1university of california

Exact figures for the number of people going to visit relatives in the U.S.--some of them to become temporary emigrants--could not be obtained, but Utila-New Orleans air passages on SAHSA (the Honduran airline running between these two points) totaled 48 for the period March through May 1974. Although this is a slack period for Utilian travel, even at so low a rate as 16 trips per month nearly $20,000 a year ($100 for a round trip ticket) is spent by Utilians, accounting for another substantial sum expended.

The remainder of Utila's income, as closely as I can calculate from the data, does go for house building, house furnishings, etc., just as it did traditionally. In 1974, expenditures were reflecting the same inflation that plagued the United States. Building materials have risen drastically in price over a twelve month period, partly in their own right and partly through increased freight charges, the latter being tied to higher petroleum costs (in January 1974 diesel fuel, for example, jumped from 19¢ per gallon to 36.5¢ per gallon). Jalousie windows, plumbing and lighting fixtures, etc., are all increasingly expensive (a "good" house could be built just a few years ago for less than $7000; the same house today would cost between $12,000-$13,000).

A recent map of Utila, prepared in September 1973 by the Instituto Nacional Agrario--the land reform organ in Honduras--shows that the main island and satellite cays are divided into 119 parcels of land owned by 64 private parties, the municipality, and the Tela Railroad Company (part of United Fruit). Discounting the cays, these parcels all lie outside the residential community at East Harbor, and constitute the usable land of Utila. Mangrove swamp, which technically is owned by the municipality, is not considered in the land survey represented by the map, nor is the area of the two lagoons considered. Both lagoons were, however, apparently being negotiated for by mainland Hondurans at the time field work ended as potential residence sites once they had been drained.

Fewer than 50 families (including at least ten emigrants now living in the United States) control the non-mangrove land of the island. Control is, perhaps, a better term to use in regard to Utilian soil because islanders experience to this day a wide variety of difficulties surrounding deed rights and uncontested ownership of property.

First of all, most of the sales documents (referred to above), which amount to our equivalent of an abstract, are clouded according to land reform--INA--leaders and their supporters. Apparently many, if not most, sales of land in Utila have been effected by means of private documents alone, the public documents being ignored due to the cost involved (sometimes several hundred dollars, in fact). Several islanders attempting to make land purchases during the field work period had been detained and put to some--often considerable--expense in order to clear the abstracts needed for complete transactions.

Second, the descriptions of property in sales documents often seem to be at variance with others' claims. Lack of proper surveying cannot be held to account for discrepancies--several informants claimed that a number of good surveyors had been trained on the island. Rather, the propensity of Utilians to try to gain parcels of someone else's land must be the source of misinformation in land-related documents.

Many islanders had contemporary anecdotes about themselves or other residents of Utila being cheated (usually by one another rather than by outsiders) over land transactions; the local bank manager, for example, observed in passing one day--as a casual, matter of fact statement--that "the Pointians are at war again," meaning that residents of the barrio Puente Caliente in East Harbor were once again taking one another before the Judge of Letters over a disputed strip of land. Litigation that continues on and on seems to be the only logical resultant of attitudes toward and conditions around land that exist in the island.

Third, island property is "developed"; i.e., the usable land in Utila has been planted into crops, put into pasturage, or the like and little of it exists as rank bush per se. As developed land it is highly desirable compared to tracts that would have to be worked up from a wild state--as, for example, in many areas of the undeveloped mainland such as the Mosquitia. This fact, so many Utilians believe, is what has been a prime consideration in recent government land reform agitation: Utila has improved land that Government could award to campesinos from the mainland in order to help insure political support among the masses. The map referenced at the beginning of this section was commissioned by INA officials who, according to islanders, have brought into question the legality of titles, descriptions, etc., solely in order to bilk islanders out of their land, and use that land to buy political clientele. This point cannot be substantiated, though Utilian contentions may have some justice. The current regime came to power by coup in 1972 and clearly wants a broad base of support among "the people." The Bay Islands, long time objects of contention and (perhaps) envy, have a standard of living far above that to be found on the mainland. Wages for common laborers, for example, may be two to three times higher in the islands than on the coast, even though banana worker unions have forced higher wages there than exist inland. (In Utila a common laborer may earn 6 to 8 lempiras daily--$3.00-$4.00--as opposed to four to six lempiras on the mainland; skilled workers, e.g., carpenters, make from $5.00 a day and upward.) The prospect of settling people who would be loyal to Government in an area where people could apparently enjoy a better life style--and at the same time dilute some of the islander independence from Tegucigalpa--must indeed be appealing. Utilian informants almost uniformly consider the entire land reform program to be conspiratorial--even a "Communist plot"--and distrust it in the extreme. Furor over INA investigations had died down by the time field work was completed, but there is little doubt that land tenure is, and will continue to be, a touchy issue in the island.

