The rapidly spreading swine flu is prompting calls for the U.S. to close its border with Mexico, where the outbreak originated, but some fear the disease is being exploited for political purposes by immigration foes.

A growing chorus of border-control advocates, including some members of Congress, is calling for the federal government to close U.S.-Mexico border crossings to prevent swine flu from further spreading into the U.S.

Civil rights groups and immigrant advocates, however, say that fanning anti-immigrant sentiment could make immigrants reluctant to seek medical attention.

“The risk of demonizing and stigmatizing a group of people is you risk alienating them and making them afraid to seek health services and that can continue the outbreak,” said Liany Arroyo, director of the Institute for Hispanic Health at the National Council of La Raza, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group.

Mexico has been the epicenter of the swine-flu outbreak. The only flu-related death in the U.S. is a 23-month-old Mexico City boy who died Monday after traveling to Texas.

U.S. Rep. Eric Massa, a Democrat from New York and House Homeland Security Committee member, wants “an immediate and complete closure” of the Mexico border until swine flu is contained.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the Department of Homeland Security should consider all options, “including closing the border if it would prevent further transmission of this deadly virus.”

It was unclear whether McCain was responding to political pressure. Last week, Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, announced he will challenge McCain in the 2010 Republican primary.

Since the swine-flu outbreak, Simcox has intensified his call for the immediate deployment of National Guard troops.

President Barack Obama said Wednesday during a televised news conference that health officials see no reason to close the border.

“From their perspective it would be akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out because we already have cases here in the United States,” he said.

Brian Levin, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, said agents at border crossings are trained to watch for possible contagious diseases. He said they have increased surveillance since the swine-flu alert; inspectors in Arizona have not quarantined or detained a single traveler because of flulike symptoms.

Alfredo Gutierrez, who hosts a Spanish-language talk show, said exploiting fear about the swine flu and its prevalence in Mexico is counterproductive.

“The logic that if you can get rid of Mexicans, (swine flu) will all go away” is simplistic logic that will play well to people’s fears, he said. “People are going to say it’s the Mexicans’ fault. The virus has no nationality.”

Carlos Flores Vizcarra, the consul general of Mexico in Phoenix, said that while a few are trying to link the virus with illegal immigration, most realize that swine flu is a public health issue, not an immigration one.

Contributing: Arizona Republic reporters Dennis Wagner and Dan Nowicki

By Daniel Gonzalez, Yvonne Wingett

The state spent $900,000 on the development of an anti-smoking campaign aimed at teens and children. But an 11th-hour decision by state officials resulted in the centerpiece, a series of television commercials, being yanked before they ever made the air.

Now, some health officials are criticizing the decision and say it may compromise the effectiveness of a public-awareness campaign two years in the making.

“You’ve already made this huge investment,” said Susan Gerard, the former director of the state health department that oversaw the campaign. “This is a waste of so many resources, so many man-hours of work … It’s really a shame.”

The series of three 30-second TV spots was intended to debut Nov. 20 to coincide with the Great American Smokeout, a national kick-the-habit effort.

But the ads were never broadcast following a decision by the Arizona Department of Health Services, which worked with Gov. Janet Napolitano’s office to produce the campaign. State officials say they began to question the cost-effectiveness of running the ads on TV, for which nearly $2 million was budgeted for airtime. The ads instead will be available online at anti-tobacco Web sites. But some health advocates question whether the health department’s reversal, which was endorsed by the Governor’s Office, was more about public relations than public health.

The state is facing a $1.2 billion shortfall this fiscal year, an amount that may double next year. Some health officials believe the anti-tobacco ads were canned to prevent the perception that the state was spending millions of dollars on advertisements during a budget crisis.

Funding for the ads was to come from tobacco taxes approved by voters and specifically set aside for anti-smoking efforts, and therefore could not be used, for example, toward the general fund.

January Contreras, director of the state health department, said there may be a better way to spend the money than to air the ads. But that decision has not yet been made, he said.

“It’s our responsibility to make sure we’re reviewing this carefully, and we’re making decisions that are smart and make the most sense in today’s economy,” she said. “No matter how that funding is used, it will be used for the purpose of youth tobacco-prevention efforts. It’s not as though any of the work that has been done will go to waste.”

On Nov. 18, when it became clear that the ads wouldn’t air on TV, officials from the American Lung Association of Arizona, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and the American Heart Association sent a letter to Napolitano urging her to launch the campaign.

