Getting to Maine: sharing the blessing

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No one seems to remember exactly who was the first person from Santa Lucia to travel to the United States to work in the forestry industry in Maine. But Dionisio Funez’s sister, Priscilla, notes that in the group who perished in the Sept. 12 accident that killed 14 foreign workers in the Allagash, her brother “was the oldest. He had been working [in Maine] for four years.”

As with the scores of others who followed the same path to the promise of greater wealth, Funez lived and worked in Maine for nine months out of the year, returning home to his family for three-month stretches.

Regularly scheduled phone calls and the occasional letter eased the loneliness, but were poor substitutes for the embraces of loved ones. The single consolation was the knowledge they were earning money, enough to make improvements to a house, supplement the family income or send a newborn to the doctor for a check-up.

Funez, who was 56 when the van plunged into the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, had obtained his first work visa with the help of a friend. Through word of mouth, nearly all Hondurans acquire these primarily agrarian jobs scattered throughout the United States.

When there’s an opening for workers, a firm like Evergreen Forestry Services of Idaho, which employed the workers killed in the van crash, relies on the advice of its best workers. From their tips, the company issues an invitation and sponsorship letter on behalf of the potential new hire. The document speeds up the visa application process, although it does nothing to alleviate the expense.

Like Funez, Rene Flores, 39, of Caridad, Honduras, found his way to Maine through the recommendation of a friend who was already working for Evergreen. Once he was approved, he received the all-important letter of invitation.

“When the work begins, [your contact] sends a fax or telephones to advise you that you have to go do your paperwork at the embassy,” he said.

Once the paperwork is secured, a worker such as Flores has to worry about a myriad of expenses, not the least of which is the cost of a round-trip airplane ticket to the United States. Then there are processing fees for the visa, the price of lodging and living expenses and the rental cost for the tools.

“The first year I did not know I would have to pay for all of those,” but by the second year, “you know what you will have to pay,” and everyone puts themselves on a budget to ensure they’ll have money enough to send home, he said.

Flores mentions a mayordomo, or foreman, who serves as a middleman for workers. There are two foremen who oversee workers in Maine, Don Jose, a Brazilian, and Don Martin, a Honduran. The men who perished in the accident on Sept. 12 worked for Don Jose, but Flores knew all of the men well, even though he had worked for Don Martin since his second year with Evergreen.

The title of “Don” is used frequently in Honduran culture and is a sign of respect. But Flores reveres his foreman so much that he often refers to him as “San Martin” or Saint Martin.

Over time, a quasi pedigree forms through which each foreign worker can be traced.

Flores, for example, went to work with Evergreen on the recommendation of his friend Cesar. After a couple of successful trips to the United States, Flores, in turn, passed the opportunity to his friend, Juan de la Cruz Izaguirre, also of Caridad. Juan did not work in Maine, however. Instead he worked for Evergreen on pine plantations in Louisiana and Texas.

After he realized the prosperity of the work, Izaguirre tipped off his cousin, Carlos Humberto Izaguirre, who, like Flores, worked clearing undergrowth in the north Maine woods. That, however, is where this pedigree tragically ends, as Carlos Humberto Izaguirre was one of the 10 Hondurans who died in the Allagash van accident.

In much the same way, Funez became the Pied Piper of Santa Lucia over the years, assisting other friends and relatives of his community to get jobs with Evergreen in Maine. In all, seven men from Funez’s town made the journey to the United States in hopes of providing a better life for their families. And in all, the town of Santa Lucia was robbed of seven lives when the speeding white 15-passenger van went out of control and plummeted into the Allagash Wilderness Waterway at Johns Bridge.

Still, friends and family alike speak his praises, remembering Funez as a hard worker who was dedicated to his family. No one seems to harbor any resentment about his being the person responsible for taking their loved ones to that faraway place where they met their tragic end. On the contrary, they are grateful he gave them the opportunity to go.

In this tight-knit community of about 20 families, an unwritten rule exists – they look out for one another. When one person is blessed with an opportunity, they make sure to share the blessing. And when someone grieves or suffers, the others likewise join in the grief and try to ease their burden.

Anibal Elvir, an entrepreneur from Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, explains that at one time companies would run ads in the local newspapers to advertise opportunities for workers to go to the United States to make a lot of money. But as with so many hard-to-believe offers, many of those prospects were too good to be true.

The Honduran government finally cracked down this summer to protect people lured by these scam artists. Too many times, the hopeful laborers were fleeced, and the crooks would slip away using falsified information.

It isn’t uncommon, however, to still hear advertisements interrupt the typical barrage of high-energy salsa and Latin music screaming over the radio on a public bus, encouraging young men to pursue the acquisition of visas for work in the United States. Much like radio ads for tax assistance here in America, these offices promise expert advice and help in preparing the appropriate forms and the speedy filing of those forms, but they stop short of promising any jobs.

Government regulations or not, there still exists a much darker side of the process. Nobody talks about it on the record, but through bits and pieces there is a shamed acknowledgement of the dirty business of human smuggling and indentured servitude.

For those who don’t receive an invitation from companies like Evergreen and don’t have a “Don” or “San,” there is the “coyote,” a shadowy figure who deals in the import/export business. The coyote’s commodity is people.

There seems to be any number of ways these smugglers bring workers into the United States. The most common seems to be a perversion of America’s Underground Railroad of the 1800s.

The human traffickers may start from as far south as Panama, working their way north through Latin America, picking up men along the way who are eager to make better wages in a land they may only know through television sitcoms. Many of these men are left to their own devices once they are taken across the Mexican border. What’s worse, there can be even greater difficulty getting home, and many face legal problems in the United States when they try to return.

Whether by visa or by coyote, it is still hard to imagine how someone from a village as remote and insulated as Santa Lucia finds his way 2,400 miles to a place like the Allagash.

Drawn by what seems to be a very basic element of the human condition – the hope of a better life – these men follow a primal migration route made by many before them from countries scattered across the globe.

The fears these men must overcome, the loneliness they surely face seem nearly insurmountable. But then again, so, too, is the alternative.

Michelle M. Falck is a bilingual freelance writer. She is the director of project management at the Institute for Public-Private Partnerships, an international training and consulting firm, in Washington, D.C.

Stephen M. Katz is assistant photography editor for the Bangor Daily News.