Slideshows Arizona 2011: Samuel James and Adam Levy

Mining for a better life

Text by Adam Levy, Photos by Samuel James

“God will separate the gold from the impurities,” the part-time pastor tells the eight assembled in Santos Israel Valle’s small living room. After a two-hour Bible study, which Israel hosts three evenings a week, the small congregation says good night and begins to disperse. In between goodbyes, Israel is fed dry sugar cookies by his two children.

By eleven o’clock, Evangelina, his wife, has prepared fried cod and cold rice and cabbage for dinner. With leftovers packed for lunch, Israel sleeps, the whole family sharing a bare concrete-walled room. Three hours later, in the 3:00AM dark, Israel wakes to begin his 90-minute journey south to one of the largest copper mines in northern Mexico.

Israel, 38 years old and the eldest of ten siblings, was born in Honduras to corn and bean farmers. Each year, he watched as his family received diminishing yields from overworked land. With no opportunities to farm or to follow an early aspiration to teach, Israel headed north in 2000.

The exodus from Honduras was feo, he says, ugly; one he has warned his siblings not to attempt.

For many Central Americans, getting from the southern Mexican border to the United States border can be more dangerous than crossing into the US. Bandits along migrant routes, bribes extracted from already empty pockets by police, and kidnappings by cartels and gangs all assail travelers before even arriving at the US border.

In 2000, Israel tried three times to cross into the United States. Each time, he was detained. Each time he claimed he was Mexican, avoiding deportation to Honduras. Then he met Evangelina in Naco, a small dusty town with four paved roads leading to a shimmering American border station. Evangelina calls it “God’s will.”

Deeply religious, God’s will is Evangelina’s answer for the challenges and joys she has had in life. Before meeting Israel, Evangelina had spent her entire life in Naco. Her father settled in this quiet border town after defecting from the US Army.

In 2002, Israel made another attempt to cross into Arizona, this time with Evangelina and this time successfully. Living illegally in Tucson for three years, Israel installed drywall, while Evangelina sold tamales. “God’s will”, as Evangelina says again, “bore us a son.” His Arizona birth certificate, which Evangelina stores in a tattered pink plastic folder, bears the date of August 23, 2003. A son born in Arizona, with the rights of an American citizen, to parents hidden from the law.

Their stay in the U.S. was short-lived. After his fourth deportation, Israel hoped to follow in his father’s trade. He and four others from church pooled their savings, along with a $7,000 loan from an evangelical congregation in Arizona, to purchase a few acres of land to grow watermelons. “The melons were getting bigger than my youngest daughter,” Israel recalls, grinning. But overnight, that all changed. Hail poured down, piercing the shells and spoiling his crop. Months of hope and hard work splayed across the wet soil.

“Our kitchen cupboards emptied,” Evangelina recalls, “I tried to sell tacos, but couldn’t sell enough to buy food for us at home.” A small cart painted with a rainbow now sits without wheels atop concrete blocks outside their home. Evangelina was unable to cover her operating costs in a town bereft of jobs and bereft of migrants.

The immense copper mine where Israel works, closed for three years, reopened just a year ago. Six mornings a week, Israel and 100 other men from Naco pass by the batons and guns of hundreds of Mexican Federal Police protecting the mine, not the miners. The mine, like others in Mexico, is prone to unrest due to low pay, hazardous conditions, and long hours. At the end of the week, each miner earns $120, from which union fees and taxes are still to be garnered.

At the mine, Israel oversees the process of separating copper from toxic water and soil. Despite the long hours and life-long health risks, Evangelina is proud of her husband. Echoing the pastor from the night before, “The possibility of redemption is always there,” she says, “he is a hard worker and although he makes little, he finally has a job with pride; he oversees people. In the past his bosses ordered him with no respect.”

Israel recently submitted his citizenship papers. If approved, he will become a Mexican citizen. With legal status, he hopes he can provide his children with a better life. In a country where many people risk their lives to get out, Israel has focused his current struggle on staying in.

Return to the 2011 Workshop page: Immigration on the US-Mexico Border