SALINAS, Calif. — The vision came after failing to cross the border for a month.
Migrant farm workers Ana Dolores and her common-law husband Marcos Barajas had taken a chance returning to Mexico to visit her parents after 10 years in America.
The couple’s children were still in the United States. Now they didn't know when they would see them again.
“It had been a month and I couldn’t cross,” she told me and a friend Isaiah Guzman, who grew up bilingual and agreed to help translate. “We couldn’t cross, and my husband had said that we had to go, we had to because our children were here.”
Dolores begged God for help. “Praying with all my heart, I asked him,” she said. “He told me that I would dream how he would answer my prayers to be able to cross.”
That night, she said, she had what she believes was a divinely inspired dream. In it, she said, she saw clearly how they would cross the next day. And that’s exactly what happened, she said: Because of faith, they crossed the border the following day in the backseat of a Datsun, no questions asked.
“I think that then is when I learned that with faith everything is possible,” she said.
To Dolores, an out-of-work strawberry picker who grew up in Mexico and came to this country seeking work, faith is simple and all encompassing. God is in everything, in any place, on any occasion, she said during an interview inside a one-room makeshift church.
She and Barajas sat on child-sized plastic chairs inside the church, a small rectangular building the size of a large horse stall. A sign on the chalk board reads, “La Casa del Jesus.” The room sports pictures of the Virgin Mary, a collage depicting the camp, a small altar, and a shrine with statues of Mary and what appeared to be the patron saint of farm workers in the front left-hand corner. The humble building, decorated on the outside with a white cross and Christmas lights, serves the spiritual needs of adults and children who live in a migrant camp just south of Salinas. It is not an official church, but it serves as a place to gather for religious teaching and the occasional mass, when a Catholic priest can be enticed from his parish to say mass in the field, said Marina Ocampo, who is in charge of migrant camp outreach for the Monterey Diocese.
The camp is home to young families with parents who work in the surrounding fields. The houses we visited were clean and orderly, with working TVs, running water, plumbing and electricity.
When Ocampo and her husband first started working with the migrant community, she said, there were more than 30 such camps in the area. Now she estimates there are about 18. Camps with the worst conditions closed. And many farmworkers moved into the towns and suburbs, into apartments and other such housing.
Immigrants like Dolores and Barajas are living between cultures, on the margins of American life -- and sometimes on the margins of their own religion. Though they have children and are living together, they are not yet married.
Inside the couple's home, their three children watched a Spanish-language version of the animated movie, The Lion King, on TV. Barajas pulled up his pant leg and showed a knee surgery scar that will keep him from picking spinach in the fields. He produced a small likeness of the patron saint of farm workers that he keeps with him. While the parents spoke only Spanish, the children spoke English fluently. Outside, laundry fluttered in the wind. Fierce little terriers sounded an alarm when strangers walked by. Intermittently, over the course of several visits, children could be seen kicking a basketball around the dirt parking lot or playing with Pokeman cards in a melding of cultures.
The cultures may be different. But Dolores said faith is not much different in America than it is in Mexico. If you believe in God, she added, it’s the same everywhere.
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Comments (21)
Se creemos que Cristo vino a rescatar nos del pecado por medio de morir en la cruz y a los tres dias resucito, y a hora se sienta a la mano dereche de Padre Dios, se hay vida depues de esta vida, le llaman VIDA ETERNA!
March 31, 2008 7:52 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 31, 2008 19:52
Are you serious?
The Jewish historian Josephus wrote about Jesus and his brother, James.
You claim that the son of god came down to earth, and only one person wrote about him--- and that to a Jew. The same type of people that falsely claim that 6 million got executed for war crimes--- actual number approximately 64,000.
If the son of god appeared on earth and actually raised people from the dead, then there should have been many accounts of this...
March 31, 2008 10:11 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 31, 2008 10:11
"The cultures may be different. But Dolores said faith is not much different in America than it is in Mexico. If you believe in God, she added, it’s the same everywhere."
Seems to me that Dolores should have tried a lot harder to have faith in HER OWN COUNTRY. And if reunification with her kids is all she wanted, she could easily have them brought to her in Mexico. To claim GOD is aiding and abetting illegal immigration is just another rationalization for bad behavior.
