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Sunday, December 8, 2002
Man who recruited workers feels weight of guilt
Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||||||||
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Also on this page: AMERICAN JOURNEY | |||||||||
LA DEMOCRACIA, Guatemala — Silvano Villatoro felt a crushing guilt when four local men were among the 14 migrant workers killed in a Sept. 12 van crash in northern Maine. The men wouldn't have been in Maine if it weren't for him. A longtime migrant worker who has recruited dozens of people from La Democracia for Evergreen Forestry Services Inc., Villatoro had gotten the men jobs cutting brush in the North Woods. Burdened by grief, Villatoro left Maine one month early to escort the bodies of Juan Mendez, Sebastian Morales-Domingo, Cecilio Morales-Domingo and Alberto Sales-Domingo back to their hometown in the western highlands of Guatemala. "I brought them to the States and I had to bring them back," Villatoro, 47, said through an interpreter. Experienced, trusted laborers like Villatoro are the rarely-credited middlemen of the American economy, linking U.S. employers desperate for a work force with men in remote Central American villages, fighting to feed their families. The role brings Villatoro respect and clout. But it also carries great responsibility, especially when things go wrong. As he prepares 70 men from La Democracia and surrounding towns for next year's trip to the United States, he fields calls from people wanting to head north, their interest piqued by the men's high-profile deaths. He also acts as a source of calm and reason for the men's distraught widows. The day before the Day of the Dead, when families convene by loved ones' tombs, Fabiana Maldonado, widow of Sebastian Morales-Domingo, visited Villatoro at his house downtown, sobbing uncontrollably. "Crying won't help, so stop your crying," he said, gently holding her arm. "At least the men came home. Can you imagine if something happened like this where the bodies never reappeared? Now you have to take care of your kids, be strong and raise them well." Villatoro knows the dead men wanted to lift their families out of poverty. He had those dreams, too. Sick with typhoid for more than a year, Villatoro owed doctors more than $700 by the time he was cured in 1985. His job as a field hand couldn't pay the medical bills and support his family of five. That year, he made the trek to the U.S.-Mexico border, a path paved with danger and unsavory characters with no qualms about exploiting illegal migrant workers. That attempt, along with two subsequent ones, failed. Then in 1989, an immigrant smuggler took a "scared and nervous" Villatoro to the U.S. side of the Rio Grande River. He worked in Florida and Georgia planting trees before immigration officials caught up with him a year and half later and sent him back to Guatemala. With children and in-laws to support, the money ran out quickly and the bank threatened to foreclose on his home. So in 1991, he crossed again illegally. The next year, he received political asylum, telling U.S. immigration officials that he didn't feel safe returning to his war-ridden country. For the next three years, Villatoro worked forestry jobs, bouncing between the Southeast and Maine, where a Honduran friend told him there were good jobs. In 1994, he began working for Evergreen Forestry Services. But the terms of political asylum taxed him emotionally. After three years apart from loved ones, he decided to break the rules and returned to La Democracia in 1995. "I couldn't stand being away from my family," he said. The power of the U.S. dollar, however, proved just as strong. Within a year, he and his eldest son, Sillem, applied for temporary work visas to cut trees for Evergreen, continuing the pattern of working in the Southeast for a few months, then moving on to Maine. Seven years later, Villatoro's wife, Eberta, and his four sons and daughter - all grown - also have temporary work visas and make the annual trip to the United States. The women keep up their mobile home rentals and take care of the men when they return from work. Villatoro and his family spend only two months in Guatemala, returning to re-apply for work visas and see family, who look after Villatoro's house during the year. "Technically, I'm here on vacation," Villatoro said, looking around the dirt courtyard of his pink concrete house, built by U.S.-earned money. Tired from a back-breaking decade in the timber industry, Villatoro is ready to hang up his chain saw and find less labor-intensive work, perhaps at a motel, or in a retail store. But he wants to stay in the United States, where he says the people are friendly and the quality of life is good. He even prefers the colder weather. "It's been such a long time," he said. "I'd like to apply for residency." Staff Writer Josie Huang can be contacted at 791-6364 or at:
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