Immigration, and Mexico's Town Without Men

EL EPAZOTE, Mexico, July 8, 2006 — -- The tiny fishing village of El Epazote is nestled in a sweeping valley, surrounded by the majestic Sierra Madre mountains in Central Mexico. It is a long and winding four-hour journey from Mexico City to a place where the story of illegal immigration is as clear as the mountain springs that flow through the alpine canyons.

The first thing you notice when you arrive in the little settlement is the lack of men.

At least 70 percent of El Epazote's men have left home to work in the United States. That has left the village with a population of mostly children and women -- the very young and the very old.

Maria and Amparo Fuentes spend their days gathering hay for their sheep. Amparo is almost 100 years old, leading ABC News to ask her why she works so hard.

"It's just the poverty," she said. "That's the way it goes for the poor in Mexico. We do what we have to do … to survive."

"Men usually do this work," she was told.

"Yes," she said, "but there are no men here. They're all working in the United States."

It is the women who do all the work in El Epazote. They earn the equivalent of $10 a day. In the United States, their husbands and fathers can make 10 times that much. The disparity has left the village with virtually no fathers, no male role models.

When ABC News gathered together a group of children from the town and asked how many had relatives in the United States, all of them raised their hands -- for fathers, brothers, uncles, even grandfathers all working in places like New York, Oklahoma, Utah and Florida.

There are signs of American influence everywhere. The town's welcome sign is both in Spanish and English. There are American cars and pickup trucks all over the village, TV sets and DVD players in many living rooms, satellite dishes on many rooftops.

The men from El Epazote send thousands of dollars back home every month -- enough to build new homes that now dot the landscape. It is money that buys new clothing for their children and puts food on their table.