The ability to own and purchase land has been a profitable focus for me. With such land access, I have been able to make extra money and “trade up” to buy rental property and other parcels of land. Until a few years ago, I never spent much time thinking about those who had no access to land (land disparity).
It was a trip to Guatemala in 2014 that changed my thinking. I was visiting some friends who had a micro business in a small village in the mountains, and they invited me to meet with one of the local villagers. She was approximately 20 years old, had three children, and had been abandoned by her husband. With no other place to go, the young woman was squatting on her husband’s family’s land. Her ex-mother-in-law did not want her there and charged her rent to stay. The young woman didn’t have the ability (skills or child care) to work outside her home and subsisted on about $0.50 a day. Her “home” was made of tin scraps and a dirt floor. She did make woven goods to be sold in a local tourist market, which brought in about $6 to $8 per month. On the day of my visit, her youngest son (about 16 months old) was sick, and the young woman’s mother had come to help make woven goods so she could tend to her son. While we were there, the young woman described the abuse she faced from her ex-mother-in-law and explained to us that she was stuck. She had no options for moving, no access to farmland, and no ability to grow crops to help feed her family. She was trapped in a cycle of poverty that would not let her out. Two weeks after she spoke with us, her son died in a local hospital.
Unfortunately, the young woman’s experience is not an isolated event. Stories like hers are repeated throughout her village and many other villages in Latin America. A common factor in all of them? Land disparity. In Guatemala, 2% of the country’s population controls 85% or more of the land. Many scholars feel that the world has regressed in land inequality solutions over the past 50 years. Oxfam, a major nonprofit organization, says, “Latin America’s land inequality is limiting decent employment in rural areas and driving more people living in poverty into cities. It is undermining social cohesion and democracy, along with the stability of local environment and food systems.1” This level of destabilization is sure to come at a price that is yet to be fully realized. Eventually, land inequality will lead to the destabilization of government and peaceful societies. Guatemala, for example, has been moving in this direction of destabilization for some time, and there is little indication that things will change in the near future. Even the assassinations of those who protest for land equality and fairer treatment have been prevalent and unpunished.2
Land disparity tends to be an issue that many Americans are completely unaware of. It is rarely talked about and largely unknown to those outside of academic circles. However, the impacts of land disparity are felt by many people across the world and directly affect urbanization, poverty, and government stability. My goal is to raise awareness of these issues, which hopefully will shed some light on the eventual impact we can make in American foreign policy.
With many of these issues occurring in America’s backyard, it’s no wonder so many people want to leave their home countries and relocate to the United States. What person wouldn’t want to care for his/her children and provide a better future for his/her families? We, as Americans, have no option but to begin a continuous dialogue on these topics. Many wonderful people are impacted by such issues and are trapped in cycles of poverty that cannot be escaped without the act of an outside force. For Americans to be a part of this force, we must educate ourselves on the issue of land disparity and the scope of its influence before real change is made.