The Daily - The Story of Two Brothers From Mexico

Episode Date: May 26, 2020

Two brothers, Javier Morales, 48, and Martin Morales, 39, died of coronavirus within hours of each other in their adopted home of New Jersey. Their last wish was to be buried at home in Mexico, but, to make that happen, their family must navigate the vast bureaucracies of two countries, international airfare and the complications of a pandemic. Guest:Annie Correal, an immigration reporter for The New York Times, spoke with Shaila and Melanie Cruz Morales, twin sisters from New Jersey who are the men’s nieces. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: In Mexico, being buried near home is a sacred rite. These are the obstacles the Morales family has faced as they try to return their uncles’ bodies home.

So I cover immigration in and around New York City. And over the past few months, like everybody, I've been covering the coronavirus crisis. And not too long ago, I started looking at how that experience has been different for Latino immigrant families. One thing I noticed pretty much right away is that hundreds and hundreds of families were turning to GoFundMe, to the crowdfunding site, and they were setting up pages to pay for funerals and hospital bills and also to send their relatives' remains

back to their home countries, to maybe mothers or grandmothers. So I started just sending emails to the people who had created these sites, and one of the first responses I got was from a girl in New Jersey and her twin sister. I got a very polite text saying that they were willing to speak, so I gave them a call. And quickly I learned that their story was just wrenching. Melanie? Melanie, can you hear me? Yes.

From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. This is The Daily. Today, the experience of immigrant families during the pandemic. Annie Correal with the story of one of them. It's Tuesday, May 26th. All right.

Hi there, Melanie. How are you? Hi. I'm okay. I'm taking every day by day. How are you today? I'm fine, thank you. So, Shayla and Melanie Cruz Morales,

they're identical twins. They live in Teaneck, New Jersey, which is a suburb of New York City. And tell me a little bit about yourself. How old are you? So I am 19 years old. I am a political science major at Bergen Community College. I'm from a Mexican immigrant family. I'm from a Mexican immigrant family, and I am a DACA recipient. Those are a couple things about me. They're really obviously studious, dedicated, driven young women, and they have a kind of passion for politics that they say they've discovered in their early teenage years. Yeah. And we're both going to transfer somewhere else this fall. I overheard Shayla in the background. Do you want to... Hi, Shayla.

Hi. Sorry. That's okay. Nice to meet you. Yeah, it's nice to meet you. So Shayla, she's kind of the shy one of the two. I'm usually very quiet and I just let Melanie do the talking. So it's Melanie, her sister, who tells me the entire story of their uncle, Javier. She just lost him to COVID-19. And who is her uncle, Javier? And who is her uncle, Javier? So her uncle Javier, Javier Morales, is the kind of father figure for her whole family.

Basically, the way we migrated over here to this country really started with my uncle Javier, who he was one of the first ones who planted seeds in this country. You know, he speaks English. He's more integrated. He basically taught us a lot and prepared us for what life would be like here. And he's come a long way because he and his family come from this little tiny village of 200 people and shrinking in Oaxaca. It's called Santa Catarina Yo Sonotú.

And what's this village like in Oaxaca? It's literally a small town in the midst of mountains everywhere. So Santa Catarina Yo Sonotú is indigenous. Many people only speak a language called Mixtec. I think one of the smells that always, always brings me back to it is the scent of fire and wood burning. Because people cook the tortillas over wood fires.

You know, there's no stove. There's not really much electricity. It's like lost to time. And there's not much technology. The way that we call my grandmother, who lives in El Pueblo, is by calling the station where they have phones. There's just a central call center. Because no one else has phones there.

Where someone comes onto the loudspeaker and announces. It's Lourdes. I'm calling for La Senora Francisca. And then it's just funny because my mom is on the phone for five minutes waiting for grandma to rush down to the center and pick up the phone call. So this town is small enough that when an announcement is made over some loudspeaker, everyone in town can hear it. That's right. It's a very small town.

