…until these deaths are no more than a gut-wrenching memory.
Juan Cruz-Torralva crossed the Arizona desert with his daughter last week because he wanted a better life for her.
His daughter, 12-year-old Lourdes Cruz-Morales, will return to Mexico in a casket.
Near the last leg of their three-day journey, a U.S. Border Patrol agent ran over Cruz-Torralva and his daughter with his truck near Dateland.
continued below the fold…
The agent had spotted a dozen illegal immigrants and was following them in the truck, according to a report by the Yuma County Attorney’s Office.
When the agent got out of the truck, he heard moaning and discovered that he had run over Cruz-Torralva and his daughter. At no time did he see the two, according to the report.
Yuma County sheriff’s detectives ruled the incident an accident.
Shortly after his daughter’s death, sheriff’s deputies arrested Cruz-Torralva on charges of endangerment.
Sheriff’s authorities argued that by bringing his daughter with him through the desert, Cruz-Torralva placed her within “risk of imminent death” and eventually caused her death.
My heart breaks every time I read these tales of desperation and injustice. My eyes well up with the tears of my people who are no longer able to release the pain and anger they hold due to a broken society. They are the silent victims of an ongoing war that has been waged in the southwestern United States for the past 158 years.
In the halls of power across the globe and especially in Washington, D.C., the suits and pearls play chess with the lives of people instead of commiserating on a better way to create a balanced system of cooperation and peace.
No wonder we often feel defeated and depleted. Hatred and divisiveness have been given the platform and throne. It has lead us to widespread death, destruction and distrust.
We are diminished as a human race because of it.
As liberals, we must see the brokenness for what it is, not the illusions that are spread by the screens and speakers of the corrupt Age of Technology. The uphill battle against the forces of war and greed often appears hopeless, but it is a necessary fight and we are called to carry on.
How do we find the right direction to peace and change?
It’s simple, really. It is a path that has fared well over history. To create Movements requires the telling of the Truth. Through our stories we are able to ignite an inner-fire that keeps us moving forward, motivated with resolve, to keep working towards a better world.
There is a recognition of honor in the simple act of recognizing the humanity of a person regardless of color, race or creed. To take that small step, allows Peace to make a giant leap. That is why these stories must be told.
Part of the Una Identidad Sin Fronteras series at my humble blog
He ran over her. That’s heartbreaking.
People don’t often think about the US having artificial boundaries — we’re so big we don’t even focus on our boundaries much less whether they were artifically drawn up by men thousands of miles away in the name of power.
Thanks for posting this Manny.
The entire article was rough to even finish reading. I have to give the AP major props for their willingness to interview the father and let his story be told.
Them and their sick Minute men crap…
This is just sick. Thank you Manny.
I say, let them all come in.
this is just one of the many stories that never makes it out to the masses unless we are willing to share them. These types of things happen constantly down here, and rather than address the root causes of the migration, the politicos are gearing up for a major deployment of national guard troops. It’s sickening.
Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency.
Would that be a Too-Many-Mexicans emergency ?
ways to worship at the altar of the Almighty Dollar. Unfortunately there is a bipartisan congregation dragging us along with their platform of greed.
Thanks for reminding me of the poem at the base of the statue of liberty. I bet all of those people wanting to erect a fence around our southern border have forgotten what it says.
Here in NC there is a debate raging on whether to offer in-state tuition to the children of the thousands of migrant workers who keep the state’s economy going. Of course conservatives want the Latino children to stay on the farm, so they don’t want to give them the opportunity to rise above their poverty.
border anymore, SusanD has a frontpage post at DKos with a link to this CBC article
Americans are so good at pretending that we have no history — so of course no American-born person ever had a grandparent, great-grandparent, or great-great-grandparent who came to this country poor, scared, unskilled, and desperate for a better life.
the fear battle. They have everyone scared that all the immigrants are taking their jobs. Yeah….because it’s every American’s dream to pick crops in the sun, clean hotels, and all the other grunt work jobs that keep this country’s economy chugging along. The real crimes are perpetuated by the corporations who are outsourcing or hiring at sub-human wages to pad their bottom lines.
