Visit to a Migrant Labor Camp

I have become very concerned about migrant workers. Each summer thousands of Mexican Americans from South Texas, and some unauthorized folks from south of the border, come to Central Illinois to detassel corn, sort and pack seed. Each harvest season it's these people who fuel our local agricultural economy.

Our church, Wesley United Methodist in Urbana, operates a monthly food pantry ministry. Early this summer, I went with a few local advocates to some nearby migrant labor camps to do some outreach for the Church and inform families about the food pantry.

Because they work long hours in the fields, migrant turnout to Wesley on food pantry distribution nights has been limited, yet still notable, indicating unmet need.

I just returned from helping my friends Martina and Martha deliver food from Wesley that we collected for the migrant families living in a complex named Cherry Orchard. Together we hauled over the food plus donated clothing and household items that I'd been collecting through a local interfaith collaboration--3 cars full of stuff.

At Cherry Orchard, we found mostly young children, easily more than fifty of them, playing in the yard; their parents, having spent the day at plants across Central Illinois separating good corn seed from bad, were on the road back to town. (One of the older kids explained that at the end of the Summer they don't see their parents in the daylight hours.)

We announced that we had lots of clothing and blankets and that they could pick what they thought their parents might like. These kids waited eagerly as we spread everything out on blankets laid down in the parking lot. The feeling was literally like Christmas morning, with some kids even singing "Feliz Navidad." In a minute every last piece of clothing had been claimed and carried away in tiny armloads.

Up to this point, we had not revealed that food was also available. Martina, wanting to ensure that the food was distributed evenly among the families, set a ground rule that only adults could accept bags of food. When they heard this, the kids scattered, yelling "comida!" as they ran to fetch the grownups. Turns out we had more bags of food than there were grownups, so teens were trusted with the rest of the rations.

One girl, whom I remembered from a previous food pantry distribution at the Church because she'd asked to touch Cass, had been following us all the while. She didn't get any of the clothes or any of the food; she helped us give it away. In my broken Spanish, I asked her how come she didn't take for herself. She held out a single can of pears and quietly said: "Yo lo dice. Algunas frutas que pueden poner en mi tazón." (I did. Some fruit that I can put in my bowl.)

Martina and Martha discovered that this 12 year old girl, her name is Andrea, was on her own and did not expect her folks until midnight. As we walked her back to the family's apartment, Andrea asked if she could spend the night at Martina's house: "Sin padres, las cosas sucedan aquí." (Without parents, things happen here.)

Pray and work for justice for these sojourners.