Season of Sacrifice: Guest workers hope for better life

Illegal route turns into a dead end

The first time Martin Alvarez Avalos crossed the border into the United States he did it illegally.

It was 1991, and Los Angeles was his destination.

Violence was all around him, he said. He witnessed shootings and assaults, even when least expected.

“There’s children, 12 or 13 years old, and they’ll have a gun or knife to jump you or con you,” he said. “That’s the way it is.”

Fear of deportation also was a constant threat. He felt more like a fugitive dodging immigration officials than a man with a simple goal of finding work.

Within months, the American Dream turned bitter. He returned home.

The next time he crossed the border, more than 10 years later, he had a legal permit and a seat on an air-conditioned bus.

No fear. No violence.

And a job waiting in Virginia.

He prefers the legal route, as a participant in a federal guest-worker program, “a thousand times.”

Currently employed by May Bros. in Forest as a construction worker, Martin’s goal — like that of his brother Ramon — is to work here without conflicts as long as legally possible.

“I value the program a lot,” said Ramon. “The opportunities that you have – it’s a good thing we took advantage of it.”

After L.A., Martin said he had to rebuild trust in America when he first came to Virginia several years ago.

At first he was scared to venture out, but over time he became more comfortable.

“I feel right at home,” he said. “The only thing is my family is not here.”

-Justin Faulconer

The gamble: Leave behind your wife and children each spring to travel three days by bus for eight months of heavy labor.

The payoff: Earn just over eight bucks or so an hour, with much of it sent back to family — perhaps as much as $6,400 in all — before boarding the bus home.

Ramon and Martin Alvarez Avalos, brothers from Central Mexico, have played that hand in the Lynchburg area since April, just as they have for the past four years.

The hourly wages are what the brothers said they make in a day back in Mexico. That’s why they decide each year to say good-bye to loved ones from spring through fall.

“You do the impossible to try to pull yourself away from your family to get back over here,” said Ramon, 53, who has a wife and nine children, ages 5 to 29.

“We think of our family,” said Martin, 38, of his wife and four children, all teenagers. “We think of our work. And that’s what we do.”

The brothers cross the border legally. David St. John, a contractor in Forest, brought them and 18 other seasonal workers from Mexico, all men, to the Lynchburg area through a federal guest-worker program.

St. John relies on them for physically demanding but crucial jobs that he said most Americans won’t do without higher wages, such as pouring concrete and laying pipe.

The men send most of their earnings home through money orders. They share apartments near Timberlake Road in Campbell County and in a house beside St. John’s shop on Hooper Road.

Most speak little English; none are fluent.

Regardless, St. John and his regular employees have grown close to them.

“I feel like they’re part of my family,” said St. John.

He came under public scrutiny over that relationship early this year, when he attempted to build several town homes on Hooper Road to house the workers. Bedford County officials rejected his rezoning request, saying the homes wouldn’t fit in with the surrounding area.

During rezoning hearings, some Forest residents protested St. John’s plan and said the homes were “dormitories” that could lower property values. Others raised concern over their proximity to Jefferson Forest High School. County schools superintendent James Blevins wrote a letter to county officials echoing those worries, although he later changed his position after consulting with St. John.

St. John said the men are not troublemakers.

“If they cause problems, they get sent home — and they don’t want that,” he said.

He had to stand by his words during the summer when he fired three seasonal employees for an incident in which one of the workers was arrested and charged by the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office for driving under the influence.“They had not been in any trouble before,” St. John said of the incident. “It was just a poor lapse of judgment.”

When the men arrived in early April, St. John assured them the tensions over the rezoning weren’t their fault. There wasn’t any community discord about them prior to his public zoning request, he said.

They have continue to lean on each other to make it through the eight months of physical labor at several area construction sites.

“At times your sadness chokes you,” Ramon said of the family separation. “This is very difficult – this life we live. We have a lot of sacrifices.”

The brothers were among the first hired by St. John, who sought the help of a Nelson County firm to bring in the needed labor.

After proving highly reliable, the brothers referred relatives and friends, such as Martin’s younger brother-in-law, Ismael, to St. John. That resulted in about a dozen workers from their town — Abasolo, in the state of Guanajuato — working for the company.

Elizabeth Whitley, president of Mid-Atlantic Solutions, Inc., a Nelson County firm handling guest worker applications on behalf of employers, said the federal program “eliminates the pathology” of illegal immigration because it’s a safer alternative.

“I firmly believe if this country had a commitment to a workable guest worker program 20 years ago, we would not currently have 15 million illegal aliens,” Whitley said.

The brothers smile when they talk in Spanish of their village and families. The smiles do not fade when asked about America.

Born to a family of 11 siblings, their late father struggled to make ends meet. Never owning property, he and the brothers always worked for someone else.

Their father eventually entered the United States illegally, they said. But that experience was difficult and he returned home, warning his sons not to follow in his footsteps.

They said they tried to listen at first, but after hearing success stories from friends who used a legal route to work in the U.S., they decided that the money would be worth the heartache.

“People say there is the place to be — this is where you make the big bucks,” Ramon said.

“Your mind starts turning and then you say, ‘let’s go.’”

Part 1 of 4 in a series.