Juan

The ocean was so brisk and clear that it felt more like mountain air than water, so translucent that I could see a variety pack of colorful fish darting among the rocks at least ten feet below. I hauled my exhausted body out of the water and back onto the small motor boat. I was in Mexico, trying to learn how to surf, but it was futile. Midway through the lesson with my kids I realized that my personal surfing ship has sailed. I have some rotation problems with my right shoulder and although the surgeons I’ve seen give me a 60-40 chance of it “feeling better” if I have an operation, those odds are not high enough for me to go under the knife. Furthermore, after the surgery I would need to be strapped into some sort of Frankenstein apparatus for a month and sleep in a chair for two weeks. That does not sound like fun to me. Eventually I’ll probably need the operation but for now I’m fine. Except when it comes to surfing. Who knew that surfing is as much about the upper body strength needed to paddle out than anything else? But it was okay. I could watch my kids surf the gorgeous blue-green Pacific and that was almost as much fun as trying it myself. Our instructor Diego was in the water but Juan, the boat driver, stayed on board. We started chatting and I was amazed by his English. It was flawless.

“Your English is so good,” I told him. “Where did you learn it?”

“Detroit,” he told me, sounding more like an American than anything else. His speech was direct and casual, with the flat vowels and vocabulary of someone who had been speaking English their entire life.

“Oh,” I said surprised, “what were you doing in Detroit?”

“I was raised there,” he said and then looked away as if to end the conversation. But now I wanted to know how this kid who I had simply assumed was from Mexico, who was helping us Americans learn how to surf, had been raised in the states.

“It’s a long story,” he told me.

“I’ve got nothing but time,” I told him gently and he laughed.

I was genuinely curious about him and I think he could sense that I was not just making idle conversation to pass the time. After a few attempts to throw me off the scent…“where in the states are you from? How do you like Mexican food?” he eventually went into the story of his childhood in Detroit.

He was originally from Mexico. His family lived in the hills outside of Chihuahua and they had nothing, not even a reliable source of electricity. Although his father tried to find work in town, there was no work to be had…except with the drug cartels running the place, and Juan’s father did not want that kind of work. After Juan (his third child) was born he decided he had no other choice but to go to America illegally and try to find work.

Juan’s father’s journey was harrowing to say the least. He basically walked from Chihuahua to Ciudad Juarez (over 200 miles), hitching rides only occasionally and sometimes riding on the backs of donkeys. It took him ages and he faced all sorts of perils, from drug dealers to rattlesnakes. But eventually he arrived. Once there he gave all his money to a “coyote” who was shepherding groups across the Rio Grande and into Texas at night. This, Juan told me, was the hardest part of the journey, as most of the group could not swim. Juan’s father almost drowned, a fate that was always a possibility in the strong unpredictable currents. But Juan’s father made it. From there, again often on foot, he made his way from Texas to Detroit, where he had a cousin. Along the way he met other Mexicans and became a migrant worker on fruit farms and ranches during that long journey north. He barely spoke a word of English, so he was shamelessly taken advantage of and was unable to save a penny.

When he got to Detroit he lived with his cousin and found work as a day laborer. He saved some money and after two years he decided it was time to send for his family. But his wife was terrified of travel. She’d never ventured outside of their impoverished pueblo and was especially worried about making the journey with three small children. So Juan’s father did the craziest thing I think I have ever heard of. He went back the way he had come. Traveling south to Texas and crossing the Rio Grande at night back into Mexico. The coyote who helped him this time told him he was loco but when Juan’s father explained that he was going back to get his wife and kids the coyote took pity on him and showed him the way, even though he would not get in the water himself.

Juan was five at the time and does not remember the journey from Chihuahua to Juarez at all. But he remembers the river crossing. He’d been very open with me so far and we were chatting like old friends, but when it came to the river crossing he would say little. “I can’t talk about that,” he said, a catch in his throat. And of course I let it drop.

