listened. A woman in town loaned the family $5,500, a little boy offered $20, and others pitched in as well. 6 With the money in hand, the family set out to find a coyote, someone who would accompany Lucero on his journey through South and Central America and deliver him in one piece on the other side of the US-Mexico border. For fifteen days they planned his departure. Finally they found a coyote, gave him the money, and set a date.
Lucero left home on November 2, 1993, around 8:00 a.m.,with $1,000 in his back pocket and two sets of clothing in a small backpack. His sisters and brothers lined up to hug him good-bye. He bent slightly and lowered his head in front of his mother, asking her for a blessing. Everyone, including Lucero, was weeping.
He took a bus to Cuenca and another from there to Guayaquil, where he boarded a flight to Tecumán, Guatemala. But as soon as he arrived at the Tecumán airport, the authorities there detained him: there was a problem with his travel visa, and he would have to be deported. On the way back to the plane that would take him home, Lucero asked for permission to use the bathroom. Permission granted, Lucero took off running for the door, and kept running through the streets of Tecumán until he realized no one was following him. Having lost contact with the coyote, he set out to make his way alone through Guatemala and Mexico. It took him almost two months, but eventually he made it to Texas and managed to call his family. I’m alive, he told them. And I’m on my way to New York.
“I don’t know how, but he did [make it],” his brother Joselo once told a documentary filmmaker. “He would say, I’m going to make it there no matter what. I’m not returning home alive.” 7
Lucero arrived in New York on December 28, 1993. Somewhere along the way, the $1,000 in his pocket had been stolen. He was twenty-two years old.
When Doña Rosario found out her son had made it, her first thought was to wonder who would launder his shirts. He was so particular, she thought. Who is going to help him?
For a while, no one did.
After a short stint in New York City, Lucero moved in with six other young men he knew from Gualaceo, living in a big green house with five bedrooms and two bathrooms in Patchogue, near city hall and Main Street. He started working at a dry cleaner’s. While the other men played basketball in the park and cracked jokes in their living room after work, Lucero kept his distance. He was fastidious about his things and his space. He kepthis bed made and his night table in order, and he demanded respect from the others, who thought he was a little stuck-up. After about three years, Lucero moved on. 8 He rented a room on his own and began writing letters to his family that spoke of his loneliness, his hard life, and his yearning to see them soon. He complained that everyone in America was “addicted” to work.
“Everything here is always the same,” he wrote in Spanish on December 28, 1996. “I’m tired of being in my apartment, and tired of the same thing every day, every month, every year. All I do is work and work, and I look at myself in the mirror and I see that I look tired, and that I’m growing old.” 9
On August 17, 1995, he sent what may have been his saddest letter. He had just had hernia repair surgery, and he found himself so alone that he despaired.
“This was so hard for me,” he wrote.
I was alone in the clinic. I went to sleep, and when I woke up I was in such pain that I felt the doctors had taken away half my life. All I could do was howl in pain. The worst part was that no one came to pick me up when it was time to go home the next day. To go up to my room, I had to drag myself up the stairs on my knees. Then I went to bed and I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t move. I was alone, locked in four walls, half moribund. I got very melancholic and I realized that in my journey in this life, I was alone. It was the most difficult experience in my life.
Lucero left home on November 2, 1993, around 8:00 a.m.,with $1,000 in his back pocket and two sets of clothing in a small backpack. His sisters and brothers lined up to hug him good-bye. He bent slightly and lowered his head in front of his mother, asking her for a blessing. Everyone, including Lucero, was weeping.
He took a bus to Cuenca and another from there to Guayaquil, where he boarded a flight to Tecumán, Guatemala. But as soon as he arrived at the Tecumán airport, the authorities there detained him: there was a problem with his travel visa, and he would have to be deported. On the way back to the plane that would take him home, Lucero asked for permission to use the bathroom. Permission granted, Lucero took off running for the door, and kept running through the streets of Tecumán until he realized no one was following him. Having lost contact with the coyote, he set out to make his way alone through Guatemala and Mexico. It took him almost two months, but eventually he made it to Texas and managed to call his family. I’m alive, he told them. And I’m on my way to New York.
“I don’t know how, but he did [make it],” his brother Joselo once told a documentary filmmaker. “He would say, I’m going to make it there no matter what. I’m not returning home alive.” 7
Lucero arrived in New York on December 28, 1993. Somewhere along the way, the $1,000 in his pocket had been stolen. He was twenty-two years old.
When Doña Rosario found out her son had made it, her first thought was to wonder who would launder his shirts. He was so particular, she thought. Who is going to help him?
For a while, no one did.
After a short stint in New York City, Lucero moved in with six other young men he knew from Gualaceo, living in a big green house with five bedrooms and two bathrooms in Patchogue, near city hall and Main Street. He started working at a dry cleaner’s. While the other men played basketball in the park and cracked jokes in their living room after work, Lucero kept his distance. He was fastidious about his things and his space. He kepthis bed made and his night table in order, and he demanded respect from the others, who thought he was a little stuck-up. After about three years, Lucero moved on. 8 He rented a room on his own and began writing letters to his family that spoke of his loneliness, his hard life, and his yearning to see them soon. He complained that everyone in America was “addicted” to work.
“Everything here is always the same,” he wrote in Spanish on December 28, 1996. “I’m tired of being in my apartment, and tired of the same thing every day, every month, every year. All I do is work and work, and I look at myself in the mirror and I see that I look tired, and that I’m growing old.” 9
On August 17, 1995, he sent what may have been his saddest letter. He had just had hernia repair surgery, and he found himself so alone that he despaired.
“This was so hard for me,” he wrote.
I was alone in the clinic. I went to sleep, and when I woke up I was in such pain that I felt the doctors had taken away half my life. All I could do was howl in pain. The worst part was that no one came to pick me up when it was time to go home the next day. To go up to my room, I had to drag myself up the stairs on my knees. Then I went to bed and I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t move. I was alone, locked in four walls, half moribund. I got very melancholic and I realized that in my journey in this life, I was alone. It was the most difficult experience in my life.
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