"The derelict factory sits off in the distance, beyond a sea of sugar cane fields, a once-teeming sugar mill that thrived on the abundance of product available all throughout the tiny "barrio," or neighborhood, called "Pajarito" ("little bird.")

At dusk, women are walking up a pockmarked road off the main highway, some chewing on the cane they've cut earlier in the day. Sugar cane is still gathered by the truckload here, but shipped elsewhere for processing. Still, the workers, men and women, are smiling and laughing at the end of the work day. The music of Jennifer Lopez blares out of a car near a roadside fruit stand. Thunder clouds gather and disperse, gather and disperse, the sun peeking through every so often.

Down Pajarito's "main" road — an unforgiving surface bordered by tiny houses on one side and a sugar-cane field on the other — a Chevrolet Yukon SUV with Washington state plates idles by the side of the road. In the driver's seat, a Yankees cap snug on his head, sits Juan Francisco Pineda, his white teeth framing a wide smile. Pineda's oldest son, Michael, turns 23 on this day. But aside from the birthday celebration that will take place later in the evening — when Michael Pineda will be joined by his parents, two younger brothers, younger sister and dozens of childhood friends for the festive occasion — there is another big reason why the elder Pineda is happy."