A dirt road peels off the Ensenada highway, winding past shacks before ending at a tiny plot of land belonging to Eduardo and Megan. Megan is American, living in this isolated rural Mexican community by choice, though she speaks no Spanish. She followed her husband Eduardo, an ex-convict whose crimes led to his deportation. Mild-mannered and respectful, he doesn’t fit the image painted by TV commentators and politicians.
By any standards, their living situation is severe. Their house, a green Coleman tent, flaps weakly in the breeze, belongings piled haphazardly around it. The steel sink resting on cinder blocks is not connected to a water source. Instead, buckets wait to be filled when the water truck comes. A ragged tarp slung over a metal frame shades a folding table and chairs. The sturdiest structure on the property is the outhouse – evidence of Eduardo’s days in the US as a general contractor – although a blanket serves as a door and the roof is missing. The neighborhood has no electricity; a car battery powers the radio, blasting The Village People’s “YMCA” into the hot afternoon.
Eduardo immigrated to the US 39 years ago, when he was six. A legal resident, he grew up feeling American. He learned English quickly and speaks it more comfortably than Spanish. In the rough Southern California desert town of his childhood, there were few opportunities for success and many for trouble. At age 13, Eduardo was convicted of his first felony, a crime about which he shakes his head silently when asked. He spent several years in the California Youth Authority.
Upon release, he fell back into a life of gangs and drugs. “No, not fell,” he corrects himself. “I jumped in with both feet.” Over the next two decades, he was convicted of two more felonies, although he is too embarrassed to state the nature of them. He shakes his head ruefully, “I was one of those bad hombres you hear about.”
Along the way, Eduardo met Megan. He laughs as he remembers, “A palm reader told me I would fall in love with a gringa. I didn’t believe her, but here I am.” They married and had four children, now ages 6-15.
Megan is petite and blond, and traces of beauty are evident despite her weathered face, until she smiles and reveals empty upper gums. Her toothless smile matches Eduardo’s, the product of shared years of methamphetamine addiction.
After Eduardo exited prison the first time, he knew there was a risk he would be deported. A felony conviction almost always results in deportation. When it didn’t happen, he felt invincible.
His sense of power was compounded when a conflict with a rival gang member came to a head one night. “I found myself staring into a loaded gun. I’d made enemies and they finally caught up with me. I knew I was going to die.” The pistol held to his throat jammed. The prospect of death before he even turned 30 frightened him and he made a half-hearted promise to create a better life.
That better life came slowly. After his second prison term, Eduardo was deported to Mexicali. Megan and the children followed him, living on the streets. “I didn’t care about anything except where my next high was coming from,” Megan says. “We were fighting all the time, and Eduardo left me. He went to his family in Ensenada, and I stayed on the streets. My poor kids; even today, they tell me they don’t want to be like us.”
In Ensenada, Eduardo made camp at the base of a high hill. It rises behind the lot he has now purchased. “That mountain up there, that’s my church. When I first got here, I would climb up there every day, and pray for God to take away my addiction. And then I’d do a bunch of push-ups and stuff. It worked; I’ve been clean and sober for five years now.”
Megan took longer to hit bottom and claw her way back up. After two more years on the streets, she decided to return to Eduardo. His family urged her away, insisting he was doing well and that she would only bring him down. Nonetheless, she was desperate to change her life, and came to Ensenada with him. She has been clean and sober for three years now.
Their daughters returned to the US, and live with an aunt. Megan spends a few months each year with them. The youngest one says she will come live with her parents when they have a toilet that flushes. The older ones make no promises.
“This is rough living,” Megan says. It is more of an explanation than a complaint. Still, Eduardo says that he is thankful every day for the new life they have carved out together.
