By Ernesto Castañeda

[see Spanish version below]

Book review and excerpt from. “Un nahual en el imperio: La lucha de un migrante por los derechos políticos de la diáspora [A nahual in the empire: The fight of a migrant for the political rights of the diaspora]” by Maurizio Guerrero. Ciudad de México: Grano de Sal. 2025.

This book, published by Grano de Sal Press, narrates the experience of migration to the United States through the biography of one migrant in particular, as well as his friends and colleagues. This group of Mixtecos was relatively among the first to arrive in New York to work hard and start businesses. The book combines life narratives with an analysis of the public policies and economic contexts of both countries. It demonstrates how the ingenuity and perseverance of migrants always overcome the agendas and plans of governments, which come and go. Meanwhile, immigrants continue in the struggle for survival, success, and rights. The numerous contributions by migrants continue to enrich both countries. Immigrant volunteers and organizations often do more than any politician to help immigrants in need raise their collective voice as civic and political actors. This book narrates the stories of Jaime Lucero, Casa Puebla, and Fuerza Migrante as a window into the experience of Mexican migration to New York. Through the interviews with Mr. Lucero, the book describes his wish to create a foundation for Mexican migrants to walk together in defending their rights in both the United States and Mexico.

Ernesto Castañeda, Director of the Center of Latin American and Latino Studies, American University, Washington, DC

Portions of the book are displayed here with permission. Translated by Ernesto Castañeda and Diana Rojas Hernandez.

“At 9 years old, a goat herder in a family headed by a widow with seven children, he was sent to work in the capital so that he could send money home. At 18 years old, he shared that he crossed el [Rio Grande] even though he did not know how to swim. In the stormy waters of that migrant-devouring river, he had received “a sign”: someone helped him cross, preventing him from drowning, and since then, he understood that those people, Mexicans, Central Americans, and Caribbeans, were his people: the migrants.

Like the millions before and after him, Lucero arrived in New York to work in kitchens, washing dishes. He had worked at a restaurant for six years when the owners decided to discontinue using the truck they used to transport provisions because it broke down too often. Jaime took this as a message: he had to buy the truck, quit the restaurant, and work for himself.

Lucero founded a business that eventually generated millions of dollars in revenue and then became a community leader. In 1978, he established the first-ever organization for Mexican migrants in New York, Club Azteca, which would later become Casa Puebla, the foundation upon which he built his assistance services … [Fueza Migrante years later].

In large part due to the work of Fuerza Migrante, the Mexican Congress already had deputies and a senator representing the Mexican diaspora around the world. He devoted many things to the cause: money and the time to help people who, like him, had arrived in the empire without resources, defenseless. He expressed: “It is what I would have wanted to give to young Jaime Lucero.”

Community aid from the hands of one migrant to another, aspired to improve lives: those of people who crossed the border without papers and never escaped from the worst paid jobs, remaining merely helpers. His intentions were to change the concrete reality from which the vast majority of Mexican migrants never even dream of liberating themselves from: that, “We are not what you believe we are… We are not poor migrants,” he emphasized.

He mentioned the alcoholism that plagued those forced out by their circumstances: “All of the young people searching for their path are our children,” he said. “Those who sometimes fall into alcoholism, into drugs, they are our children too.” I understood it as his way of alluding to his brother Julio and cousin Ricardo, who managed, with great effort, to recover from their addiction to alcohol. It was also in reference to his cousins, El Chivo and Román, and other paisanos who were deported multiple times and continued to drink beer in the Mixteca Poblana because there was nothing much more to do in that impoverished area.

He referred to the migrants dragged from their childhood to face discrimination, exploitation, loneliness, and longing, who found solace in alcohol. To all those who had been left behind. Lucero stressed that “We have to put a price on that suffering.” All of that sacrifice, all those lives swallowed up by the insides of these two countries, should be converted into power to alter this cycle.

The Mexican state was not interested, he noted, in stopping migration because each person who emigrated increases remittance flows; And to the United States, those people were simply “illegal.”

[In a recent speech at Harvard University,] Lucero told the anecdote of the old broken-down truck, that clunker that was constantly breaking down. This version, however, was different from the one I had heard. In the version I had heard, various people had managed to pull the truck to the curb, another truck had been sent to deliver the fabric that Lucero had to ship, and a tow truck had taken the piece of junk to a mechanic. Lucero’s story is yearning, an illusion, a dream. In this dream, Jaime does not have to walk on that snowy highway to find a payphone to inform the warehouse that he will not be able to deliver the fabric. The people helping push the truck made it possible for him to shift into second gear and get the truck started. The same truck that others had discarded because they thought it was junk. In his dream, the truck finally roars to life and, despite everything, advances through the snow. “That truck is the community,” Lucero said (p. 281-3).

