Journey through the eyes of José

By TATIANA PROPHET

When José was 8 years old, he and his family fled the farm in northern Honduras where he was born, the ninth of 11 children. It was there that they had raised pigs, chickens, beans, corn, jalapeño peppers and tomatoes.

That was 1999.

“Everything was beautiful then,” he said. “Everything is beautiful being around animals.”

By age 11, after trying to survive with his mother in the big city of San Pedro Sula but finding no work, José moved to Guatemala to live with older siblings. He hadn't yet found his place, so he decided to try his luck in Mexico, where as a preteen he rented from his brother and drove a tricycle taxi. Finally, at age 14, he spent six months on the slow train through Mexico, and even though he couldn’t swim, braved the Rio Grande, to find a life on the “Other Side.”