Indian enclave at risk if Duroville closes - The desert trailer park is an outpost of the Purépechas, indigenous people from Mexico. ‘They are the poorest of the poor,’ says a nun who works with them.

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.”*

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