From Work’s Noble Calling, a Tragic End

In the dusty little village of 900 people known as Rancheria Hernandez, families live in garage-sized adobe homes with corrugated metal roofs kept in place by large rocks or logs.

The floors are packed dirt. There are no bathrooms. And the stench of animal waste is everywhere. At least drinking water reaches some homes through pipes now, so most campesinos no longer must rely on the same watering holes used by their dogs, cattle and sheep.

Under such conditions, how could Marcial Serrano Perez discourage his eldest son, Paulino, 16, from trying to find a better life in the United States?

The father blessed the boy’s departure in February because Paulino, slender but strong like himself, wanted to find work, wanted to help the family.

But it was a choice that meant his death. Paulino was one of 11 people--including three other young men from the same village--who died in a fiery highway crash near Lompoc on Sept. 9.

“Look at the conditions we live in,” said Serrano Perez, 35, as he gestured toward the two-room home he shares with his wife and six remaining children. “That’s why our children venture off to try to help us.”

The eight Mexicans who perished in the crash--four each from two neighboring villages--died returning home from a long day of work, a fact viewed as oddly fitting here, where trabajar, to work, is not just a necessity but an ennobling act. Even as they grieve, the villagers are proud of those who were killed.

“It makes sense that they died while working,” said Serrano Perez, his eyes filling with tears. “They were trying to help. They made a decision to take a risk. It could have happened to us here. It was a work accident. They were coming from work. It was destiny.”

Reasons to Leave, Plans to Return

The agricultural community of Acatzingo, an ancient city used as a travel stop by the Spanish conquistadors, lies 145 miles southeast of Mexico City. It has about 40,000 residents, about half of them living in the central city. The rest are found in numerous distant pockets, such as Rancheria Hernandez, which, although it lies only nine miles outside the central plaza, takes 45 minutes to reach by car over rutted dirt roads.

As in so many parts of Mexico and Central America, the urge to move on, to seek out more work, drives some campesinos here to places north, regardless of dangers or immigration laws. Last year alone, about 1.6 million undocumented Mexican immigrants were caught--some several times--by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

From Acatzingo, a common destination has been Canoga Park in the San Fernando Valley, a journey of 1,650 miles. Over the years, friends and relatives have followed one another to the area and, by digging ditches, selling corn or taking other odd jobs, they have managed to send a few dollars back home to ease the suffering at least a bit.

“The people who leave are not planning to stay away,” said Dr. Hector Osorio, secretario de municipio of Acatzingo, a post similar to a deputy mayor. “They go to Los Angeles to try to earn money and return to improve their lives here.”

Osorio estimated that perhaps 25% to 30% of the city’s residents try to head north; a goodly number, but not exactly an exodus, not like some poor Mexican towns virtually depopulated by the pull north. Many Acatzingo residents enter the United States illegally, Osorio said, because legal channels are extremely slow.

Like Paulino, Julio Rosas Camacho, 20, and his younger brother, Antonio Rosas Camacho, 18, decided to head north about eight months ago. The brothers were joined in August by their cousin, Javier Camacho Rosas, 18.

Working together in a house in Canoga Park, they cooked corn in large metal barrels, wrapped the food in towels or jackets to keep it warm, loaded up a van and traveled to places with large Latino communities to sell their roasted corn-on-a-stick for 50 cents each.

When the corn-selling business was good, relatives in Acatzingo received $50 or $60 every two to four weeks from each of their loved ones. The money would not make any of them rich, but with 7.75 pesos to the dollar, it made the difference between a meal of tortillas, beans and other vegetables, and a meal that might include beef or pork.

So on Tuesday, Sept. 9, just as they had done on so many other days, a group of 12 immigrants--many of them relatives and friends from Acatzingo or nearby Nopalucan--left Canoga Park and headed toward Lompoc with their cargo of corn.

Hours later, the group was returning home late that night on California 1 in a Chevrolet van.

About 10 p.m., a Ford pickup truck carrying three people north on the same highway crashed head-on into the van. Both vehicles burst into flames.

Several people in the van were alive but trapped, and as flames shot into the night sky, they screamed for help. Passersby were able to pull a woman out a window after fire burned through her seat belt, but they could not reach a man begging for help. “There was absolutely nothing we could do to get him out,” one rescuer would say a day later.

Of the 12 people in the van, eight were killed outright, many of them burned alive. All three people in the pickup truck died.

Even before authorities could contact her with the news, Leticia Ocampo Hernandez, the wife of Javier Camacho Rosas, was watching television at the family’s house in Canoga Park.

Mexican immigrants killed in crash, the newscaster said. Then images of the crash scene came on. “When I saw the van, I knew it was them,” she said.

Initial details were conflicting. “I thought it was Javier who was alive,” she said. “I went to the hospital and saw that it was Martin”--Javier’s 14-year-old brother.

The van occupants who perished included the two Rosas Camacho brothers, their cousin, Javier, and Paulino, all of them from Acatzingo. Also killed were Ambrosio Martinez Vivanco, 15; Mauro Martinez Salazar, 16; Elisa Lopez De La Rosa, 33; and Eduardo Perez, 33, who were from a village near Rancheria Hernandez known as El Cima.

Those killed in the pickup truck were the driver, Michael Anthony Bucci, 42, and his girlfriend, Charlotte Gwynn Wright, 29, both of Lompoc; and Joseph T. Navarro, 28, who authorities said lived in Woodland Hills.