“Your record in leading the fight against tobacco, both personally and as a public official, is remarkable,” the letter stated. “It is with this in mind that we are incredibly alarmed to learn that your administration has decided to cancel Arizona’s new youth smoking-prevention campaign . . . ”

Jan Lesher, Napolitano’s chief of staff, responded with a letter noting that the bulk of the campaign will continue and defending the decision to cancel the TV ads.

“The vast majority of the campaign as originally planned continues to move forward,” Lesher wrote. “It does incorporate a Web site and Web-related outreach strategies to reach the settings where many of today’s youth spend their free time.”

The ads are part of a $7 million anti-tobacco campaign developed by health officials who hosted forums and town halls across Arizona, said Gerard, now vice-chairwoman of Maricopa Integrated Health System’s board.

Phoenix advertising and public-relations firm Riester produced the TV ads, but the state health department was unable Friday to determine how much the state paid for the work. Officials also did not release a copy of the commercials, saying they had not yet been approved.

Laura Oxley, a spokeswoman for the state health department, said the commercials may not appear only online, but could also be shown in schools.

That’s not enough, said Bob England, director of Maricopa County Department of Public Health. More than 500 kids start smoking in Arizona each month. Statistically, half eventually will die from it, he said. Aggressive, provocative TV ads are the best way to reach teens with the truths about smoking and addiction, England said.

“Marketing is the most crucial piece when we’re talking about teenage smoking,” he said. “The goal of the . . . TV advertisements is to create a buzz and drive kids to the Web site and to other materials so the whole thing can work together. If you try to do a marketing campaign, or other types of prevention activities without a good media piece, the science is really clear: You won’t get that synergy, it won’t work.”

Bill Pfeifer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association of the Southwest, said he was still hopeful state officials would reconsider their decision.

“They were really ready to go, but for whatever reason the Governor’s Office said, ‘No we don’t want to run those ads,’ ” he said. “This is about saving lives – in particular, young people’s lives – and (to) hopefully keep them from smoking.”

By Matthew Benson, Yvonne Wingett

Thomas Lazok walks to his brother's car after release from Florence State Prison in Florence. Thomas is a schizophrenic who served seven years for arson. Through the Legacy Project, he will get help for his mental problems and advice on disability benefits.

PHOENIX – A new approach to parole in Arizona began with thousands of colored pushpins and a large state map.

In 2003, prison officials set out to find new ways to keep released inmates from going back behind bars. So they began to map where the more than 30,000 Arizona inmates had lived before they were locked up and where they might return.

What they found were a handful of hot spots around the state, including south Phoenix – home to about 1 percent of the state’s population but nearly 6.5 percent of state prisoners.

The authorities reasoned that if they started in one ZIP code area, they could help stop the cycle of incarceration and slow soaring criminal-justice costs. They decided to revisit the old parole rules and find ways to change lives.

“Once you realize that a lot of people come back to a certain place, then every traditional rule about community supervision has to be challenged, and many we flat-out tossed away,” said Dora Schriro, director of the Arizona Department of Corrections. “It is not about us making it easier. It is about us getting smarter about what is necessary to succeed on supervision.”

Last year, the Department of Corrections launched the Legacy Project, a pilot program in south Phoenix’s 85041 ZIP code area, changing the way that parole officers supervise recently released prisoners. It was followed by a similar initiative, Maricopa County’s 85041 Project, which has changed how people are supervised while on probation.

Together, the programs, similar to changes being made in several other states, move community supervision away from the zero-tolerance approach of recent years – when missed parole meetings, poor work habits or socializing with other former inmates could quickly land a person back behind bars. Instead, officers take a more comprehensive approach that seeks to address underlying problems, such as poverty, unemployment, substance abuse and mental illness.

While it’s too early to say whether the program will help break the cycle of crime, officials are optimistic about cutting crime and prison costs.

Among the changes: Parole officers team up with state social workers, working out of the same offices, to make it easier for former inmates and their families to get services such as health insurance, unemployment or disability benefits and food stamps.

Churches, schools and other community groups are brought into the mix in recognition that the cycle of crime and incarceration takes a toll on the health of an entire community.

In the 85041 ZIP code area, crime and poverty meet in a cycle that spans generations. An Arizona Republic analysis of census, government and marketing data showed that the area covered by that ZIP code is among the poorest in metro Phoenix. About half of all households receive some form of public assistance, such as welfare, food stamps and state-funded health insurance, a rate substantially higher than the average for other metro Phoenix neighborhoods.

