Memorial Day 2014
Alfred Newman, Navajo Code Talker
Thank you from one Marine to another
reenactor from WWII
(NY TIMES article) Video of Police Shooting Prompts Protests in Albuquerque
The police in Albuquerque used tear gas Sunday night to disperse hundreds of demonstrators who marched downtown to protest police shootings, including the shooting of a mentally ill homeless man whose death was captured on video by a camera attached to a police officer’s helmet.
The protest was prompted by the March 16 shooting of the homeless man, James Boyd, 38, who was camping in the Sandia foothills when he died in a standoff with the police. In a graphic video that was released by the police department and has gone viral, Mr. Boyd appears to be turning away when he is shot. The police said he was brandishing two knives. Six live rounds were fired.
The mayor, Richard Berry, called the shooting of Mr. Boyd “horrific.” He asked the United States Justice Department to investigate, and he dismissed the police chief’s description of the shooting as “justified” under the law.
Since last year, the Justice Department has been investigating the Albuquerque Police Department for possible civil rights violations and excessive use of force. In the last four years, police officers have been involved in nearly two dozen fatal shootings.
Anonymous, the hacking collective, urged people to take to the streets on Sunday to demonstrate over the shooting of Mr. Boyd and against what it described as the police department’s excessive use of force. In addition to hundreds of demonstrators on the street, police officials acknowledged, their website was taken down by a cyberattack for several hours on Sunday.
The protest began peacefully around noon on Sunday, The Albuquerque Journal reported.
Then it went beyond a “normal protest,” Mayor Berry said. He praised the police response. The police, including officers on horseback, used more than two dozen canisters of tear gas on Sunday night. At least five people were arrested.
Roberto E. Rosales, a photojournalist and a former photo editor at The Albuquerque Journal, posted several photos from the protest on Twitter.
Rodeo revival: Cultural heritage brought to life
Hundreds of kids and their parents flocked to the first youth rodeo of the season Saturday put on by the First Impression Rodeo Club for a day full of mutton busting, bull riding and roping in Albuquerque’s South Valley.
About 100 children, from ages 1 to 18, are competing in the two-day event that continues today, traveling from as far as Silver City, Tucumcari and Santa Fe. Kids could do everything from barrel racing to breakaway roping, according to the hosting club’s marketing director Laura Chavez.
Thirteen-year-old Cheyenne Gonzales-Dodson was crowned rodeo queen after completing a formal dress and interview process, and answering questions about horse anatomy and medicine, Chavez said.
“The rodeo is a dying sport, so what we’re trying to do here … is to charge lower fees and get more people out here; it’s a cultural heritage,” Chavez said. The youth rodeo is free to attend.
Chavez also said it’s important to keep kids active and outdoors.
“We want them to get away from the video games and television; we want them to come out and have a good time,” she said. “It’s all about the kids.”
The rodeo is taking place at 7001 Coors SW.
Protest over Albuquerque Police Shooting
This was the scene the morning after James Boyd, a homeless man, was shot by police in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. This event caused outrage in the community and eventually led to a huge protest this past Sunday, two weeks after the shooting.
Albuquerque Police begin to throw tear gas at protesters on Central Avenue near the University of New Mexico.
Albuquerque riot police force protesters off the streets on Central Avenue.
Ruling could provide funds to clean up uranium sites
By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: Sunday, February 23, 2014 at 12:05 am
James Smith, 70, surveys five former Kerr-McGee uranium mine sites near his home in Cove, Ariz., where Smith, his three brothers, and hundreds of other Navajos tunneled into the rugged Lukachukai Mountains. Radioactive material hauled from the mines remains piled in populated areas of Cove while officials decide how to dispose of abandoned mine waste. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal
CHURCHROCK – Decades of uranium mining during the Cold War have transformed Annie Benally’s life-long home on the Navajo Nation into a moonscape of giant earthen piles contaminated by radioactive dirt and rock pulled up from deep shafts.
Evidence of past efforts to remediate contamination pock the landscape along Redwater Pond Road near Churchrock, where Kerr-McGee Corp. and United Nuclear Corp. operated two of the nation’s largest uranium mines in the 1970s and 1980s.
Navajo Nation officials say they are hopeful that a ruling handed down in December by a New York judge will provide up to $2.4 billion to clean up the former Churchrock Quivira mine and 48 other abandoned uranium mines once operated by Kerr-McGee Corp. in New Mexico and Arizona.
In his ruling, the judge found that Kerr-McGee had fraudulently shifted its liabilities to another company to make Kerr-McGee a more valuable to a buyer.
The judgment would also provide funds to clean up the Shiprock Mill, a massive uranium processing site in Shiprock.
Benally said years of patchwork efforts to fix uranium contamination at Churchrock mine sites have made her and her neighbors skeptical that a lasting solution is forthcoming.
Current plans call for Redwater Pond Road residents to move from the area in 2018 while contamination at one of the two giant mine sites is moved off site.
Annie Benally, a resident of the Redwater Pond Community north of Churchrock, stands in front of the abandoned Churchrock Quivira mine, where a pile containing an estimated 100,000 cubic yards of mine waste looms over homes in the Navajo community. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
“I don’t think it’s ever going to happen,” said Benally, a member of the Redwater Pond Community Association. “They do a little bit at a time. They just keep playing with us.”
Benally points to a gravel road made of tons of discarded uranium ore. Two years ago, a private company tried to clean up the contamination.
“They anticipated they were going to take two or three feet of waste, but they kept digging and digging and digging pretty soon we had a big ditch,” she said. “It was all contaminated.”
Benally and her neighbors believe the dust that blows off the huge piles of radioactive material left from more than a decade of mining activity in the 1970s and 1980s is causing health problems for residents and their children.
Billions at stake
On Dec. 12, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper of the Southern District of New York ruled that Anadarko Petroleum Corp., the parent company of Kerr-McGee Corp., owes damages ranging from $5.2 billion to $14.2 billion to the Navajo Nation, at least a dozen states and other claimants across the U.S. stuck with environmentally damaged sites.
The U.S. Department of Justice estimates the Navajo Nation’s share of the judgment at between $880 million and $2.4 billion.
“A billion dollars would help,” said Dave Taylor, an attorney and uranium specialist for the Navajo Nation’s Department of Justice. “It would really get us off the ground.”
A lack of funding has for decades stalled the reclamation of abandoned uranium mines and mills that shed radioactive waste into the environment, he said.
About 20 percent of the final settlement amount will be paid to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to pay for cleanup at 50 former Kerr-McGee sites in New Mexico and Arizona, including the Shiprock Mill, Taylor said.
The precise amount of the settlement will be determined by ongoing litigation in the bankruptcy case.
Anadarko Petroleum did not respond to requests for comment this week. The company has said it contests Gropper’s ruling and plans to appeal.
John Hueston, a Los Angeles attorney who represents the Navajo Nation and other claimants, said he expects litigation to continue for at least a year.
“I can say on behalf of the beneficiaries that they are willing to stand and fight because of what’s at stake and because of the size of the victory,” Hueston said in a phone interview.
The scope of Kerr-McGee’s uranium operations on the Navajo Nation offers a variety of monumental cleanup challenges.
The U.S. Department of Energy operates this evaporation pond just south of the former Shiprock Mill to prevent uranium contaminated water from seeping into groundwater. The iconic Shiprock looms in the background. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Kerr-McGee processed uranium ore at its massive Shiprock Mill, where a 1.5 million-ton tailings pile looms over the San Juan River, within a few miles of Shiprock’s 8,000 residents.
And about 40 miles southwest of Shiprock, near Cove, Ariz., miners tunneled more than two-dozen Kerr-McGee mines into the rugged Lucachukai Mountains, some in areas so remote that access by vehicle is difficult and dangerous.
Overburden from the mines was trucked into the valley where today it forms huge piles in the Cove community.
Alberta Tsosie, whose father died at age 45 after working in the mines, contends that water from the mines flows into the valley, poisoning livestock and wildlife.
