MARÍA MARROQUÍN Executive Director of the Day Worker Center
By Emily Porat
MARÍA MARROQUÍN:
Warming hearts and melting misconceptions
It is 6 AM on a Wednesday morning in the late 90’s. Cars trickle by on El Camino Real in Mountain View as the sun’s weak rays filter through the clouds, illuminating a group of Hispanic men, and one woman, standing alongside the sidewalk, awaiting work. To the upper-middle-class men and women driving to their Silicon Valley jobs, the people they pass on the street are either invisible or to be pitied; they are those who can’t get jobs, who don’t have college degrees, who are just scraping by.
Two separate worlds whoosh by each other each day on El Camino Real, but for the last eighteen years, the woman who stood amongst that group has been trying to break down the bitter misconceptions that separate these spheres. Her name is Maria Marroquin, and she was waiting for work because she was laid off from both of her jobs due to her lack of documentation. But, being the only women standing out on El Camino didn’t intimidate her. Instead, she spoke with the people around her,
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made connections, and found jobs cleaning houses. Once she had a few regular cleaning jobs, she began waking up one hour earlier every day, going to a nearby Jack in the Box, and paying the workers inside the restaurant twenty dollars to provide coffee to the men waiting for work outside all day. (Santuario) “Even when she was struggling, she felt like she needed to help others” said Maria’s son, Angel Santuario, as he described his mother. There is a fiercely loving gleam in
his eyes when he talks about her, a protective proudness that radiates from him. He knows, and believes that everyone else should recognize, that Maria Marroquin is a dreamer, a worker, a leader, and most of all, a humanitarian - providing aid and warming hearts one cup at a time. Executive Director of the Day Worker Center of Mountain View, Maria Marroquin represents a part of the American dream: we can accomplish anything we put our minds to when given the opportunity. She lives the philosophy that we can always give to others, even if we may not have much ourselves. She started as a day worker herself and became the executive director within four years, but knows from her hard times what the less fortunate are going through. She works and lives channeling an incredible amount of empathy and compassion, in hopes that one day the misconceptions about day laborers will end. Maria was born in Puebla, Mexico, and lived a comfortable life there for many years. She took
on the role as leader of the family, according to Angel. When her mother fell ill, “[Maria] was the one who pretty much carried the family. She was the pillar of our
family, the core of our family. Even through economic hardships, she was this stone we could hold on to,� Angel said.
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In 1997, Maria travelled to the United States with her son, who was 15 at the time, as tourists. They decided to stay in the country when their Tourism Visas expired, and Angel went to Woodside High School while MarĂa started looking for jobs. She began working as a day laborer - a house cleaner, through the Day Worker Center of the time. Eventually, she became more involved in the center, working as a volunteer, manager, and then finally reaching her current position of Executive Director. To say Maria is hardworking and devoted is a gross understatement. She goes above and beyond her job requirements when it comes to interacting with the day workers, simply because she understands them and wants to help them as much as she can. Craig Sherod, the President of the Board of Directors, has worked with Maria for years and can testify to her selflessness and care for the workers. When one of the workers at the center was diagnosed with a debilitating neurological disease,
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he worked as much as he could, but as time passed, he could not fulfill his typical job requirements, so Maria found different jobs for him around the center. As his doctors’ appointments became more and more frequent and his expenses rose, Maria set up a fund for him to which people could donate to his cause, but she also suggested that he move in with his sister in Mexico. She made travel arrangements for him, contacted doctors, did paperwork, and readied everything for his departure, which he made slightly reluctantly - because he didn’t want to leave the center. Craig finished recounting the story and leaned back in his chair. “Where else is a group like that they don’t owe this guy a thing, but they’re looking after him like he’s family. [Maria] arranged doctors, plane tickets, etc. with no reward,” he paused, and smiled. “A couple times at fundraising events,
immigration reform?
