"On a hot June night Jesus Cruz at last returned to Kini, the small town in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula where he spent the first 17 years of his life. His sister greeted him with tearful hugs. The next morning she took him to see their infirm mother, who whispered in his ear: I didn't think you'd ever come back. After decades away, Cruz was finally home. Yet he was not home."
"Cruz missed his friends and Booka, his little white dog. His missed his house, his car, his job. But most of all, he missed his wife, Noemi Ciau, and their four children. Ciau worked nights, so Cruz was in charge of getting the kids fed, clothed and to and from school and music lessons, a chaotic routine that he relished because he knew he was helping them get ahead. I want them to have a better life, he said. Not the one I had."
"Cruz and Ciau both had families that had been broken by the border, and they didn't want that for their kids. In the months since Cruz had been detained, his eldest daughter, 16-year-old Dhelainy, had barely slept and had stopped playing her beloved piano, and his youngest son, 5-year-old Gabriel, had started acting out. Esther, 14, and Angel, 10, were hurting, too. But bringing four American kids to Mexico didn't seem fair, either."
Jesus Cruz returned to Kini, Mexico, after being detained and deported from Southern California where he lived 33 years. He reunited with family and an infirm mother but remained emotionally tied to the life he built in the United States. His wife, Noemi Ciau, is a U.S. permanent resident who works nights while Cruz had managed the children's daily routines, including school and music lessons. The family confronts an agonizing decision about moving four U.S.-born children to Mexico, where they do not speak the language and where schools are considered inferior. The children have shown emotional distress since Cruz's detention.
Read at www.latimes.com
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