Stories from the Desert

Day 2

The chilly morning knocks me awake. Oaxaca's been so sublimely warm in the last month, that a brisk morning almost seems foreign (I apologize to those of you living in snow-laden cities. But honestly, you've obviously selected the wrong place to live! I'm working on my tan and you're working on clearing your driveway--oof!) I head to the Plaza and pick up the following for breakfast: 1) a maiz-based atole, steaming hot in its Styrofoam jacket, 2) a chicken tamale in green mole sauce, swaddled in the signature corn husk, 3) a cup of yogurt with fruit gelatin floaters, 4) an apple from, of course, the U.S. of A. All for a grand total of $1.80.

After a bit of paperwork I get in a quick interview with a taxi driver/choreographer (everyone has a slash here in México. But unlike NYC where you generally find waitress-slash-actress, or bartender-slash-rock star--here in México it's taxi driver-slash-shoe salesman-slash-math teacher. You need four jobs just to float.) I'm collecting immigration stories for a contest going on through two universities and a museum in Oaxaca City. The top prize is $3,000 USD. I can only think that money would sprad immensely far here for someone of the region.

Irineo (the choreographer/taxista) tells me his failed story of immigration. At the age of 48 he saves up enough money to travel for 3 days across the desert in order to cross illegally into the U.S. They start by spreading garlic on their shoes and ankles--a repellent for the desert's vipers that lurk, undetected at night. Moving at an almost-run, the thin line of 20 follows the Coyote, snaking back and forth, using hills and mountains as landmarks to guide the way. They rest after 24 hours of uninterrupted walking. And when they eventually hit the border 2 days later there's a veritable weigh station of "mojados." They divide into groups based on their ultimate destination (Washington, Minnesota, the Carolinas, Florida). Tennis shoes and boots have given way to the monotonous trudge and must be abandoned for new digs.

Irineo stops. He tells me his mind will no longer send the signal to his feet to move. So in the end, after ll he's left behind in the journey he naps under a tree and eventually hikes a nearby gas station where he hitches a ride back to the border.

Later in the afternoon I head out of town with my co-producer, Araceli, to her village of Magdalena Peñasco. We have plans to record migration stories from both her dad and sister, who have each crossed the border. We're only able to record her sister before the sun sets, and marks my need to trek back towards Tlaxiaco. At the age of 18, María decided on a whim one evening that she's had enough of hearing about the opportunity of the United States, and wanted to go and see it for herself. Her story, completely distinct from Irineo's involves a sprained ankle in the first 5 hours of the trek, which she must ignore and bear for the additional 3 days of walking. The group is apprehended by Immigration on their first attempt. But once they are detained, and then passed back over the border, the group decides to make another attempt that night. They are successful. Tons of weary walkers pile, like tamales, into a single van, she tells me. Twice it breaks down over the course of the journey. But she eventually makes it to Florida--where this young, tiny 18 year-old works in a hotel, in construction, and finally in an apparel store. I want to know how she navigates the city, how she knows what coins to deposit for the bus, how to get to work...she explains in tears how she muddled through it all alone, so young. And after over a year, she returns. She misses her family, her town, the food. But it's not like she remembered. Her little brothers have grown up. They don't need her like before. And the poverty here persists. The lack of work--the hopelessness--they are still present. So she's putting her mind to cross again. This time, she says, she's ready for the challenge.

I return to Tlaxiaco a bit wiped out. But I've made another appointment to record the migration story of someone I met in a collectivo taxi a few weeks back. So I rally some energy in the form of an ice cream cone and head to the Parque to meet my next interview subject.

This is exactly the kind of guy (poster child for) those who would close our borders indefinitely, build a giant wall out of airplane hulls and find a way to live without cheap, immigrant labor (as if we could!); he's got a rough past, spent some time in an orphanage, spent some time feeling perhaps a bit lost. He gets into drugs, gets into jail, gets beaten into a gang where the hottest chicks stick to the most fierce guys, of course--a place where they would "spend two days getting high, chillin' out." And yet...

I can't help but think America would love this dude's 180-degree renovation, his cinematic shift away from that life when one day he discovers that milk and bread are way more expensive in México than they used to be. Inflation, the simple mathematics of the market slap him into, "I need to stop fucking away my life, throwing away my hard-earned money into shit. I need to set myself to work to the bone, save for my future. 'Cause there is no hope here in México. " I gotta think that the same Americans that would deport this guy in a cannon across the border without a thought, would have to admire his pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps sticktuitiveness, his ingenuity, his 6 AM-to-11 PM work ethic, his new clean edge, his plan for the future--which holds to one line: I will not allow my kids to inherit misery. It stops at his generation. I mean, shit, this guy doesn't even have any kids yet.

Our country is filled with guys like this one who have started their own construction business, landscaping business, house cleaning business--what have you. They have taught themselves through sheer force of will to learn English. They have saved and sweated and saved and planned for a time when every day isn't about work--when it's about giving their families a better shot at it. I gotta think that's something that us "gringos" can understand. Wasn't our country founded on that? Wasn't it?