...continued
Why do
they come?
The
answer is obvious. Meatpacking in Santa Rita pays $40
to $100 per week. They can make five to 10 times as
much at Tyson or Sara Lee. Field work pays $40 per week
or less. Garment workers in Ayotlan city (county seat,
pop. 15,000-18,000, about 10 minutes from Santa Rita)
make up to $100 per week. Women string beads in the
small town of La Rivera on the front stoop of their
humble casas in the evening for rosaries sent
everywhere. It is the largest rosary manufacturing
center in the world outside of Rome. All done by hand.
“I
make enough for my family to eat,” says Police
Lt. Rudy Vasquez, a smiling cop who plays guitar for
children on the town square at Santa Rita. “But
to buy shoes, we have to think long and hard and plan.
“You
live here, it’s like a family. You wanna have a
soda with me, that’s fine. This is my
land.”
Simple
poverty, simple suffering, simple joy, simple life.
The old
woman sells sugar cane on the street in Ayotlan. It is
stacked all around her. She tries to hide behind the
cane from the camera, but eventually emerges smiling. I
ask for sugar cane. She chops it with her worn machete
and puts the squares into a plastic bag with tough,
brown hands. I hold out my smooth, white palm full of
pesos and tell her to take what she needs.
“Oh,
no. You are my guest,” she says.
I chew
it. The cane is subtly sweet. It will be riper next
month, and sweeter. I cannot chew it all, so it goes
with my guilt into the trash can before I enter the
community health center, immaculate white and bright in
the sheer mountain sun.
The
clinic is free for basic care, federally funded. Women
patients mop the floor to earn their keep.
Dr.
Gloria Irma shows the maternity ward. One bed. Clean.
Eight hours after birth, the mother and baby go home.
Across
the hall is a rehydration room for the young and old
suffering from diarrhea. A boy waits. Ayotlan has
chlorine in the water, but not Santa Rita. You drink
bottled water, if you can afford it. You use soap, if
you can afford it.
Back in
Santa Rita, Dr. Miguel Hernandez welcomes Huddleston to
his casa with hugs. He invites us inside for fresh
orange juice. Droplets from heaven, this. In a room
next door, an old woman lay dying with her son. Dr.
Hernandez has a hospital, by Santa Rita standards,
attached to his house. Four or six beds hold the
seriously ill and dying. The son greets us with a
somber “buenos dias.” Dr. Miguel closes the
door.
After meeting José on the
street at Santa Rita, the van takes us with police
escort — one cop drives, the other stands in the
back of the pickup with an M-16 — back down the
winding road to Ayotlan. A marsh is on the left. Local
legend has it that six crocodiles are in the marsh.
Nobody knows for sure. Horses drink oblivious.
The van
pulls up to the town square, with the county building
and St. Augustine Church. Inside the church, people lay
wreaths at side altars with pictures of the young who
have left for Storm Lake. They say a prayer to Santo
Toribio, patron to immigrants.
Outside,
a thousand people gather on the square. A band plays
the Jalisco state song. A festival is in full swing.
“It
is all for you,” Johanna Soto tells us.
We are
floored.
Mayor
David Soto welcomes us. We greet legions of people in
suits and ties. Faces are a blur. “Hola. Muchas
Gracias. Buenos noches.”
The
mayor climbs the gazebo. The band stops. He grabs the
microphone and tells the crowd that we are friends of
Ayotlan from Storm Lake.
The
crowd erupts in applause.
They
offer tequila sangria in stone cups. We parade around
the square shaking hands and kissing. It is dark under
yellow lights. Surreal.
We are
whisked off to a castle on a hill overlooking Ayotlan,
the first of nightly banquets that start at 10 or 11
p.m. and end whenever. The owner has a beef packing
plant. “Salud!” (Cheers!) they shout as the
tequila glasses clink. A mariachi band plays. Pumpkin
soup is served for the first course. More
“Salud!” The next course comes.
Prosser
is asked to speak.
continued...
