Indian Enclave At Risk

Araceli Jimenez, 8, kisses her brother Esteban in their mother’s Elvia’s lap in their home in Duroville, a mobile home park in Thermal. In the Coachella Valley, where the chasm between rich and poor is wide and stark, the Jimenez family occupies the lowest rung of the economic ladder. They are Purepecha, an indigenous people from the Mexican state of Michoacan.

In the Coachella Valley, where the chasm between rich and poor is especially wide, Jimenez occupies the economic ladder’s lowest rung. He is a Purépecha, an indigenous Indian from the Mexican state of Michoacan.

In the 1970s, Purépechas began leaving the cool volcanic highlands of the Mexican city of Ocumicho for the parched town of Mecca, a few miles from the Salton Sea. They brought little more than strong backs and a powerful Roman Catholic faith. Few could speak Spanish or English. And their lack of education and tendency to marry as young as 13 helped ensure lives of poverty.

As time went on, more and more moved into the notoriously run-down Duroville on the Torres Martinez Reservation in Thermal. The park gradually became a sort of regional capital for the Purépecha.

But its future is in doubt.