MEXICO CITY - In the days after his deportation, Victor Cruz Ortega wandered the crowded streets of Mexico City in an escalating panic. His kids, his job and every other fiber of life were back in Redondo Beach, the sun-soaked California community he called home for three decades. Now he was alone and penniless in a teeming Latin American metropolis he had not seen since leaving for the United States at age 11. Cruz, 45, applied for every job that he saw advertised: cook, hotel worker, tour guide. At times, he broke down crying in public. He tried to give himself pep talks. He prayed. And then, finally, after months of looking, an unforeseen blessing arrived, and in a most unlikely form....
|
