A 22-year-old came to Michigan to pick blueberries. Weeks later, he was dead

Lea la noticia en español: Un joven de 22 años llegó a Michigan para recoger arándanos. Semanas después, estaba muerto

MLive is publishing this story in English and Spanish to reach the broadest audience in Michigan.

OTTAWA COUNTY, MI - The concrete cross rests at the trunk of an evergreen tree, barely visible from the road or the blueberry field that runs along it. Bouquets of dead flowers, dried and brown, lie beneath the marker.

The inscription, coarse and handmade, like the rest of the cross, reads “8/3/24” and then below that “APOLINARIO.”

It’s among the only traces of what became of a migrant farmworker from Guatemala at the nearby complex of low-slung apartments called “Hotel California #2” in Ottawa County, seasonal housing for the transient workforce.

Apolinario Simon Mend