Absent from the list of Kerr-McGee claimants is the state of New Mexico, Heuston said. He does not know if New Mexico tried to file a claim in the bankruptcy.
Kerr-McGee operated uranium mining and milling operations at Ambrosia Lake near Grants from the late 1950s until 1988, according to a corporate prospectus. Activists say they urged state officials in 2009 to file a claim in the bankruptcy to seek funding for remediation at the site.
Bill Brancard, general council for Energy Minerals and Natural Resources Department, said that Rio Algom became the owner of the Ambrosia Lake operations when it purchased the Quivira Mining Corp. from Kerr-McGee in 1989. State officials determined that “there were no significant liabilities out there associated with Kerr-McGee under our laws,” Brancard said Friday.
U.S.: Company committed fraud
The New York bankruptcy case centers on a chemical company called Tronox Inc., which was spun off by Kerr-McGee Corp. in 2005.
In 2006, Kerr-McGee was acquired by Anadarko Petroleum.
Tronox Inc. filed for bankruptcy in January 2009. As part of the bankruptcy proceedings, Tronox and the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against Kerr-McGee.
The lawsuit alleged that Kerr-McGee fraudulently transferred to Tronox billions of dollars of environmental liabilities to increase Kerr-McGee’s value to Anadarko.
In his ruling, Gropper agreed that Kerr-McGee’s actions were fraudulent and left Tronox insolvent.
“Kerr-McGee was trying to cleanse their crown jewel assets – the oil and gas assets – of all the environmental liabilities, which made Kerr-McGee an unattractive acquisition up to that point,” Hueston said.
The 50 Navajo Nation sites included in the Tronox settlement include the Shiprock Mill site, which contains an estimated 1.5 million tons of tailings left by the processing of uranium ore, Taylor said. The remaining sites are abandoned uranium mines.
The sites included in the Tronox settlement comprise only a fraction of the estimated 521 abandoned uranium mines scattered across the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, Arizona, and southern Utah, he said.
Cora Perry with her one year old Malichi Bryan walking in her front yard which sits next to the former site of a mill in Shiprock. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Cleanup scope unknown
The scope and cost of the cleanup will depend on the volume of material found at the sites, which remains largely undetermined, Taylor said.
“You never know what the final volume is until you get out there and start digging almost,” he said.
A five-year plan completed last year provided an “initial rough survey” of abandoned uranium mines in Navajo country, with some estimates about the amount of material they contain, he said.
“The fact of the matter is, we’re still pretty clueless what the total volume of contaminated materials is in Navajo Indian country,” Taylor said. “The biggest problem we have out here is trying to get a grasp on the volume, because volume drives cost.”
Before cleanups can begin, officials first must characterize the sites, which will require years of work, Taylor said.
“You can’t jump in and start digging dirt anywhere,” Taylor said. Even if funds were available tomorrow, he said, “it will be several years before the cleanups on those sites really will get into gear.”
The EPA, the Navajo Nation, and corporations have performed some remediation at several sites. The Churchrock Quivira Mine site is further along than any of the Tronox sites, Taylor said. “Even there, there has been no final decision about what the remedy will be,” he said.
But Taylor said the Navajo Nation and the EPA believe that a final settlement in the Tronox case will allow sites to be fully cleaned up.
“Planning is not going to consume all that money,” he said. “We’re going to clean up sites and get them completed if we get that money.”
The Tronox sites include 11 mines in the nation’s Eastern Agency, located northwest of Grants, he said.
The Eastern Agency sites include the Churchrock Quivira mine, located about 15 miles northeast of Gallup, which contains about 100,000 cubic yards of contaminated material, Taylor said.
The remaining 38 mines are located in the Navajo Nation’s Northern Agency, which straddles the Arizona-New Mexico border. Of those, 10 mines lie in New Mexico and 28 in Arizona, including the Cove area mines, he said.
Juárez on the rebound
By Lauren Villagran / Journal Staff Writer - Las Cruces Bureau
PUBLISHED: Sunday, March 9, 2014 at 12:05 am
With violence dropping, Ciudad Juárez is beginning to see a return of visitors to the city and its attractions, including this statue of the famous Mexican comedian Tin-Tan, who began his career in the city. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
CIUDAD JUÃREZ – This border city, forced to its knees for so long by drug violence, is slowly getting back on its feet.
Once famed for its nightlife and frequented by Hollywood stars – and more recently demonized as the world’s deadliest city – Ciudad Juárez is struggling to remake its image to its residents and the world.
Pedestrians on a new plaza in front of the Museum of the Revolution in Ciudad Juárez. Vehicle traffic once clogged this area but was redirected in an effort to make it more appealing to pedestrians. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
The city’s modest revival can be seen in the remodeling of storefronts downtown, along a newly created pedestrian avenue in the historic center, at the packed outdoor markets where locals shop for trendy clothes, in the crowds lounging around the city’s historic plaza on a sunny weekday morning.
Mayor Enrique Serrano says the city government has secured more than $225 million from the Mexican federal government for redevelopment projects to remake key areas of the city, most notably a planned rehabilitation of the shabby historic downtown, but also a new convention center and a hospital, road repairs, new street lamps, public pools and neighborhood parks, and a new rapid transit bus line.
Ciudad Juárez Mayor Enrique Serrano greets resident Julio Salazar during a news conference at which officials gave away 5-gallon buckets of paint for residents to use for neighborhood improvements. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Serrano finishes a sentence: The plans sound so ambitious “as if it was a lie.” Or as if the city now hopes to do all it could not do during the worst years of shootouts and massacres.
Changing how people see the city “is a question of time and work,” Serrano said.
He writes off public relations campaigns as creating “false expectations” but says he wants people to know the city is enjoying “relative calm, so that people come back, the Americans from Albuquerque who came to our restaurants, to our nightlife, to our markets.”
War and peace
Murders have dropped dramatically in a city known up until recently as the world’s most violent.
2010: 3,075
2011: 1,947
2012: 749
2013: 483
The traditional flow of visitors to Ciudad Juárez from New Mexico – of families traveling to reunite with relatives, of party-going college students looking for a good time, of tourists curious for a taste of Mexico so close to the U.S. – all but stopped as Mexico’s drug war heated up in 2006 and the city became a violent focal point.
In a three-year period through 2010, during which criminal organizations battled for control of this key entry point to the lucrative U.S. drug market, more than 10,000 people were killed in Juárez, according to Chihuahua state statistics. Widespread extortion and kidnapping financed a bloody turf war and drove tens of thousands of residents out of the city, many to towns in New Mexico and Texas.
Then, the mayhem began to subside.
Emiliano Varela releases a pigeon tangled in a piece of rope. Varela works as a portrait photographer in a plaza near the Juárez Cathedral. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Homicides dropped to under 500 last year from more than 3,000 in 2010 – a rate now comparable to some U.S. cities. Other crime indicators like kidnapping and extortion have plummeted.
Gateway to Mexico
Things have gotten good enough that the new city government plans an ambitious makeover of the historic downtown and a popular entertainment district known as the Pronaf, while the tourism department plans to hawk the news of Juárez’s recovery from El Paso to Santa Fe and Albuquerque, despite the mayor’s stated disinterest in marketing campaigns. A tourism outpost is planned for the El Paso Saddleblanket store on I-10.
“The objective is to transform the gateways to Ciudad Juárez, which are also the gateways to Mexico,” said Adrian Gonzalez Jaimes, secretary of tourism for the city. “The project downtown is about that, to help its resurgence and revival. It takes time.”
Not long ago, this area was very congested with traffic running from north to south making it very difficult for pedestrians to get around this historic neighborhood. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
The city may still have a long way to go, but its residents – and an adventurous few tourists – have returned to its markets and bars, malls and museums. That’s in part thanks to the success of the city’s first effort: convincing residents to shed their fears and return to their normal lives.
The city circulated a video last fall meant to rekindle residents’ pride in themselves and their troubled border city. The video – which opens with hard-working Juárenses rising at dawn and shows all the best aspects of the city’s industry and culture – made the rounds of social media.