So in this village, there's one little grocery store that everyone goes to. This is where you'd go for your beans and rice and Coca-Cola. And this is where Uncle Javier worked when he was young, along with his seven siblings. It was the family business. Because everybody would come to the store to buy things. And that's how everyone knows my family back home. But when Javier was about 18, his father died tragically. And that's why he left and went to the United States to begin supporting his rather large family. So where in the U.S. did he go? He goes first to California and he works in the fields. He works as an agricultural worker and eventually

travels over to Florida before going up to Teaneck, New Jersey. And there he found a job for a trucking company called Court. He starts driving, they supply furniture for big events like the Super Bowl one year and conventions at the Javits Center in New York City. And so he gets to know the whole country as he makes these trips. And in the process, he seems to sort of fall in love with the United States. He finds an apartment building, and he slowly starts telling his relatives, there's a lot of opportunity here. Why don't you come? So slowly, some cousins come over, more and more

people, his best friend, Javier's baby brother, Martin, comes over when he's about 18. And they move into the apartment complex that he's found for them. And eventually, the twins, Melanie and Shayla, come over with their mother when they're about four years old. Just like a lot of other migrants, we cross the border. They walk across the desert from Mexico into Arizona and travel by car to New Jersey. It's funny because I vividly remember coming off Route 80. Even though they were so little, Melanie remembered pulling off Route 80 and driving up to what would become her new home, this apartment complex in this unfamiliar new country.

And the first person she sees is her uncle, Javier, who greets them with open arms. And that's the first time I really got to meet my cousin and my uncle. So they were already here. They were just waiting for us. So you created like a little second village in Teaneck, New Jersey. Yeah, we really did. We all realized that this is where we would all be able to have a better life. And little by little over time, we have made it our home.

Yeah. And what is this new home, this apartment complex in Teaneck, New Jersey, like? So they really come to love this building. life. So they really come to love this building. So our apartment building that we've lived in for 15 years is three stories and outside of it is brick. So it stands really strong and it's up on the hill. And in the back of the apartment building, there's this really, really, really big parking lot. There's a big parking lot outside where they grill meat and sit around on Sundays. The men sit around on their one day off per week and they listen to music and have a couple of beers. And no one minds because everyone's family.

And the parking lot is where everyone would see each other at least once a day, and we would stop and smile and wave at each other or catch up. And it was also where all the little kids who lived in the apartment building come out to play. You walk inside, and there's a central staircase. Which leads you to the second floor, and that is where my uncle Javier used to live. On the third floor is my apartment, and then directly across is where my cousin Kobe and his two little siblings and my aunt and my uncle Martin also lived. Everyone calls each other Tio and Tia. I said, hi, Tio. And he said, hi.

Uncle and aunt. Our apartment had always the doors open because we all knew each other. They go back and forth between each other's apartments. The doors are unlocked. You know, they're constantly passing each other in the stairwells, knocking on the door and asking for salsa or soda. We always knew that my uncle Javier always had soda stocked up, so we would go rushing down to his apartment building and tell him,

hey, do you want to come up and have dinner with us and bring soda? And he would always come upstairs with anything that we needed. This sounds pretty idyllic. Yeah, I mean, it's really been home. A lot of people say that when you rent an apartment, it's always very temporary and you don't really feel at home. But that place, for some reason, always, always felt like a forever type of situation.

Sometimes in the night when I would be speaking to my sister and my brother, we'd all come around and I told them one day when we have money and we have our careers and we're grown, I would like to come back to this place and I would like to purchase a building with you, with my sister, with my brother, and have it as a place for the family because it was that special to us. And what was Melanie and her sister's relationship like with their Uncle Javier? So I think they had a special bond with their Uncle Javier.

In some ways, he recognizes a lot of promise in them. When he became a U.S. citizen, he actually asked Melanie to sit down with him and they made flashcards so he could study for his citizenship exam. I would ask him who was the first president of the United States and he would tell me the answer. And I guess that was one of the times where we really bonded. And she remembered that as a kind of funny role reversal because she was nine, 10 years old. And there she was trying to teach her uncle who the country's first president was. It was a bunch of him just getting the wrong answers or him getting the right answers and me being so surprised by it.

