A family in El Salvador and an area day laborer reunite after several years of separation.
ABC 7's Project Immigration team met a young man a few weeks ago in a Montgomery county convenience store parking lot, where immigrants waited for work. He didn't want his face on camera, because like many of the day laborers, he was in the country illegally.
When Project Immigration met Jose Manual Munoz, he'd gone weeks without work. Days later and 2,000 miles away, Andrea McCarren and Leon Harris were following Munoz's father as he pedaled into the darkness along a maze of unmarked dirt roads. The farther they drove, the more nervous they became about where the late-night journey might end. But for many like the Munoz family, the end was where their American dreams began.
The father, also named Jose Manuel Munoz, was overcome with emotion when Andrea and Leon showed him a video of his only son. "I don't know how to say thank you. There's no words to express this," he said through a translator.
For the first time since the son left for the United States two years ago, the family was convinced he was alive. "Sometimes, half way, they die," his mother said through a translator, "But him, at least, he made it."
Project Immigration found the son in Maryland, huddled among the day laborers on a brisk spring morning. He was waiting like he usually did, each day, for employers that rarely show. Nowadays, with the sluggish economy and anti-illegal sentiment, the American dream is difficult to harvest.The 26-year-old said it's very hard and not worth risking you life to come to the states.
"This is a big surprise. I wasn't really ready for this," Jose's father said.
Scars covered the father's legs. His job digging up shellfish earned him five dollars-a-day. The family's future looked bleak until a friend offered to help smuggle the father into the states. "I said 'I'm too old.' But I have a son," he said.
After surviving the brutal trip across the border, the son tried to survive again, in Maryland.
"Some day, things will change, things will change. And take care please," said the father.
Like his father, Jose Manuel was overcome with emotion when Project Immigration showed him video of his family back home. He wants to go home, to a place with no running water and a dirt floor, but he will stay, for his father, for his family and for the promise of the American dream.
Project Immigration met dozens of day laborers in the area over the last few weeks, from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. They said their families they left behind were living in sheer poverty and the payments they've sent home aren't for luxuries but for survival.
-------------------------------Visit Andrea McCarren's El Salvador Blogs.
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