“What happened in Juárez – no one was ready for that,” said Gonzalez Jaimes. “But I can tell you that today there are many more good things than the bad we had during that time. We have been working to raise consciousness with our people and the result is this: We have commercial corridors that are totally full on weekends. The nightlife that had basically stopped is back.”
Signs of life
Rich Wright, an El Paso-based writer, began advertising walking tours to Juárez a few months ago.
About his ad, he said, “I thought, ‘This will be a performance art piece.’ I was amazed when someone called.”
He has guided a handful of people on tours of Juárez’s history and its bars and says he is skeptical of the city’s urban renewal plans – of its ability to follow through and its commitment to preserving the city’s historical areas.
With the violence going down, some visitors are coming back to the city and that means a chance to shop in the Cuahtemoc Market for items such as medicinal herbs. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
A seedy downtown district known as the Mariscal, famed for its bars and brothels, has been torn down. On a recent walk, Wright pointed to a small, newly paved square ringed by abandoned, half-demolished buildings – where there is no sign yet of new construction.
A few streets over, a different remodeling project offers a bright spot.
“You can no longer compare (Juárez today) with the turbulence, the chaos,” Carlos Rocha, an attendant at the Museum of the Revolution at the Border, says of the recovery.
Housed in the stately former Mexican customs building and remodeled in 2011, the white-walled galleries feature memorabilia of the life and times of Mexico’s revolutionaries, especially Pancho Villa. On Sundays, the museum hosts puppet shows for children.
On the newly paved pedestrian walkway of Avenida 16 de Septiembre, Joel Alberto Rivera manned a cart loaded with jugs of agua fresca – drinks of pineapple, cantaloupe and milky horchata. The city is building tunnels to push vehicles below ground in the congested downtown. People now stroll the wide avenue in peace.
“It’s just a few,” Rivera said, “but now you are starting to see tourists.”
William Wilson, of the Navajo Nation makes wet plate collodion portraits
Monroe Gallery of Photography: William Wilson, of the Navajo Nation, is making his own kind of history, by using wet plate collodion process to produce portraits of Native Americans
Second-year UNM law student Michelle Cook has her photo taken by artist William Wilson. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
William Wilson, of the Navajo Nation, is making his own kind of history, by using an old-style process to produce portraits of Native Americans.
Wilson held a public portrait studio this month on the University of New Mexico campus, using a large-format camera and the historic wet plate collodion process.
“The particular beauty of this old photographic process references a bygone era and the historic images that continue to contribute to society’s collective understanding of Native American people,” according to a news release.
William Wilson develops a tintype as part of his collection of Native American portraits. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Wilson’s work will be on display at the Maxwell Museum at UNM through Jan. 31
These are some of the images created by photographer William Wilson. His work will be on display through Jan. 31 at the Maxwell Museum on the UNM campus. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Love notes from around the world
Story by Leslie Linthicum of Journal
We all think we know “South Valley man.” In the newspaper headlines and on TV, he gets stabbed, he gets arrested for drugs and gang fighting, he goes to jail. Sometimes he gets killed.
In a cozy living room off Avenida César Chávez and Goff – in the South Valley – another South Valley man was at work the other day on his own quest to rewrite the story of “South Valley man.”
Lonnie Anderson has been professing his love for Anne Bolger-Witherspoon in creative ways for 19 years now, ever since they marked their first Valentine’s Day as a dating couple by turning his house into a giant board game, handing her two big homemade dice and asking her to play.
Through their years of dating and marriage, and the births of two daughters, he has surprised Anne each Feb. 14 with a big homemade gesture – a private prom, a bouquet of 30-foot flowers, a throne, crown and candy jewels, a poem writ large with 6,440 stones in a dirt lot.
Lonnie Anderson and his wife, Anne Bolger-Witherspoon, married for 13 years, are still two kids in love. Maybe that’s because of Anderson’s annual oversized Valentine Day’s surprises. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
It has all happened in the South Valley, where Anne grew up and where the couple has made their home. And because Anderson is an advertising man by profession, he has accumulated a nice portfolio of news media attention for his efforts.
He has made it so that on at least one day a year “South Valley man” is credited with sprinkling some love and positivity in a corner of the city that suffers from a negative stereotype – if it’s getting any attention at all.
This year, “South Valley man” is spreading the love worldwide.
Get inspired
It wouldn’t be romantic to copy the South Valley man’s Valentine’s Day ideas, but this list of some of his greatest hits might spark some imagination for Friday’s big event.
Over the years, Lonnie Anderson has:
- Made an oversized box of chocolates; each “piece” was a separate cake.
- Created in their home the bar where he met his wife.
- Rented a lighted carousel and had it set up in their front yard.
- Placed “I LOVE ANNE” signs all over town.
- Made a movie about her and had it shown at The Guild.
- Constructed giant boxes of candy hearts.
- Wrote out her favorite poem in rocks in their backyard.
- Constructed a bouquet of 30-foot flowers out of cardboard boxes.
- Drew candy pieces in chalk on the sidewalk at places around town where milestones of their lives occurred.
- Had “I Love Anne” painted in graffiti in the neighborhood where she grew up.
- Made her a throne and a crown, and a declared her Queen for a day.
Anderson got the idea when he was working in Dubai and missing his family: “I want my wife’s name spread around the world. I want people in every country around the entire world to hold up a sign that says ‘I love Anne’ and take a photograph so she knows she’s the most loved woman in the entire world.”
He put the word out on Facebook and the photos poured in – from Red Square in Russia, the Sydney Opera House in Australia, a lake in Denmark, the pyramids in Guatemala. Ireland. Malaysia. Israel. South Africa. Egypt. France. Cuba. Iran. Algeria. Vietnam.
“I think one thing I was surprised at is how small the world is,” Anderson said. “Some of these are photos from a friend of a friend of a friend.”
There are nearly 200 countries in the world, and Anderson has collected photos from about one-fifth of them.
Why would strangers go to the trouble of making a sign professing love for a woman they’ve never met, have their picture taken and send it to the South Valley?
“I think people are so tired of there not being love spread around the world,” Anderson said. In a world roiled in conflict, and the news focused on international violence and turmoil, “It’s a way to show people it’s not only negative stuff coming out of the world.”
And, he said, “I really truly believe that when you’re sincere about something and you have love as the message, how can people not want to participate?”
That the worldwide love movement would revolve around a South Valley girl was a bonus.
“It’s our responsibility to change the way the media perceives us,” Anderson says. “One of my ideas was, what if I just spread love around the entire world and it started right here in the South Valley? And it spread all the way to Russia and the Kremlin, to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, to China and the Great Wall, to all these amazing places around the world. That just shows that great, beautiful, loving things come out of the valley as much as the tough stuff that we see.”
For 19 years, Valentine’s Day has been a surprise sprung on Anne. This year, the effort was on Facebook and the cat got out of the bag, so no surprise will be ruined by putting this on the front page.
Anne is less in love with marketing than Lonnie is and she told me she wouldn’t mind if some of her Valentine’s Day surprises were shared a deux rather than with a newspaper or television audience. But she hasn’t tired of her husband’s big gestures on Feb. 14.
“I can’t imagine it not happening,” she said. If one year Anderson commemorated the day with something simple like a box of chocolates and a kiss, she said, she would worry that something was wrong with him. “It’s just not in his nature.”
It’s not breaking news, but here’s a headline: “South Valley man loves South Valley woman.”
Dead Baby found on the Navajo Reservation
Resident Franklin Mose peers into a culvert where a 13-month-old child was found Jan. 31 in Crystal. A mother and her child were left near the culvert late at night Jan. 30 after the mother got into a fight with a woman with whom she was riding in a truck, according to the woman’s uncle. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Jasper Peshlakai stands In front of his home atop a hill near Crystal on Thursday, recounting the story his niece told him about the niece’s kicking a mother and her 13-month-old child out of her truck. The child was found dead the next morning in a culvert. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Longtime Crystal resident Jerry Kee considers a reporter’s question in his home Thursday. Kee said a Navajo Nation police officer questioned him about the whereabouts of the Peshlakai family, who live near him, in connection with the child’s death. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
CRYSTAL – Jasper Peshlakai’s niece stumbled through the door of his small house on top of a hill in the middle of the forest late at night last week, smelling of alcohol and nursing deep scratches down her arms.
