IMMOKALEE: where fact and legend collide

IMMOKALEE: where fact and legend collide

Story by Bill Cornwell
bcornwell@floridaweekly.com

The diminutive mochacomplected woman with hair blacker than melted midnight stands in the harsh glare of an unshaded 100-watt light bulb and explains to Cpl. Esteban Rodriguez of the Collier County Sheriff's Office how someone has entered her home, found her purse and stolen $1,000 —money she earned picking produce in the fields. Lord knows how long it took her to set aside such a sum. Many, many weeks, at a minimum. She's flustered, and her story is muddled. She doesn't know when the money was filched. It was there yesterday or the day before —she's unsure — but now it's gone.

You might think Cpl. Rodriguez is indifferent to the anguish that spills out before him as he stands in the forlorn apartment on Immokalee's south side. Thumbs hitched in his belt, his whiskerstubbled face a study in immobility, he seems the embodiment of detachment, like a guy who's going through the motions. Bored. Ready to move on. You might think that, were you there.

But you would be wrong. Very wrong.

Cpl. Rodriguez knows firsthand of the hard knocks life in Immokalee sends a person's way. He's a native, a circumstance that affords him empathy and identity in equal proportions. Burly and built low to the ground, he played middle linebacker at Immokalee High School and endured taunts of "tomato picker" and worse spat by opposing players from more affluent schools representing more refined townships.

FLORIDA WEEKLY STAFF PHOTO Cpl. Esteban Rodriguez of the Collier County Sheriff's Office assists an Immokalee resident. Cpl. Rodriguez was born and raised in Immokalee.

He worked in the groves until he was 17. Later he lived in Washington State, while his wife was in the military, and from 2001 to 2006 he worked for the U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego. He and his wife (who was raised in Immokalee's Farm Workers Village) returned about three years ago to work in their hometown, she to become a teacher and he to serve as a deputy sheriff.

The couple knows Immokalee and loves it, heartache and all. But they have a child, a daughter, whose safety is paramount, so they live elsewhere, away from Immokalee, in a gated community.

FLORIDA WEEKLY STAFF PHOTO Immokalee's "Lost Generation" are undocumented young people who come to this country and stay on through high school graduation. Although they are residents of the U. S. and earn high school diplomas, they are not citizens and, as a consequence, their path for advancement is blocked because of their undocumented status.

From everything to nothing

Like many of Immokalee's migrant workers who are not citizens of the United States, the woman who stands before Cpl. Rodriguez has no bank account (she lacks the requisite Social Security number). She kept her cash — her entire worth — in a black cloth purse hanging from a nail on her bedroom wall. Not the best idea, upon reflection, but what's the alternative? Tote it around town and find yourself beaten and bloody in an alley?

Thieves who delight in roughing up their marks routinely set upon cash-carrying migrants — known on the streets of Immokalee as "walking ATMs." It's why migrants tend to move about the town in groups; there's protection in numbers. But even that doesn't always guarantee safe passage, says Cpl. Rodriquez.

FLORIDA WEEKLY STAFF PHOTO Immokalee is a town in which idleness and industry are pursued with equal vigor.

So, what'll it be: Keep the money at home or take it with you? It's a Hobson's choice of the first order. But there's no use in looking back now. The long and the short of it is the woman's money is gone. It's hardly a major crime, not even by Immokalee's standards — unless, of course, it was your money. Then it's the Great Brinks Heist squared.

For this woman, life has taken a sudden, precipitous turn for the worse. The realization shows in her dark, sad eyes, and in the way she repeatedly places her right hand over her left breast, as if she fears her heart may leap from her body at any moment.

Two children tug impatiently at her pants legs. She pats their heads and tries mightily to steady her voice. Remarkably, she keeps her composure, but there's no stopping the tears that roll down her sharply chiseled cheeks and fall delicately on her soiled T-shirt to mingle with stains from red beans that, judging from the empty cans on the counter, comprised the evening meal.

FLORIDA WEEKLY STAFF PHOTOS Above: Dr. Melanio Villarosa dispenses more than physical examinations, he also provides a full measure of humanity and respect to people who see precious little in their daily lives.

She's but 32 years old, but her appearance deceives. In the unforgiving luminosity of the 100-watt bulb, she looks mature enough to be Cpl. Rodriguez' mother, although he is a year older than she. The fields will do that to a woman. She pays $250 a week to live in this apartment, which would be grossly overpriced at a quarter of that amount. The rent, as always, is due. It's doubtful that the landlord will sympathize, for the condition of this property and the penurious rent hardly suggest a warm heart and a charitable bent.

As he steps from the stale apartment into the unusually brisk air of a spring evening, Cpl. Rodriguez looks heavenward. Above him, spotlights promoting the Seminole Casino arc across the inky firmament. These manmade shafts of lights seem out of place and tawdry as they compete for attention with the gibbous moon spectacularly displayed in a crystalline sky.

Left: Sister Maureen Kelleher, a Legal Aid lawyer and nun, worries about and advocates for Immokalee's children.

At that very moment, about a mile away, people at the casino are drinking, laughing and losing far more than $1,000 for the sheer hell of it, fattening the coffers of the Seminole Nation, money be damned. Such is the irony of Immokalee.