In the post-World War II years the value of bush land as a factor in agricultural production has disappeared. Land these days, whether in the bush or in East Harbor, is considered valuable--an asset--for one of two reasons. First, Utilians are anxious that they--as individuals or households--can have and hold their own plot of ground, even if it is no larger than the area of the house. Newly married couples pursue the ideal of neolocal residence (though this may be preceded by matri-or patrilocality until they can afford setting up housekeeping), which often entails the carving out of a new residential lot somewhere in the island. Many retired sailors, as another example, wish to have a place of their own where they can live out the remainder of their years in relative peace and security.

Besides the value of land as a part of one's sanctuary or necessary life space is the investment or speculation consideration that has recently arisen. Over the last ten years or so a steady trickle of promoter/developer types from the United States has found its way into Utila. The intent of these individuals has been to buy real estate in East Harbor or on the island periphery and open a resort, factory, cluster of tourist cottages, or some other venture that is usually touted as a benefit not only to the investor but to Utila as well. To my knowledge, none of the enterprises thus undertaken has ever been profitable (unless, perhaps, as a tax loss that might advantage an investor), and with only two or three exceptions the island is now devoid of outside investors. The fact remains, however, that outsiders have inflated the value of real estate--inside and out of the municipal limits--to an incredible extent. One plot of land along the seashore and within the East Harbor community--perhaps 60 feet by 80 feet--was reported to have brought $10,000 from a U.S. developer. Utilians, as a result, have come to place very high prices on land anywhere near the shore or refuse to sell land outright and opt instead for leasing their properties. Islanders have heard that the Bahamas, Barbados and other Caribbean islands are out of favor with many U.S. investors due to racial strife and the high cost of living. Consequently, Utila, with its English-speaking, U.S.-oriented population, is a "natural" to get the diverted investors. It is also rumored--in conjunction with the stories told about the Bahamas, etc.--that the Mafia is, in fact, tied into some of the dealings carried out in Utila. Whether the rumored Mafia connection is desirable or not to Utilians is hard to say; most of the people with whom the matter was discussed were unimpressed with the possibility that organized crime was directly involved in island financial ventures.

High prices for land are charged even when an outsider has married into the community. The example exists in my notes of a young mainlander from Tegucigalpa who, having married an island girl, wanted to buy property in the island for a sometime residence. The girl's aunt offered to sell the new bridegroom a small plot of land (within East Harbor limits but not shore front property) for $10,000. Whether $10,000 has come to be a minimum sale price to outsiders remains to be seen.

To be sure, cheaper land than that just mentioned is still available to islanders and "developers" in bush areas outside the municipality and behind shore front property. Few if any local people would, however, genuinely want to live beyond the town limits: living conditions would simply fall below the standard now expected by Utilians. Insect pests, almost always more abundant than in East Harbor proper, would not be tolerated. More importantly, running water and day-long electricity are not available outside of town, the lack of which would eliminate many of the amenities now viewed as fundamental to the "good life." For similar reasons this type of land is also undesirable to developers, in addition to the obvious drawback that landlocked, viewless property would represent if tourist trade were a consideration.

The essential point in discussing land utilization in Utila is that while land ownership, or control, is still an abiding concern of islanders, there has been a shift from earlier times in how it gains importance and economic value. In pre-war years it was primarily a capital good, necessary for a man in order to pursue the planting occupation. Secondary value accrued, through residence sites, in social prestige. In post-war years land of any kind is simply a chattel that, even unplanted or lying within municipal boundaries but next to a swamp, has appreciating value over time given the desire of outsiders and local people alike to control or speculate with it.

The movement of people into and out of Utila has already been mentioned in connection with Utila's pre-war (agricultural) economic phase. Immigration during the remittance phase has continued at a very modest rate, due to mainland Hondurans seeking employment and to developers settling at the site of their respective investments, but in 1973 less than 10% (fewer than 100 people in the total population) constitute immigrants. Far more important to Utila is its emigrant population.

During the agricultural phase, those people who left Utila did so permanently in the majority of cases. They removed to the United States in large numbers, often took up U.S. citizenship, and in many cases became cultural brokers (cf. Wolf 1965:97) who facilitated the movement of other islanders to overseas settings. As the remittance economy has developed, proportionately more emigrants appear to be only temporary in their removal from Utila.

