Two cousins left Mexico to work and join family in Ohio. Then tragedy struck.
Two cousins left Mexico to join family in Ohio and work. One is missing and one is hospitalized in Texas where 53 migrants died who were inside a stifling tractor-trailer.
MEXICO CITY — The two cousins returned to the tiny, hardscrabble hamlet they grew up in in southern Mexico about two weeks ago to say goodbye in what has become a rite of passage for generations of migrants from their remote, impoverished mountainous region in Oaxaca state.
After the farewells in the community of Cerro Verde, Javier Flores López and Jose Luis Vásquez Guzmán began their trek north to the U.S-Mexico border and toward their final destination in Ohio, where construction jobs and other work awaited.
Flores López is now missing, his family said, while Vásquez Guzmán is hospitalized in San Antonio after surviving stifling heat inside a tractor-trailer near the Texas city that killed at least 53 people in the deadliest smuggling episode ever in the U.S. The perilous trip for migrants who climbed into what would become a death chamber for many reflects the growing risks people face in fleeing abject poverty, violence and other desperate situations in Mexico and Central America to seek a better life.
Cerro Verde is a community of about 60 people that has largely been abandoned by the young. Those who remain work earning meager livings weaving sun hats, mats, brooms and other items from palm leaves. Many live on as little as 30 pesos a day (less than $2).
“The truth is people leave here out of necessity,” said Felicitos García, who owns a small grocery store in nearby San Miguel Huautla, adding that he saw the two men about two weeks ago. “Life is tough here. People survive by growing their own crops like corn, beans and wheat. Sometimes the land gives and sometimes it doesn’t, when the rains arrive late. There is nothing in place for people to have other resources. People live one day to the next.”
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