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Peru Lima and the Patterns of Migration
The first Belaúnde administration (1963-68) initiated
concerted efforts to develop the Amazon Basin through its
ambitious Jungle Border Highway (la carretera marginal
de la
selva or la marginal) program, the organization
of
colonization projects, and special opportunity zones to
steer
highland migrants in that direction and away from the
coast.
Belaúnde's Selva-oriented program thus tended to divert
investments away from the Sierra, even though much was
done there
on a small local scale through the self-help Popular
Cooperation
(Cooperación Popular) projects. In hindsight, the
resulting
degradation of the tropical biosphere in the wake of these
schemes created new sets of problems that were far from
anyone's
mind in 1964. Unfortunately, the net result of these
expensive
and sweeping efforts at tropical development has not been
as
planned. Significant changes in the direction of migration
did
not take place, and the jungle perimeter road system
covering
hundreds of kilometers was often used as landing strips by
airborne drug traffickers and for military maneuvers.
Just as there are strong "pull" factors that attract
persons
to Lima and the other major cities, there are also many
conditions that "push" people out of their communities:
the loss
or lack of adequate farmland, natural disasters such as
earthquakes and landslides, lack of employment options,
and a
host of personal reasons. In addition, since the outbreak
of
terrorist activities by the Shining Path movement in 1980
and
subsequent military reactions, over 30,000 persons have
been
dislocated from towns and villages in the Ayacucho and
Huancavelica highlands, most of them gravitating to Ica or
Lima.
The profound changes during the 1950-90 period, spurred
by
sheer increases in numbers, largely resulted from a desire
for
better life opportunities and progress. The significant
demographic change that took place was the migration from
rural
areas to the cities, especially Lima. Five major features
gave
this great migration a particular Peruvian character: the
concentration of people in Lima and other coastal cities,
the
regional heterogeneity of the migrants, the tendency of
people to
follow their family and paisanos to specific
places, the
development of migrant organizations, and the willingness
of
migrants to assist their homelands.
The migrants, searching for employment and better
living
conditions, went predominantly from the provinces to the
national
capital, creating a megalopolis out of Lima and Callao. In
1990
greater Lima had over 30 percent of all Peruvians as
residents.
On the north coast, cities such as Piura, Chiclayo, and
Trujillo
have attracted persons from their own regions in
considerable
numbers; significant growth has occurred in the southern
highland
cities of Arequipa, Juliaca, and Cusco, as well as in the
remote
jungle city of Iquitos. Despite rates of increase
averaging more
than 330 percent between 1961 and 1990, these cities drew
few
people compared to the numbers of persons drawn to greater
Lima.
In 1990 Lima was 14 percent larger than the next 24 cities
combined, and 58 percent of all urban dwellers lived in
greater
Lima. As such, Lima had become one of the world's leading
cities
in terms of its level of primacy, that is, its
overwhelming
demographic dominance with respect to the next largest
urban
centers.
Lima's development as a "primate" city (megalopolis)
began
taking shape during the nineteenth century when the nation
was
recuperating from the disastrous War of the Pacific
(1879-83)
with Chile. This trend accelerated dramatically after
about 1950,
when the fishing industry began its expansion and Peru
started to
industrialize its urban economy in a determined manner.
Thus,
throughout most of this long period, no less than a third
of the
capital's residents were born elsewhere.
Lima's dominance has been more than demographic. In the
late
1980s, the metropolis consumed over 70 percent of the
nation's
electrical energy; had 69 percent of its industry, 98
percent of
private investment, and 83 percent of bank deposits;
yielded 83
percent of the nation's taxes; had 42 percent of all
university
students, taught by 62 percent of all professors; and had
73
percent of the nation's physicians. Over 70 percent of the
country's wages were paid out in Lima to 40 percent of all
school
teachers, 51 percent of public employees, and equivalent
percentages of the skilled labor force and other urban
workers.
From television and radio stations to telephones, most
consumer
goods, recreational facilities, and other items of modern
interest were also concentrated in Lima. In short, if Peru
had
it, it came first to Lima and more often than not was
unavailable
elsewhere.
Government, too, has been totally centralized in the
capital
since the establishment of the viceregal court in the
sixteenth
century. The centrality of Lima in colonial times was so
significant that persons committing crimes were often
punished by
exiling them from the capital for various periods of time;
the
farther away, the worse the penalty. This notion still
underlies
much of the cultural concept of social value in Peru
today.
Everyone living outside of greater Lima is automatically a
provincial (provinciano), a person defined as being
disadvantaged and, perhaps, not quite as civilized as a
limeño. Under such circumstances, it is hardly
surprising
that Lima has attracted the vast majority of Peruvians
hoping to
improve their lives, whether looking for employment,
seeking an
education, or attempting to influence bureaucratic
decisions and
win assistance for their communities. Lima has been both
hated
and loved by provincianos, who have been engaged in
unequal struggle for access to the nation's wealth and
power. The
factor of primacy loomed as one of Peru's most significant
problems, as the nation attempted to decentralize various
aspects
of the government under a reorganization law promulgated
in March
1987
(see Regionalism and Political Divisions
, this ch.).