About one-third of adults older than 25 in the area have less than a ninth-grade education, and the rate of juvenile delinquency is among the highest in metro Phoenix.

Together, incarceration costs for inmates from south Phoenix and the Maryvale section account for $100 million in prison spending each year.

Since the Department of Corrections launched the Legacy Project in July 2007, more than 200 former prisoners have been released into the neighborhood. Hundreds more rotate in and out of county jails, and probation officers now supervise 369 people in the area.

“It’s the struggle for the soul of the neighborhood,” David Smith, the county manager, said. “It’s a struggle for what will be the dominant culture in a neighborhood. Is it guns, gangs and drugs? Or is it jobs, education and family?”

By Amanda J. Crawford, Yvonne Wingett

Michael Angel Torres (left) hugs daughter Keliah, 5, and wife Jennifer as his mother Roxanne Peroldo (right) looks on. Arizona National Guard troops returned home on Sunday.

A son’s tour in Afghanistan tore apart the Torres family of Tucson.

Fifteen months of sleepless nights. Hours of prayers for a safe return. Taking over his fatherly duties with the two children.

On Sunday, inside a Phoenix hangar draped with American flags, the family was put back together.

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At 10 a.m., Michael Angel Torres stepped off a plane, and into the arms of his wife, Jennifer, his mom, Roxanne Peroldo, and his two children, Michael, 2, and Keliah, 5. He didn’t say a lot as his family smothered him with kisses and tears slid down his face.

“There’s no words to explain what I’m feeling,” he said.

Dressed in a camouflage uniform and tan boots, Torres was among the 250 Arizona National Guard troops who returned home Sunday from a year in Afghanistan. They were part of the largest deployment of the Arizona National Guard since World War II.

Members of the 1st Battalion, 158th Infantry Regiment started to return home last week. The remainder of the unit – another 125 soldiers – is expected to arrive at the end of the week, said Maj. Paul Aguirre.

The group is known as the Bushmasters, and they are from all over Arizona. They helped in a February rescue operation after a helicopter carrying Sens. John Kerry, Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel made an emergency landing.

Two members of the unit were killed in action: Staff Sgt. Charles Browning of Florence and Pfc. Mykel Miller of Phoenix. Twenty-four soldiers were wounded in action.

For a few hours Sunday, families forgot the months of worry while they waited for loved ones at the Arizona Air National Guard 161st Air Refueling Wing, near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

Children held up corners of giant posters that welcomed their soldier home. “I love you daddy. Welcome home,” one read. “I love my soldier,” said another.

As the plane taxied, hundreds squeezed together to get a glimpse of their relative. The Guard troops lined up and faced their families and friends, unable to rush to them until directed.

Peroldo searched the group for her son. Their eyes met. He nodded at her, and smiled. “Oh my God, there he is,” said Peroldo, pointing to Torres in the second row, tears flowing. “He looks so strong. He looks so handsome. Oh my God, oh my God, he’s back. He’s wonderful.”

The Guard troops moved inside of the hangar. After a moment of silence, they were dismissed. Families rushed to each other. Torres and his family wept. He balanced a child on each hip. He buried his face in his daughter’s hair, kissed his wife and held his mom tight.

“He’s back. And we’re going to be all right,” Peroldo said.

Happy Valentine’s Day, baby. It’s over.

While hot and heavy couples exchange little blue boxes and designer ties over romantic dinners today, other couples are celebrating another way.

Divorce.

Valentine’s Day is a popular day to file for the “Big D” in the Valley.

On average, 19 more divorces are filed on Feb. 14 than on any other business day in Maricopa County Superior Court, according to a Republic analysis of divorce filings over the past decade.

The phenomenon is known as the Valentine’s Effect. Divorce lawyers and relationship experts theorize that the calendar day reserved for passion and romance triggers the opposite emotion in miserable spouses, which helps them come to terms that the honeymoon is over. Bringing the bad news on a day when people traditionally express love and commitment adds a dash of vindictiveness.

“It is a completely aggressive move with a specific thought in mind, and that is to upset the other party,” said attorney Alexander Nirenstein, a managing member of Nirenstein Ruotolo Group PLC in Scottsdale. “We see that all the time. Anyone who is trying to peacefully dissolve their marriage would not do something like serve their spouse on Valentine’s Day.”

