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Davenport resident arrives in U.S. on second attempt

By Deirdre Cox Baker
A frightened 14-year-old Maria Casteel stood shivering on the edge of the Arizona desert and smelled a nearby figure, fallen into the sand. To her horror, she realized it was a dead human being.

“We could do nothing, and my heart felt so bad,” said Casteel, now 30, and a Davenport resident.

She crossed successfully into the United States on her second try — through Tijuana, Mexico — and has lived in this country since 1994.

Her story is just one of many from Hispanic residents who have survived the dangerous journey north to the United States. She now has a green card and legal status, but Casteel lived for years in the United States without the proper documentation.

She was born near Mexico City, third oldest in a family of nine. Her father was a barber but also an alcoholic, and money was always tight. She attended school for six years and learned how to read and write, dropping out at age 12 to work in a clothing factory.

She ironed clothes 40 hours a week for a $20 paycheck, which she gave to her mother.

“It was my dream all of the time to look for something different,” she said.

Her older brother moved to America and telephoned Casteel to follow him. After two years of factory work and with her mother’s blessing, she took a bus from Mexico City to the U.S. border.

There, she contacted a “coyote,” or an individual who accepts payment for crossing into the United States. He placed Casteel with nine other people she didn’t know, including a couple and their 10-year-old son.

“We came together, and it was like family,” she said.

They got instructions from the coyote: Run on his command. Be very quiet on his command.

“ ‘Oh my god!’ I thought,” she said. “I was scared and didn’t want to go.”

But Casteel remembered her brother waiting on the other side and started her trek through Arizona. It was the second night of walking when the group encountered the dead body, and then the air became very cold.

“We huddled together and tried to keep the boy warm, but he almost died,” she recounted.

There was a terrible sun the following day, and the “coyote” ran out of water. The married couple and young son turned themselves in to U.S. authorities, and the rest of the group returned to the Mexican border to try again. That failed attempt cost $600.

The second time, Casteel moved west to the area of Tijuana, and found a “coyote with connections.” For $800, she spent two weeks in local apartments and waited for the right weather.

“I crossed, and my brother met me,” she said. “We stayed in San Diego a couple of days because I was dehydrated, but I couldn’t see the doctor.”

She lived in southern California for two years with her brother and did baby sitting to pay off the coyote’s bill.

“I tried to stay hidden among the Mexicans in San Diego,” she said. “I wore the right clothes and walked around carrying textbooks. People thought I went to school.”

But her brother eventually married, and Casteel moved north to Salinas, Calif., where she was a baby sitter and housekeeper.

“These were Americans, and the mother was a sweet person. She tried to teach me English,” she said, but the husband was abusive, what Casteel described as “very mean.”

The teen spent seven months in Salinas and then got a call from a cousin in Davenport.

“He said to come here, it was safer than California, and there were jobs.”

So she got a job in a Quad-Cities meatpacking plant and had troubling experiences with a threatening supervisor and low-ranking tasks that were physically demanding. But she persisted, the plant ownership changed, and the young woman found kinship in this area.

“I like it here,” said Casteel, who spends much of her time volunteering at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Davenport. Her work ethic is admired by St. Mary’s pastor, the Rev. Bob Striegel.

Casteel has finished her General Educational Diploma, or GED, through Scott Community College and has hopes of attending college. She flies home regularly to see her mother, who still lives near Mexico City.

“I didn’t see my mother for 10 years while I was here, but as soon as I got the green card, I went home,” she said. “She helps in a church at home, like I do.”

Casteel said her green card has given her a sense of freedom she’s not experienced before.

“I feel so comfortable now. I made my dreams, and now I have the opportunity to become an American citizen.”

Deirdre Cox Baker can be contacted at (563) 383-2492 or dbaker@qctimes.com.