Traveling Bodega Brings Migrants Slice of Home

Thick wads of cash bulge from the work-coarsened hands of men recently arrived in this small outpost near Maine’s North Woods.

The money represents much of these migrant brush cutters’ insubstantial wealth, and now they ponder how much to spend and how much to send home to relatives in Mexico and Honduras.

Some stock up on staples like tortillas, chorizo and cheese. Others pore over CDs and cassettes of Latin music. Many will entrust hundreds of hard-earned dollars to a paunchy man carrying the fattest money wad of all.

Juan Perez, 42, has spent much of the last three summers delivering groceries to migrant workers like these -- immigrants who went largely unnoticed in Maine until 14 were killed in a van crash last September.

The background of Perez, who owns a grocery and Mexican restaurant, is not unlike that of his customers. He was born in Guatemala, but his story is quintessentially American.

During 11 years as a migrant laborer, he scrimped and saved until one day he had the $25,000 he needed to start a business. Today he’s an entrepreneur, whose patrons often trust him like a bank, and a preacher, whose congregation overlaps with his store’s customer base.

Perez was 12 when civil war forced his family to abandon its village in Guatemala’s western highlands.

They fled through the mountains and after a 15-day journey settled in the coastal city of Tampico, Mexico.

In 1989 Perez came to the United States, working in Florida’s orange groves and then in construction in Atlanta. Each year, he came to Maine for the blueberry harvest, where he could earn $300 to $400 a week.

In 1993, he married a Honduran woman, and three years later the couple and their two daughters settled in Maine for good.

Perez preached to Spanish-speaking laborers, and he and his wife, Doris, got jobs at a fish-packing plant.

“I told my wife we need to work hard and save money, and one day we can make any business we want,” Perez recalled.

That opportunity finally came three years ago. When asked to recall the day his Mexican Store opened, Perez did not hesitate.

“May 26, 2000,” he said, beaming.

Each year on the anniversary of the store’s opening, Perez and his wife celebrate the fruition of their dream with a small party where townspeople feast on tostadas, burritos, tacos and tamales.

Harrington may seem an unlikely place for a Mexican grocery to flourish: a coastal village of 882 in a state that’s 97% white. The town had only 17 nonwhite residents in the 2000 Census.

But Perez says locals embraced his Mexican food. And he found an additional niche making deliveries to Latino workers throughout the state.

There was clearly a void to be filled. It’s estimated that more than 1,000 workers from Mexico and Central America come to Maine each year, but there are no ethnic stores deep in the woods where they work.

Perez saw the business opportunity in a traveling bodega, a grocery with specialty foods like pan tostado and Mexican candies, phone cards and other goods.

“In Massachusetts there are many,” he said. “Here in Maine, only me.”

Between May and November, Perez and his 23-year-old assistant, Juan Antonio Gallardo, load his white Chevy truck each Thursday to travel the state. There are stops in western Maine, along the coast and in northern communities like Island Falls, Portage, Limestone and Mars Hill -- 14 places in three days.

Perez has logged 38,000 miles on the truck in nine months. He doesn’t sleep much at a stretch but catches naps for a few hours in gas station parking lots.

One recent Friday afternoon, about 20 brush-cutters emerged from motel rooms when Perez’s truck pulled up.

Gallardo threw open the back door, revealing boxes with avocados, mangoes and Mexican spices, much of it from suppliers in Boston. There were Salsa recordings, books on learning English, T-shirts from Honduras.

Perez knew he had a captive audience, and he flashed a wide smile before asking in Spanish, “What do you want?”

Nelson Munguia, 34, of Honduras, and his three roommates ended up spending about $90 on tortillas, cheese, bread and fruits.

Other men scribbled calculations on the top of a cardboard box. They were preparing to hand their savings over to Perez, who wires the money to Latin America for a fee.

If a worker sends home $600, he charges a $14 commission. It’s cheaper than traditional money transfer companies, he said, and represents another niche for Perez. He also extends credit to workers who need it.

“I do that because it’s my people,” he said as he drove north on Route 11 toward Ashland. “Everything is business, business, business. But you need to help the people.”

Each Sunday, Perez presides over Pentecostal services for a tiny congregation of Spanish speakers in Columbia Falls. When those ranks swell during the late-summer blueberry harvest, he will be there to preach and to sell.

Back inside the truck, a well-thumbed Bible rests on the dashboard and Christian music plays on the stereo. Perez acknowledges that his life today resembles the American Dream sought by his customers.

He’s not stopping now. The next plan is to expand his restaurant’s menu and floor plan. Work is slated to begin this summer.