The following case makes a description, geovisualization, and characterization of Ecuadorian novels that represent and recreate the migration. In that process it provides works on internal migration, the novelistic fictions that refer to emigration to internal, works around the emigration to other more developed territory and novels that relate specifically, the emigration of Ecuadorians, from the authors described, the contribution of Angel Felicísimo Rojas highlights with “El Éxodo de Yangana", that deals with internal migration from the Highlands to the Amazon region and Carlos Carrión Figueroa, with three published novels and others that will be published in the future, about the migration of Ecuadorians, and especially from Loja - “Lojanos”. From another perspective, congenial to the problems derived from migration in Ecuador, the cultures of the different expressions of the artistic dimension of culture have represented and recreated, from each one of their fields of action: musical arts, performing arts, plastic arts and literary arts, in its various genres: poetry, theater, essay, chronicle, testimony, story and novel.
In the current Republic of Ecuador, the sociological phenomenon of internal and
international migration, has been a permanent reality, from its most remote
origins, more than twelve thousand years ago [
In the novelistic genre, the representation of the sociological phenomenon of internal migration in Ecuador is present in A la costa (1904), by Luis A. Martínez (1869-1909) and reaches its highest and most masterful expression in El éxodo de Yangana (1949), by Angel Felicísimo Rojas (1909-2003); although in smaller proportions and connotations, it is also represented in the novel Los hijos (1962), by Alfonso Cuesta (1912-1991); and, returns to pick up momentum, albeit belatedly, with The Return (2013), by Hernán Aquiles Jimbo Córdova.
Among the Ecuadorian novels that refer to the international emigration originated in Ecuador, firstly to the United States, and then to other more developed countries in the northern hemisphere are worthy to mention: El muelle (1933), by Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco (1908-1993); El inmigrante (2004), by Gonzalo Merino Pérez (1939); El sudaca mojado (sf), by Mauricio Carrión Márquez; and, Los hijos de Daisy (2009), by Gonzalo Ortiz Crespo (1944).
In relation to fictional novels that recreate the "migratory stampede" of Ecuadorians to Spain, in the final years of the previous century and the beginning of the present, include: Camas calientes (2005), by Jorge Becerra (1944), La memoria y los adioses (2006), by Juan Valdano Morejón (1940), Trashumantes en busca de otra vida (2012), by Stalin Alvear (1942), and, The seduction of the sudacas (unpublished, 2010), The utopia of Madrid (2013) and La mantis religiosa (2014), by Carlos Carrión (1944).
The narrative plot and the social problems that are mentioned, outlined or insinuated in the enumerated Ecuadorian novels justify the pertinence of elaborating a contextualized, descriptive and analytical presentation of the main novelistic fictions, which have as a real and thematic reference in internal and international migration of Ecuadorians, which is what is done in the following pages. 2
Regarding the sociological phenomenon of internal migration in Ecuador it is
necessary to remember that during the republican era, droughts, earthquakes
and other natural phenomena, which have affected our country, as well as the
isolation and abandonment in which, historically, has maintained the rural
sectors have increased the migration phenomenon city field, interprovincial and
interregional, throughout the twentieth century. In addition, during that time, as
Oswaldo Hurtado expresses, due to the imbalance in the systems of land tenure,
archaic forms of production and remuneration of agricultural work, relations of
dependence on the peasantry, erosion of Andean soils, accelerated population
growth, the crisis of the traditional hacienda and lack or insufficiency of roads
or means of transport and communication, among other structural causes,
influenced the rural area of the inter-Andean region or Highlands to become the
largest provider of emigrants, inside and outside the country [
In a socio-economic context such as the one mentioned above, the allusion
to the internal migratory phenomenon is present since the beginning of the
novelistic genre in Ecuadorian literature, with Cumandá o un drama entre salvajes
(1879), by Juan Leon Mera (1832-1894), chronologically, the second novel after
La emancipada (1863), by Miguel Riofrío (1822-1879); since in Cumandásome
indigenous people of the Andean highlands fled to the Ecuadorian Amazonian
forest, after revolting against the abuses of the employer and setting fire to the
house of this and his family. With the passage of years of independent life in
