...continued
“We’re
very good at the winter coat,” he said.
“I
have a hope that eight to 10 years from now all the
cheap labor eventually will burn out,” says
Escoto, whose wife is his business partner. “If
we prepare ourselves for the currents, the labor will
balance.”
The shop
owners have come together with the state and county to
map a strategy for survival. It is not clear that a
strategy has emerged — just as it has not for
mainline Iowa manufacturers.
“Maybe
the jobs will disappear,” says Sergio Quezada,
our host and the head of economic development for the
county. “But we are smart. We’ll find a way
to make money.”
This one
factory goes through 12 million yards of fabric —
much of it Mexican wool grown by campesinos — per
year. How do you replace that? Answers are elusive.
Similarities to Iowa, although on a different scale,
are eerie. The similarities between Buena Vista and
Ayotlan Counties, likewise, are striking: isolated
rural counties depending on razor-thin margins in
agriculture, trying to become something more.
Another
big industry is tequila. Distilleries dot the Jalisco
landscape. The home of Jose Cuervo is not far from
Ayotlan in a town named Tequila. Also close to Ayotlan
is Don Julio Tequila, which we toured.
Agabe, a
cactus-like plant that is the ingredient in tequila, is
grown on the flats, on the hills, on the rooftops, in
the ditches. It takes eight to 10 years to mature. Ripe
plants are chopped by hand and loaded onto mules, then
back to trucks roadside for delivery. Don Julio
contracts all its acreage so it can control cultivation
and quality. The soil type of the high plateaus in
Jalisco is perfect for agabe. That is not an industry
that will go away, presumably, especially as tequila
grows in worldwide popularity.
The
climate and soil are perfect for corn, too. Two crops
are grown per year. It snows once a century, the last
one in 1992. Every day it is 82 degrees with no
humidity. Showers clean the morning. Sorghum feeds
cattle and hogs. The soil is black and rich. Still, the
farmers struggle against the drive of technology and
consolidation, just like Iowa.
The ones who work get by. Many do
not. So they leave.
Poncho
Mayorga left and returned.
He comes
into the pool hall with a big grin and greetings for
all. His little pickup is parked outside with the
portable welder that is his stock in trade.
“Work
here is sometimes good, sometimes not. But this is my
home,” Poncho says.
He
worked in Illinois, South Dakota and Iowa as a common
laborer and welder. Poncho spent some time in Sheldon,
and put down a few beers at Malarky’s Pub during
visits to his friends from Santa Rita in Storm Lake.
“I
had too many problems in the United States because I am
Mexican,” he said. “Too many Americans
don’t like us. Whatever the problem, they say
Mexican, Mexican, Mexican. But it’s African,
Nicaraguan, Salvadoran. I work in the snow, in the hot,
on the kill floor, in the welding shop. But too many
Americans say, ‘Hey, wetback.’ This is no
good. Mexicans go to the United States to work.
That’s it.
“In
the US, the money is good all the time. In Mexico,
we’re never in good money. It’s only for
the big people.”
The
Latinos in Storm Lake live in shadows, afraid, Poncho
says. They fear the boss, the INS, the system. So they
keep a step back and eyes askance.
One of
the little people walks in. He is Cucko, 7, whose
mother works in the fields all day trying to support
six children. The father left. There is no child
support, no welfare, no alimony. Just the kindness of
men in the pool hall. One day Cucko may join us in
Iowa, if he makes it.
At 8:15
p.m. a church bell rings once. Conversation stops. Pool
cues rest. Beer bottles are put down. All the men stand
at attention looking at Santa Rita Church. The town is
silent. Hands are folded. A minute later, the gong
sounds. The men bless themselves with the sign of the
cross. Revelry resumes.
What was
that all about?
“We
pray for Catholics all over the world,” Poncho
says.
Cucko
prays for us.
People walk for miles from
distant communities to pay homage at St. Juan de los
Lagos up in the hills not far from Ayotlan. A town of
70,000, it is to Jalisco what Dubuque is to Iowa
Catholics. A church on every corner, including a
basilica visited by Pope John Paul II.
The
pilgrims approach the door and fall to their knees on
the cobblestone floor. They march on their knees to the
altar, where they offer a prayer to Santo Toribio,
patron of the immigrants.
The
stream of humanity on its knees flows all day and
night.
Jesus
cries tears of blood in the pictures. The Madonna looks
down, sad. And there, enshrined in flowers, is the
photo of Toribio, once a Catholic priest in this
region.
Sixty
years ago, it is said, the federales associated with
PRI told Padre Toribio to renounce the Catholic Church.
He refused. The federales cut off the bottoms of his
feet and made him walk 25 kilometers to San Miguel on
bloody stumps, where he was hanged from a tree.
In the
1970s, an immigrant was in the desert of Arizona lost
and without water. A man appeared, gave him water and
showed him the way. The immigrant arrived at his
destination safely, and returned to pay homage to the
saint whose picture he had never seen.
Upon
arrival at San Juan de los Lagos, he saw the picture of
Toribio. It was the same man who helped him in the
desert. People say it happens all the time: Toribio
gives money or water or comfort to the people dashing
over the border in dead of night.
“Do
you believe this?” I asked Moises Delgado, the
Ayotlan County official and lawyer.
“Yes,
don’t you?” he asked me.
“I
am like Doubting Thomas,” I said. “I need
to see the wounds and feel them to really
believe.”
The
bloody pictures, the people on their knees, the sad
faces, the revolutions, the dashed hopes, the woman
without arms sewing with her feet, the simple poverty,
the rehydration room, the poor lady with the sugar
cane, the kindnesses without answer, the wounds all
around, inescapable yet compelling. You are drawn to be
enveloped into it.
The
plane tilts over Omaha. The fields are golden in the 5
o’clock Saturday sun. It is beautiful. Somewhere
on I-80 or I-29, a van is filled with Mexicans hoping
for a future. Some end up dead, like the ones piled in
the train car at Denison. Some make it, like Raul
Andrade, who met his wife Angie Stephan four years ago
in Storm Lake.
They are
happy. Raul will become a citizen. He has a shiny red
pickup that he wants to deliver to his father, a
campesino, at the Santa Rita festival May 14-22. His
dad’s pickup is shot. He hopes to bring his
2-year-old daughter, Cambrie, to see his hometown. She
wears a necklace. On its end is a pendant. It holds a
picture of Santo Toribio. She is blessed.
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