Shepherd of the Barrio : Immigrant Finds New Reason to Live, Becomes Priest Involved in Bettering Life in La Colonia

Like many immigrants who settle in Ventura County to work the fields, Hilario Cisneros first came to the United States in 1980 in search of a better life and the almighty dollar.

But instead--after two years of long days spent picking fruits and vegetables for $3.25 an hour--the farm laborer from Mexico found an almighty God and a new reason to live.

During a retreat at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in La Colonia in 1982, Cisneros had a religious epiphany that led to his decision to become a Roman Catholic priest.

“Many come here and find death--drugs, alcohol, vices,” said Cisneros, who in 1994--after 11 years of training--became one of four priests at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. “I found God in the U.S. When I say God, I mean life.”

Moving from the fields to the pulpit, Cisneros, or Father Hilario as he is known to his flock, has plunged headlong into the problems facing La Colonia, one of Oxnard’s most crime-choked and poverty-plagued neighborhoods. With the blessing of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, the neighborhood’s spiritual hub, Cisneros has helped bring the Boy Scouts and new youth programs to the barrio. And the 38-year-old cleric has promoted the rights of immigrants and Latinos.

In the months leading up to the November 1994 election, Cisneros, like other religious leaders, joined students who marched in the streets to protest Proposition 187, the state initiative that would deny education and health benefits to illegal immigrants.

Both inside the walls of the simple church and on the streets of La Colonia, Cisneros presses the church’s 3,000 parishioners--many of whom are poor Latinos--to learn English, get an education, stay out of gangs and fight injustice.

His sermons urge members of his flock not only to make spiritual changes, but also to make changes in their community.

“Here we have someone who is aggressively involved in improving the quality of life of his parishioners,” Oxnard City Councilman Andres Herrera said. “He is not afraid to voice his opinion and I like that. He is not afraid to challenge the status quo.”

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But although he reaches hundreds of people each week, Cisneros fears his message--the sanctity of life and the importance of loving God and others--is still not getting through.

“The big problem is inside of the family,” said Cisneros, a lean, long-distance runner who is training for the Los Angeles Marathon in March. “Parents have to work one or two shifts and they lose contact with the kids. The parents are losing control of the kids. There is no discipline for faith. The kids are just without direction.”

It was Cisneros’ turn Friday to bury yet another of Oxnard’s sons killed in the city’s latest flurry of gang violence--15-year-old Luis Magana. Police said Luis was fatally shot last week after the car he was riding in was riddled with gunfire by suspected gang members.

The week before, Cisneros had attended a candlelight vigil for another young shooting victim, 16-year-old Felipe Hernandez who was gunned down at a south Oxnard mall.

Encircled by more than 100 of Luis’ relatives and friends--many dressed in black, some in jeans and baseball caps--Cisneros told the mourners Friday that Luis’ shooting death was senseless, yes, but not meaningless.

“Luis has brought unity to his friends and his family,” Cisneros said in Spanish, as he began to sprinkle a fistful of earth atop the teenager’s white coffin. “He asks for more unity so that there is not so much violence. When you leave here, choose life, not death.”

Laying Luis to rest under a cloudy sky, the priest was flanked by an altar boy and a Boy Scout official--an effort to signal to the largely youthful crowd that there are ways to beat the streets. As he made his way across the cemetery’s rain-soaked lawn afterward, Cisneros took heavy steps, slowed by the burden of his task.

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“When it is young people, it touches me more,” Cisneros said within earshot of the sobbing mourners. “The gift of living is there and they drop out in this way.”

Always looking for new ways to give Oxnard’s youth a better chance, Cisneros jumped on board when Antonio Garcia approached him last year about starting a Boy Scout troop in La Colonia. And Garcia, who heads the Scouts’ Oxnard/Hueneme District, largely credits Cisneros for making Troop 229 take hold in the neighborhood.

Together, the two men began knocking on doors across La Colonia to spread the word on the troop, which now numbers 26 boys. And when some members could not afford to buy uniforms, Cisneros helped sew the tan outfits by hand.

“He puts a lot of time and energy into helping young people and bringing new hope to La Colonia,” Garcia said. “He is from the barrio himself. He sort of grew up here.”

Born in Coalcoman, Michoacan, Cisneros actually grew up in Central Mexico.

But filled with doubts about his studies, Cisneros dropped out of veterinary school in Morelia in 1980. He moved to Oxnard, at 22, where his parents had been working as farm laborers since the 1970s.

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It was while picking crops and attending night school to learn English that Cisneros hit a spiritual dead end.

“I said to myself ‘I am looking for something bigger.’ I belong somewhere else.”

Cisneros considered joining the Army. But in the midst of a growing existential crisis, a relative invited Cisneros to a religious retreat at Our Lady of Guadalupe. There, during a three-day period of intense meditation and prayer, Cisneros said, he was invaded by a sensation of a newfound closeness with God.

“It was like when you are down and someone touches your shoulder and says ‘Come on, buddy,’ ” said Cisneros, who on a recent weekday had traded his priestly garb for wool pants and a Patagonia sweatshirt.

Several months after the retreat--his vocation cemented--Cisneros entered a seminary in Queretaro, Mexico, run by the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit, a Catholic order.

There he took vows of chastity, poverty and obedience to God. And there he spent the next 11 years of his life preparing for the priesthood. After his ordination in 1993 and his first assignment in San Luis Potosi in Mexico, Cisneros returned to Oxnard in 1994.

Today, he lives in the two-story, beige stucco rectory on North Juanita Street with the other priests. The building is about a block away from La Colonia Park, where children at play sometimes share the large patch of green with gang members.

“It is more challenging being a priest here--the different people, the different language,” Cisneros said. “But my family is here. I feel I am from here.”

Cisneros’ ties to Oxnard are always evident. The sound of rain drops pelting a window in the rectory’s office during the latest storm prompts some concern about Cisneros’ father, Luis, 64.

“He’s working right now,” Cisneros said, wrinkling his nose at the sky. “He’s in one of those fields in the rain and cold.”

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Later that day, Cisneros gathered around a table with six altar servers. They were laying plans for upcoming events including first aid training and a hiking trip.

As always, the meeting opened with prayer. Then he asked the youngsters to commit to doing one good deed in the coming week. A girl said she would make her bed before school. A boy pledged to keep up his grades.

But the conversation turned more serious as Cisneros asked which altar servers could make it to the funeral services for Luis Magana. Twelve-year-old Luz Orejel, the only girl in the group, said the latest shootings had frightened her.

“I am concerned about my brothers that they could get hurt,” said the fifth-grade student at Our Lady of Guadalupe School. “Stop the shooting, the drive-bys, the drugs.”

Cisneros said that there are a lot of people in La Colonia who think like Luz, but that outsiders often hear more about the community’s problems.

“I bet you these guys are never going to end up in jail,” he said. “That makes a difference.”