Going by birth records, Juan Angel Rivera and Martin Rivera Jr. were first cousins. But in life they were brothers, a distinction that sets the tone of Martin Rivera’s recently published book “Juan Angel: The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man.”
That’s because the story is not only a tribute to Juan Angel Rivera, who died last year at age 45, it is a testament to the remarkable bond between two boys – one an American-born citizen, the other an undocumented immigrant – who were mostly raised together but at times shared different world experiences.
To understand that relationship, we need to take a deeper dive into the family story.
The author’s birth father, Martin Rivera Sr., was a Mexican immigrant who settled in Aurora in 1971 at age 15, and eventually married elementary school teacher Carol Stalker. But after his mother died of cancer when Martin Jr. was an infant, his dad struggled to raise him.
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So young Martin spent big chunks of his childhood on a small ranch in the mountains of Durango, Mexico, with no electricity or running water but plenty of love provided by the family of his uncle Juan Rivera, which included cousin Juan Angel, four years older than Martin.
Gradually, his uncle, who had serious health issues that cost him his job, made his way to Aurora with the help of smugglers, soon followed by 17-year-old Juan Angel and eventually the rest of the family.
Crossing the border illegally was “a decision born out of necessity, desperation and love,” writes Rivera when describing the emotional toll it took on families to be separated, as well as the fear and anxiety his undocumented loved ones always carried that all they had worked so hard to achieve in Aurora could quickly dissolve.
Yet they forged ahead, building careers, raising families and forming communities while navigating those challenges. All of which contributed to the hero-like love and admiration Martin Rivera, now of Oswego, had for the man he will always refer to as “my brother.”
Juan Angel, who went on to build a successful landscaping business, struggled with alcoholism, which Rivera chronicles in this narrative that does not shy away from the role addiction played in the life and death of his role model.
But the book also paints a tender portrait of a generous, loving man who gave so much of himself to his family and to Aurora residents – raising money for those in need, supporting Hispanic families through challenging times, advocating for a community that too often faced prejudice and suspicion and, during those tumultuous years of gang violence in the city, outright hatred.
Rivera, now 42 and a telecommunication technician with a wife and two children, never considered himself a writer, and in fact, admits it was a 10-page essay assignment hanging over him that contributed to his decision to drop out of college after graduating from East Aurora High School.
But after Juan Angel’s death, “I started writing as a way to keep his memory alive,” says Rivera.
The book – beautifully crafted from cover to cover – does that and more. It gives readers like me an intimate peek into the strong bonds that tie Hispanic families and communities together, while also exposing some of the harsher realities faced by first and second generation Latinos.
Citizenship, Martin Rivera insists, was a complicated and intimidating door many were afraid to open for fear that the process itself could lead to another separation from the people they loved. Juan Angel eventually took that risk and got his naturalization papers, which, the author points out, gave him “freedom from the many fears and limitations” that gripped the country in the following years as the political climate shifted.
“It was painful to see honest hardworking people being treated as though they don’t belong here,” Rivera writes. “The uncertainty affected us all in one way or another.”
Rivera wanted to write this book not only for himself but to help Juan Angel’s parents navigate the loss of their eldest child. And when the elder Juan’s already failing health took a dramatic turn in June, Rivera tried his best to get it published in time for “my father” to read it.
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Juan Rivera died on Father’s Day, two months before the self-published memoir was released. But the peace this book has given Juan Angel’s mother Refugio and three sisters was worth all the time and effort put into it, he insists.
Narrating the extraordinary life of an ordinary man also helped heal the grieving heart of its author.
“We had that relationship a lot of blood brothers don’t have,” says Rivera. “We really loved and respected each other so much.”