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The Willpower to Change Fate:
One Man's Journey From Mexico to Western Carolina
by Melanie King
Alone in the barn, Carlos* finishes shoveling manure into the already full wheelbarrow. Lifting it with practiced grace he starts to make his way outside, then brings the overflowing wheelbarrow to a composed stop so he can pat a huge black gelding on the neck. Condensation floods the air as he mumbles soothing words to the lame horse.
Coming illegally across the Mexican border eight months ago, Carlos only knows a few words in English.
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A graying man walks into the stable and glances his way, "Hey I thought I saw someone smoking? I told you to smoke outside." Carlos doesn't smoke, but his breath in the early morning air leaves a different impression. He glances over his shoulder, shakes his head no and fumbles with the words he wants to say.
Coming illegally across the Mexican border eight months ago, Carlos only knows a few words in English. He got this job almost upon arrival in Western North Carolina. Most of his friends work ten to twelve hour shifts at factories. With this job he works six days a week, eight or nine hours a day making $7 an hour.
Born in Mexico City, Carlos grew up in a close family. The youngest of three brothers, each just one year apart from the next, Carlos and his brothers didn't fight often; but in high school, Carlos says with a slight grin, when he or one of his brothers got into a fight with someone else, it was the three of them against the other guy.
Carlos's father works on farms, moving his family from area to area in Puebla, a historic state in Mexico, to find jobs. He deals solely with cows, hired to doctor them. Carlos's mother works at home as a housewife.
As Carlos grew up he started to notice his dad's habit of cracking his knuckles and playing with his hands. His father's bosses were demanding. His father would work hard all day, but it seemed like he could never do enough. When Carlos became old enough to work, money became a big issue.
Seeing his father struggle with such a large family, and with a brother in college, Carlos quit high school the year before he was to graduate and got a job working with cows, recording their milk production for the day. With long hours, and with jobs rare, he could expect only $50 for a seven-day week of work, and even this scarcely helped.
Carlos's father works on farms, moving his family from area to area in Puebla (1978).
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When an older brother illegally went across the border into the United States, Carlos thought he was crazy. The price of getting a guide to go across the border is nearly $2,000, not to mention that his brother had no family in the United States and no assurance that he could get a job.
When his brother called from North Carolina two years after leaving Mexico to ask if he wanted to join him, Carlos could feel his heart in his throat. Since his brother left a lot had changed. He had a 16-month-old son in Mexico City. If he got a job in the U.S., he could have enough to support himself and give to his parents and son what he would never be able to give them living in Mexico.
So he decided to go. He planned for the trip, borrowing the $1,700 to pay the "coyote" - the person who would help him get across the border. The sum, sent by his brother in the U.S., was staggering to him. His brother could earn that money in a month. It would have taken Carlos at least eight and a half months to earn that amount in Mexico, and that's without eating.
Carlos's mother (1978).
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He packed a few things, taking his savings, and then on the day of his departure told his parents. He knew they wouldn't want him to go. They were protective, and he was the youngest of their children. In the end they decided it was best for his future and he would benefit from it.
Then Carlos traveled from Puebla, his home state, to Mexico City. There he was to meet the coyote.
"It was almost like magic," he recalls. He was waiting at the designated hotel and the coyote was late. Losing patience, he called his brother in the United States asking what he should do. Right as he decided to leave, the coyote showed up.
As directed by the coyote, he and two other immigrants bought a bus ticket to Aguaprieta, or Black Water, on the Mexico-Arizona border. The bus ride was to be the longest he ever took, two days and two nights straight.
Arriving in Aguaprieta, the coyote left them at another hotel. He told them that there would be another coyote to take them across, explaining the trip as a chain. He also told them that he would be the one meeting them on the other side.
The coyote told the group, made up of eight that as they went across the border that people would rob them (other illegal immigrants crossing), and that they should give him their money for safe keeping until they got to the other side. He assured them that he would be meeting them on the other side.
Carlos and the others gave him their money, fearing it would be stolen from them on the trip over. They never saw him again. Carlos says this was just the beginning of one of the most horrible experiences he ever had.
Carlos's family lives in the Peubla, Mexico.
