http://www.thetimesherald.com/apps/pbcs ... 80301/1002

Article published Jun 28, 2005
Migrant families put down new roots
Laborers trade life on road for jobs, stability


By HILLARY WHITCOMB JESSE
Times Herald

Cooking dinner in her apartment in downtown Capac, Marta Villegas isn't far from the La Mexicana market, a place that made her move to Michigan a little easier.

Villegas and her husband, Jesus Sancen, moved to Michigan from a little town near Guanajuato, Mexico, five years ago.

Villegas only speaks Spanish and said going shopping is one of the easiest things for her to do in Capac and Imlay City because there are plenty of Mexican stores where people speak her language.

Villegas, Sancen and their two children, Jesus and Rubi, are one of the more recent families to settle out of the migrant lifestyle and sink roots into the area.

Others have been here longer and found ways to make their homes here.

Marta's family
Villegas said her husband first came to Michigan six years ago as a migrant farm worker. The next year, she and little Jesus, then about 3 years old, came with him. They've lived in Capac ever since.

"Work was good. There in Mexico, there isn't a lot of work. They don't have factories or anything," Villegas said. "Life is better than in Mexico, because here, they have work."

She spent two May-to-April seasons working at the Vlasic Foods plant in Imlay City when they first arrived but now is home with her children. Sancen is a farm worker; this past week, Villegas said, he was cutting lettuce on a farm near Romeo.

"In Mexico, we'd be very poor," she said.

The other reason they came here was so the kids could go to school, she said.

"In Mexico, school costs a lot of money. And here, they (schools) don't cost money."

Jesus, 8, goes to Capac Elementary School and said English is easier for him to speak than Spanish. Rubi, 2, may start preschool this fall, her mother said.

Moving to another country took a 15-day trip and some emotional rough spots, Villegas said.

"It's difficult because we're not with our family. We're alone. It's very far, here," she said.

Tillie's family
For Tillie Ramos, 54, of Croswell, the days of being part of the migrant lifestyle are long gone, but she still remembers them.

Her parents came to Deckerville as part of the summer work rotation, stayed for a while, then headed south to Ohio to pick tomatoes, where a young Ramos would start the school year. She said the school bus would pull up to the laborers' housing camp and wait for her to get on as all the other kids watched. Then, when she got to school, she wouldn't want to talk because of her accent.

"I tell my kids, 'I remember going to school and not being able to go out for recess because we were behind,'" Ramos said.

She has three grown sons and three grandchildren now. She has worked in the Croswell-Lexington School District for 21 years.

In the early 1960s, her parents decided to settle in Applegate, and she started attending school there.

"When we settled, Dad got a job at a factory here in Croswell," Ramos said.

She graduated from Croswell-Lexington High School in 1970 and since has worked as a bilingual aide and classroom aide as well as running the now-defunct summer migrant program.

"I could always relate to the kids who came in, who were so shy. I could see myself in them," she said.

The highlight of that work, she said, was hearing kids say they were determined to continue their education despite the difficulties of interrupted schooling and tight family finances.

"That was the greatest thing," Ramos said.