Mario Ramos stirs a pot of beans with a bent spatula as the men crowd into the kitchen, the ragged line stretching out the splintered doorway.
Years ago, Ramos, 45, grilled up pricey seafood in a tiki-themed restaurant on Pacific Coast Highway in Laguna Beach. Now, he's serving starchy meals on plastic plates. One of his busboys worked at the Shanghai Grill in Beverly Hills; another is a 28-year-old U.S. Marines veteran.
The diners, who remove their sweat-stained caps to accept the food with grateful nods, have been deported from the U.S. as recently as eight hours ago. They are penniless, unshaven. Some are barefoot.
Mario Ramos has served thousands like them.
Some helped build Las Vegas subdivisions. There was a sushi chef from Anaheim, a tree trimmer for the city of Oakland and a man who swept the stands at Chicago's Soldier Field. There was a pig farmer from South Dakota and a Hollywood High School graduate who helped design sets. A janitor from Philadelphia who had learned Hebrew working at a yeshiva.
Ramos keeps one eye on the food and another on the dining area with the torn tablecloths. He spots a man reaching for his plastic fork. "No eating until we pray," he says. After the last man takes his seat, heads bow.
In this quiet moment, the men think about how they got to this decrepit hotel named for their plight: El Hotel Del Migrante Deportado รข€" the Hotel of the Deported Migrant. Traffic infractions, drug offenses and drunk driving tickets mostly; in some cases, violent crimes.
They blame America for exploiting their labor, then discarding them. But they also are haunted by their mistakes, accomplices to their own downfall.
The U.S. offered me opportunities, and I blew it.
We're here for being reckless.
I lost everything because of my stupid mistake.
My wife warned me: You shouldn't be drinking and driving.
Honestly, the American dream is over.
A 39-year-old former day laborer dedicates a prayer to his teenage son in the San Fernando Valley: "For our families who lack food because of our absence, we pray that we are reunited one day."
Ramos, too, feels the tug of family in the U.S. He lived in Rancho Santa Margarita until 2010, when he says police found cocaine in a car he was in with friends. Within weeks, he was deported and living at the hotel. Ramos plans to embark on an illegal journey back to Orange County. Until then he cooks for dozens every day.
He slides his cap back onto his bald head, the signal for the men to begin eating. Some pause to wipe away tears before digging in.
A different era
El Hotel Centenario was among the grandest in Mexicali, in an era when the arcades and honky-tonks of downtown drew round-the-clock revelers.
Over the decades, vice blighted downtown. Drug addicts carved the Centenario's 50 rooms into crack dens.
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