Ecuadorian Americans
Ecuadorian Americans (Spanish: ecuatorio-americanos, norteamericanos de origen ecuatoriano or estadounidenses de origen ecuatoriano) are Americans of full or partial Ecuadorian ancestry. Ecuadorian Americans are the 9th largest Latin American group in the United States. Ecuadorian Americans are usually of Mestizo, Amerindian or Afro-Ecuadorian background.
Ecuadorian Return Migration[edit]
In 2008, the Great World Recession made for a decline in Ecuadorian emigration. This event also hindered two of Ecuador’s major cash flows: remittances and exports. To aid in the country's recovery, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa implemented the Welcome Home Plan. The plan fights unemployment and serves to boost the economy by encouraging migrants to come home through various ways, including aiding returnees in their own business ventures.[5]
Land Reform Act of 1964[edit]
In 1964 Ecuador passed the Land Reform, Idle Lands, and Settlement Act. The law was an attempt to end the feudal system that had existed in the Sierra for centuries. It redistributed land from absentee landlords to the peasants who farmed it. The law set the minimum amount of land to be granted in the redistribution at 4.8 hectares.[9] However, the land redistributed to the peasant farmers was of terrible quality. It was mountainous, unfertile land and often just barely larger than the minimum required amount of land. The large farm owners kept the fertile valley land for themselves. The peasant farmers who received these small plots of land, called minifundios, received little to no government assistance. In spite of these difficulties, however, by 1984 over 700,000 hectares had been distributed to 79,000 peasants. Distribution of the land remained highly unequal. In 1982, 80 percent of the farms consisted of less than ten hectares; yet these small farms accounted for only 15 percent of the farmland.[9]
While the Land Reform Act improved the lives and working conditions of many poor Ecuadorian farmers, it shook the country and made it unstable. The system that had been in place for so long had been remodeled and forced many of these farmers to sell their land due to lack of credit and experience. The peasant farmers left the land their forefathers had farmed for generations and headed to Venezuela and the United States.