Thursday 23 September 2010

Cash flowing to native lands

Delmy Aldana works two jobs — at a restaurant by day and the post office at night — to send hundreds of dollars a month to her native El Salvador. Half pays the mortgage on a house she built for her family, and the rest covers necessities for relatives, including a teenage son and 71-year-old mother she left behind.

“It’s really hard,’’ said Aldana, a 31-year-old Lynn resident. “The money I send my mother helps her to survive. What I send her pays her bills, the electricity, the water, the telephone. If I didn’t send money . . . I don’t know how she would manage.’’

Across the state, Aldana and other immigrants showed their enduring devotion to their loved ones last year by sending $1.8 billion home to more than 200 countries, according to the first full accounting of the cash that flows out of Massachusetts. The findings are based on a Globe review of annual reports that money-transfer companies such as MoneyGram and Western Union are required to file each year with the state. Read more

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