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Editor's note: This is the fifth in a series on the experiences and views of two undocumented brothers from Mexico who came to the United States last June to improve the lives of themselves and their families through better-paying jobs than those available to them in their hometown of Mexico City.

Jesse Truesdale

jtruesdale@theworldco.info

Efrain and Saul have been in the United States now for almost a year.

With the spring weather has come steady construction work, enough that the brothers often work weekends and have been able to buy a car, in addition to being able to send money home to their families.

They still live at the same shelter run by a religious organization in the Kansas City area and say they are too afraid of being pulled over by a police car to travel much to see nearby attractions. Their new car — a mid-1990s SUV, which is semilegal — makes it easier for them to get to and from their job sites than taking the bus. It also means they can get more work, because they’re able to go from one job site to the other more quickly.

They gave $600 to a man who promised to make the vehicle legal in Mexico, which he said should make it OK to drive here. That was two months ago, and the man hasn’t delivered so far, so Efrain is considering what legal recourse he can take.

On a happier note, Efrain’s wife mailed him photos of three of his children, including the youngest, 18-month-old Edgar, which Efrain proudly shows off. The toddler is smiling in each of the pictures that feature him, including one in which he’s wearing a purple Kansas State University T-shirt that his father sent home.

Saul says he is still glad they came to the United States because of the money he and his brother have been able to send home. Efrain says minimum wage is $6 a day and the cheapest apartments for one person in Mexico City, where their families live, are $600 per month.

Efrain’s other photos show his son and teenage daughter, as well as Saul’s teenage daughter. Visible in one photo is one of the fruits of their labor and the money they’ve been able to send home: a computer.

Saul said they spend probably $5 each on calls home with Efrain’s cellular phone, calling them and talking every few days for a half hour to an hour at a time.

Efrain and Saul say they still plan to stay until November.

The brothers say their current boss is nice to them, unlike a previous “jefe” they described, who denigrated Mexicans as unintelligent, worked them long hours without breaks or food and was unpredictable in his pay rates.

Staying at the same shelter as Efrain and Saul recently were a few other foreigners, including an Englishman, a man from India and a young German man who jumps rope constantly, asking those sitting nearby outside to count for him because, he says, he can’t concentrate enough to break his record of 190 if he counts himself.

Efrain, who speaks some English, was surprised to learn the English accent is so easily detectable to North American ears. But the remarkableness of the fact for him is lessened when the difference between U.S. and British English is compared to the difference in the way Spaniards and even Cubans speak in relation to Mexican pronunciations.

Accents bring up another topic at first not easy for an American to understand: “malinchismo.” A “malinchista” is a Mexican who, as Saul described it, hates her Indian blood — most Mexicans are mestizos, of native Indian, Spanish and other European heritage — as well as the Mexican culture, and thinks that North Americans are the “most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most prepared.”

The word malinchista comes from Malinche, a name for the indigenous Indian woman who helped the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes defeat the Aztecs. The term is a pejorative one, and Saul describes the phenomenon of malinchistas as one unique to Mexico, consisting of people whose hatred of their own race and culture lead them even to disowning their parents for being too Indian in appearance.

There doesn’t seem to be an equivalent in U.S. culture, Saul says, though some terms may come close, with “Uncle Tom” and “Benedict Arnold” perhaps being the nearest.

Seeing a loose dog running near the shelter, Saul recounted that the brothers’ family had five dogs when they were growing up. Americans treat and think of their pets differently than do Mexicans, Efrain said.

Whereas Americans often consider their dog or cat a part of the family, in Mexico dogs will often be let loose to roam at will during the day and return at night. Efrain said he often keeps his dog on his roof, which would be an unusual sight here in the United States.

— Jesse Truesdale, a member of the Chieftain news staff, is fluent in Spanish. No interpreter was used for this story.

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1. 22 May 2008 at 9:15 a.m.

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   triedntru (Anonymous) says…

   What exactly is the intent of this story? What message is being conveyed to the reader? Are we supposed to feel sorry for them?

   The only thing it does for me is highly irritate me that Jesse Truesdale knows about and has refused to turn in illegal aliens that choose not to change the conditions and corrupt government they are facing within their own country but instead choose to come into our country illegally and leech off of taxpayer charity.

   Now, they have purchased an automobile (illegally) and are more than likely uninsured. Jesse Truesdale and John Beal, the blood of innocents is on your hands and souls if they are ever involved in an accident in which a legitimate American loses their life. You are both accessories to criminal activity and traitors to our country.

   How un-American can a small town newspaper be? I know tons of legal Americans struggling to make ends meet. Where are the stories about them? Where is the 5-part series following the widow raising several children on her own?

2. 25 May 2008 at 9:57 a.m.

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   Lindy (Anonymous) says…

   I am in agreement with triedntru.I have to follow the law and I was born here.You are incouraging these people to stay and live off our taxes and the benefits we work hard for,and to do it illegally.
   Shame on you! If they want to live here do it legally.If you care for them , why don't you pay their insurance so if they injure or kill someone in a car wreck or hit a pedestrian at least there will be some justice for Americans?Oh, I forgot they don't have a drivers license either I'll bet.This is sad.

3. 26 May 2008 at 10:03 p.m.

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   sc285 (Anonymous) says…

   I agree also with TT.
   What is the intent here?
   Letting people know that the author of the article knowingly is reporting the illegalities of two illegal immigrants? I would think the authorities would be contacting the author of the article, now we know that they not only here illegally, but now driving a “semi-legal” vehicle, probably no/illegal driver's license and probably without insurance. ALL in violation of the law.

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