Ecuador, the highest level of development of the coastal region or coast due,
among other reasons, to the entry of cocoa into the international market and
the consequent establishment of the agro-export model, generated an internal
movement of migration with high signification, “this is the beginning of a period
that spans from 1860 to 1950, characterized by a systematic migration in one
direction: from the Highlands towards the Coast" [
A sociological phenomenon of human mobility of this nature is the one that
serves as a reference basis to the novel A lacosta (1904), by Luis A Martinez
(1869-1909), a pioneering work of social realism, in which the sociological
phenomenon of internal migration is recreated. In this novel, the central character
Salvador Ramírez, initiates an migratory path, which in the Ecuadorian social
reality will last throughout the twentieth century, he goes from the Highland
region, in the Andes, to the Pacific Coast, in search of livelihood and life that
Quito, the city of origin, had hidden from him [
From the structural point of view, symbolizing the regionalist dichotomy
Highlands-Coast, which has weighed so much in the history of Ecuador, the
novel is divided into two well differentiated parts: the first, which takes place
in the Highlands, is thesis and, the second part, which has as its scenario the
Coast, traditional style; technically, the first part is narrative and the second
descriptive; and, as for the characters, those of the Highlands do not repeat
themselves on the Coast, except for Salvador Ramírez, the main character of the
novel, which is the bridge that unites the two parts of fictional fiction and two
of the three natural regions of mainland Ecuador [
Salvador Ramírez, the main protagonist of the novel is a young student of the middle class of the capital, insignificant and inoffensive, nervous, "blond, white, weak like a lady", characteristics that are attributed to him to be the faithful representative of a social class in frank decadence, a young city dweller who, in addition, has to cope with the economic difficulties of home, being orphaned as a father; a tragic circumstance that forces him to become the head of his family, composed of Camila, a fervently religious and conservative mother; besides his sister Mariana, young, beautiful and ardent woman.
In addition to assuming the complex responsibility of supporting the household, Salvador Ramírez strives not to abandon university studies; however, at that time the first civil war broke out led by the liberal leader Eloy Alfaro Delgado and in virtue of the desperate situation that crossed the family of the protagonist, Salvador enlists in the conservative forces, which seek to defend and perpetuate the decadent social order constituted in one of the battles he is miraculously saved by Luciano Pérez, the "strong, healthy and robust young man", as a symbol of rising liberalism, who was once a suitor for Mariana and who, obviously, fought in favor of the liberal forces. In these complex circumstances is Luciano, who after a day of intense deliberation with Salvador on liberal principles, manages to convince him to accept the new political reality of Ecuador.
Once the battle is over and when young Salvador returns to his home, he
finds the devastating image of seeing his mother in the most extreme poverty
and his sister Mariana prostituted, seeking human warmth in the streets. As
a way to evade as harsh as it is an opprobrious family reality, Salvador
embarks on the adventure of emigrating to the warm coastal lands, trying to find
a new direction to his life. The trip is justified because the Coast, for that time,
becomes the dreamland for the mountain people who want to improve the
economic limitations that beset them in their region of origin and Guayaquil, the
most important city of the Pacific coast, appeared as a true land of promise:
"it is the city of gold, of work, of activity, but Salvador Ramírez could once be
one of those pampered of luck who arrive poor and die rich and estimated" [
After he arrived at the Costa, Salvador Ramírez becomes the butler of the El Bejucal farm and in the performance of his new activities in the coastal agricultural field he has to face hostile situations: unknown work, the unhealthy climate, the plagues, the regionalist prejudices of the workers, until he meets Roberto Gómez, a mountain worker with several years of work on the coast and father of Consuelo, who becomes Salvador’s wife and who gives him the necessary strength to cope with the vicissitudes of life in such an adverse field environment. However, tropical diseases are undermining the health and existence of Salvador, who falls ill, prostrates in bed to never get up again and is coming to the end of his days, while making a mental account of his life and fixed his eyes, through his window, in the city of Quito, where one day it was his home.
