Mayans Help Rebuild Storm-Ravaged Town : Guatemalan Indians assist in revitalizing farming in Homestead, Fla. But they face harsh living conditions.

Two weeks ago, Guatemalan Indian Juan de Juan, along with his wife and three young children, boarded a Greyhound bus in Encinitas, Calif., for a three-day cross-country trip in search of work. And here they found it, in rebuilt nurseries and storm-ravaged fields cleared of debris and planted once more with melons, beans and tomatoes.

But Juan and his family also found themselves in the middle of one of the worst housing crises in America. Hurricane Andrew damaged or destroyed more than 90% of this community, and even now, nearly four months after a battering by 145-m.p.h winds, this town has a shattered, half-abandoned look.

Most store windows along the main street are boarded up. Dozens of apartment buildings are uninhabitable. Homestead’s population has fallen from 30,000 to about 20,000.

Nonetheless, there are signs of both recovery and change, among them Juan and his family, part of a steady stream of Mayan Indians flowing into Homestead. Living in tents, or packed into tiny, bare-bulb apartments, the Indians are helping to revitalize the agricultural economy of the area while shyly professing their happiness to be here.

“There is work here, and that is enough for now,” said Juan, in Spanish, as he stood in the tiny, one-bedroom linoleum-floored apartment where he, his family and 12 other relatives live.

Over the last three years, about 2,000 Guatemalan Indians have made their way to Homestead, some through Mexico, others from California. An even larger community of Mayans is located in Indiantown, a farming town north of here in Palm Beach County.

Most of the Indians here speak Kanjobal, one of 22 native Guatemalan dialects. Others speak Quiche, the language of Rigoberta Menchu, the one-time farm worker and Indian activist who in October was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her human rights work in opposing repression of native people in Guatemala.

Some Homestead arrivals have fled persecution at home, and others are here merely to work, according to Julio Cruz, a Kanjobal-speaking Guatemalan who has been hired by the Dade County school board as a liaison between the schools and the community.

Almost all, however, are wary of contacts with Guatemalan government representatives. “They don’t trust me, for some reason,” said Gustavo A. Lopez, Guatemalan consul general in Miami, who has made several trips to Homestead since the hurricane. “They have an idea from the past, that we are against them rather than with them.”

Lopez said he has lobbied local officials for housing for the Indians. “It’s very tough,” he said. “I wish I could help them. They are working hard, paying taxes, and there is no politician to help them because they have no votes.”

The Maya are self-sufficient, and keep to themselves, isolated in part by language and culture. Mistrustful of banks, they have often been preyed upon by thieves. Most are illiterate, and only a few speak Spanish.

In a town still reeling from the hurricane, the Indians are usually the last to be served. “They aren’t on anybody’s list,” says Jack Leonard, director of Catholic Service Relief in Homestead and founder of the Mayan Central-American Center, which he runs out of his home.

Indeed, some 60 Indians are living in Leonard’s back yard, in two army tents and three trailers donated by Heavenly Cause, a Pittsburgh, Pa., foundation. Here the people gather nightly to warm tortillas over barbecue grills, share donated food and exchange information about which nurseries are hiring, which packing plants may be reopened in time to process the winter vegetable harvest.

Although there has been a small and little-noticed Indian community in South Dade for years, “there has been an enormous influx of new arrivals recently,” says Leonard. “And now they are sending their children to schools.”

Teachers attest to the Mayan children’s intelligence and generous nature. Says Nan Rudel Basu, who teaches English to eight Mayans at Redondo Elementary School: “Two cousins of one of my students were given new bicycles the other day as Christmas gifts, and my student didn’t get one. But instead of being disappointed for herself, she was so happy for her cousins. I was impressed by that.”

As chief advocate for the Indians in Homestead, Leonard says he has been frustrated by an inability to find adequate housing, especially since surrounding the makeshift encampment in his back yard are several bombed-out apartment buildings that could be rehabilitated.

Of course, the housing emergency affects everyone here. “We are slipping into a Third World community here because of inactivity,” says Leonard. “People in general feel despair and desperation. Neighborhoods are broken, playgrounds are gone. There are only two supermarkets open, and the wait to check out is 45 minutes.

“In this climate,” adds Leonard, “the Indians can teach us a whole course in humanities, in how to treat people. They have strong family ties, and a social obligation to one another that I find astounding. They are devoted to betterment of one another, chipping in with rent, food, whatever they need. They don’t hoard, they share.”

“They think of themselves as one big family. Maybe that’s how we all better start thinking.”