Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-265) and index.
Contents
Great expectations in a Guatemalan town -- A town of many projects -- Nebaj goes north -- Indenture travel -- Borrowers, moneylenders, and banks -- Projects and their penumbra-swindles -- Losing husbands to El Norte -- Dreams and pyramid schemes -- The right to not migrate.
Summary
Debt is the hidden engine driving undocumented migration to the United States. So argues David Stoll in this powerful chronicle of migrants, moneylenders, and swindlers in the Guatemalan highlands, one of the locales that, collectively, are sending millions of Latin Americans north in search of higher wages.