He really believed in them and thought that they were on a path to success. They were trying to transfer to a four-year college, and he was constantly checking in with them and asking them where they wanted to go and what they wanted to be. At some point, he delivers furniture to Yale University and he sees the Gothic campus and the beautiful old buildings. And it makes an impression. He comes back and he tells the twins, that's the kind of place where you should go. He came back and he showed me, look, this is the school. He showed me so many pictures. He was like, I really liked it. I hope that one day that you can go to a school like this. He's a real believer in the American dream. And he passes that on to his nieces. So he passes the test and he obtains citizenship status. And that means a lot of things.

I mean, for him, it means he can travel back to his village and see his mother. And having a citizen in the family is so important. They're things you never think of. I felt in a way safer to know that I had an uncle who was a citizen. You know, simple little things like me hopping into his car and him driving and me knowing that he had a license meant the world to me just because of how on edge you are as an undocumented person. And because he's legally on the books working for this trucking company, he has a salary, he has vacation time, he has paid sick leave.

Right, and these are things that many of the people living in that apartment complex, many of his relatives, don't have. Exactly. I mean, at the time, none of them, no one had citizenship. I mean, at the time, none of them, no one had citizenship. So he's only 48, but he has really become kind of the central figure of the family. He's also really the heart of the family. It's so funny. He liked a lot of the Mexican bands. Corridos, a lot of banda.

He was so proud of it, and he loved to show it off. It's like a little joke in our family. I'll never forget, I think it was his birthday three years ago or two years ago, and there's this one song that you sing when, like, you're heartbroken, when you just got like broken up with. And we had like the microphone and like everyone in the tiny little apartment was just like enjoying it, had a good time. And it was like literally like being in a little concert. But everyone was so into it, like even the little kids, like even like the teenagers, like my cousins, sometimes we think that we're too cool for our culture, that we're too Americanized. But in that moment, everyone was just enjoying it.

And it was just really, really nice because he was so happy. And everyone was really happy. So Annie, what happens to this family over the past few months? So Annie, what happens to this family over the past few months? So this year, Javier goes on his annual trip to Mexico in early March to see his mother. And he comes back and goes straight back to work at the trucking company. And not long after, he starts to feel sick. And he thinks it's just a cold, but he's watching the news

and all these reports about the coronavirus, and he decides to self-quarantine. Again, you know, he has a job that offers him paid sick leave, so he stops working. And, you know, he's pretty sure it's nothing to worry about, but it's better to be safe. And it doesn't go away. So he goes to the closest hospital, to Teaneck. He describes his symptoms. He tells them what kind of work he does and that he's just traveled. And he asks to take a test and he's turned away. And he asks to take a test and he's turned away. He's told he probably has the flu and he should rest, take some medicine and he'll get better. So he goes home and the next day he wakes up and he's still sick.

In fact, he's even sicker than the day before. And he starts to get a little frightened. So he goes to another doctor and they tell him the same thing. So it's now been two attempts and his symptoms are getting worse. So he does hear that there's a new testing site in New Jersey at a community college. But he goes on a day when they're only testing first responders like doctors and nurses

and he didn't know that. So they turned him away. And at that point, he's really scared. So he had no other option but to go to another hospital in Hackensack. So he drives to the hospital in Hackensack, New Jersey, that same day, and he goes straight to the ER. And finally, he gets admitted. He goes straight to the ER, and finally he gets admitted. He went there, and he basically called my aunt. He told them, oh, I'm here, I'm okay, don't worry, and I'll call you back later. And that was the last time my aunt was ever able to speak to him.

So this is his fourth attempt to get a test. That's right. And it's on this visit where he finally gets tested and he tests positive for COVID-19. They realized that he was in critical condition, so they moved him up to the ICU and immediately put him on a ventilator. And all the events really happened so fast. Nobody could have thought that he would have contracted the virus. really happened so fast. Nobody could have thought that he would have contracted the virus. We see it on the news and we see what's going on, but it doesn't hit you until it hits home. And then that's when the reality starts to settle in. The whole family is just worried to death.