Jasper Peshlakai stands In front of his home atop a hill near Crystal on Thursday, recounting the story his niece told him about the niece’s kicking a mother and her 13-month-old child out of her truck. The child was found dead the next morning in a culvert. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
The unexpected Jan. 30 visit from his niece, whom he hadn’t seen in around five years, became even more alarming when she told him that she had abandoned a woman and her 13-month-old child a couple miles down the hill, Peshlakai said. The niece told Peshlakai that she and the woman had gotten into a fight while drinking and driving on the way to visit her uncle, so she kicked the woman and the child out of her truck and continued up the hill to her uncle’s house.
Peshlakai said he urged his niece to go back down the hill and get the mother and her toddler.
“But she just kept changing the subject,” Peshlakai told the Journal on a chilly afternoon this week in the small Navajo Reservation town. “Next thing I know, she was tired and went to bed.”
Shortly after 7 a.m. the next morning, Jan. 31, the body of a young child was found in shallow, icy water in a metal culvert at the bottom of the hill. Most Crystal residents politely declined to say what they knew of the death, but several others described seeing a parade of local and federal law enforcement combing through the scene that morning, in addition to a woman seated on the dirt road, distraught and wrapped in blankets.
The FBI, which said it is continuing its investigation, has not released the names of the mother or her child. FBI officials said they have questioned the mother and are waiting for the results of an autopsy from the state Office of the Medical Investigator. A Navajo Nation Police Department captain, reached Friday, said he was not familiar with the case, and a Navajo Nation Department of Justice official said that the case will likely be prosecuted federally.
The cause of death has not been released, and it’s unclear whether the mother was ever arrested or just questioned.
A spokesman for the hospital at Fort Defiance told the Navajo Times that the mother of the victim was treated at the hospital’s emergency room. However, an emergency room employee reviewed hospital logs and told the Journal that the hospital had no patients the morning of Jan. 31 who could have been the mother. The hospital spokesman did not return repeated calls for comment.
Peshlakai said he told investigators about his niece’s visit and what she had said. He said the they were very interested in her whereabouts, but he didn’t know what to tell them. She has no phone, he said, and he doesn’t know where she has been living for the past five years. She was gone when he returned from a day trip to Gallup on Jan. 31, he said.
He also said he has no idea where his niece met the mother or where they were coming from, and he didn’t know whether the two were related or even friends. Temperatures in nearby Navajo, N.M., that night hovered just above freezing.
When asked whether he felt any blame or guilt about the child’s death, he said he has been running through scenarios in his mind since that night – but he just doesn’t know yet. He also said he doesn’t have a phone.
All of the Crystal residents who were willing to talk about the death said they don’t know who the mother was or where she was from. In the 2,000-population town, residents said, it’s pretty clear when someone is an outsider.
Word about the child’s death spread quickly through the town that morning.
Jacey McCurtian, president of the Crystal Chapter, told residents in a community meeting Jan. 31 not to speak of the case as the investigation runs its course, residents said. About a dozen residents approached by the Journal in the Crystal senior center and in remote homes dotting the hills in the area declined to comment about the death, often saying first, “I can’t say anything,” then later, “I don’t know anything.”
But a few were willing to briefly discuss what they saw.
Longtime Crystal resident Franklin Mose said he walked near the culvert on the morning of Jan. 31 and spotted what he thought was a white, shining rock inside the culvert that runs below the dirt road that leads up the hill. He later returned to see a flurry of police activity and learned that he had actually seen the child’s naked body, face down in the water.
By Thursday of this week, when a Journal reporter and photographer walked by, the creek had mostly frozen over. There was no sign that a child had died there less than a week earlier.
Another Crystal resident, Jerry Kee, who was born in a hogan on the same hill and lived on the same plot of land his whole life, said a Navajo Police Department officer knocked on his door last week, asking for the Peshlakai house.
He said his son, on his way to Gallup early Jan. 31, saw the mother sitting at the scene wrapped in blankets while police investigated. He did not know her, but stopped to talk to her briefly.
Just because the woman and her child were likely not from Crystal doesn’t diminish the tragedy, Kee said.
“It’s kind of really shocking,” Kee said. “It’s heartbreaking for all of us. It’s just a little baby.”
Roswell Shooting
By Patrick Lohman/Journal Staff Writer
ROSWELL – Now that Berrendo Middle School has reopened, and the satellite trucks from CNN and NBC have put Roswell in their rearview mirrors, church and community leaders here are focusing on what they see as a silver lining – the outpouring of support and faith that they say is unique to this town of 48,000 residents.
How to help
To donate to those most affected by the Roswell school shooting, visit the United Way of Chaves County website at UnitedWayCCNM.org and click on the “Roswell Prayers” picture. Donors must also select “Berrendo Middle School Support Fund” from the “Select Agency” drop down menu.
“It is absolutely amazing that, when tragedy hits in this community, people run to each other and connect,” said Rick Hale, senior pastor at Grace Community Church, one of the city’s largest. “When tragedy hits here, we run to each other rather than away from each other.”
Since the December 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., more than two dozen schools across America have seen classrooms converted into crime scenes, and communities have tried to figure out what could possibly drive a student or former student to bring a gun to school and fire upon fellow classmates.
It’s a list that residents of this southeastern New Mexico town never thought they would be on. But on a cold, windy morning last week, Roswell became town No. 30 – the fourth middle school in the nation to see such a shooting and the second school in the first two weeks of 2014.
“What is sad is that you never imagine that this is going to happen in your town,” parent Jennifer Patrick said after a parent meeting at the Roswell Civic Center on Wednesday night. “But it has.”
Around 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, 12-year-old Mason Campbell carried a 20-gauge shotgun loaded with three rounds into the gymnasium at Berrendo Middle School, according to State Police, where around 500 students had gathered to take shelter from the cold. Two of Campbell’s shots struck the floor and the ceiling, but a third was fired into a stand full of students, injuring 12-year-old Nathaniel Tavarez and 13-year-old Kendal Sanders. Tavarez was in critical condition at a Lubbock hospital as of Friday night and Sanders was in satisfactory condition. Campbell is facing three charges of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
Hale said members of his church and others have organized to provide meals and other “practicalities” to the families of the shooting victims, in addition to Campbell’s family. Hale said that, even though Campbell is the suspected shooter, the town views each family as deserving of prayer and support.
“These are wonderful parents who loved their kids,” he said. “Nobody escaped the tragedy.”
Jim Campbell, Mason’s father, is a private contractor who built his home and his neighbor’s home. On Tuesday morning, two State Police officers armed with assault rifles stood in front of the large house’s driveway.
Mason Campbell faces three charges of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
Mason’s mother, Jennifer, is the sister of prominent Albuquerque attorney Jason Bowles and one of the boy’s grandparents is a well-known Roswell dentist.
The tightknit nature of the community also became evident Friday afternoon when District Attorney Jeanetta Hicks decided to pass the shooting case to another jurisdiction, citing numerous conflicts of interest.
“On the day of the shooting, three of my nieces and two nephews were in the gym,” Hicks said in a news release announcing the handoff. “On the front page of our local newspaper was a picture of my father and one of my nephews … . Moreover, I heard my niece’s 911 call on one of the national cable TV shows and her fear was evident.”
City leaders say Roswell’s size and its large churchgoing population have instilled a sense of community that was evident among the 1,500 residents who packed into the civic center the night of the shooting to pray with the town’s eight senior pastors from different denominations.
It was also evident Thursday morning, when dozens of well-wishers gathered near the school to cheer on kids and their parents on the first day back after the tragedy – a sight that Sean Lee, acting director of the Berrendo parent-teacher organization, said made him swell with pride when dropping his daughter off.
