Lucia Reyes is a Mexican woman who arrived in New York from Coyahualco, state of Guerrero, with hopes of escaping poverty. Her big dream was fulfilled when she brought over her boyfriend as well. Antonio Romano worked in construction. He died when he fell from a scaffold on the sixth floor of a building located on 33 East 61st street.
“Everything went wrong, I wished that Antonio and I could make a life together and grow in this country, but it wasn’t meant to be. His desire to pay me back the money it had cost me to bring him here drove him to work in construction. I can hardly believe that he’s dead. It’s already been a year,” recounted this 5 feet tall, slim, dark-skinned woman.
Lucia is infirm and works six days a week for less than minimum wage. She goes to a house where she has to work from 6 a.m. till 10 p.m. She is always tired, and even at times when her strength totally leaves her, she gives thanks to God and the Virgin of Guadalupe. She is epileptic: “It has been six months since the last attack. I don’t have insurance and in the house where I work they don’t let me leave and when I’m sick the lady gives me a pill so I can keep on working.”
“Ms. Reyes, who works 70 hours a week and only makes $250 is exploited like many undocumented immigrants. She suffers from inhumane treatment. She is worked and treated like a slave,” said Joel Magallan, director of the Tepeyac Association, who listened to Lucia’s story when present during a deposition for district attorney Robert Morgenthau.
Morgenthau assisted in convicting Michael Tam, owner of the company Tamco, for which Antonio Romano worked, of careless endangerment, and succeeded getting Ken Ai, supervisor of the site where Romano died, to plead guilty of involuntary homicide.
When questioning Lucia as to why she didn’t look for another job with better working conditions, she answered with her head down low: “I don’t know how to read, many times this prevents me from having better opportunities. I am very hardworking, I’m a fast learner and I wanted them to help me with a job.” She cried: “I don’t want money or anything like that, I want a job.”