Paralleling the behavior of Ithacans (Lowenthal and Comitas 1962: 203), Montserratians (Philpott 1968:472) and Chinese from Hong Kong (Watson 1974:218), the present generation of Utilian emigrants leave home for service in the merchant marine or at landbased occupations with the full intent that they will return home. For some the return is regular with the advent of the annual holiday season. For others the return may be several years in the making; some never do quite make it back. But the important point is that emotionally, and financially, emigrant islanders are still very much tied to their natal community, as is evidenced by the flow of remittance monies. The continued and continuing attachment to Utila is in some cases, no doubt, a matter of practicality: jobs that emigrants have taken are only short-term ones (eg., a billet lasting for a specified number of months or a specified number of voyages) that would require some sort of home base upon which they could fall back. This would appear to be especially so in instances where Utilians have gone to New York, etc., on tourist visas with the manifest intent of visiting friends and family. In fact, many islanders travel north with the unmentioned or undiscussed intent of finding jobs--often through the assistance of permanent migrants who act as brokers--and working until they are either discovered and sent home, or until they have made as much money as they had aimed to make and voluntarily go back.

It is apparently a common ploy for islanders to obtain a visitor's visa to the U.S. for the ostensible purpose of visiting a citizen-relative, but once the "visiting" islander has reached his or her U.S. destination a job is secured--often as a domestic or in some semi-skilled occupation--and the visitor becomes one of the untold number of aliens working illegally in the United States. Wages obtained for their services may be pitifully small in comparison to those of a United States citizen, but the temporary migrant may be able to afford depressed wages since he or she can live with a relative. Quite possibly neither taxes nor other withholdings will be taken out, which is a convenience for both the employer and the employee and an inducement for migration to continue.

Some islanders claim to have stayed in the U.S. for as long as a year pursuing their labors and saving towards the time when they would return to Utila. Not all islanders can remain as long as this, and field evidence is that many do not want to; rather, they prefer to work for only a few months--until a specified amount of money is earned to finance some in-island project they have in mind--and then go home. How many people there are who involve themselves in this illegal activity is virtually impossible to determine (some indication of Utila-U.S. traffic is reflected, however, in Table 5), but it is by no means rare. One island couple was singled out by informants as actually practicing a rotational "visitation" system: the husband would work in the U.S. a few months and then return only to have his wife fly north and figuratively take his place, etc. Although the object seems to be to save a lump sum of money with which to return to Utila, it is also the practice of the temporary migrants--in the fashion of the merchant mariners--to send home remittances to relatives, especially in the case where children have been left behind. Amounts sent, usually on a monthly basis, vary according to the whims of the sender and, of course, his or her capacity to remit. There is the obvious restriction placed on the amount sent home by the temporary migrant because of the characteristically low wages and the high cost of living in the United States--even with a culture broker's assistance. Emigrants invariably fulfill this obligation, as far as could be learned from informants, and maintain an active, though absentee, involvement in Utilian life.

Aside from those cases just referred to, the return to Utila may have even more to do with two other matters of practicality that, in a real sense, prevent permanent removal. To begin with, the possibilities of permanent migration to the U.S., with attendant U.S. citizenship, are not as favorable as they were in the pre-quota days earlier in this century. Further, although potentially permanent migrants might envision themselves as better off than stay-at-home Utilians, the fact is that since most islanders are semi-skilled (at best) in the overall fabric of U.S. economic life they would be worse off than in their little island; this fact may well come

TABLE 5
VISAS ISSUED BY THE UNITED STATES EMBASSY, TEGUCIGALPA*

1963 1,296 3,056

1964 1,815 3,890

1965 2,096 4,775

1966 1,716 5,299

1967 1,495 6,210

1968 1,775 6,899

1969 1,156 7,989

1970 1,312 9,824

1971 1,135 10,495

1972 959 13,230

1973 1,171 16,350

Visitors (tourists or persons visiting families) 8,424

Transit (mostly seamen joining ships) 2,703

Crew members (mostly seamen, a few airmen) 2,120

Students 418

International organization personnel 20

Temporary workers (mostly musicians) 41

Cultural & professional exchange visitors 75

Fiancés 15


*Data provided by the American Consul, U.S. Embassy, Tegucigalpa, Honduras (February 1974).
home to islanders during their temporary stays overseas.

The remaining reason for the return of temporary emigrants may well have to do with the value of U.S. dollars even in the inflated Utilian economy. At the conversion rate of two lemipras for each dollar, the value of wages earned out-of-country and then brought home is considerably enhanced. Beans and rice, lumber and kerosene may all have risen appreciably in cost over the past few years, but Utilians are the first to remark on the high cost of living in the north as compared to their home in the island. Likewise, they are constantly made aware of their advantageous position relative to mainland compatriots through trips to the coast and by contrasting themselves with mainland immigrants to Utila, who are almost uniformly despised for their impoverished economic station in life.