It’s all about greed, but immigrants are easy targets for the public’s ire. The real enemy exists in the board rooms, in my opinion.
Things do not change — my grandmother came to this country at 13 and went to work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day sewing trim on Hart Schaffner & Marx suits (a name she said with disgust till her dying day). She didn’t speak any English until she’d been here more than 5 years because she was too busy trying to keep herself clothed, feed, and sheltered to have any time to learn it. She often spoke bitterly of the scorn and even hate directed at her.
that bit of your grandmother’s story, Andi. It’s sad that this country has such a legacy of hate, but it doesn’t mean it’s a permanent one. We can help to break it by telling our families’ stories and hopefully opening some eyes to the human cost to all of this. Paz
I’m sure that most of those minutemen “protecting” our borders have someone in an earlier generation with a similar story. Their behavior and attitudes (as is most of the anti-immigration sentiment) is an insult to their own heritage. I find the willingness to forget the courage of people who were and are willing to risk everything for a better life to be nothing short of despicable.
Americans are so good at pretending that we have no history
Not only that. A story I read a while ago where a brit recounted his experiences relocating to the US, was eye-opening. He was amazed at children having to cite the plege of alliegance in school, sing the American anthem at mere scholastic sporting events and that the map used in American schools stopped at the borders of the US. It’s not a coincidence I think that the word ‘aliens’ is used in the US not only to describe those horrors of hairy monsters from outer space but also for mere earthly furriners. 🙂
hear Lou Dobbs launch into one of his frothing rants, I cringe whenever he says “alien”, there is a palpable shot of disgust in the way he spits out that word. It’s a successful tactic to help people ignore the fact that these are real human beings.
This is a terrible story, that more people need to face directly. And why, I’d like to ask the local authorities, is their no charge of manslaughter, at least, being considered against the driver?
Can you imagine what the reception would be today, were Emma Lazarus to read her poem in the well of the Senate and House in Washington? I’m waiting for the bill to be proposed, that will remove her words from the base of the Statue of Liberty.
Rasgones por siempre.
From the article:
How cruel a person do you have to be to attempt charging one of the victims with the crime, while the real criminal walks away with plenty of opportunity to do the same thing again next time?
haunt me, CabinGirl. It haunts me as a human being to know that my country would turn a blind eye to the blatant shredding of the dignity of this man and the other silent victims in the desert. The consulate has gotten involved in this case, and it has received some media attention, thank FSM, but it shines a pinpoint light on a vast humanitarian crisis.
In my family, we call the people who stir anti-immigrant hatred “gang-plankers”, in reference to people who boarded the ships to come to this country, but who don’t want anyone else doing so. So they pull up the gangplank so no one else can come aboard.
Odd, isn’t it, that among the “gangplankers” are people whose ancestors may have invaded, taken land that was not theirs, decimated and removed original peoples, and dragged people here in slavery. Others came here as refugees, for economic benefit, for religious freedom, fleeing unreasonable imprisonment. They often love that heritage for themselves – as long as it was many decades or even centuries ago. Along the way, some of These peoples tried to create a government and a nation what would be better than its history and whatever current regime was in charge.
But somehow, that seems to be forgotten in these days, or at least unimportant, if not outright suppressed, and rarely related to modern day immigration. I would hazard a guess that Rep. Sensenbrenner’s family came from Germany or perhaps the Alsace-Lorraine region – of course, likely 100 years ago or more. That passage of time seems to make some current citizens believe that they are entitled to grab the gangplank and yank.
that term before, thanks for sharing it Kidspeak. Duke1676 is building a great resource with his Migra Matters blog. We’re trying to balance the debate with progressive voices.