Another aspect of the migration had to do with its
heterogeneity of origin in terms of both place and
sociocultural
features. At the beginning of the twentieth century, most
of the
provincial migrants were fairly homogeneous
representatives of
local elites and relatively prosperous sectors of
provincial
urban capitals. The last decades of the century, however,
have
seen a marked growth in the social and cultural diversity
of the
migrants. Between 1950 and 1990, increasing numbers of
persons
came from villages and hamlets, not the small district
capitals,
and thus were more representative of the bilingual and
bicultural
population, referred to as cholos. Whereas in the
earlier
years of this period, it was unusual to hear migrants
speaking
the Quechua or Aymara languages on the street, by 1990 it
was
commonplace to hear these languages used for commerce and
general
discourse in Lima. This change occurred mostly after 1970,
when
the populist military regime of Juan Velasco Alvarado
began a
strong effort to legitimize the native tongues. And thus,
it has
also become more common to see persons retaining various
aspects
of their regional clothing styles, including hats and
colorful
skirts, and in, general, not discarding those cultural
class
markers that were so denigrated a short generation
earlier.
A third migratory pattern was that people invariably
followed
in the footsteps of relatives and fellow paisanos.
Once a
village had a few paisanos established in the city,
they
were soon followed by others. During the course of
Peruvian
migration, relatively few persons simply struck out on the
migratory adventure alone. Thus, the society of migrants
was not
a collection of alienated "lost souls," but rather
consisted of
groups of people with contacts, social roles, and strong
cultural
and family ties.
This fact produced the fourth dimension of the Peruvian
migratory process: the propensity of migrants to organize
themselves into effective voluntary associations. The
scale and
pattern of these associations distinguished the process in
Peru
from that in most other countries. The organizations have
taken
several forms, but the two most outstanding examples are
found in
the squatter settlements and regional clubs that have
proliferated in all the largest cities, particularly Lima.
The
process of urban growth in Lima has produced an urban
configuration that conforms to no central plan. Without
access to
adequate housing of any type, and without funds or
available
loans, migrants set about developing their own solutions
by
establishing organizations of their own, occasionally
under the
sponsorship of APRA. They planned a takeover of unoccupied
land
at the fringes of the city and, with the suddenness and
effectiveness of a military attack, invaded the property,
usually
on a Saturday night.
Once on the land, the migrants laid out plots with
precision
and raised temporary housing in a matter of hours. Called
by the
somewhat deprecatory term
barriada (see Glossary),
the
shantytowns quickly developed both an infrastructural and
a
sociopolitical permanence, despite initial official
disapproval
and police harassment. At first, the land invasions and
barriada formation provoked enormous unease among
traditional limeños and especially in the halls of
government. The barriadas were wildly characterized
as
dangerous slums by the Lima middle- and upper classes,
which felt
threatened by the squatters. Research by anthropologist
José
Matos Mar Santos and others demonstrated beyond doubt,
however,
that these "spontaneous settlements" were, in fact,
solutions to
grave urban problems. Subsequent research by
anthropologist Susan
Lobo established that such settlements were civilly
organized and
rapidly assumed positive urban attributes under the
squatters'
own initiatives.
In 1990 there were over 400 of these large settlements
surrounding Lima and Callao, containing at least half of
Lima's
population. Over time, many of them--such as San Martín de
Porres, Comas, and Pamplona Alta--had become new political
districts within the province of Lima, with their own
elected
officials and political power. Political scientists Henry
A.
Deitz and David Collier have called attention to squatter
organizations as mechanisms of empowerment for persons
otherwise
denied a base or place in the political system. An
important step
for the squatters was the acquisition of the skill and the
ability to exercise influence in the corridors of
bureaucratic
power. As these settlements and their organizations gained
public
legitimacy in the 1960s, the Velasco government, on
assuming
power in 1968, soon renamed them pueblos jovenes, a
name
which was quickly adopted and has remained.
The regional club aspect of Peru's urban migration was
not as
obvious a phenomenon as the ubiquitous squatter
settlements. The
need for a social life, as well as the desire to maintain
contact
with the home community, friends, and relatives, had moved
migrants from particular villages and towns to create
representative organizations based on their common place
of
origin. As a result, according to Teófilo Altamirano, in
1990
there were over 6,000 such clubs in greater Lima, with
hundreds
more to be found in the other major cities. Not only have
these
clubs provided an important social venue for migrants, but
they
also have served as a vehicle by which members could give
not
insubstantial assistance to their homeland
(terruño), when
called for.
Data as of September 1992
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