Hispanic men lead difficult, lonely lives to support their families back home.

Byline: Amber Arellano

DETROIT _ The men come to church in leather boots and big-brimmed cowboy hats, sports jackets and hip-hop-style jeans. They wear their masculinity in their stances: crossed arms, bowed legs, steady eyes.

Within minutes of the start of the Sunday evening mass at St. Gabriel Catholic Church in southwest Detroit, the crowd of 600, almost all men, softens. They grasp hands and pray. They drop to their knees to praise God and they kiss the crosses dangling from their necks.

One somber man in a Red Wings jersey stands, his face expressionless. But when the music begins, his cheeks and eyes wrinkle with pain. He closes his eyes and sings to the heavens.

It is in church where men like Juan _ Mexican and Central American immigrants _ can let down their guard and let out their true feelings about life so far from their families in Mexico.

For almost five years, 34-year-old Juan has worked in the United States, sending money to his wife and three children in Mexico. He sees them once a year. Today he'll fly home for Christmas, returning after the New Year.

Researchers say the thousands of men like Juan who have come to metro Detroit in recent years have quickly turned the city into a mecca for Mexican immigrants that's second only to Chicago in the Midwest.

Lured by southeastern Michigan's booming economy and shortage of workers, many of the men head to Detroit after first living in the Southwest. They are drawn by higher-paying jobs and, they say, less overt racism than they encountered in border states, where anti-immigrant feelings run high.

They're also spurred by profound poverty and, usually, by love for their families and a cultural duty to support them. Boys as young as 12 come to work and send money home. Some stay permanently; others stay for years, even decades, with the hope of returning home someday or moving their families here.

Insulated by a tight immigrant network, they live mostly apart from the American mainstream. But they are increasingly touching metro Detroiters' lives. They are the cooks in our restaurants, the guys who mow our lawns. Many construction, cement and other companies report employing large numbers of Mexican…