Mexicans Who Immigrate, Mexicans Who Stay Home

When a Mexican family decides someone should become an undocumented worker in the United States, what happens? With all the news about violence between the drug bands or between the narcos and the police, it's time to take a look at every day life in Mexico.

When a Mexican citizen crosses the border to work, the decision affects the whole family, especially when the father is the one who goes.

Here's how a family I know rose to the occasion, with details about the difficulties and benefits his migrating eventually had for them. I'll call them the Hernandez family (not the real name).

In 2008, Javier Hernandez had worked in the United States twice before but when his work as an albañil petered out in his home city, he decided to try his luck again. Paying the man who would take him across the border would take the equivalent of US$2000 from what he had earned on an earlier trip or maybe a loan from close relatives who chipped in, but he would earn good wages in Florida, stay with his brother-in-law and go with his relative (who had papers) in his car every day out to the fields.

Meanwhile, his wife was a single parent with the oldest child, a son studying to be a teacher, two teenage girls and a younger daughter. Gloria is a very organized woman and managed to do it all, cooking in her simple kitchen, managing the kids and working several days a week in the homes of foreign residents. She and Javier talked on the phone weekly. Besides keeping in touch about family matters, he would tell her if he was about to send a remittance, that is, a money transfer.

After a year and a half, the telephone conversations weren't as happy. Apparently Javier had become depressed. His brother-in-law was worried and his wife encouraged him to come home, even though the return would be sooner than they had planned.

When he came back, Javier could see how the teenagers and the young one had grown in his absence, what he had missed. But with the money he had earned, his wife would have modern kitchen cabinets and counters as testimony of his regard for all her efforts while he was gone.

With his family again, Javier found his depression lifting but he had a new problem when a doctor told him that chemicals sprayed on the tomatoes had affected his lungs. Although at first, the problem appeared to be a long term one, it did resolve more quickly than expected.

In Mexico as his lungs improved, Javier hired on as a construction foreman. Then his back started giving him trouble. The solution the family hit on was beginning an ice cream business. Now, his wife assists him in mixing the ice cream at home. Every day he walks with his cart through a long tunnel to a hilltop street where he has built up a route of regular customers.

The Hernandez family is what we in the United States would call a very together family. When their son, now a teacher, was in a serious automobile accident (although relatively unhurt himself), the family rallied around him. One daughter has left school because of learning problems but the other will be the first of her family to graduate from the university. The youngest was chosen flag bearer for her class last year, meaning a leader.

Mexican families like this one don't make the news, but they are making a better Mexico. But maybe that's the wrong way to put it: Mexicans value strong families and the fiestas and celebrations that keep families strong.

Javier was willing to miss out on all that for awhile, but not forever.

Source: personal knowledge