Thousands of Mexico's artisans are in trouble. Facing a global economy, free trade, stagnant sales and rising raw material costs, they are unprepared to compete. One town famous for its hand-made guitars is falling prey to battalions of cheaper, factory-made guitars from Asia. PNS associate editor Sam Quinones is a freelance reporter based in Mexico City.

PARACHO, MEXICO -- Ignacio Barajas cradles a half-finished guitar, looks down its walnut neck and sees a bleak future.

For five generations the Barajas family has been making guitars in this town of 16,000 in north central Michoacan, one of the world's great guitar-making centers; about a third of the town's families make their living from the classical six-string. But these days sales, which were never robust, are dwindling. Fewer tourists than ever pass through town; Barajas made 300 pesos ($43) last month. Meanwhile, battalions of cheaper, factory-made guitars are marching in from Asia.

Barajas is the last of his family to continue in the trade. Only one of his four brothers knows the craft and he moved to Los Angeles to work in a supermarket. Barajas has few contacts in the U.S., none anywhere else, and knows only one way to export: by taking half a dozen guitars on a 30-hour bus trip to El Paso and leaving them with friends to sell.

In an era of free trade, stagnant sales and rising raw material costs, artisans like Barajas are in trouble. For years they have survived through Mexico's high tariff barriers, government subsidies and sales to tourists. Today, barely literate and too poor to get credit, they are ill equipped -- economically, technically and culturally -- to compete in a global economy.

"We're not going to be able to hang on much longer the way things are going," says Jose Luis Ramos, a wood carver from the village of Comachuen who is also president of the Union of Michoacan Artisans. "People are leaving their craft, their land, to go north (to the U.S.). More and more people are doing this."

In Michoacan, at least 40,000 families live from what they make by hand. But they're so dependent on pass-through tourist sales that all it takes to cripple a village is for the federal government to build a highway around the town. This happened to the village of Tzintzuntzan years ago and its ceramics industry lost all its vitality. More than half the village's residents now live in Mexico City, Santa Ana, or Tacoma.

"There aren't many young artisans of my age," says Manuel Morales, a 33-year-old potter in Tzintzuntzan, where 70 percent of the population is under 30. "Before it was really easy to get up at seven in the morning and hear people in their homes patting clay. Now Tzintzuntzan is real quiet."

For several years Paracho, too, has been losing its luthiers (guitar-makers). So many Parachans are in Los Angeles that the city has a fraternal organization to welcome new arrivals. Its one advantage is that its physical location on the one road linking the large cities of Uruapan and Zamora.

But even that doesn't seem to be much help nowadays, says Jesus Zalapa. At 36, Zalapa is the latest in a long line of family guitar makers. His sales have amounted to about 600 pesos in the last several months -- too little to finance the purchase of the electric saws and digital claipers he needs to improve precision. "Sometimes either you buy the tool or you eat. So you think of your family first," he explains.

Using only rudimentary tools, few of Paracho's luthiers will be able to turn out the flawless guitar bodies that Asian guitar factories produce every day and American consumers have come to expect. What to tourists is most romantic about the region's handicrafts -- that each work is crafted with tools and techniques handed down over generations -- now threatens their survival.

"Sometimes we get orders for large volumes," Ramos says. "But when are we going to be able to finish a big order? Now, if we had some of these (machines), think how many orders we'd be able to fill."

The biggest obstacle to a rejuvenated craft industry is artisans' reluctance to organize. Now is the perfect time for Paracho luthiers to form a cooperative. Prices of imported wood are rising even as the devalued peso makes Mexican guitars cheaper than ever to buy abroad. Yet despite the urging of Mexico's central bankers, who recently visited the town to offer help with terms of credit and other business skills, Paracho luthiers insist on buying their wood and selling their guitars individually. "We don't all have the same standards of quality," Zalapa says. "So one luthier complains, 'I'm better than that guy and they're going to pay us the same.' That's how we are. We just don't participate."

"We know what we need. We need organization," Ramos says. "But people don't believe in institutions. It's not easy to convince them."