The Struggles of a Mexican Immigrant Family in San Angelo

Maria Guerrero looked around her home on West Avenue R in San Angelo, pride shining in her eyes as she noted all the changes she and her husband Javier have made over the past 18 years. Nearby, her American-born daughter, Brianna, sat patiently, and her one-year-old granddaughter, Isabella, played with whatever she could get her hands on as Maria began to describe the journey that forever changed her life and that of her family.

Maria wanted to share her story because she feels people in the U.S. think poorly of Mexican immigrants, especially after the media coverage of the remarks made by Donald Trump recently.

[[{"fid":"14024","view_mode":"preview","type":"media","attributes":{"alt":"Eybeth Guerrero is an E4 Specialist Operations Clerk in the U.S. Army. (Contributed Photo\\Maria Guerrero)","title":"Eybeth Guerrero is an E4 Specialist Operations Clerk in the U.S. Army. (Contributed Photo\\Maria Guerrero)","height":"604","width":"640","style":"width: 30%; float: left; margin: 0px 20px 20px 0px;","class":"media-element file-preview imgbody"}}]]“In the U.S., people think Mexicans are bad, but we’re not,” she said. “It's the bad groups that give us bad names.” (Left: Daughter Eybeth Guerrero is an E4 Specialist Operations Clerk in the U.S. Army. (Contributed Photo/Maria Guerrero)

The bad groups referenced are those she called the “narcos,” or drug dealers. However, she said the majority of the people who cross over the border have stories like hers.

"I want to demonstrate that not all Mexicans are here to harm others or live off the government," Maria said.

If anything, Mrs. Guerrero wanted people to understand why Mexicans leave all they know to start a new life in a country that condemns them. 

Because of Mexico’s outdated social class system, Maria said there are only two classes: the rich and the poor. This system is referred to as the patrón and peón system. In this system, the patrón controls everything, and the peón works for little to nothing so those people in control can maintain their power. Peóns have to work fast, and they receive no benefits, breaks, vacations, or even work parties. Today, they also make less than $50 a week.

"The patrón can treat workers very poorly and they can't do anything about it," she said. "Not like here."

Additionally, the peón can never move up or better him or herself, Maria said. To get a semi-decent job, people need a high school diploma and/or a college degree. However, Mexicans have access to free education only through middle school. After that, parents must pay $200 U.S. a semester for each child to attend high school.

That’s not a possibility for the peón class, especially on a salary of less than $50 a week.

“That’s why a lot of kids 14 and 15 start to cross; they have no other options,” Maria said.

She also said Mexico’s poor only have three choices: live in extreme poverty and not care about education at all, join the narcos, or find a way to cross the border into the U.S.

“In Mexico, people make little money, and they live a really bad life,” Maria said. “Americans shouldn’t blame the people who come here. It’s because of the government. They don’t change anything.”

Maria said her family would never have left their country if they had the opportunities Americans enjoy.

Life in Mexico

Prior to coming to the United States, Maria and her husband Javier grew up and lived in Guanajuato, Mexico. They married in 1990. At that time, Javier worked at a mushroom factory. He made $20 (U.S. currency) a week. Not to mention, the couple lived in a small, two-bedroom home with an outhouse. That wasn’t enough for a couple starting their lives together.

"Money was bad, so my husband went to work in Indio, California. He already had a work visa. We were married only 7 months," Maria said.

Javier worked 12 hours a day in the sun with few breaks picking grapes. He had no benefits, but he managed to send the family $100 every two weeks. That pay helped, but it wasn’t enough, especially after the couple started having children.

“It was very hard because we couldn’t buy anything but tortillas, soup, beans, potatoes and chiles,” Maria Guerrero said.

Additionally, she said they had to pay the doctors $500 each for the birth of their two kids. Javier had to get loans in the U.S. from people he knew to pay the debts.

As a stay-at-home mom, Maria stressed. She said in Mexico, women have it worse. Many of the young girls will sell themselves in some way for extra money; they will sleep with the patrón if it benefits their family. Additionally, many of the mothers in Maria's town didn't care if their kids went to school or not because they knew it didn't matter.

Maria said she didn't want to become one of these mothers.

"When my husband told me he wanted us to move with him to Texas, I said yes," Maria remembered. "I wanted more for my children." 

Javier worked with a middle-aged American who happened to be a coyote or “mafia” (the term used by Mexicans for immigrant smugglers). The man told him he could get visas for Javier’s wife and two children. The cost would be $3,000 and they would have to come up with $1,500 in advance. Although that was a lot of money, the couple knew they had no other choice. Javier was making $200 per week, so there was no way he would be going back to Mexico. He wanted his family with him.

Crossing The Border

In February of 1995, late at night on a Saturday, Maria and her two children made their way across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Guanajuato is 1,109 km, or approximately 12 hours away from Ciudad Acuña, a border town across from Del Rio, Texas. When they got to the border earlier in the evening, Maria learned the coyote only had a visa for her but not her children.

"I was upset because I thought we were all going to pass legally," she said.

Because they had saved up the money and made the harrowing trip, Maria knew she couldn’t go back; therefore, she had no choice but to go with Javier through the U.S. Border Patrol and allow the coyote and his wife, complete strangers, to take her daughter, Eybeth, who was 3, and son, Javier Jr., 8 months, across the border. She didn’t see them until a few hours later.

