He’s a Beacon in Farm Workers’ Gloomy World

‘This is America and it is not the American way to allow human beings to live this way.’

It was New Year’s Day--a time for fighting hangovers, treating the family to brunch, overdosing on college bowl games.

But the Rev. Rafael Martinez had a different mission as 1986 dawned. His goal: to bring supplies and a bit of holiday cheer to a few dozen Mexican workers living in cardboard shacks under a grove of scruffy trees a stone’s throw from La Costa.

As the minister pulled up in his van, the men crowded around, smiling broadly, nervously shuffling from foot to foot, eager to share news of their families back home. Soon, the chatting subsided, and Martinez began the distribution--beans for hungry newcomers, sweaters for the thinly clad, brightly colored towels and washcloths for all.

Next, Martinez convened a counseling session with two men from another camp who had walked eight miles to see him: Could the reverend help wire emergency money to their wives in Oaxaca? Of course. No problem.

That settled, Martinez pulled away amid wistful farewells. In his dusty wake, the workers retrieved the old anti-freeze jugs and fertilizer buckets used to haul drinking water and headed for their makeshift homes.

They call him El Angel de la Sierra, the “Angel of the Hills.” It is not difficult to understand why.

To the Mexican farm workers living throughout North County--in squalid huts, alone and far from their homeland, invisible to many and ignored by most--the minister’s gifts and warm words might indeed seem heaven-sent.

Nearly every day Martinez, 62, visits one or more of the five primitive field camps he began assisting when he founded the North County Farmworkers’ Chaplaincy last year. Sometimes he brings loads of food, clothing, bedding and scrap lumber for home improvements; other days he is empty-handed but stops to visit with the men and help them with their problems.

Using a portable chalkboard, Martinez conducts English classes outside the camps’ crudely fashioned lean-tos, providing the workers with a basic vocabulary designed to be of use on the job and to reduce their feelings of isolation.

Assisted by volunteer doctors and nurses, Martinez also operates regular medical clinics for the workers, using supplies and a fully-equipped van provided by the nonprofit North County Health Services. And on Sundays, he conducts a service in the fields or collects those interested for a trip to a local Latino church.

Break From Fields

“Some Sundays I’ll take as many as 18 guys to church in my little van,” Martinez said. “They love it because they see families like their own, make friends and get out of the fields for a while.”

The preacher says his primary aim is a modest one--to make life just a little more bearable for the frequently forgotten farm worker. But his mission has a deeper moral purpose as well.

“This is America and it is not the American way to allow human beings to live this way,” Martinez said. “I hope to see our community say that these conditions are not acceptable for our society, that we will not use our brothers and then refuse to accept any responsibility for them.

“That would be a very great first step. If we can do this, I will die a happy man.”

Intended to Retire

Martinez, a native of Cuba who was ordained in the Presbyterian Church but has spent most of his years in social work and as a university professor, began ministering to the needs of farm workers shortly after he and his wife, Wilma, moved to northern San Diego County in late 1984. The couple had intended to retire, relax. But while roaming the winding back roads of the region, Martinez encountered the field workers and their plight.

“Gradually, I became acquainted with some of them, and because I was retired with time on my hands, I started helping in small ways,” Martinez recalled. “Soon, I was completely involved. They have so many needs.”

Despite his good intentions, Martinez was not immediately embraced by the workers, who regarded him with suspicion. But then came the case of the “catatonic man,” who proved to be Martinez’s ticket to acceptance.

“One of the workers was very sick, extremely depressed and almost catatonic,” Martinez recalled. “He would not talk to his friends, he would not work. He just stood on the edge of a canyon all day and paced back and forth. They feared he would commit suicide.”

A Breakthrough

One day, Martinez got a telephone call from the workers’ foreman asking him to try to talk with the sick man and arrange medical care.

“That was my breakthrough,” Martinez said. “They needed my help.”

The story ended happily: the man, suffering from insomnia and depression, received treatment and recovered, and Martinez became El Angel de la Sierra.

