Home for holidays: Return to Mexico makes for feliz Navidad

Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2003 | 11:10 a.m.

It's Grandma and Grandpa, of course.

And the roast pork, the turkey, the tamales.

And the neighbors, who many Mexicans en route to their homeland for the holidays said they still know better than those who live next to them here in the Las Vegas Valley -- even after many years away from home.

In other words, it's because "la sangre llama" -- your heritage calls to you -- that thousands of Mexicans and their U.S.-born children head south of the border every year at this time, a ritual that only grows with the local Mexican population.

This week the ritual is playing itself out in several bus stations across the valley, at McCarran International Airport, in the Mexican Consulate downtown. One bus company reported a 300 percent increase in business. The consulate said about 50 percent more people have come in for the documents needed to travel so far in December, when compared with September.

Nationwide, the Mexican government estimates 1 million people went home for the holidays last year.

This year Miguel Valerio was one of the thousands who made the trip from Las Vegas. Valerio, who caught a flight to Mexico City Sunday afternoon, recalled Christmas in Mexico while getting his consular ID card at the consulate Friday morning. The Mexican government recognizes several forms of identification for compatriots returning home for the holidays, including the consular ID and Mexican passports.

Valerio, who has been busy building up a taco restaurant business during the last seven years in Las Vegas, said he has not been home for a decade.

But he remembers it all clearly.

"In my neighborhood, everyone comes together in the street, we break a pinata, we sing carols ... and then we all go back to my house, which has the biggest yard. There we light a fire and have a huge meal," he said.

"It's not so much about the gifts -- which is more a thing of the upper classes -- but about being together among family, friends and neighbors," Valerio said.

The business owner said Christmas in Las Vegas for the last six years has been different from the holiday he remembers in Mexico. "Here, I don't even know my neighbors," he said.

Over at the Cruceros USA bus station Friday night, the buzz that comes before trips filled the air as 9 p.m. approached. At that hour, two buses would pull out to Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso and more than 15 cities and towns south of the border.

Fermin Cardenas, company manager, said December was the heaviest month he had seen since bringing his business to town four months ago to compete with two other bus companies targeting the Mexican population -- about 70 percent of the valley's estimated 360,000 Hispanics.

Cardenas went from dispatching one bus to two several weeks ago and anticipates sending about 2,000 passengers to Mexico this month, compared to an average of 700 in the previous months.

One of those passengers Friday night was Francisco Jacquez, who was waiting on a 22-hour bus ride to Los Mochis, Sinaloa, for a two-week stay with his brothers and sisters.

A fence-welder, Jacquez had worked up to 12 hours daily for two weeks to free up some vacation time.

"Christmas is something that's very strong for us," Jacquez said.

"People set up their schedule and prepare during the whole year for this trip," he said.

Raul Alonso, a 23-year-old construction worker who also was heading to Los Mochis -- and carried a snare drum to play rock en espanol with his friends -- said he looked forward to the trip because "there, you can forget about all your worries."

Alonso had prepared himself to be the Santa Claus for his extended family. He had loaded up his luggage with remote control cars, clothes and dolls for his nieces and nephews.

Shortly after Alonso paid $189 for his round-trip ticket, Gregorio Godinez walked in with his wife, Teresa, his two children, his wife's cousin --- plus a 4-foot-high boom box, a 19-inch TV, a set of pots and pans and at least six large suitcases.

Godinez's family had a lot of people in Guasave, Sinaloa, on their Christmas list. Seeing the boxes crowd the terminal, it was clear the same things that draw millions to the United States is what then brings immigrants to take such things home when they visit -- more work, higher wages, a livelier consumer economy.

"Back home, it's more difficult for them to get these things," Godinez said.

Luis Morales, who works in the Mexican Consulate, recalled the gifts his parents asked him for last year, when he was able to deliver them in person on a trip to Sonora. This year he had to stay in Las Vegas and work.

"My dad asked for a chain saw for cutting firewood and my mom, a bathrobe and slippers. They can't find those things there as easily," he said.

Morales said 67 people per week came to the consulate for passports up to Dec. 19, compared with 43 per week in September. Similarly, 150 people per week sought consular IDs, compared with 107 in September.

The consular ID has been controversial since police departments, local governments and banks in many states -- including Nevada -- began accepting it several years ago.

The ID is issued as proof of Mexican nationality, while not establishing a person's immigration status in the United States. Some groups said accepting it as a legitimate form of identification was giving illegal immigrants a foot in the door to U.S. society.

Morales said that Mexico's draw is so strong at Christmas, illegal immigrants will risk making the trip and not being able to return.

"Many people struggle to cross the border however they can when they first come here, and then they go back this time of year," he said.

"They don't think, 'How much will it cost me to come back?' or 'What might happen to me?' They just want to be spend Christmas in Mexico."