Home is where you lay your head Immigrants make do as they sleep, eat in woods around Freehold
BY CLARE MARIE CELANO
Staff Writer
Peppers on a makeshift grill in a wooded area.
FREEHOLD – While most borough residents sleep in comfortable beds at night, others seek refuge on a bed of dirt in a wooded area not far from town.
While most borough residents gather to share a meal at a dining room table, dozens of Mexican immigrant workers gather around a make-shift barbecue to cook what may sometimes be their only meal of the day. This small patch of ground is what some immigrants call home.
A recent trip to the area revealed “lodgings” that would be considered deplorable and uninhabitable by mostresidents; make-shift campsites tucked under bridges, in pockets of wooded brush or buried atop hills among other debris and rubble.
On Sept. 10, a Greater Media Newspapers reporter accompanied by Freehold Borough police officer Craig Dispenza and Cecilia Reynolds, publisher of the local Spanish-language newspaper Nosotros, walked over broken glass, scattered rocks, dirt and debris to see where the immigrants live.
JEFFGRANIT staff Antonio Campos at his makeshift home of a cement mixer.
The remnants of one “household” could be seen – a worn Mickey Mouse comforter. Nearby stood one lone black work boot, covered with sandy soil. A 6- by 8-foot area served as sleeping quarters for at least one person who came home after a hard day’s labor.
In the midst of overgrown foliage and brush, the group made its way up a sandy hill which led to two cement cubicles about 5 by 5 feet, which appeared to have been used for sleeping quarters. Stepping inside the narrow “doorway” revealed room for one person. Dirt formed a floor and a cement roof would provide some shelter from the blistering heat of summer or the biting cold of winter.
The only evidence of human habitation either recent or old in this particular “home” was a jagged piece of mirror about 3 inches wide, hung neatly on the back cement wall. A companion cement square stood alongside this one. On its floor was a pocket version of the New Testament. This hidden wooded area seems to serve as a way station, a place of transition for Mexican immigrants who have come to America to try to make a better life for their families.
Many of these illegal immigrants are promised housing and a job when they sign up with a “coyote” in Mexico, who will guide the trip across the U.S. border at a cost of $4,000.
One can only imagine their reaction when, after making the long and difficult journey to the United States, they arrive at the “housing” they were promised.
And the job?
Most immigrant workers will wait alongside the railroad tracks on Throckmorton Street for many days before getting hired for a job. If they get lucky, a truck or a van will pull over and someone will hire them for a day, a week, or longer.
The living area the immigrants call home appears to be stuck in a time warp. Traveling a little more than a mile in any direction will lead to a supermarket, a convenience store, a town hall and rows and rows of safe homes with modern facilities.
Yet an observer of the campsites that are hidden in overgrown brush and dirt might feel as though they had suddenly been catapulted across some invisible border where no technology of any kind had arrived.
Continuing on the journey, the group arrived at what Reynolds called “a three-bedroom apartment.” The “three-bedroom apartment” was an abandoned cement mixer, hidden by overgrown grass.
Closer inspection revealed a cigarette lighter at the mouth of the opening, possibly the only illumination on a dark night, and three distinct sleeping areas created on the metal inserts that once turned the liquid cement. Blankets were draped on each metal rung. Personal belongings neatly lined the inside of the container that was once used to help create outdoor patios for area residents.
Walking a bit further revealed what Dispenza referred to as a “community center.” A tree bore the words “La Rasa” scrawled in large blue lettering. Reynolds said the words mean “the guys.”
Dispenza explained that this is probably the place where the men meet after work, perhaps to swap stories, good and bad, of the day’s events. It is a place to share food and human connection before the night comes and they must retreat to their sleeping quarters, wherever that may be on any given night.
In this meeting place one can see signs of recent human habitation. Tucked inside a small cooler were fresh tomatoes, onions and cilantro neatly wrapped in white plastic and a plastic bottle of cooking oil. It was evidence that people are indeed making a home on this backwoods piece of earth.
A barbecue stood against a tree, obviously replacing what was once used to cook meals – a rusty metal grate lying haphazardly atop a bunch of rocks that had been heated to cook whatever food was brought to lie on top of the bent and battered grate. Standing beside the cooler, an old metal supermarket basket held some clothing.
Dispenza, who serves as the borough’s community relations officer, said he worries about what will happen to these people during the winter months. He, along with several other Spanish-speaking borough officers, are trying to help the Mexican community integrate into the town. He said that seeing how these immigrants live should give people food for thought in regard to their own lives.
“We sit in our nice safe homes at night watching television and then get annoyed at some little inconvenience like having to get up and turn the channel. I think of these people often, especially when I’m home at night. Little things, like going to the refrigerator, for instance, to get a Coke, you know? I think of what they have to do just to get through the night,” he said.
Reynolds, a native of Mexico, spent last winter trying to provide what warmth she could by bringing hot coffee and blankets to the wooded area. She said this job is impossible to maintain on her own. She wants people in town to be aware of the situation and is hoping that somehow, there will be a way to help her countrymen.