main-bkgrd-img
Top
background

From Indentured Laborers to Small Entrepreneurs

Sharing Tools

Link copied!

By Alfredo Romero Castilla, The National University of Mexico


Migrations have occurred ever since in human history. Almost every people have moved in search of promising lands. During the 19th And 20th centuries the capitalist economic expansion led people moving into different directions and under different set of circumstances. Places with temperate climate such as Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa became the major destinations for millions of European colonists, settlers, and immigrants. Besides the colonial governments pursue a policy of extracting precious metals and cultivate tropical and semitropical crops. These enterprises needed workers and the indigenous populations could not provide a large enough labor supply. Then the colonizers shipped hands from other lands. This is an ongoing history that in recent times have acquired a different character. What today is called Globalization connotes a multileveled phenomenon that refers to relations not only among nations but also regions and groups. Then it means that, from now on, the migratory processes should to be studied from a transnational perspective.


Download file: JRP-2008-2009-Castilla.pdf