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It was mid-December and it was freezing. In order to get across the border without being detected, they would have to go at night. The coyote arrived and they were off.
The small group would have to cross a large stretch of desert, traveling from Aguaprieta into Arizona. They had to alternately run and crawl. The whole journey took about five hours. The whole time across they could see the headlights and reflectors of border police vehicles.
"Coming across was confusing," Carlos says. "You could see the border police but they couldn't see you."
His breath condensing in the cold air in front of his face clouded his vision, and after a while his gloves started to come apart. Crawling and running through creeks, his hands and feet became too numb to feel, but if he stayed behind or slacked off, he would be left behind.
Without flashlights, people were frequently running into things, and when they did, the person behind them would also get hit. Carlos was slapped in the face and arms with branches, giving him scars he has to this day.
Carlos traveled to Mexico City and then to Aguaprieta by bus.
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With a coyote in front to scout ahead and one behind to guide, the party managed to get across the border. As they came to the meeting place across the border, the guide motioned for them to stop. It was too late, they had came right up to a border patrolmen.
Sensing someone was out there, the border police let the dogs go. The police apparently already knew that they were meeting there.
The officers took their names and sent them to a holding house not far away. They would be kept there until they were taken back to Mexico. In the room with Carlos were people who had gotten caught: women, children, and others like himself.
"Seeing the women and their children who had gotten caught was the worst part," says Carlos, "knowing how hard it was for them to reach the other side."
He recalls one thing that was funny. When the immigrants were caught, the border police told them that they should get a different coyote because they had already caught the one they were with several times.
The coyotes are not supposed to be paid until they get the person across, even if it takes months. When they successfully get the immigrant across the border, they are sent the money owed by relatives of the immigrants.
Carlos got this job almost upon arrival in Western North Carolina.
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After being taken back to Mexico by the border police, Carlos and the others went back to the hotel in Aguaprieta and waited. Starving for sleep and food, they tried again the next night. They rushed through the darkness but found after two and half hours that it would be practically impossible to get across; border patrolmen were everywhere. They turned around and headed back to the city.
The next night, on their third try, the group, starving and tired made their way through the dark. Again they stumbled for hours through the underbrush and shied from the lights of the border patrolmen. Finally they came to a shopping center where they were instructed to wait for another coyote.
This time they had made it across.
The coyote who met them was an American citizen who took the immigrants to his house not far away. They hadn't eaten anything for the past two days and were given food and a chance to rest.
They were also instructed to call the person who would be paying to tell them to wire the money.
Unable to drive Carlos to North Carolina because of a snowstorm, the guide, who had obtained false papers for Carlos, bought plane tickets for him. Given a map of things to look for, Carlos was sent on his way to the airport.
Arriving in the destination airport, he says he had the weirdest experience, perhaps in his life. Surrounded by people in the busy airport, he couldn't hear one word in his language. "All around me people were speaking English. No one spoke Spanish; I had never experienced anything of this kind."
Carlos's son.
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If his departure from Mexico City was magic, so was how he got a job.
Arriving in Western North Carolina, Carlos was asked if he wanted to unload hay at a barn by his brother's friend. Getting there, Carlos found that the man in charge was just standing around and not helping out with the unloading.
A little while later, a man, who he presumed to be the boss fired the overseer. Turning to the group unloading the hay, he asked if any were interested in a full time position as a helper in the barn. Carlos, with knowledge of very few English words, raised his hand and got a full time job making seven dollars an hour, just a few days after arriving in the United States.
Today he sends the money he makes to his father in Mexico. From there it is distributed to whoever needs it most in the family and to his son in Mexico City. Carlos turned 21 just a few weeks ago and lives with his brother in a rented basement apartment. He picks on his guitar and hangs out with friends when he isn't working. He is also learning English from a local bilingual immigrant who supplies him with books and lessons.
He recently received a photograph of his son, now two, sitting on a tricycle and smiling big. He misses his family. Carlos wants to go back to Mexico.
Emptying the wheelbarrow he turns and goes back to the barn.
*Names and some employment details have been altered.
Hispanic Population Increases in the United States
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