“I got a lump in my throat,” he said. “I thought, what a wonderful gesture to tell our students that everything is going to be OK. I’ve never been more proud of my town than I was in that moment.”
Attendance was optional Thursday and many parents said they wanted to wait at least a couple of days longer before letting their kids return to school. However, some students said they’d might as well get it over with.
“You have to go back no matter what,” said Seth Peña, 13, on Thursday morning as he walked toward the school’s front doors. “The sooner the better.”
Lee said he believes the town will be OK eventually, but it has to answer some questions in the meantime.
Parents at the Wednesday night meeting briefly discussed anti-bullying initiatives and requiring backpack checks for students entering the school, but he said it’s too soon to tell what might come out of the shooting, especially because State Police have not yet determined Campbell’s possible motives.
In the coming days, a group of students from Arapahoe High School in Colorado, shooting No. 28, is possibly going to make its way to Roswell to offer comfort to the 600 or so students at Berrendo. It’s a role Lee said he hopes Berrendo students will take up should school shooting No. 31 happen.
“If something like this should happen again, God forbid, I would hope that our school would be the first to volunteer and say, ‘How can we help you?’”
Candlelight Vigil for Omaree Varela
I've been covering the events for the newspaper regarding the death of a nine year old boy who was killed byhis mother on Dec. 27th , 2013. This past Saturday neighbors and concerned citizens got together to hold a candlelight vigil for the victim and needless to say, this community is still in shock that such a horrible event took place when there were so many signs pointing to the fact that this kid needed help.
Memorial services held for Omaree Varela
Story by Rick Nathanson/Albuquerque Journal
An intimate gathering of about 35 people, many of them part of Omaree Varela’s caretaker family, held a church memorial service for him Tuesday, even as relatives of Synthia Varela-Casaus, the biological mother who now stands accused of killing her 9-year-old son, held a separate and private visitation elsewhere.
Members of the caretaker family said the other family told them they would not be welcome to attend.
Meanwhile, Henry Varela (no relation), spokesman for the state Children, Youth and Family Department on Tuesday said that CYFD did not have the authority to “order” the caretaker family to return the child and his younger sister to a CYFD office so they could be turned over to their biological mother.
Even if that assertion is technically correct, Essie Sotelo and her daughter, Shana Smith said, they are offended at CYFD’s haggling over word definitions.
Mourners at the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church hold hands as they pray for 9-year-old Omaree Varela, killed Dec. 27. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Sotelo and Smith were caring for the two children in Phoenix, where they said they had moved with the knowledge and permission of Varela-Casaus, the biological mother, who was friends with Sotelo and who had asked her to care for the children. Sotelo says in March 2011 a man who identified himself as a CYFD case worker called the Phoenix home and told them the children were to be turned over to the mother at the CYFD office on San Mateo in Albuquerque.
“Sure sounded like an order to me,” Sotelo said Tuesday. “I told him that she (Varela-Casaus) wasn’t ready to take care of those kids.”
Her granddaughter, LaTasha Smith, said she also received a call to her Albuquerque home from “a CYFD case worker who told me if my grandmother did not return the kids they would get her for out-of-state kidnapping.”
CYFD’s Varela said he couldn’t talk specifically about the Omaree Varela case, but did say that the child had never been removed from his mother and placed in the custody of the state. In those circumstances, “a parent has every right to their children,” he explained.
“Simply having a power of attorney does not give somebody custody of children who are not theirs. A power of attorney can be revoked by the legal parent or guardian at any time. If a so-called caretaker were to call CYFD and ask, ‘can I keep these children even though their mother wants them back?’ any CYFD caseworker would tell them the law. But no caseworker would be in a position to ‘direct’ somebody on custody arrangements, unless the child is in state custody, as ordered by a district court judge.”
Mourner Beverly Edwards did not know the dead child but says “I love kids and this just breaks my heart.” A single parent, Edwards works two jobs and is raising several of her grandchildren. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Mourner Beverly Edwards did not know the dead child but says “I love kids and this just breaks my heart.” A
LaTasha Smith and her aunt, Vannessia Ochoa, subsequently traveled from Albuquerque to Phoenix to retrieve the children and brought them to the CYFD office, where Varela-Casaus departed with them through a side door. “We didn’t even get to say goodbye to them,” LaTasha Smith said.
Omaree Varela, who had been a fourth-grader at Hodgin Elementary School, died on Dec. 27 after his mother kicked him repeatedly. Medical staff who examined him at a local hospital said his body had signs of past as well as current injuries, including cigarette burns and a bite mark.
Varela-Casaus has been charged with child abuse resulting in death and is being held on a $100,000 cash-only bond. She has served time at the New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility in Grants for drug related convictions. Corrections Department files have her listed as Cynthia Varela rather than Synthia.
CYFD investigated claims of abuse concerning the child on at least two other occasions. A year ago the agency was called to his school after the boy told school officials he had been abused. In 2009, CYFD recommended that the children should remain in Sotelo’s care pending an investigation of the mother and the younger child’s biological father. CYFD did not have an open and active case file on the child at the time of Omaree’s death.
“This family has got to get some closure in their lives – for this entire community there has to be a point of healing,” said Pastor Darnell Smith, who led the service for Omaree Varela at the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church on south Edith.
“This family is suffering at the hands of a broken system,” he said in reference to CYFD. “Your tears are our tears; it’s not just your issue, it’s our issue.”
Whitehorse Lake sees flowing water at last
Chee Smith Jr., chapter president at Whitehorse Lake on the Navajo Nation, tests a new water line extended last month to the home he shares with his father in the remote, water-starved community. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal
By John Fleck/Albuquerque Journal Staff Writer
WHITEHORSE LAKE – Chee Smith Jr. may have hauled his last water.
Outside his trim yellow home near the eastern edge of the Navajo Nation, a line of blue stakes marks the path of a water pipe leading to a spigot that now pokes through the dry dirt behind his house.
Smith flipped the handle to demonstrate the water’s flow, but turned it off quickly. Water here, even when it comes in a pipe rather than being hauled in the bed of a pickup, is not a thing to waste. “Water is gold out here,” Smith explained. “It’s our life.”
A bowl of water and hand soap are fixtures in homes like those of 87-year-old Chee Smith Sr. at Whitehorse Lake, where indoor plumbing is arriving for the first time in the Navajo Nation community. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Inside the house, a sink and toilet await the final hookup that will bring a clean water supply and indoor plumbing to what might be one of the most water-starved regions in the United States.
Every home in this sparse community at the foot of Tse’ Yi’ Gai – White Mesa – has an outhouse, a basketball hoop, and the water tanks, barrels and buckets that accompany a life without running water.
The buckets are for the relatively short drive to the Whitehorse Lake chapter house, where they’re filled with safely drinkable water. For a dollar, community members can take a shower there, too. It’s a longer drive to one of the windmill-fed stock tanks to fill the 50-gallon barrels Smith uses to haul water for his family’s six goats and the two trees outside the house. “We haul it daily,” Smith said.
The network of blue stakes leading outward from the big new water tank at the foot of the mesa is a signal of change. In November 2012, 24 Whitehorse Lake homes were connected to the newly arriving water lines. Last month, the home Smith shares with his 87-year-old father, Chee Smith Sr., was among the next 21 homes to be connected, with the final plumbing now underway to connect the indoor plumbing to the water lines and newly dug septic systems carved into the hard desert earth behind each house.
“Once they hook up, they don’t have to haul any more,” the younger Smith said.
Smith, the 51-year-old president of the Navajo Nation’s Whitehorse Chapter (something like a mayor, Smith explained) left the community as a young man, earning an engineering degree from Brigham Young University and working in Tucson for eight years after college before returning. “I came back to help my community,” he said.
Lack of indoor plumbing and the need to haul water by pickup truck are common on the Navajo Reservation. But even by Navajo standards, Whitehorse Lake and the other communities along the nation’s eastern fringe are dry. The area averages less than 9 inches of precipitation a year. Groundwater, the normal fallback for desert communities, is of poor quality, when it can be found at all, said Andrew Robertson, an engineer with Souder, Miller and Associates in Albuquerque.