Through this, Maria’s dedication is reinforced, but we also see a rising issue: the lack of opportunities available to the day workers, and to minorities in general. From Maria’s perspective, this problem begins with our mentalities. “In Mexico, there are day laborers on the street, and all my life I was understanding that they are lazy people, they are there because they don’t want to work - things like that, misconceptions. And when I came here, and I was one of them, and I learned who they are, my whole life changed 180 degrees. They taught me [about the] sacrifices that they need to do, the great love that they have for their kids and for their family, the big dreams they carry with them when they cross the border, the resilience that they have. How they can be so brave, to pursue their dreams with such intensity, and to leave everything behind, and come here without anything - without language, without family - just with their dreams.” It’s safe to assume that many others share Maria’s old misconceptions, simply because they can’t empathize with the day workers like she could, and from Maria’s observations, this negative perception of the Latino community goes hand in hand with a negative internal perception. “All the oppression that the community has internalized is really profound. They grow with the perception and reassurance that they’re not good... they’re stupid, they are not worth it,” Maria said. She hypothesizes that this is greatly due to the fact that minorities don’t have access to the same luxuries as those with more money and resources. “If you see the kids in my community, you see that everything is set for failure. The kids have no support at home… they don’t have the possibility to get better education.” What one experiences during his or her childhood impacts who he or she becomes later in life, and for the children who have grown up with this mindset of worthlessness, it is probably much harder
"“ A couple times at fundraising events, I'’ ve introduced Maria as Mother Teresa, and I don’t think it'’ s too much of a stretch. " I’ve introduced Maria as Mother Teresa, and I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch. She’s the closest person I’ll probably ever know to being a saint.” Another similar event occurred a few years ago, when some of the day workers’ children were awarded scholarships to a science camp called ‘Iridescent’ in San Mateo. It was a great opportunity, but there was a catch: their parents couldn’t provide transportation because they had to work. Even if they were able to take time off, many of them didn’t have cars, let alone drivers’ licenses. Maria decided to solve this problem herself; she drove the kids four hours each day to and from the camp for a week to ensure that they could participate in the experience they earned.
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to overcome their own self-perception while faced with the addition of the negative outside perceptions. As these minority kids grow up and reach middle and high school, the effects of these challenges are evident. According to the College Board Report for 2013, only 18.8% of AP test-takers were Hispanic/Latino. Some studies explain this statistic through findings about attitudes minority students have about AP classes. “...Minority students are not taking AP courses because they feel out of place or haven’t been convinced that they can do college-level work,” said Trevor Packer, senior vice president of AP and College Readiness at the College Board, in a 2012 webinar. When these students become adults, the issues translate into nationwide problems: immigration reform, and its lack of importance to the government in relation to other issues. This is directly due to the lack of representation of Hispanic people in gove r n me nt . Out of the 535 members of our
current Congress, only 37 members are Hispanic; a whopping 6.9 percent. Maria has worked tirelessly to fight for immigration reform ever since she came to this country, participating in rallies, marches, conferences, and even multiple hunger strikes in support of the cause. After Maria joined the day workers and could understand
"“Out of the 535 members of our current Congress, only 37 members are Hispanic." who they are, she became an advocate for them, and has given a voice to those who have been silenced. Apart from supporting immigration reform, Maria has goals for the center itself; she is working towards making it more like a community center, open
to the public, where different classes and activities would be available year-round. She wants the center to have more widespread participation, ultimately creating a more inclusive community. Community is key when it comes to the Day Worker Center, and I have no doubt that Maria will keep fostering the community while warming the heart of everyone she meets. From the cups of coffee provided to men waiting for work in 1998 to the cup of coffee that sits on María’s desk today, she has come a long way, but she knows better than anyone else that coffee is just coffee; what’s really important is how you use it. “In the end, because the communication is really pure, really authentic, you find out that we are just people, and we are the same. That is the best part of my job,” said Maria. People are just people. What’s important is how we live.