This time each year, brokenhearted and vindictive spouses light up the law firm’s phones. Couples tend to hold out on splitting during the feel-good holiday season, he said, but the lull ends now.

Divorces in Maricopa County have risen about 9 percent over the past decade.

Last year, the Superior Court processed 13,851 divorces, at an average of 55 filed each day. Seventy-eight people filed for splitsville on Valentine’s Day. Back in 1997, 12,682 people called it quits, an average of 51 daily. That year, 96 called it quits on Valentine’s Day.

“They probably think, ‘I don’t want to have another Valentine’s Day in an unhappy situation,’ ” said Colleen McNally, Family Court presiding judge. “It’s a very happy day unless you’re not happy, and (Valentine’s Day) might just be the last straw. If it was a real emotional decision, hopefully there’ll be some time to calm down and re-assess whether this is the direction to go.”

When relationships go south, thousands of people go to LegalMatch.com, an Internet legal-matching service. The San-Francisco-based company said the number of people looking for attorneys to help with divorces and annulments shoots up around Valentine’s Day.

The company has tracked the trend for the past four years and has seen a 20 to 35 percent increase in the number of people who go to the site to end marriages in the weeks immediately before the day of love.

LegalMatch gets about 1,000 cases every day for a range of legal issues, said corporate counsel Ken LaMance. About 10 percent post about divorces.

“On Valentine’s Day there’s such a high expectation that your partner is going to do something for you,” he said. “When that doesn’t happen, the expectations get dashed and you think maybe it’s time for me to take my life in another direction.”

Other days sentimental to couples are popular to file for divorce or request that the papers are served, Valley attorneys said. Some spouses get satisfaction by requesting birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas Eve as a way to memorialize the occasion. Some even have certain outfits they wear for court proceedings.

“I had a gentleman who, for his divorce trial, wore the same outfit he wore in his wedding,” said Iris Garcia Maes, a Phoenix attorney. “That was pretty cool because it was a 16-year marriage, and he still fit in the same outfit.”

Arizona Republic reporter Matt Dempsey contributed to this article.

Supervisors question politics, cost of anti-crime booklets

Maricopa County supervisors are questioning County Attorney Andrew Thomas’ use of public money to produce and distribute hundreds of thousands of slick crime-prevention booklets that feature his name and smiling portrait.

County administrators on Tuesday said the 45-page pamphlets, distributed in local newspapers, were paid for through the county’s general fund.

They believe more than 500,000 copies were produced. Most supervisors said they were astonished to see that Thomas spent the money on booklets that they said were “self-serving” and “self-promoting.”

They were just as surprised to see a paragraph on the last page that listed their names, saying they had approved the booklet’s funding.

“I wouldn’t have put my name of the front page of it and my photo on it,” Supervisor Don Stapley said.

Stapley said his office has received several complaints from constituents.

“For my personal taste, it pushes across the line of self-promoting pieces,” he said.

“You do have to communicate with your constituents. In this particular case, the way it was done in concert with billboards and all the rest – particularly the TV spots with the anti-drug theme – I particularly believe it’s over the top, and it’s crossed the line.”

Thomas, who is up for re-election in November, declined to comment.

The County Attorney’s Office on Tuesday did not answer an Arizona Republic records request that sought the total cost of producing and distributing the booklets and the number of copies printed and distributed.

The Road Map to Crime Prevention dwarfs most publicly funded reports put out by the county in recent years, officials believe.

County officials are trying to track down how much money was spent to produce the booklets. They were distributed Friday in The Arizona Republic and the East Valley Tribune. Copies are also being mailed to constituents, officials said.

The supervisors must vote on Thomas’ budget, but because he is an elected official, they cannot tell him how to spend his money. Months ago, the Board of Supervisors approved a lump sum requested by Thomas for “crime prevention” purposes that he could spend as he wanted.

Elected officials at almost every level of government, from members of Congress to members of city councils, use public dollars to market their names and their identities to voters. And some have taken heat.

For example, as she was up for re-election last year, Secretary of State Jan Brewer was criticized for ads that reminded voters to bring identification to the polls.

In 2005, Gov. Janet Napolitano was criticized for highway billboards that used her picture to promote the state’s tourism industry.

Thomas’ predecessor, Rick Romley, was criticized when he spent $44,000 to print an annual report on his office that included 20 full-color photos.

Besides coming during an election year, Thomas’ booklets appeared on the heels of negative publicity after his office hired a private attorney to investigate the Phoenix New Times.