But that is slowly changing. Whitehorse Lake – an hour’s drive north of Grants, two hours south of Farmington – is at the southwestern end of a growing spiderweb of water pipes passing through what Robertson called “the most water-starved” communities on the Navajo Nation.
The 13-mile Phase 4 of the Eastern Navajo Water Pipeline Project brings water south from Pueblo Pintado to Whitehorse Lake. For now, the $3 million extension connects to a modest groundwater supply system at Ojo Encino, a Navajo community near Cuba. Eventually, plans call for an expanded network of pipes to connect to the north Cutter Reservoir and a more permanently reliable supply of water from the San Juan River via the $73 million Cutter Lateral project.
The Cutter Lateral, in turn, is part of the Navajo Gallup Water Supply Project, intended to bring water to some 100,000 people across the Navajo Nation in western New Mexico who currently lack access to a clean and reliable water supply.
Whitehorse Lake got its name for white horses that used to run the arid landscape and a pool that used to build after storms behind a hand-built earthen dam. All but the name – and 700 people tied by generations to the land – are gone now. “People like it out here,” Smith said. “They stay out here.”
But water, or its lack, has always been a central feature of life here. Of the area’s 700 residents, 550 had no running water to their homes before the water pipeline project began. Smith remembers hunting firewood in the canyons to the north and having his father teach him where to dig a foot or two into the sandy soil to find pools of shallow groundwater. “It’s real clear,” he said. “You can drink it.”
“That’s how people survive out here,” Smith said. “They know where all the water holes are.”
During the winter, family members would pack big bowls full of snow and bring them home, setting them by the fire to melt. “For generations, the people have melted the snow,” he said. Before pickups were common, water haulers used horse-drawn wagons, something common as recent as Smith’s childhood in the 1960s. “That was almost like a full-day job,” he said.
The public health implications for the communities that lack running water are enormous, Robertson pointed out. A 2007 federal study, noting that a wide variety of diseases are common without access to clean water, put the health care savings of the Navajo Gallup Water Supply Project at $435 million over 20 years. “There is a clear connection between sanitation facilities (water and sewerage) and Indian health,” the study concluded.
With the expansion of the water system, Whitehorse Lake is seeing young families move back to the community who had left to live in surrounding cities, Smith said. And he sees economic opportunities.
As he drove east from the chapter house toward his home, Smith pointed to a broken-down building that until 1985 was home to a community store. Nearby, the community has set aside a parcel to build a new one. Before the water project, replacing the store and other steps forward in Whitehorse Lake’s economic development were hard to carry out. Another possibility is building a restaurant for drivers passing through on N.M. 509, the highway up from Grants. But that would require something most restaurant owners take for granted – a reliable water supply.
“Due to no water,” Smith explained. “That’s why we have no development in the community.”
She’s American, he’s Mexican: They’re caught in limbo
Raymundo and Emily Cruz walk on the esplanade under the X sculpture by the Mexican artist known as Sebastian, which Emily in her blog has called a symbol of Ciudad Juárez’s renewal, “the promise of a new beginning.” (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
CIUDAD JUÃREZ – “I cried myself to sleep that night thinking I had made the biggest mistake in the world. I cried because I felt stupid, homesick, spoiled, lost, sheltered, weak, and most of all scared (expletive) of what was to come.”
Emily Bonderer Cruz left her home in Arizona to start a new life in this border city three years ago with her husband, Raymundo, even as thousands of people were fleeing this same city at the height of a violent drug war.
The Cruzes found themselves trapped in a little-known purgatory of the U.S. immigration system, along with an unknown number of other couples advocates say could number in the thousands or tens of thousands. She is a U.S. citizen; he is Mexican. When the two met in 2005, Raymundo was working without legal documents and had crossed into the United States illegally twice – landing him with a lifetime ban from the country that, despite their later marriage, made him ineligible to apply for a pardon for a decade. The 10-year clock would only start ticking once he left the country.
So, the couple packed their possessions and, in 2010, drove through New Mexico into Texas and over the border to wait it out.
And blog about it.
Sharp-tongued and witty, Emily curses liberally in English and Spanish, and launched a blog that would eventually draw media attention and become a point of reference for other couples living in Ciudad Juárez and other border towns under similar circumstances: The Real Housewife of Ciudad Juárez. She vents, she marvels, she agonizes, but she also makes the best of what many have described as a sad and bitter situation.
“I could be pissed off all the time and angry at my country all the time, and run around Juárez with a frown on my face and be angry at the world,” she said one recent afternoon in an interview at her home. “Ideally, I didn’t want to be here. But life isn’t … . You don’t always get what you want.”
She ended her first blog post in August 2010, about the night she cried herself to sleep, with a repetition like a mantra, as if to convince herself, “This is a romantic adventure. This is a romantic adventure. This is a romantic adventure.”
‘ To go back and start over’
Emily Cruz isn’t a housewife. She and her husband live largely off what she makes working in El Paso in administration, while Raymundo works long hours at a maquiladora assembling auto harnesses for about 600 pesos per week, roughly $46. That is a “big difference,” he said, from the $600 he earned weekly making ice cream at a restaurant in Arizona.
“For us, it is really a moral issue,” said Randall Emery, president of American Families United, which is lobbying Congress to relax the laws that dictate yearslong or lifetime bans for immigration violations. “Here you have people who may have done something in the past, but they have left to do things the right way. People have suffered tremendously and will continue to suffer until there is some kind of resolution.”
New Mexico Republican Rep. Steve Pearce has co-sponsored a bill, H.R. 3431, with Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke, that would grant authorities greater discretion in reviewing past minor or technical immigration violations, or those that occurred when the spouse was underage.
Pearce, who opposes a Senate bill that takes a broad approach to immigration reform, says he would prefer to see reform happen piecemeal, starting with an issue such as the plight of married couples like Emily and Raymundo Cruz.
“I feel that we ought to be taking this thing in bite-sized chunks instead of in big packages,” he said.
While it is unlikely that immigration legislation, large or small, will get aired in the House of Representatives until later in 2014, Pearce said legislators who have reviewed the bill, “no matter their political affiliation, they think this is a case of doing the right thing.”
The number of undocumented immigrants who are ineligible for residency despite being married to a U.S. citizen is unknown, but it’s possible to get a sense of how many people are affected: Some 9 million people belong to a family that includes at least one adult unauthorized to live in the U.S. and one U.S. citizen child, according to the Pew Research Center.
Shawna Avila considers New Mexico her “home base.” She and her husband are among the unknown number of couples who have chosen to stay in the U.S. in hopes that the law might change. Her husband, Roberto, first crossed illegally from Mexico to the U.S. when he was 17, did so more than once, and is ineligible to apply for residency although they have been married for more than six years. Shawna says that, because her parents live in New Mexico, she shared her story with Pearce.
“Even though he was very conservative, he seemed to have a willingness to listen to individual stories on immigration,” she said.
Emily Cruz drives to pick up her husband, Raymundo, at his job at a maquila where he builds harnesses for a global automotive supplier manufacturer for less than $50 a week. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Her parents live in Quemado, Catron County, where she is now moving with her newborn.
The limitations Roberto faces as an undocumented immigrant have kept them apart for the past two years. It made it difficult for him to follow her to Miami, where she was pursuing a doctoral degree in sociology before their daughter was born. Now, he has a higher paying job in Tennessee that would not be available in New Mexico.
“We’ve gone through many ups and downs through the years,” Shawna said. ” … I’ve supported immigration reform ever since I found out about it.”
‘Feel more free’ in Juárez
On the other side of the border, Raymundo – who describes himself as serious and Emily as the fun one who brings the “party” home – worries about safety. He was picked up by thugs in downtown Juárez when he first arrived, dragged into a basement and beaten, and says he is still scared to go out. He is studying for a high school diploma and wants to go to college. But most of all, he wants to return to the U.S.
“The truth is, I would like to go back and start over and work,” he said. “I love it. I really like the United States. It’s not that I don’t like Mexico, but I feel that there are more opportunities there. I feel safer; I feel better there.”