Thanks for mentioning Migra Matters. I discovered that blog just this week, following some thread from Lalo Alcarez. It’s provocative, and a sometimes disturbing resource about immigrant life and immigration issues. I highly recommend it, too.
There is a small but steady holocaust going on along the Mexican border.
We’re approaching the 9th anniversary of one of the very worst instances:
On May 20, 1997, Esequiel Hernandez, Jr., a U.S. citizen by the way, was herding his family’s goats 100 yards from his home on the US-Mexican border in Redford, Texas, as he did every day. Six days before, he had turned 18 years old.
Unknown to Esequiel or any of the other residents of Redford, a group of four U.S. Marines led by 22-year old Corporal Clemente Banuelos had been encamped just outside the small village along the Rio Grande River for three days. After watering his small flock of goats in the river, Esequiel started on his way back home when the Marines began stalking him from a distance of 200 yards.
The four camouflaged Marines were outfitted with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment and weapons. Esequiel carried an antique .22 caliber rifle — a pre-World War I, single shot rifle to keep wild dogs and rattlesnakes away from his goats. The autopsy showed that Esequiel was facing away from the Marines when he was shot. He probably never knew the Marines were watching him from 200 yards away.
Thus it was that a 22 year-old United States Marine shot and killed an innocent 18 year-old boy tending his family’s goats. On his own land!
That description is from the Hernandez Memorial Gallery at http://dpft.org/hernandez/gallery/. There are several other sites devoted to that atrocity.
What do you think ever happened to the U.S. Marine who murdered that young man?
What do you think?
You’d be right.
of Esequiel’s fate several years ago but had forgotten. Thanks for helping me to remember him, Arminius, his memory is honored when we speak out against the divisive border policies currently working their way through Congress. Ugh, this is so hard to read, but I feel an obligation in my blood. Paz
I was going to comment earlier before the computer crashed & it’s even more apt now, the two in your story Manee are the lucky ones. They survived. He lived to be charged with is ‘crime.’
It’s getting uglier out there & these stories are essential.
I’m tired, read too quickly — sorry . . .
I’m just thankful that people here are willing to see the humanity in the faces of these silent victims. The relationship between the U.S. and Mexico are unlike any other in the world.
Ugh. Disgusting. Horrible. Immoral.
But oh so not surprising. Mexicans are dirty people who live in filth you see. The brown ones. The ones who didn’t deserve to keep any land north of the Rio Grande when the “explorers” or “adventurers” arrived.
No one should wonder now why the US is doing a such amazing job of winning hearts and minds in Iraq… why, they don’t even have sheep to tend, they just walk around their country you see and that’s bad. Bad Iraqi’s. Bad Mexicans. Bad Afghani’s. Get yourself a HUMMER and some servants why don’t you and then we won’t have to kill you in order to protect you. On second thought, go see Michael Jackson’s plastic surgeon for some face whitening too.
Man. Thanks for posting this story Manny. And thank you Arminius for remembering the anniversary.
They are the sons and daughters of the indigenous people of the continent, exercising their inalienable right to move from one part of that continent to the other.
“I wasn’t driving the truck,” says Juan, through the pain of his broken back, which he barely feels through the overwhelming unending night of pain he feels for his little girl.
Juan is a simple man, you see. He’s not able to understand the sophisticated laws of the sons and daughters of the European invaders, doesn’t understand how important it is to protect America from people like him and his little girl.
In his simple mind, the man who runs over your daughter, and breaks your back is the criminal.
Juan probably thinks it would be endangering his daughter to leave her to starve in Mexico.
It would probably never occur to him to explain to her, as she became weaker and weaker, that while it might be painful to die in this way, the knowledge that one is respecting the laws of the United States makes it a privilege, something the whole family can be proud of.
That’s what the Minute Men would do, of course, were they in Juan’s situation.
Lou Dobbs would never let such selfish motives as food for his children blind him to the greater importance of respecting the laws of the United States.
But they are sophisticated men, not criminals like Juan and his little girl. Little Lourdes.