That investigation landed two of the newspaper’s executives in jail after they printed a story detailing a secret grand-jury subpoena. The case was dropped, and Thomas fired the private attorney, Dennis Wilenchik.

“Cracking down on DUIs is great – that’s a huge problem – but are you enforcing the law and doing your job, or is it self-promotion?” said Kelly McDonald, an assistant professor at Arizona State University’s Hugh Downs School of Human Communication who specializes in political campaigns.

“It comes down to authenticity with voters. It’s not just the leaflet, but what is the history of Thomas’ record in that office, what is his office’s record of past public deeds, missteps or proper actions?”

Sen. Jim Waring, R-Phoenix has introduced a bill that would prohibit elected officials from putting their names on publicly funded campaigns, unless approved by the Legislature.

“If it could save a few bucks or use some of the bucks that we have more effectively, that’s really the goal,” Waring said.

Before the pamphlets were circulated, Thomas had spent about $2 million in public money on advertisements since taking office in 2005, according to an estimate provided to The Republic in December by Barnett Lotstein, a spokesman. Thomas stars in some of them, and his name and title are prominently displayed in others.

The ads and public-service announcements are paid for through state and federal grants, as well as funds confiscated from criminal racketeering enterprises, Lotstein said.

Thomas’ office has bought hundreds of spots on TV and radio and space on billboards and in magazines.

The ads are meant to raise awareness of methamphetamine use, truancy, drunken driving, marijuana, identity theft and other public-safety issues, Lotstein said.

Although Thomas did not respond to an interview request, his office put out a one-paragraph statement:

“The public response to the crime-prevention handbook has been overwhelming, with 7,200 additional copies already requested by county citizens,” it said.

“We question which is more hypocritical: the Arizona Republic, which was paid to distribute the handbooks and now is criticizing it, or Governor Napolitano, who complained about Mr. Thomas’ crime-prevention efforts even though she has appeared prominently in numerous taxpayer-funded advertisements promoting such vital causes as ‘home cooking,’ ” referring to tourism billboards put up by the Arizona Office of Tourism.

For Carolyn Woolf, the issue comes down to authenticity. And she doesn’t think the booklet is an authentic attempt at crime prevention.

“If somebody wants to find out these things, I think they can find them out without having all these expenses,” said Woolf, of Phoenix.

“And this fancy thing comes out with his name put all over it when people are losing their jobs and we’re losing services.”

The attorney accused of botching the controversial case involving the arrests of two Phoenix New Times editors has earned $220,000 more from Maricopa County taxpayers since that case fell apart in mid-October.

Dennis Wilenchik, a private attorney, and his firm Wilenchik & Bartness now have been paid a total of $2,072,467.21 by the county since May 2005, after County Attorney Andrew Thomas took office and began hiring the firm for contract work.

The Republic asked for detailed billing records of Wilenchik and his law firm in an attempt to show how taxpayer money is being spent. Information provided to the newspaper by the County Attorney’s Office was heavily redacted, with county officials citing privileged “work product.”

Maricopa County pays private attorneys to work cases involving a range of county departments, from Risk Management to the General Government Department to the Sheriff’s Office.

Wilenchik and his firm were paid $219,530.49 between Oct. 19, when the New Times case came to a head, and Dec. 13. The money covered work the firm was involved in before the New Times case, in which two of the newspaper’s executives were arrested at their homes by Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office deputies on charges of revealing grand jury information.

Amid public outrage and admissions that Wilenchik made serious mistakes in the case, Thomas dismissed all charges against the executives. Wilenchik has not received any new work from Maricopa County but has continued to handle cases assigned to him before mid-October.

On Monday, almost two months after The Republic filed a public-records request asking for detailed billing records submitted by Wilenchik and his firm, Thomas’ office made public hundreds of pages of invoices and supporting documents.

David Bodney, a First Amendment lawyer who represents The Republic, sent two demand letters to county officials citing the law in support of the public’s right to inspect the records.

“Mr. Wilenchik’s billing records presumably provide the most accurate reflection of his efforts on the public’s behalf because the public was paying his bills and because he was performing public services. The taxpayers are entitled to know what he was up to,” said Bodney, who reviewed a sample of the billing records on Monday.

The redactions, he said, are “almost shockingly excessive,” and “go far beyond what the law permits to shield attorney-client communications.”

The documents show charges for work including telephone calls, e-mails, depositions and meetings with people involved in the cases. However, the details of whom Wilenchik and others met with, and the particulars of each case, are crossed out with black marker.