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Un nahual en el imperio: La lucha de un migrante por los derechos políticos de la diáspora

Maurizio Guerrero

Reproducimos aquí porciones del libro con permiso,

“Pastor de cabras en una familia encabezada por una viuda con siete hijos, a los 9 años había sido mandado a trabajar a la capital a fin de que enviara dinero. A los 18 años, contó, había cruzado el Bravo aunque no sabía nadar. En las aguas procelosas de ese río devorador de migrantes, había tenido “una señal”: alguien lo ayudó a cruzar, impidiendo que se ahogara, y desde entonces comprendió que esas personas, mexicanos, centroamericanos y caribeños, eran su grupo: los migrantes.

Como millones de migrantes antes y después que él, Lucero arribó a Nueva York a trabajar en cocinas, lavando platos. Seis años había laborado en un restaurante cuando sus dueños decidieron deshacerse del camión en el que transportaban provisiones porque ya fallaba mucho. Jaime lo tomó como mensaje: debía comprar el camión, renunciar al restaurante y trabajar por su cuenta.

Lucero fundó una empresa que llegó a facturar millones de dólares y se convirtió en líder comunitario. En 1978 había fundado la primera organización para los migrantes mexicanos en Nueva York: el Club Azteca, que se convertiría en Casa Puebla, la base sobre la que había construido sus servicios de asistencia … [Fuerza Migrante años después].

En buena medida debido a las gestiones de Fuerza Migrante, el Congreso mexicano ya tenía diputados y una senadora que representaban a la diáspora mexicana en el mundo. Dedica muchas cosas a esa causa, dinero, el tiempo invertido para ayudar a las personas que, como él, habían llegado sin recursos, desvalidos, al imperio. Expresó: “Es lo que yo hubiera querido darle al joven Jaime Lucero.”

Esa ayuda comunitaria, de la mano de un migrante a otro migrante, aspiraba a mejorar destinos: los de aquellos que cruzan la frontera sin papeles y no escapan nunca de los empleos peor pagados, de ser simplemente ayudantes. Su intención era contribuir a cambiar una realidad concreta, de la que la vasta mayoría de los migrantes mexicanos jamás sueñan liberarse. “No somos lo que ustedes creen que somos”, destacó: “No somos pobres migrantes.”

Mencionó el alcoholismo que plagaba a aquellos expulsados por su entorno: “Todos los jóvenes que están buscando el camino son nuestros hijos —dijo—. Los que a veces caen por el alcoholismo, por las drogas, son nuestros hijos también.” Fue su modo, entendí, de aludir a su hermano Julio y a su primo Ricardo, que lograron con esfuerzo recuperarse de su adicción al alcohol, pero también a sus primos, el Chivo y Román, y a los otros paisanos varias veces deportados que seguían tomando cerveza en la Mixteca poblana porque no había nada más que hacer en esa zona empobrecida.

Se refería a los migrantes arrancados de su infancia para enfrentar discriminación, explotación, soledad, añoranza, que encuentran un consuelo en el alcohol. A todos los que se habían quedado atrás. “Tenemos que ponerle precio a ese sufrimiento”, expresó Lucero. Todo ese sacrificio, esas vidas deglutidas en las entrañas de los dos países, debía convertirse en poder para alterar ese ciclo.

Al Estado mexicano no le interesaba, señaló, detener la migración porque cada persona que emigra acrecentaba las remesas. Y para Estados Unidos, esas personas eran simplemente “ilegales”.

[En un discurso en un evento en una universidad americana] Lucero relató la anécdota del viejo camión descompuesto, ese armatoste que a cada rato fallaba. Su narración, sin embargo, fue diferente a la que yo había escuchado sobre cómo, entre varias personas, habían logrado orillar el vehículo a la cuneta, cómo otro camión había sido enviado para repartir las telas que debía entregar Lucero y cómo una grúa había remolcado el cacharro a un taller mecánico. Este desenlace es un anhelo, una ilusión, un sueño, y que en ese sueño Jaime no tiene que caminar en esa autopista nevada a fin de encontrar un teléfono público para informar a la bodega que no podrá entregar las telas. En su sueño, las personas que lo ayudan empujan para que él, metiendo segunda, logre prender el camión del que otros se habían deshecho porque creían que era una chatarra. En su sueño, el camión logra ponerse en marcha y, pese a todo, avanza bajo la nieve. “Ese camión es la comunidad,” dijo Lucero (pp. 381-383).