Roy S. Johnson: Young boy's desert crossing is 'my why' for successful Hispanic bar, restauranteur owner

. The boy was eight or nine years old; he doesn't remember exactly. He lay on the desert floor, staring at the stars on a cloudless night, gripping the hand of the man — the coyote — hired to lead his family safely from Mexico across the Arizona border. Hired especially to protect the children.

Jesus was separated from his mother and father, because "immigration (patrol) popped up," he recalls. "We all scatter. My parents go one direction. I stayed with the coyote. We just hide."

Hide there in the desert, in the quiet, under the stars. Hide there thinking: .

Jesus Mendez is 35 years old now and among Birmingham's rising faces in the city's increasingly eclectic hospitality culture. He is proudly Mexican and his establishments—Adios on 1st Ave North and the soon-to-be-open Salud in the historic Webb building on the corner of 20th Street and 2nd Ave North—reflect the depth of passion for his culture.

"I'm Mexican and my business partners are Mexicans," he shared recently amid the sounds of construction inside Salud. "My operators, my managers, our family in the kitchen doing quality control, monitoring costs, doing everything to make sure that we have the best product out there for this community."

Mendez's journey from there to here, from hiding in the desert to blooming in Birmingham, is complex—as is the journey from there (fill in any ravaged, dangerous nation) for so many who cross our border in search of, well, .

For so many who do so illegally, they know. Yet for the same desperate and hopeful reasons perhaps your ancestors (not mine) came , too.

Immigration is lightning-rod in our whacky U.S. presidential race—a bolt that's wrenching communities in our state, twisting minds into knots of myths and misinformation. Suddenly, people with amnesia about their own family's journey from are enraged at someone else's quest to be .

They're maddened by brown people from the other side of our southern border and dark-skinned people from the Caribbean seeking to live, work, and thrive

In Alabama, between 2021 and 2022, the Hispanic population grew by more than 250,000, a 3.8% increase that was the eighth highest in the nation that year, according to U.S. Census Bureau population estimates . Based on this barometer it's rising even : Five years ago, based on state Board of Education data, Hispanic children in grades K through 12 represented eight percent (60,972) of students across the state. Last year, that number grew to 82,407 Hispanic children - or 11% of overall enrollment.

The Haitian presence here is demonstratively smaller, though their clusters in Albertville , Sylacauga , Enterprise , Mobile , and Fairhope have caused some to lose their everlovin' minds—and their empathy.

I call it the browning of Alabama .

A Toddler Arrives

That night hiding on the desert floor was not the young boy's first border crossing. When Jesus was a toddler, Jesus Mendez, Sr. returned from the U.S. to Tabasco , bordering Guatemala and Belize—at the "very, very bottom" of southern Mexico, Mendez says—to retrieve his son and Marie, the boy's young mother (she was 14 when she gave birth. "Yes, that sounds crazy here, but in Mexico, that's normal. It still happens. This is the culture," Mendez tells me).

"I am grateful my father made that moral decision to go back home, back to Mexico, and pick me and my mother up. He could have stayed here. He could have forgotten about us and started a new family, which is what a lot of our men do. But he went back and picked us up. That set the blueprint for who I am in this country."

He paused. "If it weren't for him picking me back up, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

After crossing the border, the family was on its way to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina when their car ran out of gas — on Arkadelphia Road in west Birmingham. Jesus Sr. walked to a nearby Shell station. He got gas and found a new home. "My dad met a small community of Latinos there and they brought us in," Mendez says.

After a few weeks in public housing off Arkadelphia, the family moved to Bessemer. They lived in the basement of a sympathetic doctor's clinic while Jesus, Sr. and Maria worked at the physician's home in Hoover—as a maintenance man and housekeeper.