Then a few days later, Javier's baby brother, Martin, starts to feel a little sick himself. When I found out that my uncle lived right across from me was sick, I really couldn't believe it. I thought it was a joke. I thought there's no way that two family members could possibly have this virus. And so I called my little cousin, Kobe, and I told him what's going on. Is your dad okay? And he said, yes, he's fine. He's just showing flu-like symptoms. The thing is, he's younger than Javier. He's 39. He cycles every day. He loves riding his bike to the George Washington Bridge. He keeps in really good shape. And so when he gets sick, no one is really all that worried. And he decides that after having seen everything that his brother went through,

he's not going to jump through those hoops. He, unlike his brother, is undocumented. So he thinks, if that was what my brother went through through what's it going to be like for me so he thinks since i'm undocumented what would be my chances of ever getting tested or treated efficiently so he just basically does nothing exactly so he goes into isolation in a room in his apartment in this complex where the whole family lives. My dad rushed over and made a huge pot of home remedy. He made tea, he made onion, garlic, ginger, a bunch of things mixed together. And he packaged it up and dropped it off right in front of his door, of my uncle Matt's name's door, and he gave it to him. And that's basically all

what my uncle was taking, because I don't think he understood this virus. I don't think anybody did, and especially not us. So meanwhile, Uncle Javier is still in the Hackensack Hospital. His family's getting regular reports, even some reports that he's stable. His family's getting regular reports, even some reports that he's stable. He had been in the ICU for seven days, for a week total. And on the last day, we got the phone call. On Monday, April 6th, they learn that Uncle Javier has died. His heart has died. His heart has stopped. So the night after Javier has died, the twins and their big brother, they're having dinner and they go and they get some tequila and they're about to raise a glass to my uncle Javier had just passed away and we wanted to take a shot of tequila

and honor him because it was his favorite drink. When they hear someone banging on the door and they go to the door without opening it and it's their cousin Kobe. It's Martine's son. cousin, Kobe. It's Martine's son. He's 16. And he's shouting for help. Help, help. Call the ambulance. My dad is unresponsive. So Martine, who was doing okay and trying to get through this at home, is suddenly unconscious. I called the ambulance. So Melanie calls 911. I had to lock my mom and my dad in my room.

The twins' mother is immunocompromised, so they're very nervous that she could get sick. And so when Kobe comes to the door and bangs on the door and says, my dad is unconscious, he's unresponsive, they don't even open the door. You let him into your apartment? No. We'll be right back. I have to imagine that that was really hard for the twins and for everybody.

I mean, given what an open household this was. People going in and out of each other's apartments all the time and suddenly a locked door and cousins who won't let somebody in. Absolutely. I think it's something that the twins are still struggling with now. I think it's something that the twins are still struggling with now. It was the hardest thing I had to do, but I knew that my mom's immune system is so weak that I wasn't going to risk putting her in danger. So I just said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I can't. It was just a fight or flight reaction. I think it added a layer of just horror to be listening to all of this over the phone or even through the wall. So you call 911 and you're just waiting for the ambulance.

So they have Kobe, their cousin, on one line, the paramedics on the other. And the ambulance arrives and they're guiding them over the phone through the apartment complex so they can get to the right door. We were kept on the line, so we heard everything through that phone call. We might have not been there.

We might have not been able to see it, but we definitely heard it. And what are they hearing as they're guiding these paramedics in and as the paramedics arrive across the hall? So they're hearing them run up the stairwell and go into the apartment. And they're pressed against the door and against the wall. I had to comfort my cousin through the phone. I had to hear his yells. I could hear everything.

They hear their cousin Kobe talking to his father. And he's saying to him, don't go, come back. And at some point, he's overcome, and he just throws the phone. And they can't hear anymore what's going on, except for these muffled sounds, panicked sounds, as they try to revive Martine. We hear the yells and the cries, and we knew what was going on. And you have to imagine that his wife

and his two young children are also in the apartment at the same time. So the twins are waiting. They say that it's just the worst 25 minutes of their life. And then there's silence. And they look through the peephole and they see the body taken down the stairs. The people from the funeral home come and drag my uncle's body down the stairs. And that definitely changes a person.

