The majority of the people in this state are migrants. Previously a sparsely populated territory of the Mexican Republic – home to Maya indigenous, farmers and fishermen.
Marcos encoutered some of the hundreds of thousands of migrants from other provinces of the Mexican Southeast who flocked to this coast from economically devastated towns in Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, Veracruz, Oaxaca and elsewhere in search of work and opportunity. Indeed, as most other Mexican states experience dwindling populations, Quintana Roo is receiving their former residents daily. Many of these migrants – like their counterparts from California to New York island – support their families by wiring earnings back to their home communities, and here, in their own country, they face the same kinds of obstacles and repression as their brothers and sisters to the North.
The construction boom along Riviera Maya south of Cancún began with the reconstruction from the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Gilbert in September 1988, which, until Hurricane Wilma arrived last October, had been strongest hurricane ever to hit the Atlantic. Speculators and developers took advantage of the displacement caused by the storm and the Riviera Maya went up brick by brick. Destrying natural resources and arqeological treasures. Construction workers came from throughout southern Mexico and many ended up staying in the region.
The discontent, the anger, the nonconformity, the grievances, the explotation, humiliation and discrimination were heard by Marcos in Quintana Roo.
