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mobile- banking app launched in
2021, is reducing the fees migrants
pay to send remittances to banks and
giving them greater control over their
funds. Such efforts are building on
financial- education programs that
foreign aid groups began running in
Guatemala in 2016, aimed at helping
remittance recipients formalize and
invest their money.
The goal of these efforts is simple,
says Danny, who used money sent
back by his mother to start a success-
ful grocery store in Quetzaltenango:
“We want to improve things, to cre-
ate work for everyone, so people don’t
have to leave.”
Willy Barreno knoWs the forces
that drive Guatemalans north, and he
also knows how hard it is to return.
Barreno returned to Guatemala from
the U.S. in 2010, with 14 years of ex-
perience cooking in successful restau-
rants from New Mexico to Chicago.
Back in Quetzaltenango, he opened his
own restaurant, La Red, serving Mex-
ican dishes infused with Guatemalan
flavors and ingredients. He dreamed
of using produce from local farmersand employing many other returned
migrants. But today La Red is hanging
by a thread. Barreno says he relies on
donations from friends and family to
keep it open week to week. “This is the
worst failure of my life,” he tells TIME
over a Zoom call, shaking his head.
Barreno says businesses like his
have struggled to compete with the
major U.S. chains, like Taco Bell, Mc-
Donald’s, and Domino’s, that have pro-
liferated in his city since he left in 1996.
And he says the government has failed
to support the growth of Guatemalan
businesses, focusing instead on attract-
ing foreign companies, like Walmart.
Most things in Quetzaltenango come△
Barán’s stepsister Amelia Ixcoy
(not pictured) runs a bakery
supported by the cooperative