A Friend Among Amigos

If you see Josie Montoya coming, you can bet she wants something. Canned food for the poor. Money to bury a poor woman’s child. Someone to listen when she complains that the police or local government is stepping on her neighbors’ civil rights.

For most of her 58 years, Montoya has taken it upon herself to help people who live in poor neighborhoods of Anaheim and Santa Ana. As founder of a small grass-roots organization called United Neighborhoods and a member of the activist group Los Amigos, she’s become a crusader and lifeline to families in crisis.

“The people in those neighborhoods wouldn’t have a voice if they didn’t have a Josie,” said Barbara Leon, a Los Amigos member for 10 years.

On Saturday, Montoya will receive a humanitarian award from the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Orange County during its sixth annual Estrella Awards at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim. Amin David, president of Los Amigos, which nominated Montoya for the honor, said Montoya “has a remarkable dedication and passion for helping our community.”

“Her shining principle seems to be helping the very, very poor. If they need food, she helps in getting food. She’s a grass-roots individual,” David said.

Montoya seems embarrassed by such acclaim. She’s the first to say she has no fancy degrees, no great titles. She follows a simple code:

“I have a rule--every day I have to do something for someone else,” she said. “When I’m not feeling well, sometimes it’s only talking on the phone or writing a letter.

“I tell people [outside the neighborhoods] what’s going on in the neighborhoods. I’m a link to a side of the community they don’t always get to see.”

Three years ago, Montoya and her 31-year-old daughter, Jessica Castro, started United Neighborhoods, working primarily out of the Anaheim home they share with Castro’s four young children. The group helps families in any kind of trouble, including those who are hungry, facing financial hardship or upset by what they consider excessive police force.

Every Thursday, members of the core group of 18 hand out baskets of food to about 100 families in the Jeffrey-Lynne area of Anaheim. The neighborhood next to Disneyland is one of dilapidated apartment houses, and residents fear the city’s renovation plans will cause them to lose even these modest but affordable homes.

“It’s horrible to not know whether your home will be torn down in 30 days,” Montoya said.

Montoya, a Los Amigos member for more than a decade, attended a recent meeting of the group to describe the neighbors’ plight. She’s one of the more visible members of the network of mostly Latino leaders and organizations that meets Wednesday mornings at a Sizzler in Anaheim. Los Amigos gatherings are informal; visitors announce their intention to speak by signing up on a blackboard.

Los Amigos draws everyone from local politicians trying to connect with the Latino community to residents airing grievances with city government, police and schools. At a recent meeting, Montoya was one of the last to speak, and the crowd of about 50 had grown restless after nearly two hours of discussion.

“Next up we have Josie,” said a moderator. Montoya, whom they all know by her first name, calmly told the group how she had joined Jeffrey-Lynne residents the day before in a demonstration demanding from Anaheim officials information about redevelopment plans.

Earlier in the meeting Los Amigos was courted by a representative from the office of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) and by Marjorie Lewis, president of Cypress College. When she spoke, Montoya reminded everyone that despite Latinos’ growing political clout, when it came to ending discrimination they had far to go.

Montoya also petitioned the group to help a mother whose 5-month-old infant was smothered by blankets when left unattended. Montoya has become a mentor to the woman, whose two older toddlers were taken into protective custody on the day of the incident. The woman faces charges of child endangerment.

“In one day she lost all of her children. She has no family in the U.S. She had no [means] to bury the baby, so her neighbors started a collection. They’re the poorest of the poor, but they’re so giving [that] they raised $400,” Montoya said.

Montoya had visited the mother several times.

“She sits on her front steps waiting for me. She clings to me when I go there,” Montoya said. “Now I’m looking for a grief counselor to help this family.” A woman in the audience raised her hand to volunteer.

“Hang around with Josie, and she’ll keep you busy,” a man at the meeting said after Montoya spoke.

Montoya stays busy despite serious health problems. She’s had several surgeries recently to partially restore vision she’d lost in the right eye due to advanced diabetes.

The disease has also made walking difficult, but it doesn’t stop her. When Montoya is sick, friends drive her around to neighborhoods and to meetings.

“Some days I can’t even get out of the car. So people come out to me, and we have a meeting right there by the car,” Montoya said.

Montoya has been attending community meetings most of her life, she said. Her father, Santiago Canales, worked for Sunkist for 50 years, starting as a fieldworker and ending a foreman at a citrus packing house in Orange.

“We lived a half a block from the packing house. I was 18 before I realized I was poor,” Montoya said. “Even though I only had a couple of dresses to my name, they were always cleaned and starched, and there was always food on the table. I felt rich with what I had.”

Although he had 10 children, her father always had a cot and hot plate waiting for poor immigrant fieldworkers.

“He’d let them stay there without charging them,” Montoya said.

As a young adult, Montoya attended protests and marches on behalf of farm workers’ rights. One night in the late 1970s, farm workers union leader Cesar Chavez dined at her house. It’s a tradition she’s passed on.

“We have along history of activism in our family,” said Montoya’s daughter Castro. “At a very young age I was dragged from one meeting to another and participating in marches with Cesar Chavez.”

Montoya’s community involvement began in earnest when, as a 33-year-old divorced mother of two, she enrolled in Fullerton College to study child education. After graduating, she joined VISTA, a domestic Peace Corps that helps low-income people.

First overseeing neighborhood councils on issues such as homelessness, illiteracy and economic development, Montoya eventually became director of the Santa Ana Neighborhoods Organization (now part of the Orange County Congregation Community Organization).

In 1980, Montoya left the neighborhood programs to work for the nonprofit Victim Witness Assistance program at the municipal courthouse in Santa Ana. There, she helped victims of domestic violence and other crimes before retiring in 1983 due to her health problems. She and Castro operated a child-care center out of their home in Anaheim for about six years.

“By then I was tired and burned out,” Montoya said. “I had given up the idea of getting involved in community work. Then, three years ago, I started getting calls, and people stopped by saying, ‘We need you to get involved again.’ ”

United Neighborhoods has chapters in Anaheim and Santa Ana and a core group of 18 members who each act as mentors to about five families. The group recently joined Los Amigos in launching a fund-raiser for Estela Guzman, a single mother of 10 whose 21-year-old daughter, Jackeline Romero, was killed in an automobile accident Jan. 24, leaving behind a 10-week-old son.

“We’re providing [the family] with food on a weekly basis, helping pay utility bills and putting [Guzman] in touch with a grief counselor,” Montoya said.

Montoya says her contact with poor families gives her a renewed appreciation for what she has:

“I live very simply. I’ve never been one for material things,” she said. “I believe it’s more important to take care of our brothers. They’ve enriched my life in so many ways.”

To contact Los Amigos of Orange County, call (714) 758-8090. To contact United Neighborhoods, call (714) 774-0107.