Regarding Alfonso Cuesta and Cuesta [
As cited by Jorge Dávila Vázquez, of the many and memorable characters that are present in Los hijos, the Cocolos are worthy of mention, those children torn from the countryside, their environment, their family, the land and the nature of which were a constituent part; transported to a strange, hostile environment, sheared like little animals, turned into the object of mockery of the city boys of his age. It is that Alfonso Cuesta took advantage of the knowledge, at first hand, of the main sociological problems of his immediate surroundings as a basis for the writing of his novel; among which stand out: the role of the Indian in a society that still had strong links with the agrarian; impoverishment due to drought; the "sale of children"; and, the emigration originated in the rural sector of the province of Azuay.
In the development of the sociological phenomenon of the physical
displacement of people in Ecuador, the city and province of Loja occupies a special
place, since this geographic circumscription, more than any other within the
country, has a millenary migratory tradition, dating from its remote origins, as
well as avocados, which constitute the aboriginal contribution of greater weight
and importance in the constitution of the current complex miscegenation, are
considered "as originating in the Amazon (...) that, crossing the Andes mountain
range, they settle in the territories of the current Loja [
In this territorial jurisdiction, during the republican era, the economic crisis,
due to multiple causes and circumstances, has been presented throughout its
history, alternating with short periods of prosperity. To the cyclical years of
drought are added other factors, among which the inadequate implementation
of state policies such as the Law of Agrarian Reform and Colonization (1964),
which in the case of the province of Loja left in the hands of absentee landlords
the better land with irrigation or more apt to undertake agricultural exploitation;
an absurd trade that turns the peasant farmer into an "eternal loser", as Trotsky
Guerrero Carrión said [
In direct relation with this migratory tradition of Loja, the novels that
represent and recreate it, have emerged; although it is well after the rise of the
emigration of Lojanos to other latitudes of Ecuador, the novel El retorno(2013),
by Aquiles Hernán Jimbo Córdova, is built with a real and thematic reference
in the background of the problems derived from internal migration, in this case,
from the Loja countryside to the capital of the province and other latitudes of
the country. The novel begins by fixing as a temporary reference the year 1950
and culminates in 1964. It develops the story of the emigration of José Alfredo
Sánchez Valdez and his family, composed of his wife Vilma del Rosario Gálvez
and the sons José Vicente and Susana; family nucleus that, nevertheless belong
to an average socioeconomic segment, when they were affected by the drought,
they start the emigration road towards the city of Loja, where they aspire to
find a job that allows them to survive and provide a better education for their
children. The vicissitudes of the emigration trip of the Sánchez-Gálvez family do
not wait. On the way, they are intercepted by a group of robbers who,
usurping the name of the famous Lojano bandit Naún Briones, rob them some little
money, the jewels and other valuables that they carried with them, so they must
postpone the trip and use as pawns at the Hacienda Valle Hermoso (Casanga),
where the boss, in a premonitory way, warns them that "they must stay at least
a year and give up that absurd trip to Loja, because there they will die soon [
In the city of Loja, José Alfredo had to be employed as a municipal sweeper
and his wife Vilma begins to exercise her skills as an empirical herbalist. With
these meager economic incomes they can survive and enroll their children to
advance in formal education, as they were their pre-immigrant dreams; however, as
José Alfredo has leadership qualities, he soon ventures into the union leadership,
reaching the presidency of the Union of Workers of the Ilustre Municipality of
Loja and later he is elected President of the Cooperative "Loja Libre" which,
with the support of a deputy, had been formed to expropriate land and build
housing that benefited those who lived as tenants. This vindictive spirit of José
Alfredo brings him a series of difficulties until falling victim to the Lojan
oligarchy, by whose disposition the repressive forces of the State, after beating him,
unfairly, lock him up in prison, "thus (...) he was thrown bleeding, beaten and
without knowledge in a filthy cell, in which the most dangerous criminals of the
city jail were consumed [
Vilma, faced with the need to obtain the economic resources that allow her
