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Nun works to comfort immigrants

Assistance to migrant field workers covers many needs, issues

By Fernando Quintero, Rocky Mountain News
July 11, 2005

Sister Molly Muñoz races her borrowed church van along an onion field outside of Fort Lupton, a trail of dust signaling her arrival to migrant farm workers taking their afternoon break.

She is just in time.


"Hola Madrecita," the men sing in unison. "We have to go back to work now."

"Not before I give you some bread and refreshments."

Muñoz hops out of the van and opens the cargo door. In addition to an ice chest full of soft drinks and fresh bread donated by a Denver bakery, she hauls an assortment of other items given to her by merchants and parishioners.

She hands out linens and toiletries because many of the workers cross the border with little more than food and water. She gives them goggles to shield their eyes from the dust and baseball caps to protect them from the searing summer sun.

The circle of men surrounding the van grows.

"Gracias, Madrecita," they tell her. "God bless you."

Muñoz directs migrant-worker programs for the Archdiocese of Denver, an effort to serve the growing number of field hands who tend rows of onions, broccoli and other crops in Weld County and elsewhere.

For these men and women, Muñoz offers sustenance for the body and spirit. She is also a fierce advocate for immigrant workers, carrying on a Catholic tradition that began in the late 1960s, when the church became instrumental in backing Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers union.

In March, Muñoz was given an award named in honor of the late labor leader.

"She's a dynamic individual. She's a humble woman whose work absolutely comes from the heart," said Yvonne Sandoval, a community organizer who has gone with Muñoz on her weekly trips to the fields.

"She is a maverick," said Lisa Duran, a Denver community activist. "Some people may not like her style because she is forceful and unwavering in her dedication. But she has a tremendous vision for justice."

Before heading to the fields on a recent weekday, Muñoz made a quick stop at Centro San Juan Diego, a community center in Denver that provides pastoral and social services to Hispanic Catholics.

Sporting closely cropped hair, jeans and a T-shirt, Sister Molly hardly dresses the part of a nun. "Nobody ever sees me with my habit on," she says. "The habit doesn't make the nun, anyway."

Muñoz climbs into her white passenger van, a loaner from St. Pius X church in Aurora, and joins the commuter traffic. Housing developments and business strips give way to fields. She spots a group of workers leaning against their hoes.

"Look at them," she says. "They're not criminals. They're not taking anybody's job away. They just want to work."

What Muñoz perceives as anti-immigrant politics - and politicians - gets her excitable, and her words become punctuated by the occasional expletive. She's also critical of employers who exploit immigrant workers, like those who don't pay overtime or who provide run-down housing for their employees.

"The growers don't like me," she said. "Ranchers don't like me. I tell them the water's no good in these migrant camps. People shower with dirty water. You can't cook with it. I even brought a plumber out who said if you dig 2 feet more, the water would be fine. They still haven't fixed it. My goal is to make people aware of what's going on."

She relays one story after another of migrant worker struggles.

"The immigrants have to pay the coyote for water," she says, referring to a smuggler of illegal immigrants. "Money gets taken out of their checks to pay for those exorbitant fees charged for getting them here. They're poor people. Listen to their stories. They will make you cry."

Grueling trip north

Isidro Escobar said he paid $1,500 for a coyote to take him from the Arizona border to Colorado. That was on top of $1,200 for a guide to take him through the Sonoran desert and across the border. His four brothers, several cousins and neighbors also made the journey - 42 in all. His father, Lazaro Escobar, 68, joined them. He's been a migrant worker since 1956.

Together, the Escobars and others traveled for three days and three nights through the desert, passing decomposed bodies, the victims of heat and rattlesnakes.

"The guides knew where to go. They gave us each a gallon of water. We were told to pack potatoes, beans, aspirins and bags of saline solution for the dehydration," said Isidro Escobar, who has made the trek three times to Colorado from his hometown near Toluca, Mexico.

He said the trip normally takes only one day. But because of increased border enforcement, the route from Mexico to Agua Prieta, at the Arizona border, has been lengthened. He said the group also had to hide from volunteers with the Minuteman Project, an organization that has monitored illegal crossings along the border.

After they crossed the border - a 10-foot chain link fence - a truck took them to a town near Tucson and on to Weld County.

Isidro Escobar said 30 men share a three-room house. One room filled with bunk beds, another with single beds. The other room is the kitchen.

The workers earn $5.75 an hour - 60 cents above minimum wage. Rent and utilities are paid. They share the cost of groceries.

With the money they have sent home, Escobar said, some have built homes in Mexico or bought land. Some bought cars and trucks.

Many of the men said they had not returned to Mexico in several years because tighter immigration controls have made it hard to return.

"We miss our home. We miss our families. But we don't go (back to Mexico) to avoid problems," said Escobar, who dreams of opening a restaurant and a flower shop in Toluca.

'Huge responsibility'

Muñoz grew up in a poor barrio in Des Moines, Iowa. "It was an international neighborhood. My mom came from Guanajuato, Mexico. There were people from all over the place."

After college, she joined the Humility of Mary, a convent in Davenport, Iowa. "My sisters became nuns, and I didn't want to feel left out."

Muñoz worked as a missionary in Mexico, including serving as a midwife in Puebla and a public health nurse. In 1993, she came to Denver.

"When I was put in this job, there really wasn't a job. It's a huge responsibility," she said.

Much of Muñoz's work consists of gathering food and other donations. She also organizes Mass for the migrant workers, bringing the church to them. A recent Mass in Hudson was in a garage.

"I don't preach to them. You have to feed the body before you can feed the soul. They're hot. They're hungry. They're thirsty. What am I going to talk about God for?"

Muñoz drives by a Quonset hut that looks abandoned but actually houses 10 migrant workers who are out in the fields. She hangs a grocery bag filled with bread on the door.

At a house down the road, a worker's wife who is tending to her small children runs out to greet Muñoz. The woman said she was recently beaten by her husband. Muñoz also counseled a woman whose teenage daughter was raped.

Muñoz has brought out to the fields social workers, health professionals, teachers offering English classes, law students and others.

"I push education," she said. "I tell them they need to learn to help themselves. I've got some books they can read about their rights as workers and immigrants.

"I'm a counselor. I'm a nurse. I'm an immigration consultant. I'm a resource person.

"Being a Chicana and a nun, I have a lot of power for the poor."