The rugged canyons and sprawling ranches around Penjamo in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato are haunted with stories of hidden treasure, Catholics fleeing persecution by the Spanish crown, and of revolutionaries like Pancho Villa, who rode through this territory in the early 20th century.
Along with these tales, which straddle the line between the historic and the fantastic, are the extraordinary stories of ordinary people like Rogelio Bravo (not his real name), who went “al otro lado,” as the people in Penjamo say — to the other side, the United States.
An impoverished 17-year-old unable to read or write, with a widowed mother and a host of siblings to look out for, Mr. Bravo followed an uncle to Los Angeles in 1977, then went on to Chicago. Ten years ago, with an offer of work on the South Fork, he found his way to Amagansett where he now works as a chef.
A natural storyteller who loves a willing ear, Mr. Bravo, who still lives in the U.S. illegally, is quick to share stories of his difficult childhood in Mexico, the adventures and misadventures that led him to New York, and of the ranch that awaits him when or if he returns to his native country. After living more of his life north of the border than south, he admits that he is no longer sure which side is home.
He has bought few luxuries during his many years of working for and saving U.S. dollars. The tiny cottage he rents near the place he works is sparsely furnished and sparely decorated. A few photographs from home are all that adorn the walls. He does not own a car or even a bicycle.
“I prefer horses,” he said on a wintry day in Amagansett, briefly exchanging his baseball cap for a cowboy hat. Seeing him in that hat, you get a glimpse of the boy who left Penjamo 27 years ago.
You see that boy again in his young nephews — Juan Antonio, 14, Dolores Alfredo, 13, and Jose Esiderio, 10 — who live outside Penjamo in the house where Mr. Bravo grew up. Their father, Dolores Bravo, Rogelio’s youngest brother, has spent his share of time on the other side, as well, always illegally. Seven times he crossed the border to work in the United States, twice joining his brother in Amagansett.
Inspired perhaps by his father’s animated yarns about his time in America and his uncle’s apparent success in New York, Jose Esiderio already talks eagerly about going north to work with his “Tio Rogelio.”
With their cowboy hats tilted down to protect their freckled faces from the strong sun, Jose Esiderio and his brothers ride confidently through the same land where a younger Mr. Bravo gathered firewood to sell in Penjamo when life was harder for the Bravo family. A child then, he would take three burros into the hills, spend the night there, then make the two-day journey to Penjamo, where his earnings were just enough to buy essentials for his family — rice, beans, peppers, salt, flour.
He remembers looking longingly at the people eating lunch in the market, but riding home to El Zarco, the ranch where he grew up, on an empty stomach.
Looking at her oldest grandson one cool evening in early March, Mr. Bravo’s mother, Maria Soledad Rosas Sierra, shook her head and said sadly, “Rogelio was not much older than Juan Antonio when he left.” His father died when he was 14. Being the oldest, Mr. Bravo inherited the responsibility of providing for his mother and seven siblings.
He sent the majority of his paychecks home, keeping his family fed and his siblings in school. When his younger brothers were grown, they followed him to the U.S. one by one. Two stayed. One is in Los Angeles, the other in Dallas.
“All my sons are good people,” Sra. Rosas said, “but Rogelio is the one most like me. He always says, ‘Mama, if you need anything, just tell me.’ ”
It took many years, but eventually Mr. Bravo saved enough money to buy some land outside of Penjamo, near an agave plantation owned by the Corralejo tequila company. When Corralejo offered him triple what he had paid just a few months later, he sold out and bought even more land closer to El Zarco.
He now owns nearly 1,000 acres and 150 head of cattle. Perhaps it is poetic justice that his ranch includes the very hills where he once collected firewood to help his family scrape by.
Called Pensacola, the ranch runs along a river, wide even in the dry season, with green and fertile banks. Within the boundaries of Pensacola are canyons and valleys, flat low-lying fields, and others that drape over bulging hills and creep up mountain slopes.
In mid-March, the ranchlands around Penjamo were parched and brown. On the forested hillsides, the leaves had either fallen off the short trees or turned a rainbow of oranges, making it look like the Northeast in autumn but for the intense midday heat. Some branches were so brittle with thirst that Dolores Bravo was able to reach up and easily snap them off as he rode beneath them on his mule, sharing local lore about the canyons all the while.
Centuries ago, when the government began claiming the assets of the Catholic Church as its own, some of the priests made off with those treasures and secreted them away in the far reaches of the canyons. There is one spot called “La Iglesia,” at the base of a towering rock wall, where priests once baptized people because they were prohibited from doing so in the Church.
In the dry heat of winter, the Bravo family is quick to describe the area as “feo,” or ugly.
From thousands of miles away in Amagansett, Mr. Bravo remembers well the parched look of El Zarco and Pensacola in the dry season. When the rains come, “it’s a paradise,” he said in January, showing the pictures of a verdant Pensacola and El Zarco hanging on his wall.
The photos are a reminder of his other life in Mexico. They remind him, too, that there is more to him than people may suspect. He works two jobs, seven days a week, when he is able, and he walks everywhere, even in the wintertime. With his characteristic smile, he acknowledged that, to most people, he is nobody. But on the rare occasions when he returns to Penjamo, he is Don Rogelio, a respected ranch owner and favored son, or Tio Rogelio, the admired uncle who worked so hard and now has so much.
“You can ask anyone in Penjamo how to find the rancho de los Bravos and they will know,” he said, giving directions to El Zarco. Sure enough, though Penjamo is growing, with huge agricultural operations and factories for companies such as Carhartt on its outskirts, it took only a few inquiries to find someone who knew exactly where the Bravo family lives.
Penjamo lies far off Mexico’s tourist trail, yet all around its spotless and meticulously manicured central plaza there are casas de cambio that change U.S. dollars into pesos, a testament to the number of local sons and daughters who have gone to the other side for work. In any public parking lot you might see license plates from Illinois or California or Texas or Oklahoma.
A 40-minute drive from Penjamo on dirt roads not yet created when Mr. Bravo was a boy, El Zarco is home to several branches of the Bravo family. Dolores Bravo and his wife, Irma Salazar Rodriguez, share a modest mud brick house with his mother. The family, including Mr. Bravo and Ms. Rodriguez’s five children, sleeps in two bedrooms. Sra. Rosas and her daughter-in-law cook over a wood fire and haul water from a well half a mile away for cooking and washing. A solar-powered battery provides minimal electricity.
The Bravos have few luxuries, but they are lucky to have stayed on El Zarco, in large part due to Rogelio Bravo’s help from abroad.
Pensacola employs several families. Dolores Bravo and his brother-in-law Angel Rivera watch over the herd of cattle and care for the ranch. Both of their sons help out when they are not in school. Mr. Rivera lives on Pensacola.
“There used to be so many people living here,” Sra. Rosas said one afternoon, while walking to collect water. The poorest ones left to find work elsewhere; a few simply gave up country life for the town. The ones who had land of their own were the ones who stayed, she said.
She prefers the country to the town. In the country, she said, you know that because there are no lights, your children and grandchildren will come home when night falls.
And what of her oldest son? Will he ever come home again, or is he already home? Back in Amagansett, Mr. Bravo could not say for sure if he wanted to return to Mexico, but his brother Dolores guessed that if he finally saved enough to have a little pension, he would come back and live out his older years on Pensacola.