to meet the basic needs of the family, is forced to dedicate herself to the laundry:
"she had to wash a lot of clothes and get some money to support and feed the two
children and the incarcerated husband and blind [
Susana is the only member of the emigrant family who seems to smile at her
luck; because, after having self-released from the prostitution to which she was
forced to enter and to reunite with the love of her childhood, Roberto Infante,
with him, she arrives in the city of Quito and then goes to the northeast of the
Amazon, to become one of the founders of the provincial capital that recalls
the name of her native Loja: "after a short time, they associated with some
Lojano migrants and founded the city of Nueva Loja and other equally important
towns [
Only when the disintegration of the migrant family is consumed José Alfredo,
blind, ill and literally almost starved, is released from prison and left in the
middle of the street; with unspeakable difficulties he manages to get to a friend,
who informs him of the tragic ending of his wife and son, an infamous news
that makes him wish his immediate death; however, as he has not forgotten the
promise he made with his late wife, he decides to return to his homeland and to
the house that lived with his family: "Friend death, you are inevitable! I respect
you and I love you; but, this time, I have to get to La Esperanza ... there we will
talk to each other [
3 El éxodo de Yangana, the "total novel" about emigration from the Andes to the Amazon region of Ecuador
In Ecuador, the emigration flow towards the Amazon region evidenced a
notable increase with the implementation of the already mentioned Law of Agrarian
Reform and Colonization (1964), which among other things was proposed to
promote the productive reactivation of large areas of badlands that they were given
to the future settlers as an incentive for them to cultivate agricultural products;
state policy that helps the peasants of the other natural regions of Ecuador,
mainly from the provinces of Loja and Manabí, fleeing from intense droughts,
emigrate and settle in the Amazon, especially in the years of 1967 and 1968 [
In relation to this sociological phenomenon, from the perspective of fictional
fiction, it is fair to recognize the anticipatory nature of the most accomplished
novel, in-depth and form, about the internal migration of Ecuador: El éxodo
de Yangana (1949), by Ángel Felicísimo Rojas (1909-2003), a work that, in the
words of the author, was inspired by a land dispute between a landowner and his
neighbors, in the parish of Malacatos, canton and province of Loja, for the year
1937 (Rojas, 2004). In this novel fiction the migratory process is described, in
all its phases: remote and present causes, determinants and coadjuvants of the
exodus, the departure, the trip, the arrival and the preparations of the definitive
settlement in Palanda, today province of Zamora Chinchipe, in the southeastern
Ecuadorian, the place chosen to refound the town of Nuevo Yangana [
Among the most remote causes that trigger the exodus of the Yanganenses is
the "illegal" and immoral appropriation of the communal lands, by three gamonal
landowners [
However, it is the son of Javier: Ignacio Gurumendi, a young gentleman who
had formed and lived in the capital of the Republic, who takes effective possession
of the Hacienda Sevilla del Oro, "inherited" from his father and begin tensions
with the Yangana comuneros: "but he can not close the sprue. He can not do
that. “The people will never consent to it” was the warning that the despotic
landowner received from the lips of Don Vicente Muñoz, the most enlightened
man in Yangana. However, as the landowner did not meet the minimum
aspirations of the Yanganenses, confrontations begin; as Churón Ocampo recalls, the
natural leader of the exodus: "then it was that we began to break the fences
during the night, and what became the criminal cause that roared [
Faced with the abuses of the landowners, the Yangana comuneros complained
to the executive and legislative function, in order to expropriate the three
haciendas and make the land revert to communal land as it once was. Although,
they did not obtain a favorable response to the fair request, they did not forget
the obscure origin of the latifundios, in whose arbitrary legalization the civil,
military and ecclesiastical authorities of the parish, canton, and province of Loja
were complicit, who, directly or veiledly, supported the excessive ambition of
the landlords; for that reason, in Yangana, the generalized saying is that these:
"they do not have legal title but they have occupied arbitrarily lands of the
community [
As the conflict over lands and waters did not seem to be resolved by legal
means, and it got worse, with the death of some animals, the spiritual leader
of Yangana writes a comedy: "Beware of gentle water", so that be represented