The boy learned English pretty much on his own. "Power Rangers, Sesame Street, and Barney, man, that's all I needed," he says with a laugh. The physician helped him enroll at Trace Crossings Elementary School in Hoover. "My life during that age was basically going to school, getting picked up by the bus being dropped off at that house, then just being locked up in a small little room while my parents worked," Mendez remembers. "Then around eight or nine o'clock, it was time to go home. We did that over and over."

In time, the family bought a mobile home in Pelham; Jesus, Jr. was enrolled at Valley (now Pelham Ridge) Elementary. "There were no Latinos, there was nobody," he says. "My parents were still working full time, so I kind of I grew up alone, trying to figure out things alone, trying to educate myself alone."

Around this time, the early 2000s, immigration angst began to percolate nationwide, Mendez remembers: "Keep in mind I was undocumented, so my dad decides to give up on Alabama and go back to Mexico before they catch us. As a kid, I'm like: Okay. You just get up and leave."

It took only a few months for Jesus, Sr. to see Tabasco was not where his son would thrive. (By then Jesus, Jr. spoke English so fluently he now considers it his "first" language.) "He realized I was never going to have a future in that small town," Mendez says. "I was failing all the classes. I wasn't going to get an education there. The buzz around immigration was finally gone. So, we get in the car, and drive towards Arizona."

Towards that cloudless night in the desert where he hid on the desert floor.

"At that age, you don't realize the magnitude of the illegal action you're doing," he says. "You don't realize the journey is something way bigger than what you think."

Mendez calls that night his "rock bottom."

"I had to go to therapy because of it. I was able to turn it around, into a power that I use as my motivation," he adds. "It's my why?"

Taking the blame

Mendez excelled again in school, in middle school before entering Pelham High and later Thompson in Alabaster ("The old Thompson, not the new one. Man, those kids were ruthless. They really didn't like Mexicans, so that really sucked."). Around this time, he realized being undocumented meant he could not attend college in the U.S., no matter how good his grades.

He tried to fit in when there was no place to fit. "I didn't have any Latino friends," he says. "We just weren't as present. You had two choices: Hang out with the white kids or with the Black kids. Pick your side. If Latinos hung out with each other, we got picked on by both sides."

It didn't help that he drove a Corvette to school, courtesy of his mother's various, let's say, hustles. She sold goods and services to a growing community largely operating in the shadows because of the drumbeat of negativity about immigration. "Some not-legal stuff," Mendez says with a slight smile. "Nothing bad, no drugs or anything. She was just too smart for her own good. Mom was making money, so I had everything I ever wanted. I looked like that school brat, even though I wasn't. I just had good things."

After graduating Mendez began working with his mother. She had a car sales lot; he started a detailing business. One day while at the DMV, he was arrested by St. Clair County Sheriff's department officers who suspected his mother was helping undocumented residents obtain auto insurance and tags, which at the time was not legal. "Like I said, my mom was too smart, and I got wrapped up in it." Mendez says.

The charges against him were misdemeanors and Mendez says he was told he was not the investigation's primary target. "They were like: 'Hey, we can let you walk, but we want your mom,'" he says. "I couldn't do that, so I took the blame."

At 18, he spent three months in jail. "They really hammered me down like they wanted to teach me a lesson." The lessons the teen learned, however, were not likely the ones his jailers intended to impart.

"That's where my restaurant career kind of started," Mendez says. "I learned how to cook pancakes and grits, make bologna sandwiches and wash dishes. Because I was a kid, they couldn't really put me in a cell where they had rapists and killers. So, I was a trustee, per se. I learned to do laundry, sweep, and mop. I took care of the place."

And learned to fight, per se. "I lost two out of three," he says with a laugh.

Upon being released, Mendez told his mom he would not go back to their old ways. They were her only ways, alas. "We lost it all," he says. Cars repossessed. Home foreclosed. "Mom developed a lot of bad habits. She just could not bounce back. About two years later, she just called it quits. She got on the bus to Mexico."

Mendez has not seen his mother since 2010.

