Word: tuxpan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...timers, for their part, complain about the newcomers' work ethic. "The people who come these days just see the nice cars or the money on the streets of Tuxpan," says Coria. "They don't know how much hard work it takes to make it in the Hamptons. So many of them come, get disillusioned very quickly and return to Mexico empty handed...
Octavio, 19, a shy mechanic from a poor settlement outside Tuxpan, knows how hard it can be, and he is trying to hold on. In March he paid $2,200 to a door-to-door smuggling service that picked him up in Tuxpan and dropped him off in the Hamptons. But it was no luxury ride. The trip took eight days, including three days and nights of nonstop driving from Douglas, Ariz., where he walked across the border, to the Hamptons. The Chevy Astro van that took him through the U.S. was crammed with 13 people--11 other Tuxpe?...
...CROSSING THE BORDER HAS BECOME more difficult and expensive, workers are staying longer and bringing their children to live with them in the U.S. Julio, 18, and Carlos, 15, moved to the Hamptons from Tuxpan almost a decade ago with their parents Julio Sr. and Yadira. The boys grew up on PlayStations, sledding in the winter and pool parties in the summer. They speak accentless English and for most of their childhood were average happy-go-lucky small-town kids. But because the brothers were born in Mexico, they have no legal American papers, no Social Security numbers. And that...
Finding their place in Tuxpan has been hard for the brothers. In America they were too Mexican. In Mexico they are too American. Julio, for example, started out wearing the baggy clothes he bought at Banana Republic and the Gap before he left the Hamptons, but he quickly found out that what passes for universal teenage fashion in the U.S. is viewed as the indelible mark of a hoodlum in Tuxpan. Even his friends greet him with "What's up, gringo?" So Julio and Carlos spend a lot of time hanging out with other kids who, like them, are Americans...
...part of their return plan, Julio and Carlos' parents have built their dream house just outside Tuxpan. It is a grand two-story affair with granite counters in the kitchen and views of the mountains from the boys' bedrooms. But cash is tight. In the U.S., Yadira had moved up from cleaning houses to working as a manicurist for an upscale spa in Bridgehampton. With tips from her wealthy clients, she made up to $200 a day. But returning to Tuxpan, she quickly found out that sustainable income is hard to come by in small-town Mexico. Yadira tried running...