on the occasion of the Festival of the Good Success Lord. With this literary
work, Vicente Muñoz proposed to satirize the chieftains and "that the bosses
understand the risk they are in if they persist in annoying the people as they are
doing" (Rojas, 1985: 253). Far from what could have been foreseen, the comedy
exacerbated the mood of the Yanganenses who, incited by the words of the
actors and the ingested alcohol, violently confront the big landowners present
and kill their main enemy: Ignacio Gurumendi (Cfr. Salazar, 2004: 68). When
recovering the calm, the settlers of Yangana feel outside the law and with the
threat of the imminent repression, on the part of the army and the police, reason
why they deliberate and like in Fuente Ovejuna, the historical drama of Lope de
Vega, jointly protect each other, assuming collective responsibility in the crime
against those who came tyrannizing and decide the exit, the abandonment of his
beloved Yangana, after having reduced it to ashes, to go "mountain in the east,
looking of uncultivated lands to make them ours [
The trip as a displacement in the geographical space, as transit from one
place to another, is long and exhausting: "in nine days of march, of startles and
tense vigils, the abuse has wreaked havoc on men and animals [
The arrival of the Yanganenses to the place of final destination, Palanda, allows them to be in physical and sensitive contact with the new, due to the substantial differences between the Andean subtropical valley from where they came from and the Amazonian tropical forest where they arrived, it "the people of the exodus to see the promised land (...) let escape, like a great scream of wild joy, a word that then repeated the voices, with passionate monotony: Palanda! Palanda! Palanda! "(Rojas, 1985: 98). Campo Azuay Zapotillo Loja
Destiny
Guayaquil - Palanda - Zamora
Chinchipe del Cuenca
- Loja, Quito
Regarding educational technology, an intelligent environment or space can
be constituted as an ecosystem of technologies for the transmission of data,
according to its level of integration with the technological resources that allow
achieving the objective for which it has been designed. Studies on this field
are presented with the following challenges: defining new methods of modeling
and collaboration, referencing the form of representation of the devices in the
intelligent environment and the way in which new elements will be discovered
in the system. Another relevant issue is the way in which human interaction
must be established with the devices, risks and security of the object for which
they are designed, among other aspects [
The technological model of visual representation significantly improves
access to literature and especially about Ecuadorian novels. JsFiddle is a user
friendly website. The purpose of using innovative technologies in these spaces is
to approach the citizen to the concepts and application of the so-called Internet
of things (IoT) [
In this essay have been presented and described only those Ecuadorian novels that have a plot and background theme the sociological problem of migration. From its reading it can be concluded that the migration within the national boundaries has had varied ways of representing itself in fictional fiction: from the Andean Highland region to the coastal region or Coast, which is the leitmotiv of A la costa by Luis A. Martínez ; from the Highlands to the Amazon region, which is masterfully recreated in El éxodo de Yangana, by Ángel Felicísimo Rojas; and, from the rural sector of the Highlands towards other places in the rural sector of the same Highlands, the Coast, the Amazon or the capital cities of the province, which is represented in Los hijos, by Alfonso Cuesta and Cuesta and, more recently, in El retorno, by Aquiles Jimbo.
From the multiple novels and authors referred, by the compositional structure and technical-narrative quality, are worthy of perpetuating El éxodo de Yangana, by Ángel Felicísimo Rojas, which refers to the interregional emigration within Ecuador. The reading and analysis of the novels that represent the phenomenon of migration in Ecuador, both internally and internationally, shows us that this sociological problem has been an issue that has attracted interest and inspired several Ecuadorian novelists since more than a century. The novels reviewed make clear, too, that writers, sensitive to the social problems of the environment, in which they develop and write their creative work, have addressed the migratory problems of Ecuadorians and, with a direct language, and even stark in several times, they have developed fictitious stories that, seen together, provide a broad, deep and very rich description, problematization, and analysis of the different phases, moments and specific aspects of the always complex migratory process and of the social subjects that star it.