Another lesson learned

I chose to portray Mendez's journey from there to here by dwelling on the in-between — on what flowed (still flows) beneath the bridge stretching from that desert floor to downtown Birmingham. From .

It embodies the journey of so many immigrants, people too often narrowly defined by their immigration status or judged for just .

Some 15 years ago, the young man still struggling to find a fit walked into a Marguerita Grill in Pelham looking for job after having lost it all. Including his mother.

He rose from server to bartender ("I lied my way through it.") to manager, ("I learned I had some pretty good leadership skills") yet lost it all—again — (half of it, at least) in a deflating divorce whose effects seeped into his work ethic. "I got lazy, got demoted, just quit caring," he says. "As a man, I regret hurting a great family, hurting a great woman. I learned my lesson."

Then came a call. From Cocina Grill, just opening in burgeoning Brookwood Village in Birmingham. "In the back of my head, I'm like, why not? Nothing to lose. I'd already lost it all," Mendez says. "Twice. This is a new opportunity. It's a new restaurant. It's a new market. It's not Pelham anymore. It's Birmingham, Alabama. Why not?"

A time later—after Mendez quit Cocina Grill and was "polished up" at Taco Mama in The Summit—came another call. The caller was Pardis Stitt, who along with her husband, Frank, are the most influential restauranteurs in the city.

"I had no idea who Frank Stitt is," Mendez is saying with a laugh, "Nor did I care because my history's all Mexican food."

After a few weeks of training, he was on the floor as a white-aproned server at Highland Bar & Grill, the Stitts' flagship eatery. It was an ascension for which Mendez was not prepared.

"That was hard, impossible for me to comprehend," Mendez says. "I was so adapted to cheese dip and guacamole and quesadillas, and now you want me to sell a bottle of Chablis and Frank is changing that menu every night? What the heck? I felt stupid every day. You've got talented servers, talented bartenders, talented cooks, and I could not catch up. I could not compete with these guys."

Mendez quit or tried to. Tried to go to New Orleans and work for another Concina—until discovering he'd actually found the fit he long sought. Found it . "Thankfully, my mentors and friends here convinced me to stay," he says. "They were like, 'Hey, man, Birmingham is your community. Birmingham is your town. What are you going to New Orleans for? One day you will have an opportunity. Just wait it out."

Staying, though, did not alleviate the four-course inferiority that filled Mendez's belly every night at Highlands. In April 2019 he called manager Ryan Ford. "I'm not coming in today," Mendez said. "Thank you for the opportunity. I understand what this restaurant is, but I can't do this. This is too hard. I'm too stupid for this. I'm struggling and it's hurting my ego, my pride, and my work ethic. I can't do this."

Ford suggested that rather than quit he have another conversation with Pardis. At the end of that week, on a Friday afternoon, they met at Bottega, another Stitt restaurant.

"She spoke to me as a human, not an employee," he recalls. "'What's going on? What do you need? What can we do for you?' Most restaurants and businesses are like: 'We need to do this. Can you do that?' Never the other way around. When I heard that, I just broke down and I told her what I needed and what I was struggling with. Then she said, 'I have a solution.'"

"Everything clicked" at Chez Fon Fon, where Pardis assigned him, Mendez says. "The training was different. The environment was not as intense. I just had way more fun and learned everything: hospitality, food, wine, culture. Even my network started getting better because people were like, 'Oh, that guy's worked at Fon Fon.' I loved it."

He might still be there had Mendez not been lured, in 2018, to run the Louis Bar at the Pizitz. "They interviewed me, asked me what I did, where I came from, what I'd do with the bar," he recalls. "I said, 'I work for Frank Stitt, and I'll do this I'll do that.' 'Well, we want to give you a one-year contract to take over this bar.' I didn't even know what that meant, but I was like, 'Damn, this is my chance."

Mendez transformed his new Birmingham network into a partnership that made the most of that chance — "made a profit, made a lot of money." In that year, he was inspired by the myriad food offerings surrounding the bar and envisioning open a taco spot at the Pizitz with his family, including his father and new stepmother.

