Lessons from the Zacatecan Hometown Associations

If you’re looking for “best practice” in terms of hometown association (HTA), look no further – it’s the Federacion de Clubes Zacatecanos del Sur de California.

I had the opportunity of knowing the Federación through Manuel Orozco, senior associate at the Washington, D.C.-based Inter-American Dialogue who introduced me to the Zacatecanos. He recommended Efrain Jimenez, project officer of the Federación, to speak about Zacatecan HTAs at the Novib-sponsored international conference on migration and development last November 2004.

After the conference, Efrain convincingly invited me to attend their bi-national conference the following month in Zacatecas where I had a chance to meet their key leaders and hear more stories about HTAs.

My second encounter with Zacatecanos was in September 2005 when I co-organized an Oxfam Novib-funded international conference on “The Impact of Remittances in Latin America: Alternative Channels for Remittances”. About 50 of the 120 conference participants - microfinance practitioners, academe, and representatives from various diaspora organizations from Latin America, Asia, Africa and USA - had a chance to join a day-long educational trip visiting various projects of the Zacatecanos.

My most recent visit in Zacatecas and subsequent contacts with Efrain increased my knowledge on how HTAs works. I started to understand why the Zacatecanos are often quoted as the best practice in harnessing the development potential of migration. This article is about them.

The State of Zacatecas, located in Central Mexico, was founded by the Spaniards in 1824. Official statistics show that Zacatecas has a population of 1.2 million while 800,000 more living now in the United States. “The biggest industry in Zacatecas is, without doubt, the export of migrants to the United States,” contends Miguel Moctezuma Longoria, a research professor at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas.

The Zacatecans send home more than US$500 million each year in the form of remesas (remittances) “This amount is vital because no state activity generates as much income - more than a million dollars per day,” Moctezuma Longoria pointed out.

Continued growth in remittances in Mexico is recorded at $18.1 billion in 2004 and became Mexico’s largest source of foreign income behind oil revenues.



Zacatecans send money home directly to their families but that is not the thing that makes the Zacatecans renowned worldwide. It is their HTAs and Diaspora philanthropy. HTAs are formed by immigrants from often low-income rural and urban areas are widespread in U.S. cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, and Chicago. The Federacion Zacatecanos is formed by 53 HTAs – group that usually maintains a core of 5 to 15 active members and with membership ranging from 50 to 2000 members - serving a philanthropic function by addressing social and economic problems in their home communities.

HTAs are organized for a variety of purposes. Those associations have served as a vehicle in creating community remittances - collective contributions of Mexicans migrants abroad for community projects in their own hometowns - and utilizing them for small infrastructures, including water and sanitation projects, road pavement, rural electrification, micro-enterprises and small and medium enterprises) development. These are basic necessities of the people in many villages which the local government did not adequately provide.

But how do the Zacatecanos raise money? They indefatigably organize various creative events: conduct benefit dinners, dances,and bingo; sell cakes and pastries; organize fiestas; sell raffle tickets; and sponsor beauty pageants, among others. To illustrate the effectiveness of their fund raising campaign, one HTA in Los Angeles was able to purchase a tractor just by selling raffle tickets. This an impressive proof considering that except for the project officer which receives a small salary, the Federacion is entirely run and managed by volunteers.

Actually, the activities of the Federacion started in a small-scale in the 1970s until their projects caught the attention of the State of Zacatecas. To stimulate their Diaspora giving, the state matched one dollar for every dollar the Zacatecan hometown association will invest in their State which proved to be a big success. This matching fund was called Uno por Uno program (One-for-One program).

Because of its huge success, more HTAs were formed and more projects were implemented. Consequently, the program was expanded into Dos por Uno (Two-for-One) program in 1992 when the federal and state governments each match the amount of dollars immigrants contribute for infrastructure development projects.

The growth of the Dos por Uno program continued and finally further developed in 1998 into Tres por Uno (Three-for-One) program with the inclusion of the municipal government.

In 2001, the Federacion Zacatecanos took the initiative in filing a formal request to President Vicente Fox Quezada of Mexico to institutionalize the Tres por Uno program. The number of hometown associations multiplied all over the country after the formal signing of the agreement.

