John Keilman and Kuni Takahashi:
It has been 11 years since Olivia and Juan Francisco Casteñeda left the poverty of Zacatecas, Mexico, for the poverty of the Quad Cities.
Despite their struggles, they have no doubt that they made the right decision.
Back home, they said, they would be lucky to find jobs at all, while the cost of food would be even higher. Though the family often runs short of money in Rock Island–needing help to pay bills or feed the five kids and two grandkids–Juan Francisco Casteñeda said life in America is better by reason of simple arithmetic.
“In Mexico, the pay is much less than here,” he said in Spanish. “There, for eight hours of work they pay 100 pesos”–about $9.
Castaneda, 47, pulls down about $24,000 annually from his job in a scrap yard, cutting up John Deere tractors and other old machinery with a torch. It’s a decent salary for someone with little education and no English skills, and it has allowed the family to buy an aging, drafty three-bedroom house. But it’s not nearly enough to meet the family’s needs.
The kids get their clothing secondhand, and five girls share a single bedroom. Food often comes from a church pantry. In the winter, their monthly gas bill–about $480–is higher than their $420 mortgage payment. Even in a land of relative plenty, it’s a hard way to live.