Immigrant in Run for Mayor, Back Home in Mexico

Juan Arredondo for The New York Times
Published: June 1, 2010

Mr. Navarro’s celebrated return to Mexico was in sharp contrast to his departure. Born into a poor family of street peddlers, he grew up selling candy for pennies. In 1992, at age 14, he slipped across the United States border with the help of smugglers; they brought him to New York, where he joined three older brothers who had arrived earlier and worked in a garment district sweatshop.

Mr. Navarro and his brothers eventually became legal residents and started their own businesses, forming a band that played for Mexican audiences along the Eastern Seaboard. They founded a small record company, opened restaurants — most recently El Tequilazo in Midtown — and promoted Mexican events in New York.

They gained some notoriety in 1999 when a bull escaped from a rodeo they had organized in Queens. The police gave chase, shooting the animal dead in a parking lot. The brothers were issued police summonses for failing to get permits for wild animals.

Although Mr. Navarro, who is single, has many relatives in Serdán, he was largely unknown there last August, when he heralded his arrival by sponsoring a party for the city’s residents. “Nobody knew who he was before that,â€