Juan is a taxi driver in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa. He traveled a few years ago to Salinas, California, an agricultural city near San Francisco to pick strawberries for a season. But he said the backbreaking work wasn’t for him, he came home after eight months. “It’s hard work, they don’t pay you much, but the güeros (gringos) don’t want that work. They won’t do it, so us Latinos do it. But I loved America, even though the work was so tough.” He felt relatively safe in Culiacán, even though he and many of the local residents still talk about the “Battle of 2008”-a federal and military siege on the city that attempted to combat escalating rampant crime. “You should have seen Culiacán back in 2008, things are so calm now. But still, if you look at one of the narcos the wrong way, or by accident bump into his car, you are done.”