Among the four survivors were Javier’s mother, Rosa Hernandez, 47, the woman who had been pulled to safety through the driver-side window. Hernandez was burned on about 40% of her body and is being treated at the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital. Javier’s brother, Martin Camacho, is in a coma at Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital.

David Perez, 31, was treated for internal injuries and is still hospitalized in Lompoc. Only Poli Herrera, 20, walked away with just scratches. He had arrived in Los Angeles eight days before the crash.

The California Highway Patrol said the accident investigation could take more than three months, but one disturbing coincidence has already been uncovered. Authorities said the pickup truck driver, Bucci, had cocaine, opiates and marijuana in his system, and the van driver, Julio Rosas Camacho, had cocaine in his system.

In Acatzingo and Nopalucan, official word of the accident arrived a day after the tragedy.

There is no working telephone in Rancheria Hernandez. The village’s one telephone has been out of order since May, when a rainstorm killed phone service. So after the accident, Leticia called from Canoga Park to a relative in Puebla, the state capital, 45 minutes from Acatzingo. There’s been an accident, she said. The relative headed off to the rancheria bearing the news.

Almost immediately, authorities on both sides of the border began working to bring the bodies back to their homeland. The local Mexican consul and the burn center helped coordinate and fund the efforts, while municipal officials from Acatzingo and Nopalucan worked to retrieve the bodies, four destined for Rancheria Hernandez, four destined for El Cima.

Each day, relatives would go to the Palacio Municipal, the equivalent of City Hall, in the center of Acatzingo, for word on when the bodies would arrive. Last Friday, at least 20 family members were there, many of them expecting the bodies to be delivered that day. As they waited, almost all the men wearing cowboy hats or caps and the women draped in colorful rebozos, they spoke about those they lost, at times choking on words or wiping away tears.

What now, they asked. What were they going to do now?

Julio Rosas Camacho left a 20-year-old wife, Guadalupe Velazquez Flores, and a 3-month-old son. Julio’s mother, Fuljencia Camacho Barrales, could not hold back her tears. “Now she has to push ahead to try to raise her son,” she said of her daughter-in-law. “As he grows, he can help himself, but for now he needs help.”

Javier Camacho Rosas, 18, left behind his wife, Leticia, 22, who is six months pregnant.

Finding Comfort From Each Other

Later that day, when it was clear that the bodies would not arrive until Saturday, the campesinos began the slow ride in trucks and cars back to the village.

Once they were home, several men, relatives of the dead, walked from one home to another, at times comforting each other or simply standing silently. Among them was Joaquin Rosas Hernandez, 52, whose sister is recovering at the burn center. He is caring for six of her children, ages 15 to 4.

“She left with the hope of finding a way to help her children,” said Joaquin, whose round face formed a frown each time he was alone with his thoughts. “We’d wish for some help for these children too. Nobody knows what will happen.”

A short time later, the men stopped at the home where Paulino had lived.

“Our sorrow is great, but actually they were working hard and they were not doing anything wrong,” said his father softly. “Our memory is that they died trying to help us.”

As he spoke of advice he’d given his son, the usual father-son talks about being careful, his wife stood nearby with two of the couple’s other six children, holding photographs of Paulino. From time to time she wiped tears from her eyes or rested her head in her hands.

Her name is Alejandra and she is 34. “My son wanted to work in order to improve his life, but he was unable to do so,” she said.

After a few moments the men’s walk took them to Iglesia del Refugio, the Church of Refuge, built by the rancheria’s campesinos about 10 years ago. The men entered, knelt on the hard tile floor and prayed. A short time later, they said their farewells for the day.

The next day, Saturday, as close to 100 relatives and friends waited outside the Palacio Municipal, the bodies arrived in Acatzingo, just before noon, in the back of a pickup truck. There were three coffins in it, instead of four.

“Only three!” people in the crowd said. “Only three!” The funeral home worker had mistakenly left Javier Camacho’s body in Nopalucan. Words were exchanged, but eventually it was decided to leave the body there, where it would be buried the next day, with four others.

At Rancheria Hernandez, Paulino’s white casket was taken to his home and placed on a wooden table in a room lighted only with white candles. Flower arrangements, some fragrant carnations or roses, ornamented the sides of the casket.

Relatives and friends entered the room, crying and praying for the teenager whose father tearfully said had done everything he could for the family.

At another home only a short walk away, where the coffins belonging to Julio and Antonio were placed side by side, the hum created by mourners praying a rosary in unison greeted visitors.

“Santa Maria, madre de Dios . . .” they prayed. “Holy Mary, mother of God. Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

On Sunday, 12 days after the accident, a memorial Mass was said for Julio, Antonio and Paulino at Iglesia del Refugio, which overflowed with people. After the service, the mourners walked up the rough dirt roads carrying the coffins--white for Paulino, gray for Julio and blue for Antonio--past the corn fields to the cemetery.

There will not be much work in the corn fields this fall. The usual August rains did not come and the ears never developed. Other villagers, no doubt, will have to head north for work once more.

“We thank God that they were here on Earth,” Joaquin Rosas Hernandez said at the grave site. “What else can we do? My wish and dreams were that they would have made it home.”

How sad, he said. “Que triste.”