ABSTRACT
A larger proportion of the movement of women and children to the North was undocumented than documented, and little movement of this kind existed in this community prior to the Simpson-Rodino legislation. Simpson-Rodino both stimulated migration and made it more problematic for future generations. As academic commentators emphasized at the time of the original Simpson-Mazzoli proposals of 1982, the "documentation" of migrants serves little practical regulatory function, but imposes additional costs on relatively poor people. A high rate of rural-urban emigration by the potential heirs of existing ejidatarios reinforced land concentration in the hands of a few wealthier families, so that the number of "real" ejidatarios is substantially less than the number of parcelas in the ejido might suggest. Even in 1982, 11% of the ejidatarios controlled a quarter of the ejido's land. Apart from the in-migrants, landless men in Cotijaran are mostly sons and grandsons of existing ejidatarios.
