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Thursday, August 28, 2008
Obrajuelo: making chorizo in Little Austin
Obrajuelo is another Mexican town that can stake a claim to being “Little Austin.” Like Bejucos and Luvianos in the Tierra Caliente, Obrajuelo has been sending its migrants to the Austin area for decades. It’s a connection that’s reinforced by the proliferation of burnt orange Longhorn caps around town and the residents’ easy ticking off of Austin neighborhoods and schools.
Located in the state of Guanajuato, one of Mexico’s traditional migrant-sending states, Obrajuelo is at the end of a paved road from the highway and consists of a few thousand residents clustered along a canal and some small hills. The town has a working hacienda, rare in Mexico since most haciendas were broken up after the Mexican Revolution and redistributed to the campesinos. In a tale that is all too often told throughout Mexico’s countryside, there simply aren’t enough jobs to sustain the local population. A Proctor and Gamble factory opened up nearby, but residents say most of the labor is trucked in from surrounding cities with higher educational levels.
