MENDOTA, Fresno County — In bare feet, stepping carefully over jagged rocks and broken glass, Martín Hernandez Mena set out for the irrigation canal on the other side of the dirt road.
It was late on a summer day, the temperature above 100 in rural Fresno County, and swimming was the only way to escape the heat and the flies.
Water had been Mena’s escape since he was a boy growing up near the Pacific cliffs of Acapulco, where he learned to dive into the waves below. As a young man there, he fished to provide for his family.
In his 30s, he found a better way: He followed whispered promises north to California, where, people said, plates were never empty and wells never ran dry.
Now, at age 50, Mena knew better.
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