Thermal, Calif.

Here in the sprawling, forlorn trailer park called Duroville, hope is as fleeting as the wind and fragile as a butterfly. It can arise suddenly, only to be crushed beneath the daily cares and fears of a people isolated by geography, language and discrimination.

For Leobardo Jimenez, hope came with the recent birth of a son, a boy he prays can live a different life, one unbound from endless toil for a meager salary and a stark horizon of grapevines, lemons and desert.

"I want him to be somebody important," Jimenez said, sitting inside his stuffy trailer, 3-week-old Estaban peering up from a swing. "I would like my children to become lawyers who can speak directly to people and defend those like us who can't defend themselves."

In the Coachella Valley, where the chasm between rich and poor is especially wide, Jimenez occupies the economic ladder's lowest rung. He is a Purépecha, an indigenous Indian from the Mexican state of Michoacan.

In the 1970s, Purépechas began leaving the cool volcanic highlands of the Mexican city of Ocumicho for the parched town of Mecca, a few miles from the Salton Sea. They brought little more than strong backs and a powerful Roman Catholic faith. Few could speak Spanish or English. And their lack of education and tendency to marry as young as 13 helped ensure lives of poverty.

As time went on, more and more moved into the notoriously run-down Duroville on the Torres Martinez Reservation in Thermal. The park gradually became a sort of regional capital for the Purépecha.

But its future is in doubt.

The federal government has asked a District Court judge to close the park because of the owner's repeated violations of health and safety codes. A decision is expected today.

That troubles Sister Gabriella Williams, a nun who works closely with the indigenous group.

"They are the poorest of the poor," she said. "But this is the center of Purépecha life, and they like it here."

The Purepecha are an ancient people with unknown origins and a language unrelated to any other, experts say. They built a highly militarized empire, the only one to fend off the rapacious Aztecs. Like other Mesoamericans, they erected stone temples and worshiped an elaborate pantheon of deities.

The Spaniards crushed their empire around 1530, impoverishing and enslaving them. Yet attempts to extinguish the culture failed.

As a people, they are conservative, intensely religious and wary of authority. Much of their cautious world view comes from experience at the hands of the Spaniards and the Mexican government, experts say.

Leaders of the Duroville community say as many as 2,000 of the estimated 3,000 residents are Purépecha.

"We came here because we could own our own home and be around our own people, which makes us feel more comfortable," said Jose Clemente Zacarias, 50.

Many tell stories of discrimination and say other Mexicans call them "dirty" or "stupid Indians."

Maximiliano Felipe, 16, came to the U.S. from Ocumicho at age 7 and ended up at Oasis Elementary School in Thermal, unable to speak English or Spanish.

"I remember the teacher saying, 'Bring me the chair,' and I had no idea what she was talking about," said Felipe, now a high school honors student. "Some of the other kids called me chaca, which is considered an insult. I know people who are Purépecha who pretend they are not because they remember being called names when they were young."

The word "chaca" is thought to mock the sound of the Purépecha (pronounced poo-RAY-pecha) language.