Eneida (r), the wife of Fulgencio Sosa Cortes, and their children—Omar, 11, and Brenda, 9—all of Oaxaca, Mexico, are trying to come to grips with the news that their husband and father died in a landscaping accident in the United States.
who sought dream in U.S.
By clare marie celano
Staff Writer
The death of one immigrant to the United States has left a void in his hometown of Oaxaca, Mexico, that his family will never be able to fill.
Fulgencio Sosa Cortes, 39, was killed in a landscaping accident in Jackson on June 12. He had come to the United States in June 2002 with aspirations of working hard for one year and earning enough money to return home and buy a little farm for his wife, Eneida, and their two children — Omar, 11, and Brenda, 9.
Cecilia Reynolds, publisher of the local Spanish-language newspaper Nosotros, arranged and translated a phone conversation to Eneida in Mexico for a Greater Media Newspapers reporter on Aug. 20.
Through a sad and tearful conversation, the 35-year-old widow described her husband as "a good husband, an excellent father, a good person."
The trip to the United States was not something Eneida wanted. In fact, she said, she had expressed her opposition to Cortes many times.
"I told him I would continue to keep working as much as I had to," she said, referring to her job at the resort hotel where she made $50 a week. "I never cared about the money; all I wanted was for my little family to be together."
Asked how her husband described his trip and his time in the United States, Eneida said he said it was "very, very difficult." She said it was three weeks before she had any word from Cortes once he left Mexico and that she was very frightened.
"People die sometimes trying to get there," she said.
Eneida said her husband told her he was very sad because he felt as if he were "in a dead valley" here.
"They pretend you are not there. They pretend they don’t even see you," she said her husband told her.
"I will get more work. I will stay here long enough to pay back everything. I want to come back to you, but I have to make the money to pay everyone back," he told her.
Eneida said her husband was very depressed without his family and that being in "the North" was nothing like he imagined it would be.
She said there were a lot of obstacles and that life here was very difficult. But it is not the work itself that makes life difficult, as hard work is not a problem for most immigrant workers, she said. Instead, Eneida said, it is the life surrounding the work that causes the hardships.
Eneida said the trip her husband took involved three days on a bus to a larger town in Mexico with the person who arranged the trip, followed by another three days on a bus where they were met by a different "coyote," as the guides are called, in order to cross the border.
She said Cortes and his cousin Salvador Santos spent three days walking in the desert and were finally picked up by yet another person. They had run out of food and water by the end of that third day.
A trip to Phoenix, Ariz., led them to another few days spent in the basement of a home which housed more than 50 immigrants from different countries. Here, the immigrants were given one meal on the first day they arrived. Finally, all 50 were carted off in a van with no seats and taken to Freehold, where they were dropped off at the railroad tracks on Throckmorton Street, she said.The end of the road trip had come.
The immigrants were instructed to wait and wait and wait — hardly an introduction to the golden streets of America.
Eneida said she spoke to her husband about once a week. Conversations would include talk of how much he missed her and the children and how he "dreamed every night about getting off the bus and seeing them all there before him."
Cortes also wrote letters to his wife and children — beautiful letters that spoke of love and how much he missed all of them
In one letter, he drew tiny red hearts and flowers and told his wife, "I can’t stop thinking about you. I love you so very much. I feel very sorry that I was never able to say this to you face to face. But please understand that is the way I was raised. Now that I am here, I am so far away, I want to tell you how much I love you and how much you mean to me. I will work things out and come home to my little family soon."
Eneida said her husband would advise her about disciplining the children. The father is the one who traditionally handles discipline in Mexico, so it was difficult for her to take on this role, a role she had not asked for.
Letters to Omar, whom he called "chaparrito mi muchachito" ("my little one") and letters to Brenda, whom he referred to as "mi flaquita, mi amor" ("my tiny one, my love"), told of his love for them and how sad he was without them by his side. He included instructions for school and questions about their lives, their friends, their schooling. His letters seemed to say, "Although I cannot be there, here is how I feel and here is what I want you to do in my absence."
"Be good to each other, help your mother, learn your studies" was the resounding theme. Letters that said, "You will each grow up to be somebody special."
He told the children that he had no real schooling, but that he learned on his own. He wanted something much different for them. He wanted the world for them.
"I just wanted him to come home," Eneida said quietly.
But he could not come home, Eneida said. If he came back without the money to pay their debts, he would be considered a failure. He would not give up.
Eneida was asked if the money that Fulgencio sent home made any measurable difference in their lives.
"None. It was not worth it. Every day there was some new problem to handle here. The children cried all the time for their father," she said.
She was asked what she will do now, where she will go.
"I will stay here. This is where he left us. It is where we will always stay. It has been a very long year. Now I have no husband; my children have no father. I have a broken home. I have no money. I have no world left," she said.
Eneida said she wants her husband to know that she will not fail him. She will carry his dream with her "until the end." She said she will work 24 hours a day if she has to in order to make sure the children do well, "no matter what."
And Santos? He has decided to go back home to Mexico as well. He said he will stay here as long as it takes to settle this situation.
"[Cortes] has no family here but me. I have an obligation to be here for his wife," Santos said, adding sadly, "He was my friend."
And Reynolds? She will continue to do what she does best — fight for those who cannot speak for themselves. She said she wants people in the United States to understand that Mexican immigrants are not all that different from anyone else.
"We all come from somewhere," she said. "We all have the same goals. We have the same dreams as Americans; we want the best for our children. These people appreciate every day they have. They work hard and they never complain."
Reynolds said she is sorry if people are afraid of the immigrants or do not feel safe in their own neighborhood because of them.
She wants people to realize that "just because they may not look clean and neat if they are coming from work, that doesn’t mean they are not good people. They are not just dirty men standing on the side of the road. They all left a life behind. And each one of them has their own story."