MEXICO CITY (SONNA) \u2014 Yecenia Lazcano Soriano left behind a 4-year-old daughter in her hometown of Tehuacan, Mexico, when she set out almost in secret to reach the United States.<\/p>\n
The last message she sent to relatives was a heart emoji. Days later, on the California coast,\u00a0two small boats carrying her and other migrants capsized in rough surf off a beach in San Diego.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old\u2019s body was one of eight recovered shortly after the accident last Sunday at Black\u2019s Beach, one of the deadliest maritime smuggling events near U.S. shores.<\/p>\n
A single mother, Lazcano Soriano\u2019s story was almost a microcosm of the desperation that drives many migrants to the United States.\u00a0Nearly 129,000 migrants were stopped trying to cross the U.S. border in February.<\/p>\n
At age 15, Lazcano Soriano went to live with the father of her child, but he was abducted and disappeared, like\u00a0over 112,000 other Mexicans who have vanished since drug cartel violence picked up in 2006.<\/p>\n
Lazcano Soriano dreamed of opening her own store in\u00a0Tehuacan, a poor agricultural town lying between the cities of Puebla and Oaxaca in south-central Mexico. Most there make a tenuous living growing flowers or corn. The single mother sold fruit and vegetables at a local market.<\/p>\n
But with jobs scarce, she decided to follow her aunt, Wendy Valencia, who left Tehuacan to emigrate to Dallas six years ago.<\/p>\n
Lazcano Soriano left Tehuacan weeks ago, telling only two of her relatives. The last message she sent was a heart emoji to Valencia. After that, there was silence, until the chilling news came: Authorities had identified her by ID documents found on her body.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe wasn\u2019t afraid of work,\u201d Valencia said in a telephone interview. \u201cShe was a warrior, a woman who was accustomed to struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n
She left her daughter in the care of her 72-year-old grandmother and two other aunts, but had hoped to be reunited with the girl.<\/p>\n