Resettling the West

Segment: Gumercindo's story

Monina Avila: My son was the first Mexican to go to Jackson Elementary School in February of '91. First, I could just see like a handful of Mexicans. I started seeing a little bit more in '92, then '93 and '94, and the numbers kept growing.

Rafael San Simeon: First, our people were migrating to Northern California, then in New Mexico. In 1968, they began going illegally to Idaho. Now it's more to Wyoming, and we hear a Mexican community has sprung up there. I hear there are easily a thousand Mexicans there and that in their church, you can find the same santito, saint, we have in our church in San Simeon. They are peasants who abandoned their fields in search of a better life for their families.

Gumercindo Rojas: I came thinking I could do music, but I work in a restaurant. We get together and play music when we have time on Sundays.

Maria Luisa Becetta: He went away at dawn; he went away at 5 in the morning. I felt very sad; I told him goodbye and came back home feeling very sad, for my son had gone. He only finished primary school and he stayed and worked with his dad while the others all went to Mexico City. My husband plants corn--the last year, there was none. Life here is difficult, very difficult.

Gumercindo Rojas: Before coming to Jackson, I worked in Driggs, Idaho, working the potato fields. There are a lot of Mexicans sowing, irrigating, cleaning out rocks. It's my goal to return to Mexico to be with my parents and brothers and sisters. I'd like to build a home for my family but we have a long way to go to complete it.

Maria Luisa Becetta: Almost all of them leave in order to live. A lot of people leave for a lot of different places.