And there's nothing that will prepare you for that. And I was less cold. I was less numb. I couldn't cry. There was no tears coming down my face because I had never, ever processed something like that. Um, our lives completely that's horrible it is but then the twins learned that the neighbors who lived across the hall from javier on the second floor they're sick too so when we heard that that family who was across my uncle javier was also getting sick that That's immediately when I went into full panic mode and said, I have to get out of here. It starts feeling like the coronavirus is just ripping its way through the building. It felt like I was literally trapped in something that I couldn't get out of. And it just felt like I needed to get out. Like I wanted, we all did,

like my mom, my dad, my brother, like everyone felt the need to leave. And so they start planning some sort of escape. Through a connection, they find a home out in rural Pennsylvania. And they just start throwing things literally out the window. We were throwing bags and clothes outside our window because we weren't going to risk getting anything caught, like in the air of like the staircase, how like I had to pull my uncle's body out down through the stairs.

And like we were just so panicked. Their refuge and their family home has turned into what feels like a death trap. We felt like the virus was every corner. So it was survival. It was running for your life. And so they are just gathering everything that they can and fleeing into a car and eventually making their way out into the farmlands of Pennsylvania. Do the twins have any idea how this happened? I mean, how Javier got sick?

how this happened, I mean, how Javier got sick, whether he may have passed it on to his brother Martin and then on to the others in the apartment? It's all kind of speculation. I mean, he traveled to Mexico, so they think, was it making his way back to New Jersey? Could it have been on one of his work trips? Was it maybe Martin who picked it up as he continued to work? There's really no way to trace how it made it into the apartment complex

and why it hit them so hard. Another thing that has really struck me as I've talked to many, many families in the immigrant communities of New York and New Jersey is that many people who have been hospitalized or died, they didn't even know if they had pre-existing conditions because they never sought out a doctor or treatment unless it was really an emergency that you'd go to the emergency room for, like an accident or broken leg, they would just kind of soldier on. But what seems so striking to me about Javier is that he was attentive to his health. He tried over and over again to get a test, and was such an ordeal and there were so many obstacles

i mean it's it's maddening looking back and i think it's worth keeping in mind that that's what a lot of people were experiencing whether they were immigrants or not citizens or not, citizens or not, people were kind of groping around in the dark and not understanding how this virus worked or how quickly it could become a critical illness. Mm-hmm. I think what is interesting, though, is that in this family, one man died in the hospital. And although his life wasn't saved, he had doctors and nurses and people checking his oxygen. And the other man stayed at home and drank home remedies of ginger and garlic and never saw a doctor at all. And I think you have to multiply that scenario by many, many thousands

to understand why it will be a long time before we begin to grasp the effect on the marginalized communities in America, including the undocumented, because so many people died at home. Of course, the irony here is that the man in the hospital, the man at home, having the privileges that one brother did, citizenship, health care, access to a hospital, it didn't seem to make a difference.

Right. And that's the irony. That the outcomes were the same. And I wonder how the twins are making sense of all this. I mean, this uncle that they idolized and who had such a vision for what America could be for the family and who did everything right, he was not protected from this virus. Yeah, I think that that's a challenge that they're grappling with,

because I don't suggest that these young women are naive at all. But I think seeing this, seeing it firsthand, that their uncle who did everything that one is supposed to do, the fact that he still somehow fell through the cracks cracks and that he wasn't seen right away, I think it created a lot of confusion and maybe even disillusionment. This sense of their community was still somewhat on the margins even when they tried to do everything right. Annie, when did you last speak with the twins and how are they doing? So the last time I spoke with them was in the first weeks of May. And they had been living out there in rural Pennsylvania

just with their brother and their parents and staying far away from everyone else. Only he can free you. Only he can free you. From hidden traps and mortal plagues. So Melanie tells me that every day they gather for a prayer circle. And one recent evening, they'd had a really hard day. Some days we have really bad, sad days, and that day was just sad. And the twins are really asking themselves, what are we even doing here?

really asking themselves, what are we even doing here? Within this pandemic, we've been reflecting our entire life and time here in the United States and really saying, is it worth it? Why are we even here? So that night, Shayla asks God for some sign. I don't ask for much, but I need a sign to keep going. And later that night, Melanie gets an email. There's an update from Georgetown. And I was like, oh my God, like I'm not ready to hear any news whatsoever anymore. Like throw the whole phone away. I don't want to see it. So I said, just me and Shayla and my brother are going to be in our room and we're going to open our decision. And I opened my notification first.