But they live in Juárez and seem determined to explore the city’s sunny side, despite Raymundo’s well-founded fears and a tight budget.
Emily recently posted a “Weekend in Pictures,” which included a snapshot of a soda machine with a five-step how-to that had her in stitches; stills from a movie she watched; stray dogs in a convenience store parking lot; artistic graffiti on a cement-block wall; a picnic in Chamizal park and a horseback ride; eating food samples at Sam’s Club; and sneaking around the side of a blue-and-white striped circus tent to get a glimpse of the animals (she blogged that they didn’t have the cash to attend).
They might be simple pleasures, but they contrast with the constrained life she felt forced to live in the U.S.
“We couldn’t live our life there,” she said. “We didn’t feel comfortable doing anything. We wouldn’t go to a birthday party, because there might be like a checkpoint … . I feel much more free here.”
Emily Cruz enjoys a break with her husband, Raymundo, at a favorite bar in Ciudad Juárez called Shadow Davidson. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
‘It’s all real’
Emily doesn’t want or expect to be a symbol for immigration reform. She writes openly about a past methamphetamine addiction (she has been sober from drugs for seven years but still drinks “like a fish”); a post called “Sexico” about sex and Mexico is one of her most popular; she never graduated from college; and doesn’t clean up her language much.
But her candid way of writing about her experience, her largely positive attitude about Juárez and her hope that she might have a chance to bring her husband to the U.S. in the future have inspired others. Comments on her blog from other “exiles” in Mexico constantly thank her, sympathize with her, cheer her on.
Veronica Perez moved to Juárez in March 2013, after she married her husband Roberto, who is from Mexico City. He had a couple of illegal crossings in his past; they applied for a pardon and it was initially granted, then taken away. When questioned about crossing illegally, Roberto answered honestly and U.S. authorities gave him a lifetime ban.
Devastated and having spent their $10,000 in savings on the paperwork, the couple decided to “leave a nice, comfortable life” in Austin to wait for reform, or a chance at a waiver after 10 years, in Juárez.
Veronica, a graduate of New Mexico State University, struggled to find a white-collar job in El Paso, so she works in landscaping “wearing a safety vest and a hard hat and some boots” while Roberto earns $100 a week roofing in Juárez.
“We’re both very bitter,” she said in a telephone interview. “We tried to go the legal path. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t.”
She describes how “disheartening” it was when they first arrived in Juárez, how both struggled with their decision and the marriage suffered. Then a friend sent her a link to The Real Housewife of Ciudad Juárez “and the dark clouds went away.”
Emily “brought a lot of peace into our hearts,” she said. “There were other couples there, some she already knew and some who contacted her through her blog.”
Several women met and exchanged stories.
“It’s comical and it’s sad, and, at the end, it’s all real,” she said. “Finding these other ladies, it brought a little hope to us.”
Emily says today that living in Juárez has “completely changed” her by teaching patience – especially in the inevitable long lines at the international bridges – and putting what she has into perspective.
She wrote last month, “I could survive on nothing more than Coke Zero, brandy, sausage, egg and cheese biscuits, chicken wings, calzones and Tin Roof Sundae ice cream. And love. Everybody needs a little love.”
This is Emily's blog: http://therealhousewifeofciudadjuarez.blogspot.com/
BITES FROM THE BLOG
What “The Real Housewife of Ciudad Juárez” has to say in her blog about:
CURSING:
“When I began to live half my life speaking only Spanish, it was only natural that I began to swear in my second language as well … much to my husband’s disgust. He says my choice of words embarrasses him, that I sound like a naca, a cualquiera, a callajera. Ghetto. … You know, when I am speaking to people, sometimes I see a gleam in Ray’s eyes. A little glint of pride behind all of his embarrassment. Maybe it’s because he’s proud of my Spanish even though he doesn’t approve of my choice of words. Maybe it’s because he wishes he could express himself so freely, even to strangers. I’m not sure. All I know is that this is me, and everyone is going to have to just take it or leave it.”
— Sunday, December 14, 2013, “The V Word”
FAMILY:
“We have family traditions. Even though we are just a scrape of a family, here on the border, hundreds of miles from my family in the US, hundreds of miles from my husband’s family in Mexico. We are still a family. Every Tuesday, we have ‘Midweek Movie Night.’ The tradition probably came from the fact that Redbox has new releases every Tuesday. Yes, in a country where pirated movies are sold on every corner and cost less than an item from the 99 Cents Only store, we still splurge for a rental once a week.”
— Saturday, November 2, 2013, “Naufragos Y Inmigrantes”
FOOD:
“Hi, my name is Emily and I am a Nutellaholic. The discovery of the Kinder Bueno solidified my addiction to sugar and hazelnuts in a way I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. Our friends over at Ferrero describe this candy as a hazelnut cream filled wafer with a chocolate covering. I think a more accurate description would be ‘God Himself hugged by a crispy coat of angelic perfection and dipped in orgasms.’
I guess that’s why I’m not in advertising.”
— Sunday, December 15, 2012, “My Top 10 Mexican Junk Foods”
THE BORDER:
“The (Rescue) mission (which serves the homeless) is located smack dab on the US/Mexico border, just steps away from The Border Highway. You could spit and it would land in Juarez. I became overwhelmed with the idea of what it would be like to grow up on the other side of that line in the sand, where the only things that separate you from opportunity are some green and white SUVs, a piece of paper and a whole lot of politics. … I imagined what it would be like to dream of having an education and all the opportunities that the US provides, and it all being so close you can almost taste it. I imagined what it would be like to be a little kid, living in a cardboard house, looking to the US with a fire in my eyes … pining after a better life.”
— Wednesday, December 21, 2011, “Rescue Mission”
Pictures of the Year 2013
Just a few photos to summarize the past year. Looking forward to another. Most if not all images were taken with either a NIKON D600 or FUJI XPRO1 camera.
Proyecto Santo Nino
Story by Lauren Villagran/Journal
ANAPRA, Mexico – One frigid Saturday morning in a neighborhood at the rough edge of Ciudad Juárez, a cheerful group of mothers and children, many of them with special needs, gathered at a clinic founded and run by New Mexico’s Sisters of Charity.
A few mothers tended chiles and potatoes on the stove while the children played Candyland near an artificial Christmas tree, while others helped out feeding the youngsters who cannot feed themselves. Behind a curtain dividing the two-room clinic, mothers and one father performed the physical therapies the nuns have taught them, as they struggle – with spare resources – to care for their children with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism and other conditions.
Proyecto Santo Niño began in 2003 as a free health clinic where Dr. Janet Gildea, a Catholic sister and family practitioner, offered medical services to one of Juárez’s most troubled and impoverished areas. Over time, it evolved to specialize in providing physical therapy to poor families with special needs children, an especially needy group that is often underserved by Mexican health services. Today, the clinic serves some 30 families who flock there from all over the city.
“This is a very special place,” said Lucy Trejo de la Torre, whose daughter Nena suffers from a degenerative neurological condition, Lennox Gastault, and autism. “Because in Juárez, it’s very difficult to find therapies for our children. Why? Because they are very, very expensive. So you either eat or you go to therapy.”
How to help
Tax-deductible donations can be made out to the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati specifying “Proyecto Santo Niño” on the memo line and mailed to:
Sisters of Charity 260 Sombra Verde Anthony, NM 88021
Gildea and two other sisters, Carol Wirtz and Peggy Deneweth, teach the parents that they are the ones best-suited to perform the therapy – physical and sensory exercises, reiki and other therapeutic activities – because they know their children best, and they can practice what they learn at home.
“Sister taught us how to do physical therapies but also reiki,” Trejo de la Torre said. In reiki, practitioners place their hands lightly on or just above a person, with the goal of taking advantage of the person’s own healing response or energy.
“It’s been wonderful because it goes much deeper, and the children are very relaxed, very tranquil,” she said.