“I was so scared,” Maria said. "My husband knew the people, but I didn't."

Life in a New Country

[[{"fid":"14025","view_mode":"preview","type":"media","attributes":{"alt":"Javier Guerrero owns his own remodeling business. (Contributed Photo\\Maria Guerrero)","title":"Javier Guerrero owns his own remodeling business. (Contributed Photo\\Maria Guerrero)","height":"960","width":"720","style":"width: 30%; margin: 0px 20px 20px 0px; float: left;","class":"media-element file-preview imgbody"}}]]After the crossover, life became more challenging. When the family made it to San Angelo, Maria learned she would have to live with her brother, sister-in-law and their two children in a very small rental house. (Left: Today, Javier Guerrero owns his own remodeling business. (Contributed Photo/Maria Guerrero))

"Our house in Mexico was small, but we had everything," she said. "We had beds. Here we didn't have anything: no beds, dressers, or anything, and we had to share one room."

Maria also wasn’t comfortable with her kids not having their documentation. The Guerreros heard of a lawyer who could help them get their kids’ visas, but he turned out to be a con artist and walked away with $1,800. If that wasn’t bad enough, the coyote who brought them over started harassing them continuously for the remaining $1,500.

Maria said she cried a lot the first two years.

“I thought because I was here, things would be better, but they weren’t,” she said.

Little did the Guerreros know that the tornado of 1995, which was a record setting day in San Angelo history, would change the couple’s life.

In 1997, two years after Maria and her kids made the cross into the U.S., the family bought their first house.

"Javier saw the house. The roof was damaged, but he liked the area, so he called the [owner] and made an offer," Maria said. 

The Guerreros bought their home for $24,000. They didn't care about the damage because they knew Javier could fix it. 

"We felt like it was a new toy,” Maria said. "We finally had our privacy."

From there, their lives began to improve.

Maria and Javier had their American-born daughter, Brianna, and their kids were finally going to start school in the U.S. Maria, who didn’t know how to drive, took driver's education and got her Texas driver's license so she could transport the kids to school. Additionally, although they had to save up money again, they found a legit representative and got Eybeth and Javier’s residency.

Because the couple had their legal residency, they paid their taxes and received tax refunds. They used those funds to pay off their house faster. Maria also got her first job with GCS Services, a janitorial company that contracts with Angelo State University.

"I only made minimum wage, but I did get vacations and time off," Maria said. She also said management treated her well. These luxuries were a new concept for her.

By this time, Javier’s brother started his own business, Guerrero and Sons Roofing, so Javier went to work with him and made $700 to $800 per week, a big improvement from where he started.

Two years into her job, management decided Maria was supervisory material. She didn’t speak English well, so she was a bit nervous about the position. However, the young woman’s bosses felt her a good candidate because she never complained about her work, never called in, worked through her breaks, and university faculty and staff complimented her work.

Not everyone thought she deserved the position.

"The people I worked with, especially the Mexican Americans, were mad because I'm Mexican and didn't speak English well," she said. 

That didn’t stop management from making her a supervisor, however. In fact, they offered Maria a manager's position, but she would have had to leave for training in Phoenix. Maria didn’t want to be away from her family, so she stuck with the supervisor position.

Maria went from making minimum wage to $10 an hour by the time she left work at ASU. She transferred to the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts because staff there needed a dependable custodial worker. GCS management chose Maria for the position because of her work ethic. Now, after 13 years with GCS, and as a supervisor, Maria makes $13 per hour, has benefits, vacation, sick pay, and she loves the people at the museum.

“They are all so nice,” she said.

Javier also moved up the ranks and started his own business in 2005. He paints and remodels homes.

This upward mobility, along with seeing the wonderful accomplishments of their three children, is why the Guerreros have no regrets coming to the U.S.

A New Generation of Opportunities

Today, the Guerreros' oldest daughter, Eybeth, is an E4 Specialist Operations Clerk in the U.S. Army. In May 2015, she took classes to be a sergeant and wants to enlist for another four years. She also got her U.S. citizenship in May of 2015. Eybeth is mother to little Isabella.

"We are so proud of our Eybeth," the Guerreros said. 

As for Javier Jr., he started working in the oil field after he graduated from Central High School and is now a supervisor at 21. He got engaged to be married in December 2015, and recently bought his first home.

Brianna, the Guerreros' American-born daughter, lives the fun life of a San Angelo teen. She attends Central High School and plays basketball, runs track, cheers for the cheerleading squad, plays volleyball and hopes to join the Texanns this upcoming school year. She will also be celebrating her quinceañera in August.

“None of this would have been possible in Mexico,” Maria said. “We would ever have had any of these opportunities.”

Maria also said she too hopes to become a U.S. citizen because she knows her family will never return to Mexico. Her father, sisters, and brothers all came to the U.S. legally, and they, too, have found a good life here in San Angelo and in Dallas.

Finally, the damaged home they bought in 1997, which was a two-bedroom, one-bath small home, is now a four-bedroom, two-bath home thanks to Javier’s remodeling capabilities. The house with all the new upgrades looks somewhat out of place on West Avenue R with its hacienda style gates and large Texas star emblems.

The Guerreros said they can’t imagine being anywhere else.

“We’re content because we got what we came here for,” Maria said. “Everything is exactly what I imagined. I’m so happy, especially for my children.”