From there the family made their way back to Detroit. “From Mexico to Michigan. Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” Juan told me and I smiled, congratulating him once again on his excellent language skills. How his parents made that journey with no money, three small kids and little to no English amazed me. The perseverance of the human spirit. The lengths people will go to in order to give their kids a better life. I felt like a big spoiled baby listening to Juan’s life story. Would I have the fortitude to make those decisions? To leave my home and all I knew? To put myself and my three small children in a violent swirling river, not knowing how to swim? I doubt it.

Juan and his family settled in a rough neighborhood of Detroit. His brother José was eight, his sister Mirabel was seven, and Juan was six. They started school and were almost completely fluent in English after the first year. But the only place they could afford an apartment was in a neighborhood full of gangs like the Latin Kings and the Bounty Hunter Bloods who were always looking for little kids to work for them as scouts and runners. Juan’s parents were both working twelve-hour days, sometimes more if they could find a double shift. They were rarely home and when they were, they were too exhausted to discipline the kids. The gangs had lots of enticements for the kids in the neighborhood. Physical protection, prestige, but mostly cold hard cash. Tragically, Juan’s older brother got involved.

Nine years after moving to the states, seventeen-year-old José was gunned down right near their apartment in a violent gesture from another gang. No one really knew why José was the one they killed but according to Juan he was simply “standing on the wrong street corner at the wrong time.” His death was a casual warning shot from a rival gang to steer clear of their territory. It was a totally senseless cold-blooded murder.

At this point Juan grew silent and we sat together as the boat gently bobbed up and down. We watched the soft swells break off shore. There was a gentle briny breeze blowing my hair around my face and ruffling Juan’s. My kids, having abandoned their surfboards on the beach, were laughing and splashing in the shallows with Diego.

Juan picked up where he had left off.  The family, obviously, was shattered, especially Juan’s mother who had never wanted to leave Mexico in the first place. Juan was fifteen at the time. Four weeks after the murder his father drove Juan to the airport and handed him a one-way ticket back to Mexico. “Don’t ever come back here,” he warned his one surviving son.

Juan found his way to a popular tourist town and because of his excellent English he was able to find work there almost immediately. “How old are you now?” I asked him, full of grief after hearing his story.

“I’m twenty-four.”

“And where is your family?” I asked him.

“They’re all in Detroit. They’re doing okay. My sister is going to become a nurse. I miss my parents but we FaceTime every day. It’s all good,” he smiled, sounding just like a California surfer.

“Do you think you’ll ever go back to America?” I asked him.

“No. I’ll never go back there. I can’t,” he said as he looked out to the horizon.

“Why is that?” I asked, as compassionately as I could.

“Because,” Juan said, still staring out to sea with a faraway and much-older-than-twenty-four look in his eyes, “I know who killed my brother. I know who it was that pulled the trigger. And if I ever go back to the states I’ll go straight to Detroit and I’ll kill him. And I don’t want to do that.”

Just then the kids clambered back onto the boat with Diego. They were ecstatic, jibber-jabbering away like excited little birds about the lesson. I felt like I was in a trance. I couldn’t even speak. As we headed back to the shore I started to cry but did my best to pretend it was just the wind in my eyes.

Once we arrived at a spot near the beach everyone jumped off the boat and swam to shore. But before I jumped in after them I took Juan’s hand in both of mine and thanked him for sharing his story with me. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I have a good life down here. I’m happy and I make a good living. I’m not going anywhere.”

I think about Juan a lot. About what he and his family went through and how they kept going no matter what. How Juan’s father risked his life three times crossing that damned treacherous river in the hope of a better life in America. What they found here was loss and heartbreak, but also some joy. Their children got an education, which they never would have received had they stayed in their two room dwelling (a shack, Juan had called it) in the hills outside of Chihuahua. Their daughter was becoming a nurse which was a dream come true for them and their remaining son was safe and sound in Mexico and doing very well for himself.

All of us have our own tales to tell - some more dramatic than others. I can’t remember who, but at some point someone must have taught me the same lesson that I often try to teach my children. When meeting new people, ask questions, listen carefully, open your heart, and prepare to be amazed.