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AFP
Teopantl'e1n, Mexico
They know the skyscrapers of Manhattan better than this small village in rural Mexico, but these 18 children are here to meet their extended families and learn about the world their parents left behind.
Born in the United States, they have made the trip without their parents, who remain undocumented immigrants and -- unlike their US citizen children -- cannot travel back to Mexico for fear of being detained and deported by American border authorities.
But the children wanted to meet their grandparents and other relatives for the first time back in their parents'native Teopantlan, a remote village of modest brick houses tucked into the hills of central Mexico.
"My little niece, the four-year-old, keeps talking to me in English. But I don't speak a word of it,"said 57-year-old Maria with a smile after meeting her four nieces.
The trip was organized by charitable organizations, which got the parents'permission to take their children out of the country. After a long and winding trip from the Mexico City airport, some 120 kilometers (75 miles) away, the kids got out of their mini-bus in Teopantlan's central square.
Beneath a canopy of colorful balloons, excited Mexican-American children met their equally excited Mexican relatives, who were waiting for them with flowers and gifts.
"I had seen pictures of them, but it's nothing like seeing them in real life,"said a beaming Mauro Ramirez, 60.
"I'm so emotional I want to cry,"he said.
After the initial embraces, though, the communication problems set in for many.
Some of the older villagers only spoke the indigenous Nahuatl language, while some of the children only spoke English. The lapsed years also suddenly made themselves painfully apparent.
One grandfather wearing a giant sombrero brought his 15-year-old grandson -- a nearly grown adult -- a giant children's stuffed animal. They proceeded to sit down together, side by side, in silence.
Teopantlan, a corn- and sugar cane-farming community, has long been a village of emigrants.
"Around 40 percent of our young people emigrate, because there are no jobs here,"said the mayor, Esteban Ramirez Rosales.
He estimates about 2,000 villagers have left over the years, mainly for New York, where they have their own enclave in the borough of Queens.
