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| The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Weekly Newspaper |
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| Poverty facing Latinos |
Lander Burr
2009-10-29 |
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When thirty-two-year-old Juan Castillo lost his poultry packing job last summer and was unable to find work due to a hernia, he did not seek help. To support his undocumented wife and their two children, he began charging credit cards and quickly reached the spending limit. His truck and SUV were nearly repossessed, and a year later he owed more than $25,000.
“Many people don’t talk,” Juan said. “It causes shame because it’s not the first time that something like this
happens to us.”
Over 3,000 Latinos in Marin County live in poverty, according to 2006 census data. Yet many choose to suffer hardship rather than seek assistance.
Despite reservations, the Castillos eventually sought out Maria Salgado, the family advocate at Tomales Elementary School. After helping the Castillos with food and clothing for their children, she was able to help Juan obtain free surgery for his hernia. The Castillos’ financial situation remains precarious, but after a year without work, Juan recently found a restaurant job washing dishes.
“This is a really, really humble family that will not ask for anything,” Salgado said. “They said they didn’t want to take advantage of the services, so they took only what they felt they really needed.”
The Castillos, whose real names were withheld for this article, live a quarter-mile up a dirt road on a Petaluma ranch, in a trailer set among a cluster of houses, barns and sheds. During an interview last Sunday morning, Juan and his wife, Flores, sat in plastic chairs in their kitchenette. Their sons, 11-year-old Pedro and five-year-old Miguel, shared a fake leather sofa chair in the narrow living room. On the walls hung pictures of the boys in cowboy hats and a large print of ducks flying through marshland. A fly strip hung from the low ceiling. Juan and Flores do not speak English, so Pedro helped translate while his younger brother fidgeted.
Juan and Flores were born in the southern Mexican state of Michoacán, where many of the villagers suffer from poverty and seek better lives in the U.S.
“They call it ‘the golden country’,” Juan said.
Juan moved to California 15 years ago, and Flores arrived a year later after paying $2,000 to have a coyote smuggle her into the country. Though Juan has a valid California driver’s license and is waiting to become naturalized, Flores remains undocumented.
The couple met at a poultry farm in Petaluma, where they cleaned carcasses and packed parts for $16.50 an hour. They moved into a place in Rohnert Park and married in 1998, a month after Flores gave birth to Pedro. Five years ago, they moved to the ranch in Petaluma.
After the couple had Miguel, Flores took a three-month leave from work. Her job was no longer available when she was ready to return, so she started packing eggs on a Tomales ranch for $10 an hour.
Before losing his job, Juan worked 10 to 14-hour shifts and often lifted heavy boxes. When he developed a hernia in July 2008, neither he nor his wife had health insurance, and he continued working despite his pain. The farm soon made a round of layoffs, and Juan lost his job.
He applied for positions elsewhere, but because of his hernia he could not pass the physical exams. Flores continued to work five to six hours a day, but it was not enough to cover the costs of rent, food, clothing and payments on the Castillos’ truck and SUV. Juan and Flores had few friends to ask for assistance, and Flores’ family said they could not help. Without other resources, Juan began using credit cards to cover his family’s expenses.
In the summer of 2008, Miguel began attending preschool in Tomales. Unlike Pedro, Miguel was too young to take the bus, so Flores drove him to school despite not having a license. She began speaking with her children’s teachers, and was introduced to Salgado.
“She was really desperate, looking for help,” Salgado said.
For the past 15 years, the Shoreline Unified School District has operated family centers at Tomales Elementary and West Marin and Inverness schools. Each center has a bilingual family advocate who assesses the needs of low-income families affiliated with the school and provides referrals for services. Salgado said that most of her clients are Latino.
She helped the Castillos secure food from the West Marin Community Resource Center and other food banks, and she collected donated clothing and shoes for the boys.
She then set up a medical appointment for Juan at the Community Health Center in Point Reyes Station, which offers low-cost programs for people without insurance. After diagnosing Juan’s hernia, the health center was able to refer Juan to Operation Access, a San Franciso-based organization that offers free outpatient surgery to people without health insurance. When Juan prepared to have his surgery this year, Salgado drove him to his appointments, and she brought him home after the procedure.
Salgado also encouraged Flores to become involved in the school community. Flores began attending English Language Advisory Committee meetings, which Salgado says promotes leadership among Spanish-speaking parents to help them take an active role in their children’s education. Flores had only attended one year of school in Michoacán. Through a book club run by the Marin County Free Library, she met with other Spanish-speaking women at the school and in their homes.
“It’s a very good way for Flores to be around people at least once a month,” Salgado said. “They get isolated because the land is really isolated itself.”
In the months leading up to Juan’s surgery, Salgado helped Juan with his job search, updating his resume, filling out applications and browsing postings on the internet. He was eventually hired, but the employer could not wait for him to recover after the surgery. Juan’s credit card debt ballooned to $25,000, and a bank threatened to repossess his vehicles.
Two months ago, a friend of Juan’s told him about a restaurant opening, and Juan began working as a dishwasher for $10 an hour. He now pays $300 in credit card interest each month but has not been able to pay down the balance.
Juan said he had previously known a family that experienced hardship similar to his. He hoped sharing his own story would encourage other Latinos to seek out the services they need.
“I never thought that the same thing would happen to me,” Juan said. “If you need help, ask for help.”
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