A heartfelt tribute to someone I lost

when i read this article in today's nyt, it was like a kick to the stomach... my dear good friend, julian, whom i had met in mexico and who had honored me by making me the padrino to his daughter, was killed and his body returned to mexico precisely as the article states...


Gabriela Acevedo, at a memorial for her brother Héctor,
who was working illegally in Arkansas when he died in a
car crash with two other young men. His body, like those
of many Mexicans who die in the United States, was repatriated.

Last year, Mexican consulates across the United States recorded 10,622 shipments of bodies for burial back home, 7 percent more than in 2005 and 11 percent more than in 2004. The consulates, which do not track the immigration status of the deceased, spent $4 million in 2006 to help repatriate bodies to Mexico, up from $3.4 million in 2005.

julian tried three times to get over the border, each time paying money he couldn't afford to coyotes to smuggle him across... on the fourth try, he made it and joined his brother in kansas, working construction... in october 2004, he was killed in a car crash on a kansas highway... i miss him...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet