SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

September 20, 2008

Former farmworker wins a national award

By María Villaseñor
The Salt Lake Tribune

OGDEN - When she cuts onions for dinner, Maria Ortiz remembers pulling onion bulbs from sunrise to sundown, stopping to eat the tacos her mom packed for the family's breakfast, lunch and dinner.

She grew up in those Syracuse fields, as well as in the cherry orchards of Brigham City.

Ortiz still works in Brigham City, but instead of picking fruit, she answers phones, draws blood and attends to patients at the migrant clinic, La Clinica de Buena Salud. Next week, she will receive an award from the National Farmworkers Job Program for the effort it took to make that transition.

Ortiz doesn't have to struggle through small talk with her patients, for she is able to empathize with their exhausting work in the fields and win them over.

They are "shocked that I was once in their position," she said.

Ortiz knows the cycle of farm work is hard to break - for individuals and for whole families.

On her mother's side, at least five generations have worked in fields, and Ortiz's cousins still travel state-by-state looking for farm work.

"She's the one who said 'I'm going to put a stop to this' - and she did," Alma Saucedo boasts of her daughter.

Saucedo and her ex-husband were seasonal farmworkers - staying in one state and working the fields during the farming season, unlike migrant workers who move throughout farming regions.

During heavy harvest days, they would pull Ortiz from classes for a few days to help.

"You can't concentrate on school if the school isn't helping put a roof over your head," Ortiz said.

Saucedo was raised in a family of migrant farmers. She was born in Utah while her Texas family worked here, but she made the rounds through fields in Idaho, Oregon, Idaho, Texas and Utah. Saucedo remembers being taken out of school for a few weeks, then starting in a new state.

Those lost days in school would push Ortiz behind, and she eventually dropped out at 16.

There weren't many places where she could be hired - a few weeks at a farm in Syracuse, a few in Brigham City and her application didn't have the work experience employers like.

For nearly six years, Ortiz worked in hotels during the off-season and in farms when fruit and vegetables were ready to pick. But after a months-long stint with unemployment, she decided to finally call the number she had seen on a Utah Farmworkers Program flier.

The Futures Through Training program evaluated her - and the results surprised Ortiz.

"For my age, I was low," she said of being tested basic-skills deficient with reading and math at a sixth-grade level.

But Ortiz studied and earned a high school diploma. She apprenticed as a secretary and became a receptionist at the migrant clinic five years ago - and her drive has continued to impress program director Corrie Hout.

"It's a pretty hard lifestyle to go from and get into the mainstream world," Hout said of work that averages less than $7,500 a year. "She just kept going and never gave up."

And Hout isn't surprised that Ortiz won this year's excellence award from the National Farmworkers Job Program.

Each year, about 40 farmworkers pass through Hout's program, which trains and provides resources for documented workers.

Ortiz said she tries to encourage her patients to enroll in the Futures Through Training program and make that same change.

And as she nears her trip to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to receive her award, Ortiz looks back at her life - "I can actually say that I'm proud of myself."