In sum, emigration is a vitally important factor in the life of Utila today, but it is not a migration of islanders such that connections with family, friends, and the home of one's youth are severed; it is a rotational and serial emigration that keeps Utila economically alive.

Analysis

A stated objective of this study is to illuminate the dynamics of economic, social and political integration in Utila. More especially, it is my aim to show that traditional elements of the system have preadapted it to the remittance economy just discussed, and that key features of Utilian tradition have been an emphasis on individualism, commercialism, non-cooperation, and an "image of limited good." These key features are intimately interrelated and share coequal importance in motivating Utilians to pursue the remittance system.

Individualism refers to the trait of independent economic, social, and political action that characterizes people in Utila. As noted, the earliest economic endeavors in the island were undertaken as one-man (or one-family) efforts. Commercialism underscored the rarity of mutual economic support--as in cooperative work ventures--which has marked the evolution of Utilian economic life. Likewise, in terms of social and political endeavors--as will be brought out in Chapters V and VI--there has been a self-serving, self-help kind of attitude among islanders from the time of settlement: one's prestige, share in power and authority, and other rewards were a function of one's own effort, hence the tradition of non-cooperation.

Limited good derives from the concept Image of Limited Good formulated by George Foster, and seems to describe a way of assessing reality that was typical of Utilians during a period of diminishing income and disappearing opportunities. While developed in connection with peasant populations, the Image of Limited Good was intended to apply--in lesser or greater degrees--to all societies, and hold as one of its basic assumptions that

peasants view their social, economic, and natural universes--their total environment--as one in which all of the desired things in life such as land, wealth, health, friendship and love, manliness and honor, respect and status, power and influence, security and safety, exist in finite quantity and are always in short supply (Foster 1967:304, emphasis in the original).
Limited good in Utila differs from Foster's construct partly because Utilians are not peasants. Utilians were yeoman farmers, not subjected to high taxes by a superordinate governing unit, nor rents to a landlord class that could be an effective barrier between tillers of the soil and the soil itself. More importantly, the Utilian image of limited good arose from the reality that prime parcels of land for plantations, and subsequent access to the sea for marketing, were in short supply--hence the need to "make land." The relative scarcity of the fundamental factor of production, and the attendant limitation on income, logically implied a limitation on the capacity to achieve the good life. This perspective was, as could be seen above, crucial to development of the remittance system.

Uninhabited (or virtually so) at the time of Joseph Cooper's arrival, Utilian land--cays and main island alike--was available to all who duly applied for it and had their request granted by the Honduran government. By the time Utila became a British colony, more of its land had been taken by additional migrants, but parcels were still available for land grants by the crown. Even today, municipal property (e.g., the lagoons) and interior bush land can be fairly easily obtained. Yet, from its earliest years, Utila experienced problems over ownership of land, and even murder over boundary markers. The close association between land ownership (or the type of land owned) and social stratification that came into being with the arrival of colored and Spanish settlers, discussed more fully in Chapter V, accentuated the limitation on price land in Utila.

On the one hand, then, is the empirical reality that there is still available land for islanders to purchase; on the other is the fact of Utilian contentiousness over as little as a few feet of earth. The key to understanding this condition is the point made concerning stratification (detailed in Chapter V): various parcels of land carry differential prestige and advantage. Since there is a finite number of choice parcels, there is finite entrance into or participation within the system of stratification. To the extent that stratification itself determines one's share of the good life, land ownership--what kind of land as well as how much--defines the quantity and quality of good life one may enjoy. Utilians have, of course, always had an ethnic component to the land ownership-stratification-good life interrelationship, but as long as whites had been first on the scene (therefore in a position to define the stratification system), and the island's wealth came from its own produce (therefore being limited by the size of a plantation and one's luck and skill in marketing) there were no potential problems. Since the beginning of a remittance economy, however, this has changed.
With remittances being available to anyone who can qualify for the merchant marine and chooses to pursue the seaman's life, or who chooses to go periodically to the United States and work illegally till evicted, virtually anyone in Utila has the potential--if he has enough money and can find a seller--to acquire the prime requisite of the good life and socioeconomic position. This potential is a threat not to the stratification system itself, but to the personnel within it; the "wrong kind of people" (my term) can attempt to run island politics and so on. For this reason, which is merely an extension of the image of limited good held by the original occupants, fighting over land is of far greater importance than it might at first seem. Likewise, the function of remittances in land fights is crucial, as already discussed.