Broken dreams of a better life

Children set out in hopes of earning enough money to support their parents and younger siblings. Young adults drop out of college to find other paths to success, leaving their homeland with their broken dreams. A husband and father working in the “promised land” returns home to visit his wife and children, then decides to bring his relatives back to America…

According to the AP news agency, these are lives regardless of their origin from Honduras or Mexico, but they share the same desire to pursue and seek a better life in the land of the stars and stripes. And unfortunately, they are among more than 60 migrants crammed into a tractor-trailer in Texas, of which 53 have died as of June 29, the rest are still being monitored and treated. Authorities are in the process of identifying the victims, but many families have painfully confirmed the irreparable loss.

Among the dead were 27 people from Mexico, 14 from Honduras, seven from Guatemala and two from El Salvador, according to Francisco Garduño, head of Mexico's National Institute of Migration Studies.

Each of the unfortunate victims put their lives in the hands of traffickers. And news of the tractor-trailer full of corpses sent shockwaves through cities and villages accustomed to seeing young men fleeing poverty and violence in Central America and Mexico.

In Las Vegas, a town of 10,000 people in Honduras, Alejandro Miguel Andino Caballero, 23, and Margie Tamara Paz Grajeda, 24, both believed that their degrees in marketing and economics would provide them with a steady income. The young couple had been diligently applying for jobs for years, only to be rejected time and time again. Then the pandemic hit, and powerful hurricanes devastated the northern part of the country, leaving them feeling disillusioned.

So when a relative of Andino Caballero, who lives in the United States, wanted to help him and his 18-year-old brother, Fernando José Redondo Caballero, move north, they were ready. Karen Caballero, the brothers’ mother, had no reason to keep her children, including her future daughter-in-law Paz Grajeda, from leaving. “My family thought they could have a different life, could reach their goals and dreams,” she said.

And when the trio left Las Vegas on June 4, Caballero traveled with her children to Guatemala. From there, the three young people were taken by smugglers across Guatemala and then Mexico in the backs of tractor-trailers. She was certain that everything would go smoothly, even when Alejandro Miguel expressed concern and asked, “What if something happens to us, Mom?” She replied, “Nothing, I’m not the first, nor will I be the last.”

Caballero last heard from her sons on the morning of June 25, when they said they had crossed the Rio Grande in Roma, Texas, were headed to Laredo, and would be moving north to Houston on June 27. When she got home the night of June 27, someone told her to turn on the television. She saw a news report about tractor-trailers in San Antonio, and at first she was confused, but then she remembered how her sons had traveled, that they had traveled by truck from Guatemala and all the way across Mexico. Caballero confirmed the deaths of her sons on June 28, after sending information and photos of them to San Antonio…

About 650 km away, people tell the story of two 13-year-old cousins, Wilmer Tulul and Pascual Melvin Guachiac, living in Tzucubal - a community of about 1,500 indigenous people in the mountains 160 km from the capital Guatemala, who mainly rely on subsistence farming.

Wilmer’s last text message to his mother, Magdalena Tepaz, was on June 27, after the children left home on June 14. Hours after hearing the radio news, a neighbor told the family there had been an accident in San Antonio and they feared the worst.

According to Melvin’s mother, María Sipac Coj, the two children grew up together, played together, and shared plans to go to the United States to study, work, and build a house for their mother. She received a voice message from her son on June 27, informing her that they were leaving, but now she has to delete it because she can’t bear the pain of hearing it again.

Relatives helped arrange the trip, paid the smuggler, and waited in Houston. But they had to inform the mother of the boys’ deaths, and the Guatemalan government confirmed the same on June 29. Wilmer’s father, Manuel de Jesús Tulul, wept uncontrollably. Although he didn’t know how the children had gotten to Houston, he never imagined they would end up in a tractor-trailer.

His son dropped out of school and helped his father with the farm work, but Wilmer saw no future in the town where small houses were built with remittances from the U.S. He wanted to help his parents raise his three younger siblings, and one day have his own house and land.

The trafficker demanded $6,000, and the Wilmer family paid about half. Now Tulul can only think of getting her body back and hoping the government will cover the costs.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, cousins ​​Javier Flores López and Jose Luis Vásquez Guzmán also left their 60-person community of Cerro Verde in the southern state of Oaxaca in hopes of helping their families. They headed to Ohio, where construction and other jobs awaited. Flores López is missing, and Vásquez Guzmán is being treated in a hospital in San Antonio, the family said.

Cerro Verde has failed to retain its young people, who make a living by scraping together palm leaves to make hats, hats, brooms and other items. Many live on less than $2 a day.

This was not Flores López’s first trip to the US-Mexico border. The 35-year-old left Cerro Verde years ago and headed to Ohio, where his father and brother live. This time, Flores López took the opportunity to return home to visit his wife and three young children, according to his cousin Francisco López Hernández. Vásquez Guzmán, 32, decided to join his cousin for his first attempt, hoping to reach his oldest brother in Ohio.

Despite the risks, many people from Cerro Verde have safely crossed the US-Mexico border with the help of smugglers. So the news of the migrants in the tractor-trailer was a terrible shock to the Flores López family, and now they are anxiously awaiting news with a premonition of “less good than more bad.”

Vásquez Guzmán’s mother had planned to apply for a visa to visit her son in the hospital, but on June 29, he was released from intensive care and she was able to speak to him by phone. She decided to stay in Mexico while he recovered.

López Hernández said that most people rely on those who have successfully made it to the United States, sending them money to start their journey, which costs around $9,000. Although the risks are lurking, for the lucky ones, the opportunity to change their lives and make money is right in front of them, when they can find work and make a living in the “promised land”.