By 2002, the Tres por Uno program has invested in 788 projects amounting to US$ 40 million in Zacatecas alone. The example of the investment programs, which started among Zacatecans abroad, now has been replicated in 22 of Mexico's 31 states.

While the Tres por Uno program has to some extent improved the quality of life of Zacatecans, migration and development experts believe that it did not help effectively reduce the poverty in the region. The Zacatecans acknowledged this limitation as jobs remain scarce and local economies still slack in the state.

It is for this reason that since the last few years the Zacatecans also started embarking on productive projects. For example, a group of 15 Zacatecanos pooled their personal savings and invested in mescal distillery (mescal is a colorless spirit distilled from the juice and pulp of the agave plant). Another group invested in the building of the first luxurious hotel – the Quinta Real- in the stae while others put their money into food processing businesses (dried chilis, tortillas, marmalades, to name a few).



What is even more interesting is the fact that while the local entrepreneurs are doing business in Zacatecas, some members of the Zacatecan Federation are opening markets in the USA for the homegrown products taking advantage of the insatiable cravings of their compatriots for food back home.

This dynamic interplay enabled the Zacatecans to strengthen their political clout and the politicians are quite aware of this. As such, politicians spend considerable time in visiting the Mexican immigrants in USA and nurturing relationships with them. This is especially true now that a law has been passed to allow immigrants to vote in their homeland. In the past, Mexican immigrants persuaded their families to vote for their chosen candidates. Governor Amalia García Medina, the only lady governor of Mexico, was elected largely due to the massive support of the Zacatecan immigrants.

Undoubtedly, migration and development is a collective concern in Zacatecas. Aside from the local and state governments, the people’s organizations and the immigrants, the Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas also devotes considerable time in studying the migratory process in Zacatecas and the impact of remittances in the development of the state. University professors conduct migration and development lectures as part of its curriculum. They conduct project feasibility studies and provide other technical assistance to HTAs.

It has been noted that the success of the Tres por Uno program can be attributed to the active participation of the Zacatecanos in the decision-making processes at all levels. “The clubs do not only donate money, but also play an active role in the identification, implementation and monitoring of these projects,” Efrain disclosed.

During the project’s construction, the Federation works with four partners: the home community-based comite de obra- as well as with the local, state, and federal government authorities.

In October last year, the First Data Corporation - owner of the Western Union - entered partnership with Mexican migrants thus elevating the program to Cuatro-por-Uno. "Public-private partnerships are getting results in the real world today," explained Charlie Fote, the corporation’s CEO of its commitment to community development in Mexico.

“With the new Cuatro-por-Uno program,” Fote further noted, “American-based hometown associations will bid on available funds to carry out specific development projects in Mexico.”

As part of its commitment, the First Data Corporation's donated US$ 1.25 million intended for HTAs. Of this amount, US$ 250,000 has been earmarked for projects in Zacatecas.

In his speech during the launching, Efrain rightfully pointed out the need to recognize the efforts of migrants and to actively involve them in the decision-making process. In inclusive partnership, "we are no longer clients, but partners”, he said.

Last year, the Zacatecans funded 320 projects amounting US$ 5 million. If the matching funds from the municipal, state and federal governments are added, the total amount of projects would reach US$ 20 million.



The Federation has done a lot for their hometown and yet Efrain will also readily admit that the biggest concern of the HTAs is capacity building. “We cannot even write good project proposals,” he pointed out. ‘Most of us do not have college education.”

In the meantime, migration continues to pose as a big problem in Zacatecas. In spite of the efforts of the immigrants to develop their state, young people still dream of leaving for the US in pursuit of greener pastures. But this is another story.

Migration is a complex issue and should be approach in a multidisciplinary perspective. As Peter Stalker, author of No Non-Sense Guide to International Migration puts it:

“Migration is a phase that countries and the whole world go through, and that at some future time, balance will prevail and we will be wondering what the fuss all about.”

Brunson McKinley, director general of International Organization for Migration once said: “Migration is the missing link between globalization and development.” This brief statement triggered many public debates and prompted some migration experts to finally view migration from a development perspective.

With estimated US$ 12 billion remittances sent home by Filipino migrants in 2005, I hope the Filipino Diaspora, the local, provincial, and national governments and other stakeholders in the Philippines can learn lessons from the Zacatecan hometown associations.

Article published in MindaNews, 14 January 2006