Before long, the chaplaincy was in full swing. The North Park Hispanic Baptist Church donated a van for delivery purposes, while another church and the Chicano Federation in San Diego provided some financial assistance.

Neighbors of the Martinez family learned of his efforts and began donating clothing, food, mattresses and other materials for the campaign. An occasional check filtered in, and a few volunteers came forward.

Use of Medical Van

His biggest coup came in early fall, when officials with North County Health Services, which runs a string of medical clinics throughout the area, offered Martinez use of their medical van.

“It was a miracle,” said Martinez, who had previously been transporting a few workers at a time to the clinics for sporadic care. “The van enabled us to provide medical care right there in the field.”

Now, the workers have medical files carried in the van and receive follow-up treatment and prescriptions through the mobile unit, staffed by volunteer doctors and nurses.

Today Martinez, using the couple’s small Solana Beach apartment as headquarters, assists 313 workers in five camps--collectively called his “parish”--between Del Mar and Carlsbad. Ultimately, he hopes to see the chaplaincy become a more formal organization with fund-raising capabilities and a staff. Toward that goal, he is meeting with a group of interested church leaders and North County residents.

Critical Need

Health care is perhaps the most critical need among the workers, whose most common ailments are backaches, skin problems and eye irritation from the dust, the glare and pesticides in the water they use to bathe. But a close second in importance, Martinez said, is the counseling and guidance he provides.

“Many of these men suffer serious problems with loneliness, because a lot of them are away from home, from their families, for the first time,” Martinez said. “Very often they get news from home about problems--an ill child or father, no money to buy food, or, sometimes, a wife that has tired of waiting and has run off with another man.”

Other troubles involve abuse of the workers at the hands of those who take advantage of their illegal, unprotected status. In one recent episode, four men worked full time for a month building a stone wall in Leucadia and, upon its completion, were told by the owner that they would be paid half then and the balance several months later.

“What could these poor guys do?” Martinez said. “If they complain, the owner calls Immigration and they’re taken away. They have no rights, nowhere to go.”

3 Men Accused

Another case involved three men purchasing Christmas gifts for their wives at a South Bay department store. A security guard detained the men and accused them of stealing the jackets they were wearing, jackets the workers had purchased from a vendor who hawks wares from a truck near the fields.

“So the store called Immigration and the guys were taken across the border,” Martinez said. “It took them three days and several hundred dollars to get back.”

In these cases, Martinez frequently steps in as an advocate for the workers, a middle man with some clout. For example, he persuaded the store manager to return the workers’ jackets and refund their money for travel expenses and three days’ lost pay.

The Mexicans’ employers are somewhat less than enthusiastic about Martinez’s aid and have frequently hindered his efforts, Martinez said. Plans to serve a Christmas turkey supper in a tool shed, for example, were spoiled by a foreman who had a change of heart and refused to let the diners on the property. The meal was served under a moonlit sky instead.

Camp Bulldozed

A request to conduct a medical clinic in a nursery outbuilding, rather than in the dirt near the smelly workers’ camps, was also denied. And recently a camp off Black Mountain Road east of Del Mar that had housed 50 men for a year was suddenly bulldozed by the landowner. The workers lost most of their possessions and now have no shelter.

“Most of (the farmers) resent my presence,” said Martinez, who has been physically chased off some farms. “It is strange, because it would cost them thousands of dollars to provide counseling, transportation and other services. I provide these for free and it makes their workers happier, more productive.”

Martinez speculates that the growers “are afraid because they don’t want any outsiders to know what goes on, to know how bad the conditions are.”

But Peter Mackauf, general manager of Carlsbad Farms, offered two other possible explanations for some farmers’ resistance to the minister’s work.

Company View

“For one thing, a lot of what he’s doing is already provided by the farm company,” Mackauf said. “In general these are employers who actively care for their people within the limits of the law. We provide quality food, medical services, social services, mail delivery, housing materials and so forth.”

In addition, Mackauf said, many farmers may be leery of the chaplaincy because “this type of missionary work has, in the past, been abused by pro-labor groups, like the UFW.”

“So how do you know which guys are wearing the white hats when there’s a whole sea of hats out there?”