade migration.
"It was not the magic wand," Rubio said.
People in impoverished rural areas found their already limited choices shrinking: Move to the big city to sell chewing gum on the street, move to a border town to work in a maquiladora or migrate to the United States. So, while the border cities grew on the strength of NAFTA-generated business, whole towns in central and southern Mexico were emptying of working-age men, a trend that had been developing for years and accelerated in the past decade.
Dream of a Second Chance
Flores thought he would stay in the United States forever. It was easy for him to find jobs. He worked in a Santa Barbara, Calif., home for the elderly before making his way to the Midwest. In Chippewa Falls, Wis., he said, he landed a $13-an-hour job at a chemical company, earning in one hour more than he would have made in 2 1/2 days working for minimum wage in Mexico.
Sometimes he thought about his brothers back home in Salvatierra. He hasn't seen them since he flipped open a phony ID for a border patrol agent a decade ago.
"I imagine they're in the fields," he said.
Stooped backs. Empty pockets.
Flores can't imagine rejoining them. There is nothing for him back in Salvatierra, nothing like the life he grew accustomed to in the United States. All he wants now, he said, is a second chance.
Staff researcher Robert Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.
