The ‘Faceless Wetback’ Is a Real Person

The first thing I noticed about Aristero was his one gold tooth. Not a thing of beauty, perhaps a point of interest. His face is that of rural Mexico--Indian high cheekbones, thick black hair--a broad face that seemed to emanate an air of humility, which I first mistook for subservience.

We met five years ago on Encinitas Boulevard. This is the street where the illegal aliens line up early in the morning waiting for gardeners, contractors and the occasional homeowner to pick them up for casual labor. My yard and the surrounding hillside were overgrown with weeds and leaves, and I was in need of help. Of course, I knew where there was an abundance.

As I cruised by the line of eager brown faces, I felt a twinge of guilt. Was it cheap labor that brought me here? The answer came back quickly: “Yes.” Nevertheless, it didn’t stop me from choosing one of the men who crowded by my open window.

As we drove along, I introduced myself and asked his name and where he was from.

“My name is Aristero,” he replied, “and I come from Oaxaca.” I knew from past trips into Mexico that Oaxaca is the Silver State south of Mexico City. A poor, mostly Indian population, dependent on agriculture and mining.

“Amigo,” I asked, “was it tough getting here to San Diego County?”

His answer was not what I expected. We all know that the border is porous and that thousands of aliens cross it illegally each month. But Aristero made it seem even easier than I imagined. He arrived at his final destination in North County by taxicab, a far cry from the cattle boat that my father took to Ellis Island so many years ago. I looked at him and reflected upon our own humble beginnings here in America. Small wonder that I felt guilty.

As we chatted, Aristero related his last encounter with Immigration, referred to by Latinos as “ La Migra .” Aristero was riding his cherished bicycle down the hill from the flower fields where he normally works when the Border Patrol pulled up alongside him. The jig was up . . . but what to do with the bicycle? He begged the agent to let him leave it with a stranger who was watering his lawn. The agent must have been mellow because he agreed, and the bike was left with the astonished homeowner.

Packed up and shipped out to Tijuana that morning, Aristero was back at the stranger’s house that same night to retrieve his bike . . . in a cab.

In the five years Aristero has worked regularly on my property, our knowledge of each other has expanded. He is not a “nameless, faceless wetback,” but a special person with a family and a great love for them.

During these years, his family has grown from two to five children, each timed to his Christmas vacation. Nine months of work in northern San Diego County, three months with the family. My alien friend also supports his mother, and each week he sends a money order to his home in Oaxaca. He tells me with pride about the house he built on three hectares of land. They grow corn, tomatoes and beans, but not enough to support his family, so when times are hard, the Indians head north.

One afternoon while we were having lunch, Aristero and I began to talk about our families. He told me, with no outward sign of animosity, how his father deserted his mother and six children, then fathered six more children with a woman in Vera Cruz. He smiles and says his father is like a child, and leaves it at that. I marvel at his equanimity.

I sometimes wonder if Aristero has ever been tempted to shirk his own responsibilities, flee north to Los Angeles and become absorbed into the mass of brown faces there.

We in California speak of the aliens as “the problem.” A few of us have been privileged to see them as real people, desperate to survive. Very few people leave their homes voluntarily; they are driven by circumstances, just as my father was when he left Greece 70 years ago.

A myth that is both absurd and unfounded is that “the Mexican is lazy.” Just ask any flower grower or landscape contractor how these diminutive campesinos work. The singular answer will be: “Hard.”

The problem for all of us North Americans is economic, social, political and cultural. We want their labor but we don’t want them--a hard fact and a bitter, frightening pill for the campesinos sleeping under the stars in the hills of North County.

Aristero has a bunkhouse, a stove and a toilet at his disposal. Most of the refugees from hunger and despair have the brush and bushes of the hillside as their shelter--rain or shine. And now, as life becomes even more desperate in Mexico, the predator criminal has followed the working men north to rob, beat and, on occasion, kill them.

The answer to unbridled immigration, and the strain that it is putting on our social fabric, is not simple. Aristero is but one of many thousands of Mexicans who do not want to leave their homes, their customs or their families. It is survival, pure and simple, that fuels their fire, not a dream of riches.

President Reagan recently signed legislation that will address some of these problems. But until the need to head north subsides, we will be visited by many, many more Aristeros.

It’s now fall, and the holidays will soon be here. One day soon Aristero will show up at my doorstep to inform me of his impending journey south. I will embrace him and wish him well, perhaps give him a gift for the new baby. “Give my best to Abuela, I will be looking for you in the spring.”