In late 2019, Unos Tacos was announced. It opened on March 26, 2020 – less than two weeks after Birmingham (and the world) shut down due to COVID-19.

Just before Day 1 Mendez posted a "pleading" social media post. "I said, 'I don't know what's going on. I don't know what this means, but I would love it if you guys just give us a chance. Try our food and support us in this new adventure. Thank you, Birmingham.' I'd never done anything like that before."

Mendez purchased a case of chicken, 20 pounds of steak, 20 pounds of chorizo, bags of rice and beans. The following day they began cooking, opened at 11 a.m.—and waited.

Soon cars came rolling up outside the Pizitz. Someone ran out to take their order, ran back inside and began cooking. "We sold out in two hours," Mendez says. "Birmingham came out. Birmingham supports local people. I cried that day because, 'Oh, we got money to, like, do it all over again.' It was a very humbling experience. I fell more and more in love with the community and, and knew I was in the right place doing the right thing."

Authentic Mexican

Translated, Salud means "health," although it's widely used as a toast. Back in school, Mendez was often teased for speaking "perfect English," with little to no accent. Get him started describing the new venture, though, and a bit of Tabasco emerges.

"I'm not doing crunchy tacos, I'm not making ground beef," he begins. "We don't eat that. Back home, we're not known for that. We're bringing out meats like suadero , a brisket. We simmer it with some aromatics, put it on the skillet, and chop it up. We make homemade corn tortillas and tortas —Mexican sandwiches that you can use grab and go."

Salud will also be a rarity – a late-night food option downtown. A rarity and a risk. "Birmingham says, 'We want this, we want that,'" Mendez says. "Then when you give it to him, they don't always show up. I need them to be here eating at 10:30 at night if you want me to be serving up 'till one in the morning."

Mendez is now under a worker's permit status. That's almost laughable. There should be a status, for anyone who's pouring as much into as the rest of us. No matter that their journey included hiding in the desert.

Forget hiding in the desert, Mendez is creating an oasis in Birmingham.

"I am Mexican, Mexican, Mexican," Mendez says. "I'm very aware that I'm in this country of opportunity, this country of liberty. I'm in this country to . I have access to whatever I want as long as I work. People sometimes forget that they can do whatever they want here to a certain extent. They might not be able to get a driver's license, the car of their dreams or have a really nice apartment, but we can still do way more than we can to Mexico. That's what kind of clicked in me."

Still among the most prevalent barriers for so many seeking to get from (for some of us, is right here) to is access to capital. Mendez built a network of investors that allows him to bypass traditional banking barriers—bypass

Similar networks are utilized by numerous cultures leery of American banks.

Mendez mentors and counsels Latinos seeking to find their own fit, their own path to . His advice doesn't sound much different than what we all tell our children: "Don't get in trouble. Do well unto others. Work really, really hard and work with great people who want to teach you great things," he says. "I will teach you how to build credit. And invest smart, spend smart — especially for new undocumented people, we don't have access to retirement plans or ROIs or stocks. We don't get these investment opportunities. We have to be really smart about money."

He encourages undocumented people to seek advice from organizations such as HICA and eschewing some of their distrust. "A lot of undocumented people don't realize that they can go get an ITN number, like a federal tax processing number," he says. "It has the exact same digits as a Social Security number, but it doesn't qualify you for Social Security benefits. It does allow you to apply for a mortgage or loan and buy a home or vehicle. You can apply for certain credit cards, a cash card. But at least you can start building credit because in America credit talks."

He often looks back across that bridge, back to the desert, and remembers the young boy hiding beneath a cloudless sky.

"I don't regret my parents crossing me over," Mendez says. "I don't regret being undocumented. I don't regret being assaulted in jail. I don't regret feeling stupid at Highlands. That's a whole lot of character development."

A whole lot between there and here.

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