Do you know a 12 year old girl like Lourdes? Maybe you have one in your own family.
If so, go get her, and hug her tight. Kiss the top of her head, smell the shampoo. Hold her close, and if you pray, say a prayer for all her brothers and sisters whose deaths never make it into the papers like little Lourdes.
May God accept her martyrdom.
Amen.
All human beings have God-given natural rights to travel and work as they will. Basic human rights. Fundamental rights. Rights!
If one cares, living in the West can expose one to the whole truth about immigration from Mexico. I have managed to have three friends so far in life who came to the United States in that fashion. To hear the real stories from the real people is startling. One is an older man now, and because he worked hard he is safe and sound with a roof and a family. He collects clothing and other needed things all year long, then loads them in his truck and trailer and heads to Mexico City to visit his family. He gives away what we would probably throw away to the poorest poor in the heart of South America. They try to give him anything they have of value in return, chickens, homemade clay bakeware (that he shares with all of us when he returns). One year I felt very honored to get to be his housesitter while he was gone.
and thanks for sharing your friend’s story, it’s amazing how much stuff we throw away that could be donated to others who go without. When I moved in January, I was appalled at the accumulation that I had massed. I ended up giving most of it to my nana who operates the local food bank back home to disperse out as people needed things.
Clay bakeware – you can’t beat it. Now I’m hungry!
I spent a year in Laredo Texas recently. Got to know a young mother from Mexicao who walked many miles every morning across the International Bridge to her low paying job as a palaimito (?) next door. (a home health aid) and walked back home every night.
I only met her because, curious to know who was hauling our big garbage dumpster to the street twice a week for us, I watched out the window, and it was her. She said she’d been watching me struggle with it, and said that was too hard for a lady with a cane, but see how easy it was for her?
When moving day came for my move back to Minnesota, the moving company couldn’t find local loading. I ended up dribing tje huy downtwon to the PLaza where the Mexican daty laborers waited for jobs. We hired two non-english speaking men, one of them quite old, who worked so hard for seven full hours. I aksed the driver (major moving company too), what he was going to pay them and he said “Oh, these guys? Probably “# an hour. What did he usually pay regular workers? 15.00 an hour. He paid these men 10.00 under threat if me turning him into his companf for hiring illegals.
The refrigerator stuff had to go somewhere, so i brought those twe Mexican men into the kitchen, handed them each a big bag, and told them to help themselves. (well, played it out charade like). It took them tghe rer longest time to “get it”, that it was ok for them to take that food. The old man had tears in his eyes when he thanked me. I drove them back to the Plaza and dropped them off, and watched them head for the long bridge with thier heavy bags.
The Mexican and Mexican American people I met in Laredo welcomed me, respected me, and treated me like an honored elder. I have never been treated like that in the NorthLand. I miss them, and a part of my heart is still in Laredo.
for threatening that employer and making him pay those workers a just wage. They are hard working people, because they are usually not doing it for themselves. Throughout their day they have the images of their families in their mind, knowing that the little money they earn is necessary for survival.
Thanks for sharing your Laredo spirit with us today, my friend.
damned typos. That was $4.00 an hour he was going to offer those men.
I always wonder about the state of mind of the folks themselves. I try to imagine if I were them, what I know when I take up the north trek.
Does the Mexican government or anyone hip these folks to the dangers or is it so tempting , they so desperate that they take their chances with full foreknowledge of the risks? Just the desert crossings, aside from human predators and such, the heat, water, snakes etc. would be enough to give me pause. The draw must be intense to get people to take these risks.
Which of course, begs the question, like pusher and the addict, this draw would not exist were it not for the illegal labor market that flourishes in the USA. And for the cheap labor market in Mexico where we are exploiting those who stay home in our factories in Mexico. Push a button here and it pops up there.
don’t realize the barrenness of the land north of the border. Oftentimes the coyotes give the impression that there will be a city an hour or two north by walking, unfortunately that’s not the case most of the time. Here in Az, the Tohono O’odham Nation is the most trafficked sector (or at least it was), and it’s a collection of small villages and pueblos.
