Jose David Giron Martinez (49)
Title: Jose David Giron Martinez (49)
Written by: Lydiette Carrion
Translated by: Wendy Mora
Two pictures are in the Prensa Libre newspaper.
The first picture: Brenda Liset Betancourt faces the camera. Her expression shows the absence of a smile. She holds a photo of her missing husband.
Brenda is accompanied by her daughters, ages three and six, who are now fatherless. They do not smile. They are sitting on a sofa. Behind them is a blue wall whose paint is falling off in pieces.
The second picture- the only one I have of you when you were alive: a smiling young man, with bright eyes, carrying a baby girl in his arms. Was she the younger of his daughters? In the background is the bald eagle and flag of the United States.
Jose David Giron, 26 years old.Guatemalan.
On August 2, 2010, you left the village of Sipacate , La Gomera, a fishing community in the region of Escuintla, Guatemala.
You left with four others, three men and a woman. All with the hope of getting to the United States, finding a job and sending money back home. This wasn’t the first time you’d attempted this. Two years ago you had made the same journey, your wife informed the newspaper. However during it, you separated from the group and got lost for a month in Mexico.
At home, after this “disalusion”, you began working at a banana packing plant. However this job was temporary, so you decided to try again.
Other migrants some young, some old, have told me the same story. It is hell crossing Mexico. But if they had to do it again they would.
They would do it, they’d do it again. Even with all the dangers this journey held. Despite the fact that even when they reach the United States they will continue to live in fear due to their illegal status. In the first 6 months of 2010, 16,000 Guatemalans were deported.
But how are they not to try again ! When the newspaper reports that only half of the deportees manage to find jobs in Guatemala.
You had not been gone a month, when in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, 72 migrants were found murdered for not paying their ransom and for refusing to work in organized crime. Among them, your family, wife , two daughters and your village learned, you were.
All because you refused to work for the Zetas …..
Your remains arrived in Guatemala the 5th of November. It was declared a national day of mourning.
26 years of life is very little . I believe it is to much killing for a father who only looked to support his family.