The County Attorney’s Office hired Pamela Overton of the law firm of Greenberg Traurig to review the invoices and advise the County Attorney’s Office “as to the law relating to redactions, and the type of information that could in fact be redacted from invoices,” said Barnett Lotstein, a spokesman for Thomas.

The County Attorney’s Office has not yet been billed for the work, Lotstein said. He said he could not estimate how much county taxpayers would pay the firm for the work.

According to the firm’s contract, hourly rates for work related to public-records law range from $375 for a senior partner to $120 for work by legal assistants.

“One of the reasons why we asked outside counsel to do this is we didn’t want anybody to say that we were just nilly-willy redacting things,” said Lotstein. “We wanted to be on solid legal ground. We redacted that which we believed came within work-product provisions.”

The New Times came under investigation after it published Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s home address in 2004.

That article was also published online, and may have violated a state law intended to protect law-enforcement officers. The New Times revealed in October that Wilenchik had issued subpoenas ordering the newspaper to relinquish information about its reporters and all readers of the online edition since Jan. 1, 2004.

The day the story ran, executives Michael Lacey and James Larkin were arrested at the request of Wilenchik’s office. Thomas fired Wilenchik and dropped charges against Lacey and Larkin.

Farrell Charley (left), Phillarena Leonard (center) and Alissa Walker, 12, traveled from northern Arizona on Sunday morning to participate in Vietnam Remembrance Day with other members of the Navajo Nation at Wesley Bolin Plaza in Phoenix.

PHOENIX – Harrison Kee spent almost two years in Vietnam.

He lost a brother to the war and witnessed horrific things as an 18-year-old Navy SEAL. Now, more than three decades after he returned home to Cottonwood, Kee still lives with the pain.

“All the suffering I went through was terrible,” said Kee, his voice shaky and eyes masked with tinted glasses. “I lost a brother over there.”

On Sunday, Kee gathered with veterans from the Navajo Nation, along with about 200 other war veterans, their families and the Vietnamese community, to remember those who died in the war and those who survived.

The In-Country Vietnam Veterans Association, along with other veterans groups, organized the Vietnam Remembrance Day ceremony at Wesley Bolin Plaza in Phoenix. The Chinle chapter of the Central Navajo Veterans Organization was one of several groups from Arizona that participated in the event.

Color guard units from around the state walked in the Parade of Color Guards, and the yellow-and-red flag of South Vietnam flew alongside America’s. For some of these Vietnam veterans, Sunday’s celebration was the “welcome-home” ceremony that they never had.

“It was an unpopular war, and so we were never really recognized,” said Donald Bizadi, 57. He was an Army Ranger in the war. He performed reconnaissance missions against North Vietnam and received two Purple Hearts after being wounded.

“This is the first time that we’re being honored and welcomed home,” said Bizadi, holding a U.S. Navy flag. “It’s good to be here, among my comrades. It’s good to be around them because you want to talk about (the war) and so you can relieve yourself of some of the pain.”

Many Vietnam veterans from the Navajo Nation seek other veterans for help with post-traumatic stress disorder. Lee Chee was drafted when he was 19 and sent to Vietnam just after his 20th birthday as an Army infantryman. Now 60, he struggles with the stress.

“I try to just put (the war) in the back of my mind, to forget it,” said Chee, 60, of the town of Tselani. “It gets to be lonely, and these other veterans understand me.”

Immigrants from southern Mexico state flock to area

Jorge Lopez Sr., owner of Mini Mercado Restaurant Oaxaca in the Sunnyslope section of Phoenix, is shown at his restaurant. Lopez sells food from Oaxaca, Mexico. to an increasing Phoenix population of immigrants from the southern Mexico state. He opened his business in 1999.

PHOENIX – If Sunnyslope had a patron saint, her name would be the Virgin of Solitude.

The black-cloaked woman is the saint of Oaxaca, Mexico, but her image drapes walls in homes and businesses throughout Sunnyslope, one of metro Phoenix’s oldest neighborhoods.

Over the past decade, so many immigrants from the southern Mexican state have moved into Sunnyslope that the working-class community in north-central Phoenix is becoming known as “Little Oaxaca.”

Sunnyslope has always been a haven of sorts. Its first settlers were Midwesterners who suffered from tuberculosis, rheumatism and asthma. They set up tents in the early 1900s in the desert after being forced out of Phoenix. In the mid-1980s, refugees from Vietnam and immigrants from Asia made Sunnyslope home and a section was known as “Little Saigon.”

