NEWSLETTER

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INTERVIEWS BY GABRIELLA GÓMEZ-MONT
PHOTOS BY DULCÉ PINZÓN

There is an amusement park in Alberto Town, in the Mexican state of Hidalgo. It is run by Hñahñu Indians. There, instead of the usual merry-go-round or Ferris wheel, amusement takes a different turn: One can pretend for a couple of hours to be an illegal immigrant trying to get across the Mexico-US border. You will be chased for 11 miles; there will be gunshots, barbed-wire fences, cacti, sirens, shouting, running for cover, and even a theatrical death or two. And it only costs 25 bucks a head. It is a simulacrum of the “torturous travails of a mojado crossing the border, with educational objectives,” as the park organizers explain it. Notwithstanding its educational and entertainment value “for the whole family (sometimes people even bring babies, like in real life),” the amusement park has been criticized by some as a training ground for people who are truly planning to get across the border. Others attack the place for treating lightly the terrifying ordeal that real immigrants go through in search of something a lot more basic than the American dream: just plain old food on the table and a roof over their families’ heads.

The theme park—even if it is in central Mexico, far from the real border—was inspired by real life. Alberto Town’s population has dwindled to a little over 200 (compared to an average of 2,000 in previous years) because its people started immigrating to the US en masse. A town council was formed and they decided on the strategy of gathering stories from people who have been there and done that, all while reviving an ecological park and guaranteeing steady income for their townsmen so they would no longer feel the need to cross the border for real. Almost 80 townspeople work there at the park, where they don their police uniforms or become masked coyotes for the tourists as soon as the sun goes down.

And the real thing? Quite a different experience. Each person lining up to go under the fence or squeeze inside the trunk of a car knows that it is all a catch-22 because even if you do make it, well, that means you will not see the family you are leaving behind in Mexico for the next 15 years or so. But even though you won’t be seeing them once you set up shop in New York, you sure will be paying them. Companies like Western Union (which charge high commissions for wiring money) know this and can confirm it as a cold fact. Latin American family loyalty is a $20-billion industry for wire services and in most Latin American countries it is one of the most important—if not THE most important—imports. Imagine that. Illegal immigrants in America earning minimum wage are sending back more money than their home countries are getting from tourism or local industry. Entire towns are being transformed from the money that is sent back monthly—and entire generations are missing from them, gone to America.

You can be for or against all of this. You can go on and on about the browning of America. But come on—you can’t deny that it takes a whole lot of cojones to run through the night in the only pair of jeans you were able to bring with you while you hope you don’t get shot only to end up in Brooklyn asking the next guy in line if he wants extra-crispy fries with his order.

Vice recently talked to members of families that are on both sides of the border. Photographer Dulcé Pinzón shot the émigrés here in New York and then flew down to Mexico to see the people they left behind.



Toño, 35
New York

I work in a diner. I came to New York after I had a little problem in my hometown. Basically, I was put in jail when I was 20 years old because my 15-year-old girlfriend got pregnant, and her parents got really angry. They were so angry that they managed to throw me in jail even though we had already been living together for almost a year. I spent nine years locked up for this until I broke out. One night I heard a group of seven prisoners planning their escape. Among them was a doctor—he used to pay me to wash his dishes in prison. He was locked up because he had poisoned six women. They decided to include me in their group because I had overheard their plans. They also threatened to kill my family if I didn’t keep silent and go along with them. So we broke out. One of us got killed escaping, but the rest of us made it. I went to kiss my mother goodbye and then took off for the US. I paid a coyote $2,000 to get me over the border. I have been here for eight years now. It’s hard being away from my family but I’m happy and it is easier to make a decent living here if you are willing to work hard. And I do work hard. My parents spent all their money trying to get me out of jail, and I decided I would make it up to them. In the years since I have been here, I’ve sent them more than $40,000 so they could build a nice house—the one they had before was really ugly. It was made out of adobe. But now they have a really nice one, with real floors instead of dirt. It’s kind of strange I guess—I paid for a house that I have never been inside. In fact, I had never even seen the house until yesterday, when Dulcé showed me the pictures she took of my mother in Mexico. It had also been over ten years since I had seen a picture of my mother. I was so happy, so proud that I could finally pay my parents back and that my mother now lives in a really nice place. You should see the bathroom, it’s pretty sweet.

My dad died already, and that’s sad because I never got to be in our new house with him. Hopefully I will be able to visit my mother in a few months. If I find a girlfriend maybe I will even stay in Mexico and live with her and my mother in this house. Fortunately the lawyers my parents hired have cleared up my legal problem back there, and now I can visit without worrying. It’s funny, thinking back about how we were and how we are now, knowing we have all made mistakes and will try to do better next time.


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