But in that moment, I really, really forgot how to read and I couldn't understand anything until it took me like a good minute for me to finish reading the letter. And then that's when I just started screaming and I started crying and I was like, I got in. She's been admitted to her first choice and been invited to transfer to Georgetown to finish her four-year degree. Then my sister checked her phone at the same time and she also started screaming. And then we were both like, oh my god, we both got in. And it was the happiest day that my family and I had had in the longest time because we had done everything to make this possible and we had forgotten about it for a second because of this pandemic. But like I said, it was always in the back of my mind and it was a sign.

So suddenly they go from, you know, sort of having to be the adults in the family to getting to be excited 19-year-olds again. Dear Melanie, it gives me great pleasure to inform you that the Committee of Admissions has admitted you to Georgetown University. I am happy to offer you a place at the university beginning in the fall of 2020. This year, the Committee of Admissions... They also saw it, as I understand it, as a bit of encouragement from their Uncle Javier. bit of encouragement from their uncle Javier, because for all of the obstacles, he was a believer in the possibilities. And we all have to make sense of the things that happen to us one way or another. So whatever it means, it does offer them a little bit of relief,

a sense that the future might hold good things in this country. Not just awful things. Not just awful things. One time in the summer, I was with him outside in the parking lot, and he was asking me about all these schools. And then he asked me, where do you want to go after you graduate from Bergen? And I told him, I want to go to this really good school in Washington, D.C. It's called Georgetown.

Bill Clinton went there. All these senators, congressmen, they all went there. And he was like, wow, I know one day you're going to do it. I know that you and your sister are going to get in. I know one day you're going to do it. I know that you and your sister are going to get in. And the day that you get accepted, I'm going to post it on my Facebook and brag to all my friends that I have really smart nieces. So did you post it on your Facebook so that your family could see and the family could see in Mexico?

Yeah, I posted it. I know that my uncle knew, and I know that he was with me that day, and I know that he's proud, and he believed in me and my sister. So it's been hard, but I know that he's with us, and that gives me comfort. I never understood what people meant when they say, when they talk about when someone passes away, and they're like, they're with you, you can feel them. But that night, I completely felt my uncle with me. Well, again, I want to thank you for your tremendous generosity with your time and your experience. And I know that it's hard and not easy. So I hope after this

two and a half hour call that you will breathe some fresh air and be with your family. Yes, I definitely will. But thank you again for giving me an opportunity to, you know, tell our story and document this. And I know that in years from now on where I'll be able to look back at this and whichever position I am able to be, that our story will help define the history and the moments that we are going through right now. Thank you again, Melanie. You're welcome. Have a good night.

Bye-bye, everyone. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. The Mexican government said that as of last week, close to 650 Mexican nationals have died from the coronavirus in the New York City area, by far the highest toll anywhere in the U.S. Shayla and Melody have reached their goal of raising $30,000 to send their uncle's remains back to Mexico.

But for now, their ashes are still sitting inside of a church in New Jersey. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Over the holiday weekend, the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus reached nearly 100,000, a staggering milestone that the Trump administration at one point had predicted would never be reached. A month ago, you and President Trump were both talking about a total of 60,000 COVID-19 deaths. Early this coming week, we're going to reach 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus. And those models that you're citing now talk about close to 150,000 deaths by August. What happened, doctor? I think a few things are together.

In interviews on Sunday, White House pandemic coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx was asked about what turned out to be an inaccurate estimate of the death toll from the White House. So from the beginning, and I think when we had that first briefing, we talked about 1.2 million to 2.4 million, and 100,000 to 240,000 people succumbing to this incredibly aggressive virus. Those are the figures that we continue to stand by in this first wave. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has banned travel from Brazil because of the outbreak there, adding the country to a growing list of nations,

including China, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, whose residents can no longer enter the U.S. Finally, what you hear the president saying today is just a very reasonable request of the governor of North Carolina. We all want to be in Charlotte. We love North Carolina. On Monday, the president and vice president threatened to pull

the Republican National Convention out of North Carolina this summer because the governor there cannot ensure full attendance under the state's social distancing rules. I think the president is absolutely intent on ensuring that as we see our nation continue to make steady progress on putting the coronavirus epidemic in the past,

that come this August, we'll be able to come together in a safe and responsible venue and re-nominate President Donald Trump for four more years. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.