The morning’s high spirits and holiday cheer masked the week’s double tragedies. Just a few blocks away, a family held a wake for a special needs child who had died the day before. The children are so fragile, Gildea says. So is life in a city that until recently had been the central battleground of a brutal drug war and where the violence, although greatly reduced, continues. Another special needs child lost her father and cousin earlier that week to gunfire.
The concrete-block clinic had no running water when it opened a decade ago. Neither did many homes in Anapra, a settlement that has gradually become part of greater Juárez. The city eventually paved the main road and delivered basic services, although most offshoot roads are dirt and pocked with holes. Three days a week, the Sisters travel from La Union, N.M., in Doña Ana County, over the border and into Anapra.
Gildea says she founded the clinic to offer family medicine to the community, but that changed when a woman arrived with a severely underweight newborn, a “peanut-sized baby,” she said, with Down syndrome. The woman came again and again asking for help and advice on how to care for him.
“For him, we started the early infant stimulation,” Gildea said. “She would run into people with special kids and would say, ‘You need to take him to the nuns!’ So they started coming, and that’s how Santo Niño started here. It’s been just one amazing story after the next.”
The baby boy only lived to be 15 months old and weighed 10 pounds when he died – the kind of tragedy that prompts people to wonder, ” ‘Why does God allow this?’ ” said Gildea. “Well, his little life … He was the founder of this place that has taken care of so many more special kids. We’ve had several children who have died, but each one has brought a special thing to us and has done something with their little life, if only letting us give ourselves to help them.”
The spirit of the place
While brothers and sisters play on one side of the clinic, the therapy begins in the other room.
Juan Martinez Treviño, his 12-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son attend to Luis Pablo, who is 16 and suffers from a severe form of cerebral palsy. His arms and legs are thin as bone and, stretched out on a bed, he fills only half of it. The family prepares him for hydrotherapy: a relaxing dip and massage in the clinic’s hot water jacuzzi.
Trejo de la Torre pitches in, as does another mother, together lowering Luis Pablo into the water but holding onto him firmly. He cannot speak or walk or hold himself upright, but he grins and shrieks with joy in the bath.
In the opposite corner, three women – all mothers whose special needs children have passed – lay their hands on Oscar, a 3-year-old with an unidentified syndrome; his mother, Maria Eugenia Valverde Diaz, lost two previous sons to the same affliction. The women are quiet as they practice reiki, and Oscar dozes. Photos of their children who have passed are pinned on the wall beside them.
“We share the majority of the pain,” said Isidra Sanchez Herrera while feeding Oscar earlier that morning. “For those of us who have already gone through it … Since (my son) died, I felt worthless. We’re worth so much to them.”
That is the spirit of the place: All of the parents, most often the mothers, care for each other’s children and lean on one another for support.
“In a way, this place supplements the absence and failings of the state,” said Cristina Coronado, who began volunteering at the clinic during a battle with cancer. “If this space wasn’t here, there would be many families who would just be living in a country where the resources for health and education aren’t a priority.”
Trejo de la Torre says the Sisters “are the best thing that has happened in the mothers’ lives here, because they have taught us so many things. The therapy isn’t just for (the children), it’s for us, too.”
Victim: As many as 200 abused in Winslow
By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer |
WINSLOW, Ariz. – The Rev. Clement Hageman was among at least a dozen priests in the Diocese of Gallup who have been identified in lawsuits or news reports as having had “credible allegations” of sexual abuse made against them.
Seven of those priests had been posted in Winslow.
Three men who say they were sexually abused by Hageman in the 1960s and 1970s agreed to speak with the Journal last week in Winslow at Madre de Dios Church, which all three attended as boys and the site of most of the abuse.
Joseph Baca, who was among the first to sign a settlement agreement with the diocese in 2004, says he paid a steep price for the sexual abuse he experienced as a boy there.
Baca, 55, said he lost much of his life to alcoholism and drug addiction, and became alienated from his parents, who refused to believe his reports of sex abuse by Hageman in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
“It was taboo to talk about priests, let alone about sexual abuse,” said Baca, who said he was repeatedly raped from the of age of 9 to 13, starting in 1966 when Hageman became pastor of Madre de Dios.
Joseph Baca stands between the headstones of his parents, right, and the Rev. Clement Hageman, left, who Baca said sexually abused him as a boy. Baca said his parents were so devoted to Hageman that his mother bought the adjoining burial plots after the priest died in 1975. Visiting his parents’ graves is emotionally difficult, he said. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Hageman first came to the Diocese of Gallup in 1940 – and even then, there were allegations of improper behavior.
Then-Archbishop of Santa Fe Rudolf Gerken assigned Hageman to a mission in Smith Lake, near Thoreau, in the newly formed Diocese of Gallup, according to lawsuits.
Gerken told newly installed Gallup Bishop Bernard Espelage that Hageman had been forced to leave a diocese in Texas because he was “guilty of playing with boys,” Espelage wrote in a letter obtained through the lawsuits.
Hageman was a priest in the Gallup diocese from 1940 until his death in 1975, and was assigned to parishes in Thoreau, N.M., and three Arizona parishes in Winslow, Holbrook and Kingman.
The suits contend that Hageman sexually assaulted six boys in several parishes, often providing them with alcohol, and inviting them on trips and sleepovers.
Baca described his parents as “stout Catholics” who were active in the Winslow parish.
Baca’s mother was so devoted to Hageman that she bought burial plots for herself and her husband next to the Winslow gravesite where the priest was buried in 1975.
“That’s how close they were,” Baca said. “I have to live with that if I go to Winslow to visit my parents’ graves.”
Paul Jaramillo, 50, of Winslow said he was raped repeatedly by Hageman while he served as an altar boy at Madre de Dios from age 10 to 12.
As an altar boy, Jaramillo said he was forced to leave church services through the rectory, Hageman’s residence, attached to the back of Madre de Dios Church. Hageman invariably locked the door of the rectory to prevent Jaramillo’s escape, he said.
The final time he was molested, Jaramillo said he escaped by bolting out the door of the rectory when Hageman answered the telephone.
Paul Jaramillo, 50, stands beside the former rectory of Madre de Dios Church in Winslow where Jaramillo said he was sexually abused by the Rev. Clement Hageman. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
“I had to do it all fast,” he recalled. The boy was barely able to reach a chain on the door and unlock a dead bolt before Hageman dashed after him, Jaramillo said. “He still almost caught me as I was running out,” he said. “He grabbed my arm. I yanked so hard I did a flip, like a roll.” Jaramillo ran from the church and never returned, he said.
Jaramillo said he doesn’t know what gave him the courage to escape Hageman that day.
“All I know is I saw what was developing,” he said. Jaramillo had hoped the abuse would end, but instead it became more severe over time, he said. “At that point, I just decided I’m not going to come back, and I didn’t.”
The diocese settled with Baca in 2004 and with Jaramillo in 2008, both for undisclosed amounts of money, they said. A third of Hageman’s victims, Frank Gonzales, 63, of Winslow, said he settled with the diocese in 2011 for an undisclosed amount.
The diocese “told us they were going bankrupt, so I just signed, and bye-bye,” Gonzales said.
All three were clients of the late James Zorigian, a Los Angeles attorney who obtained an unknown number of settlements with the diocese. He died May 21.
Zorigian filed no lawsuits and provided no public information about his clients, he told The Gallup Independent in 2011. He simply contacted the diocese, which interviewed his clients and negotiated a settlement.
Baca, now of Phoenix, said he doesn’t know how many cases the diocese has settled. But he believes that Winslow alone is home to at least 200 sex abuse victims, based on his personal knowledge of the community.
“Many don’t want to come forward,” he said. “Quite a few” abuse victims are in prison, homeless or addicted to drugs or alcohol. Others remain devoted Catholics and don’t want to speak out, he said.
“I imagine there will be a few more come forward” as the bankruptcy proceeds, Baca said.
Veterans Day
Today was a great day to cover the Veterans Day ceremonies in Albuquerque.
Here, some veterans stepped into action as a protester disrupted Gov. Susana Martinez's speech and was removed from the ceremony.
Wells Blog
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