ABSTRACT
International migrant remittances have received much attention in the last 20 years, as—according to the World Bank—flows to lower and middle-income countries increased from an estimated 72.3 billion in 2001 to 630 billion in 2020. People from Mexico sent more than $40 billion from the U.S. in 2020 alone, representing one of the largest migration corridors and remittance flows in the world. While dollars sent home are used for an array of expenses, this chapter explores how they are used in Mexico to turn migrant aspirations into concrete and fired-brick realities. Lopez not only identifies a clear correspondence between the flow of remittances and an ongoing building boom in rural Mexico but also proposes that this construction boom itself motivates migration and changes social and cultural life for migrants and their families. The remittance landscape—the built environment elements in rural Mexico that have been envisioned by migrants and erected with dollars—gives rise to remitting as a way of life. Lopez argues that the architectures of migration are powerful evidence of the aims, desires, and fears that drive social change in rural Mexico, producing complex results for migrants, their families, and their home communities who must balance new kinds of freedom and agency with familial fragmentation, changing social norms, increased responsibility, and growing debt.