March 31, 2008 9:58 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 31, 2008 09:58
Wake up! Jesus a fictional character wrote:
"Besides a bible manuscript written in 110 AD, there is NO WRITTEN DOCUMENT that mentions Jesus. He was a fictional character like Hercules, son of another god Zeus."
The Jewish historian Josephus wrote about Jesus and his brother, James.
March 31, 2008 4:50 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 31, 2008 04:50
Sally Quinn and the other Roman Catholics at WaPo fully support the success of the Roman Catholic Church's published stratagem for promoting illegal immigration to supplant the Whig Jeffersonian American Revolution, and its New Secular Order: The "National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic Ministry," available on Amazon, outlines the specifics for any interested patriot to examine.
March 30, 2008 10:43 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 22:43
I believe there is still miracles for those who want them. Ask(according to God's will) and you shall recieve! You gotta believe that Jesus is the Son of God who came to redeem us from the sin of the first man, (Adam).Believe He was crucified, buried, and resurrected on the third day... He now sits at the right hand of God! Under those conditions the Lord will absolutley without a doubt give us what we ask.
March 30, 2008 9:45 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 21:45
Vote black--- vote Hillary. He is a white man.
March 30, 2008 9:12 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 09:12
Claims to talk to god. That is not true. Only Joseph Smith and the Mormon prophets can talk to Jesus.
March 30, 2008 9:08 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 09:08
Jesus did not exist.
There is only one true god, Shiva.
Long live Hinduism!
March 30, 2008 9:07 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 09:07
Very sad--- Jesus would not have supported this sick war. Oil war...
Still the price is over $100 per barrel.
Way to go Bush.
March 30, 2008 9:05 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 09:05
Bush is the greatest president we ever had. He loves Jesus--- so Jesus would have supported the war in Iraq. Jesus had no problem with violence and killing. Turn the other cheek was just a myth. Jesus believed that you must destroy your enemy by any means necessary. That is where Malcolm X got that quote--- from Jesus.
Prediction: Bush's war will lead to more Iraqi civilians deaths than the Holocaust for the Jews.
Long live Bush
March 30, 2008 9:03 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 09:03
that he believes in the Sun God, Ra.
March 30, 2008 8:59 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 08:59
We Mormons believe that Jesus will return and rule over Earth for 1000 years before judgment day. Upon his return, he will allow polygamy. Jesus is great.
March 30, 2008 8:58 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 08:58
We have every right to go take away Iraq's natural resources. Might is right. When Arabs gain military strength, they have every right to attack us to steal our resources.
March 30, 2008 8:55 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 08:55
He could not have been the son of god!
March 30, 2008 8:54 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 08:54
4000+ of of soldiers have died in vain, fighting a battle which was started by spreading lies in the United Nations. There was no threat from Iraq--- just to steal oil, we lost so many of our soldiers and killed 4 million innocent Iraqi civilians.
Are the insurgents terrorists? Were the American revolutionaries fighting the occupying force of Britain terrorists? Was the founder of our country a terrorist?
If we were a weak country--- no threat to our neighbors and Russia had attacked our country for oil, gold, other natural resources, would our people become terrorists if we fought back against Russian troops patrolling the streets of New York City?
March 30, 2008 8:52 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 08:52
New research proves that the Romans banished Jesus; He traveled to India and became a follower of Lord Buddha.
March 30, 2008 8:47 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 08:47
If Krishna could be god, then why not Joseph Smith?
March 30, 2008 8:45 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 08:45
Christians are arrogant--- claim that their god is better than all others. If you can claim that Jesus is the son of god, then we Hindus can say, "NO--- Krishna or Ram" is the real son of god. How can you dispute this claim?
March 30, 2008 8:44 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 08:44
Besides a bible manuscript written in 110 AD, there is NO WRITTEN DOCUMENT that mentions Jesus. He was a fictional character like Hercules, son of another god Zeus.
March 30, 2008 8:41 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 08:41
Salud!
Que No Hay Una Vida Despuez de Esta Vida!
March 30, 2008 6:52 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 30, 2008 06:52