Sad end for Salvadoran immigrant in Chicago
Here illegally, man worked to support family back home, but recent illness prevented him from working, and he was found hanged in his apartment

By Oscar Avila, Tribune reporter

He lived under another man's name.

He will be buried in another man's suit.

One of the few things Jose Armando Ramos ever truly owned was his role as provider for his wife and five children in El Salvador. When the immigrant began losing that, he fell into a dark, desperate place, friends and relatives said.

Ramos, 45, was found hanged in his South Chicago apartment two weeks ago. With no known family in the U.S. and with his Salvadoran relatives living in poverty, Ramos rests in a funeral home as the final funds are raised to send him home.

An illegal immigrant, Ramos could serve as a case study for both sides of the debate over how to fix America's immigration system. But at its heart, his tale is a solitary one, of a man alone trying to do right by his family.

As a hard rain fell Tuesday night, Arturo Gonzalez entered the Del Angel funeral home on South Kedzie Avenue.

A co-worker at the Rupari Food Services meat processing plant in South Holland, Gonzalez was shocked to learn that he was the first visitor, two hours into Ramos' wake.

"He had no family?" Gonzalez asked, as he shook the raindrops off of his cowboy hat.

Departing after a quick moment at Ramos' open casket, Gonzalez said, "Sometimes, the world closes in on you."

Ramos' widow, Maria Elba Hernandez de Ramos, fills in the blanks. Her husband came to Chicago nine years ago to support his family. For a while, his jobs at factories and a carwash allowed his family to save enough money even to send their oldest daughter to study accounting in college.

A few months ago, Ramos began complaining of severe headaches and tingling in his arms. He spent a week in the hospital, according to his landlady. When he died, she found medical bills in the thousands of dollars.
Meanwhile, the illness kept him from going into work regularly. The money stopped flowing home, his wife said.

"I told him to come back," his wife said by telephone from El Salvador. "He said that he needed to keep working — for the family.

"He said he was in pain, he said to pray for him. I told him, 'Relax. Relax.' I wanted him to lose that desperation."

The last time they spoke, less than a week before his death on May 30, Ramos was barely understandable because he was crying.

His landlady, Lucia Sanchez, also found him increasingly stressed. He asked her: "What am I going to do with all this debt?"

Patricia Maza-Pittsford, El Salvador's consul general in Chicago, said local authorities have told her that they are considering Ramos' death a suicide. "With the evidence, I have no doubt," she said.

A Cook County medical examiner's office spokeswoman said a final ruling will come after toxicology tests.

Sanchez can't reconcile that fate with the once-cheerful man she considered a son, who helped her shovel snow and offered a shoulder to cry on as she herself coped with a husband battling cancer.

Ramos, who lost his mother as a young boy, called her Mama.

Ramos had no known relatives in the Chicago area. His co-workers didn't know his real name because he was using the ID of someone named Jesus Tovar. The sign at the funeral home put "Jesus Tovar" next to Ramos' name.

Those who favor tighter immigration enforcement say a tragedy like this one shows that employers should not rely on illegal immigrants, who often resort to identity theft. Others argue that legalizing illegal immigrants would give them access to health care and better wages, allowing them to truly benefit from their hard work.

The Salvadoran government has solicited a few donations from citizens here and has agreed to transport Ramos from the airport in San Salvador to his hometown about an hour away. Friends are still trying to raise the final amount before a scheduled flight in the next few days.

"We're the only ones who could take care of him so they didn't throw him in the trash," Sanchez said.

The suit in Ramos' closet was so tattered and stained that a funeral home employee donated a relative's suit. The man who came to this country with nearly nothing leaves nearly nothing behind, not even an explanation as to exactly why his life ended.

"Only God," friend Maria Gonzalez said, "knows his secrets."

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