One family

June 2, Altar, Mexico: Omar is the son, eighteen years old, shy but with a ready smile. His mother, Mireya, is a short, stout woman, hesitant to talk much. Omar says she worked in Veracruz as a cook and a maid, taking care of other people’s homes. He thinks she will do the same in Santa Anita, California, which is their destination. Cecella is Omar’s aunt, Mireya’s sister, and the family resemblance between them is clear. She and her husband, a quiet man who stands apart from the women and Omar, complete the family party.

The family had a business in Veracruz, selling shoes, mostly children’s shoes and sandals. Then, says Cecella, “after the bombing of the Twin Towers (9/11), the whole economy of the country fell down”. Factories in Veracruz closed. Just as the big businesses closed, so t. heir small business became heavily indebted, unable to survive. They could no longer afford to buy food and clothing and pay the light bill, so they decided to leave, to go “up there.”

Omar says he will stay in the United States for four years, save his money and go back to open his own business, selling something, maybe clothes, maybe shoes. He will be a businessman, a merchant. His aunt does not want to stay that long. Just long enough to make enough money to start their business again, she says. The grandparents are still in Veracruz. They are in good health, but you do not want to leave family.

I ask Cecella what work she will do, surreptitiously observing her carefully groomed nails. Any work, she replies. Any honorable work. When you need work, you cannot say “I will do this, but not that.” Any job that there is. And we do not want luxury, she assures me, so we will save money to go back and start a business again. And to live on while we start the business, until it begins to make money. 

The family spent 24 hours on the bus, traveling from Veracruz to Altar. The next leg of the journey will take them to Sásabe. Then they will travel across the desert for three nights, maybe four. They will travel only at night because of the dangerous heat of the desert days. They have been waiting in Altar for eight days for a “friend” to arrive from Arizona to guide them across. He will come today or tomorrow, they say. Meanwhile, they sit and wait outside the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, on the shady side, in the plaza of Altar.