INDIANTOWN – With a Scottish pla eye shirt, a unique moustache and hair with early symptoms of gray, press your hand over your sharp jaw and look away.
“Mayan refugee”.
It is the legend to describe the first type depicted in one of the books faithful to the history of local Mayan immigration in South Florida.
This is their vacation in the United States. Many ended up in Indiantown, where citrus plantation paintings were enough for their families. Indiantown, where they sought refuge from Guatemala’s civil war in the early 1980s.
A copy of this photo from Brent Ashabranner’s 1986 e-book “Children of the Maya,” seen in the local library, now rests on the dining table a few blocks away. Almost all, already recovered from the coronavirus, accumulated to communicate about the “Mayan refugee”.
“I’m a story you told me, ” said Christina Martinez of her father. “They left because the infants were coming and looking to take the kids. Sometimes the kids hide under the beds so they wouldn’t be taken away by the infants. “They came here to burn houses and kill people, so they had to leave.
Thirty-eight years later, after escaping the genocide, his father, Pascual Martínez, died of the pandemic.
At the age of 71, Martinez joined at least six Indiantown Maya who have died in recent months from COVID-19 headaches. His old friend and neighbor, his compatriot Miguel Pablo, also died.
Many of those who succumbed to the coronavirus in Indiantown were the first to reach the rural village, home to a colorful network of farm workers.
Martinez and Paul’s stories represent the colorful and chaotic, if brief, history of their American dreams fulfilled before local and federal policies failed them.
The defeated genocide, the overdue pandemic
Martinez brought his family circle to Indiantown in 1982, they left the war, traveled through Mexico and crossed the border into Arizona.
Christina’s older sister put her in a sports bag, she said. Her mother, Angelina Fancisco, who was pregnant with her at the time, dug a hole and crawled under the border fence.
Martinez started running around the orange trees. He woke up at four a. m. to be seen through immigration, he said, and did not return to the house until long after sunset.
Martinez has had his clashes with immigration.
Federal agents took him to the Miami detention center, his daughter recalls, one of two times his father nearly deported him, he said.
Working for low wages, living in small houses and working long hours is a major burden on The Maya’s fitness, local anthropologists say, adding Allan Burns of the University of Florida, who wrote the definitive “Maya in Exile. “
When Martinez stored enough money, he bought a bus and used it to pick up migrant staff in South Florida.
“If anyone needed a job, he’d say, “Oh, yes, go see Easter. He’ll give you a job,” Christina recalls, “As long as you’re in a position to work, he’ll pick you up a job. “»
Martinez helped others get their papers to get a green card. A user can only paint on farms if it turns out they have lived in the country for at least 90 days, their daughter said.
In 1985, Martínez met Miguel Pablo. For six months, Martinez helped Paul stand up.
Soon, he was also able to buy a bus and take other people to the fields.
They helped find jobs and were therefore well known in a network of other people who were just looking to work.
Pablo and Martínez were smart friends. They were part of a network organization that collected some form of life insurance from its members. When a member dies, families pay $ 35 to pay for funeral expenses.
Ten years ago, Paul retired at the age of due to fitness problems.
In the early years of orange harvesting, Maya men suffered from severe skin irritation. They had never found insecticides like they did in Florida, researchers reported in the 1980s.
Earlier this summer, Gov. Ron DeSantis blamed communities of migrant farmworkers with coronavirus cases in the state.
During his 10 years of retirement, Paul spent every day with his wife, they liked to sit on the porch and enjoy the sun, at home they paid no attention to music or dancing, but they watched the boxing combined on television. They were going for a walk in a café and a doughnut at Dunkin Donuts. On weekends, they went to the flea market.
In his free time, Paul walked with the villagers to earn an extra dollar, known for his generosity.
In May, he became very ill. His daughter, who works in the medical profession, eventually took him to the Cleveland Martin Health Clinic, where he tested positive for COVID-19. After a few days, he was discharged. He got worse at home. He went back to the hospital.
“They were doing everything they could just for him, ” said their daughter, Francisco Guadalupe. “The plasma, the zithromycin, turned it in the back, in the abdomen, nothing worked. COVID took his lungs too fast. “
On June 9, Paul died at the age of 72.
In the coming days, Francisco’s grandfather, his mother’s father, became ill, disgruntled by the death of his son-in-law, and on June 30 Francisco Marcos, 88, died. He’s some other network leader.
“How do you get away with it or how do you triumph over a death when you have right after?” Fransisco asked to translate the local Kanjobal for his mother.
“We pray for him even if he’s gone, how do you forget?How are you moving forward? More for my mother,” she says. “What do you say, “Let’s have a coffee?” What do you say?To whom you say, “Hey, let’s go” That’s the hardest thing for her right now. “
A week later, on July 8, Martinez died of COVID-19 and arrived a few months after his retirement.
“Knowing that he worked for so many years of his life here and then this virus came and took it that way. It’s sad, your daughter said. ” I’m sure you’re looking for a smart and relaxing retirement, if I knew how to relax. “
Hours earlier, before Martinez’s photos were placed on the dining room table and the family circle gathered to talk about his patriarch, the refugee’s grandchildren helped leave the house blank.
One of the children, named Pascual Jaun Martinez, of his mother:
“He’s looking for his grandfather. He likes Grandpa, Grandpa. “
Joshua Solomon is a government watchdog and reporter covering Martin County. You can call 772-692-8935 or joshua. solomon@tcpalm. com. Support our journalism.