Migration: stories from the other side

Hunting has taken me to some of Mexico’s most remote places. Places you have to cross kilometers of dusty wasteland to reach. On one of these fortunate trips, I came across a family of three brothers, illiterate peasants, who received me with uncommon courtesy and affection: Lucio, Pedro and Melquíades. We became friends almost forty years ago, and we’re still in touch today. I saw their children born and growing up, and I have the good fortune to be godfather to several of them. In other words, they’re family. And they’re perhaps the most kind-hearted, generous, funny, hardworking and friendly people I’ve ever met. It is through them that I got a close-up view of the phenomenon of migration and its causes. For most of the Eighties, Mexico was mired in a large-scale economic crisis. This is why many writers and filmmakers could only publish or release films later on. There was no money. The crisis forced the Mexican people to make drastic sacrifices in the name of «tightening the belt», the politicians’ favorite way of saying austerity. Other people’s belts, naturally, not theirs. Lucio and his brothers more or less managed to get by during this difficult period. They sowed sorghum and fished for tilapia in the great reservoir that bordered their property. This gave them enough to survive, with a certain amount of dignity. But in 1994 everything changed. That year saw the signing of the Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada (Nafta). Here is not the place to discuss the virtues or defects of the agreement; I just want to describe what I witnessed. That year dozens of North American agricultural products entered Mexico, tariff-free. People like Lucio, Pedro and Melquíades were not prepared for this fierce competition. Their best-ever sorghum harvest sold for a ridiculously low price. They couldn’t even afford the seed to plant the next crop. From one day to the next, they found themselves with no options for survival. Their already precarious financial situation collapsed. I saw their desperation; I lived through it with them. They had no choice but to migrate to the United States. The first to leave were my godsons Pedro and Pedro, who I’ll call by their nicknames – Perico and Huevo – to distinguish them. The former was Lucio’s eldest son, the latter Pedro’s. They said goodbye – I still remember that afternoon – and set out on the long walk to the United States. Perico didn’t see his father Lucio again for seventeen years. They were followed by Nere, then their father Pedro himself and his wife Rosa; after that Melquíades. The only ones left in the village were Lucio, his wife and daughters and his younger son. It was a painful process, that’s for sure. It’s really hard, not seeing your son for decades. Melquíades met his youngest daughter for the first time when she was seven. At one point Rosa disappeared. They thought she’d drowned in the river, just one more of the hundreds who die in the attempt to cross. In his grief, Pedro swore he wouldn’t cut his hair until she came back. There was no news of her until she reappeared one day, a year and a half later. Migrants are usually deported back to Mexico when they’re caught. Rosa had bought a fake passport – a federal crime in the US – and she ended up in prison. She was allowed to make one phone call and as her family had no phone, the woman in the cubicle considered it unimportant and hung up. I can tell you that migration has an unthinkable human dimension. It causes sadness, homesickness, break-ups, jealousy, uncertainty, anger and occasionally joy, integration in another culture, work and, yes, even happiness. Today my friends the Estrada family live in the United States and they’re happy. I can only say I envy the Americans. They’ve acquired a family group of some of the best people I met in Mexico. People who are quite capable of sleeping on the floor so that their guests can have the bed. People who share the very little food they have. I hope that some time the enemies of migrants may sit down with them in their homes and have the chance to understand who they are, these people they hate so much.