Now, waves of Mexican immigrants fleeing poverty in Oaxaca are drawn to Sunnyslope for its affordable housing and its access to major bus routes, which provide quick rides to jobs throughout the city. Many in the neighborhood are illegal immigrants, and longer-term residents help newcomers find places in the community where legal status isn’t required.

They are transforming pockets of the neighborhood, and re-creating pieces of the Mexican villages they left behind. Immigrant enclaves are as old as this country. In Sunnyslope, Oaxacan immigrants are creating an indigenous-flavored subculture within Phoenix’s Mexican culture.

On soccer fields and street corners, men and women speak with the singsong accent of Oaxacan Spanish. In restaurants, families flock for plates of mole, a dark chocolatey sauce. Oaxacans live side by side in fixer-uppers and reminisce about the green, mountainous fields of their homelands, finding comfort in familiarity.

“Everyone here in this neighborhood is going through the same thing,” said Rogelio, a day laborer waiting for work one recent morning. He asked that his last name not be used because of his illegal immigrant status “You miss your family, your country. The greenness of everything down there (in Oaxaca). The good thing is, you can always find someone from Oaxaca around here to talk to about it. They’re everywhere.”

Immigrants from all over Latin America live in metro Phoenix. But there are areas where concentrations of people from different Mexican states influence entire city blocks with their regional cultures.

Along stretches of one major street in west Phoenix, for example, hundreds of immigrants from Sinaloa fill homes, taco shops and Western-wear businesses. Mesa, a suburb east of metro Phoenix, is known for its large population of Guatemalans and Peruvians. And north Phoenix’s Palomino neighborhood is home to Mexicans from the northern states of Sonora and Chihuahua.

The neighborhoods typically begin with the arrival of a few immigrants from a Mexican town or city, said Steve Murdock, state demographer of Texas. They grow as those immigrants send word of good-paying jobs in hotels, kitchens and golf courses. Sons, relatives and friends follow, and many send for wives and children later.

The neighborhoods help cushion immigrants’ adjustment to the U.S., experts said, and allow them to still feel close to their homelands. Earlier immigrants help recent immigrants navigate. They introduce them to people in the neighborhood, show them how the bus system works and connect them to priests and churches.

The neighborhoods also create opportunities for immigrants to climb the economic ladder. Many open businesses and sell region-specific food and other products to their neighbors.

“The new enclaves become a . . . stepping stone for immigrants,” said Gregory Rodriguez, an Irvine Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank where he studies acculturation.

“It’s lonely and disorienting, moving to a land with different expectations. These neighborhoods help ground people and help root them in the past, even as they’re obviously charging forth in the future.”

In Sunnyslope, Oaxacans boom banda music from stores and homes. Their cars and trucks announce Oaxacan pride with stickers on rear windows in the shape of the state. Families fill Sunnyslope’s five Oaxacan restaurants and panaderias (bakeries), which opened in the past decade.

Mini Mercado Restaurant Oaxaca has become a gathering place for the Oaxacan community. Immigrants stop in to buy bags of mole negro (black mole), little loaves of the region’s sweet egg bread and pounds of strong Oaxacan coffee. Some pop in just to pray in front of a shrine for the Virgin of Solitude or drop off money that is donated to churches in Oaxaca.

Jorge Lopez Sr., an immigrant from Oaxaca, opened Mini Mercado in 1999. He saw that the Oaxacan community was growing and no one in the area was selling regional products.

Today, the restaurant is a cornerstone of the Oaxacan community, and Lopez plans to open a stand-alone bakery across the street.

“(Sunnyslope) is like a town of Oaxacans,” Lopez, 38, said.

In Oaxaca, Roberto Bolanos, 32, worked the region’s cornfields until a few years ago, when the water dried up and the crops died, he said. Three months ago, Bolanos and his wife, Beatriz Herrera moved to Sunnyslope, where they share a rental house with a cousin. They are saving money they earn cleaning movie theaters and hope to return to Oaxaca in a year.

Adjusting to life in the U.S. was tough, especially for Herrera.

But she quickly made friends with other Sunnyslope neighbors, some from her hometown of Huajuapan de Leon, in north Oaxaca. On the weekends, the couple hang out with other Oaxacan friends.

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PHOENIX NEIGHBORHOOD