The economics of it all are what drive the disconnect between Washington and the other capitols. If the flow of money sent back to families were to abruptly end, there would be a cascading collapse of economies throughout Latin America, not just in Mexico.
. . . in the US conveniently forget that it has been US policy (complete w/ acknowledgement of likely casualties), backed up by mega $$$, under both Clinton & Bush to force people into the most barren, dangerous terrain & away from urban areas. It’s been a very ‘successful’ tactic in CA.
should’ve been called Operation Funnel Them To Their Deaths. Have you seen the movie? Highly recommended.
Thank you for posting this Manny. Aside from the immigration policies, there’s a hell of a lot of fear mongering taking place out there. (But you know that from firsthand experience.)
Do you know what I learned from the MSM last week? That the most dangerous gang in this nation is Latino. And the members of that gang are infiltrating construction companies throughout the country. Ya think all the Chads and Tiffanys out there – in their fenced in communities – will be hiring Latino construction workers any time soon? I’m thinking, probably not.
In fact, I learned more about this type of tragedy and others (regarding immigration and “forced” religion) from watching a Carlos Mencia comedy special than anything I’ve seen in the MSM. And I find that terribly sad.
Thank you for keeping this issue in front of us, and thank you for sharing your personal thoughts. Manny, every day you make this world a better place, and I can’t begin to tell you how much you’ve touched my life. Bless you.
it’s been a pleasure interacting with you over the past year. Smiles and hugs.
Mencia is a blunt guy, I have to really be in the mood to watch his show, but when I do his message resonates. George Lopez’ sitcom is also giving the country a window into the Mexican-American culture as it exists here in the U.S. I’m more a fan of his stand-up than the sitcom, but what can ya do.
Blessings back to you.
Not to bring any stereotypes into this discussion . . . but to be quite candid with you, I’ve never given George Lopez a chance, because in the instances where I’ve seen him speak, he came across as awfully right wing. Sounds like I’ve been missing some important messages because of my personal bigotry toward Republicans. Kind of sad and ironic, really.
When I attended my brother’s funeral, two things immediately caught my attention. The first thing being that the chapel was filled to capacity, which made me happy. The second thing I noticed was that at least 90% of the people in attendance were of Latino or Native American heritage. And that made me even happier. In the process, I lost a brother, but I also gained many more.
(I realize this is not the time or the place, but someday, sometime, would you please explain Mencia’s Home Depot jokes. Yes, I raise my hand in admission that I am “one of the stupid people” – but only with that specific series of jokes. Nothing else :^)
I think my appreciation for him is his storytelling of everyday nuances that happen in a MexAm household. I can definitely relate to the majority of them.
I’m sorry to hear about your brother. I’ve lost alot of close family members in my short years, but rather than causing me to retreat emotionally, it has shown me the value of honoring the times I spend with others/building relationships, whether they’re family by blood or fellowship. Paz, mi amiga.
I suppose I could be more specific on the location, but I choose not.
Back in the mid 90s I spent a year working in agriculture in N CA. I drove a farm tractor most of the time, and I was one of a couple hundred employees. I’d guess some 85-90% originated from Mexico.
“Arturo” was a young fellow, say 22-25 working in the maintenance shop. He was probably the best welder I’d ever seen, then or since, and I’ve seen a bunch of old timers here in my home state who were awfully good at it, so that’s saying quite a lot.
Anyway, while doing maintenance on the tractor one day I was visiting with Arturo. I asked what he’d have been making per hour if he’d have still been in Mexico. Answer, one US dollar per hour. He was making 7 at that time, and worth twice that at the least.
So will someone tell me, if you have a standard of living with a ratio of roughly 7 to 1 across a line in the sand, how in the hell are you going to keep people from crossing that line? —another Berlin wall?