"A thousand dollars is a lot of money, you know, for anybody to lose, but for someone like her it's..." His voice trails, and Cpl. Rodriguez doesn't finish the sentence. He doesn't have to. Even a fool can see. The woman didn't just lose $1,000. She lost everything.

The image problem

From its perch hard by the moldering Everglades in northern Collier County, Immokalee — which legally is not a town but rather an unincorporated area that relies on the county for its services — remains as remote and as squalidly exotic to the grandees of Naples, the governmental seat some 40 miles distant, as colonial Rangoon was to the lords and ladies of London back in the day when Britannia ruled the waves.

FLORIDA WEEKLY STAFF PHOTOS Above: Spotlights promoting the Seminole Casino arc across the Immokalee sky. Below: A tranquil Lake Trafford, a top recreation area in Immokalee.

The permanent population of about 19,000 nearly doubles with the arrival of migrant workers during the growing season October through May. One need not step too far onto the limb to say that Immokalee has an image problem, which seems fairly reasonable for a place known as "ground zero" for slavery in the United States.

The mere utterance of "Immokalee" (the Seminole word for "my home") conjures stereotypical images of illegal immigrants, subjugated and deprived, working in soggy tropical heat beneath the baleful gaze of sadistic crew chiefs who shade their eyes behind mirrored sunglasses. Something akin to the old chain gangs of the Deep South.

Unfair, no doubt, but that's the perception, and it's been in place for a long time.

This notion finds its way into print and onto television screens with a frequency that alarms the town's burghers. What is fact, what is myth, what happened 10 years ago, what happened yesterday, who did this, who said that — all of these confusing and conflicting tales are thrown together into a gumbo that is periodically reheated and served up as the unvarnished truth.

As the sage newspaper editor in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" remarked: "When legend becomes fact, print the legend."

Immokalee rests squarely at the junction of fact and legend.

That's not to say the town hasn't earned its notoriety. An appalling number of cases of human trafficking and slavery originate there. So many that Douglas Molloy, the chief assistant United States Attorney in Fort Myers who has earned a bulldog reputation for prosecuting purveyors of this particular brand of inhumanity, says his office alone handles more human trafficking cases than most states.

Coming soon to HBO?

FLORIDA WEEKLY STAFF PHOTO Collier County Sheriff's Lt. Michael Dolan is commander of the Immokalee Substation and the town's most visible symbol of law enforcement. In addition to keeping the peace, the lieutenant crusades for the residents of Immokalee.

Reflecting on the successes that he and other law enforcement agencies have had, Mr. Molloy says: "People have been liberated in Immokalee. Imagine saying that — that people have been liberated, here, in the United States."

All of this activity involving slavery, peonage and the like attracts attention.

Mr. Molloy says producers from HBO were in his office recently to discuss the making of a "docudrama" about the town. Although he has no firm details of the proposed project, it's reasonable to assume it will not be a romantic comedy.

Typically, cases of slavery and human trafficking involve Mexicans or Central Americans who have been recruited by henchmen — called "coyotes" — in their native countries. Alluring assurances of a better life, plentiful money and bountiful work are bandied with scandalous ease by coyotes.

Upon arrival in this country, these unwitting victims are informed, forcefully, that they owe a certain amount to those who have brought them here ($5,000 is a figure often mentioned) and they must work to pay off that debt. For young women, the work may include prostitution, which flourishes in Immokalee.

The debt, of course, is never fully retired, and the migrant, who feels he or she has no recourse because he is in the country illegally, is trapped in a vicious cycle of servitude. Nasty business, for sure.

But the vast majority of Immokalee's migrant population does not exist as slaves. Their working and living conditions may be spare, unforgiving and frequently unconscionable, but they are free to come and go as their circumstances, personal and financial, allow.

Complicating Immokalee's public relations dilemma is the indisputable fact that a casual traveler, just passing through and expecting the worst, probably will find his preconceived notions stamped and validated by what he sees.

Main Street, what there is of it, calls to mind an inhospitable border settlement, with ramshackle mobile homes visible from the thoroughfare providing an oppressively bleak motif. Honest is honest, and despite efforts to brighten Immokalee's heart with fancy streetlights and such, it remains a cheerless place.

The town is surely the pay telephone capital of Florida, or perhaps the nation. Many migrants, unable to afford cell phones or land lines, buy cards loaded with prepaid long distance minutes that enable them to call home to Mexico or Guatemala or wherever. In one half-mile stretch, a visitor counts 13 pay booths, and most are in use.

Where do you call home?

"When some people who live here travel outside the area, they say they're from LaBelle," acknowledges a longtime resident who would rather not have her name attached to her remarks. She sadly wags her head at the realization that nearby LaBelle (LaBelle, for God's sake!) is more venerated than poor old Immokalee.

"They're too embarrassed to admit they live here because of all the bad publicity we've gotten," she continues. "So much bad has been written and said about us. It shouldn't be that way. It's not right and it's not fair. We've got our problems, but we've got good things, too. Lake Trafford is beautiful, but you rarely read that. A lot of progress has been made here. No one can deny that. Ask anyone who knows anything at all about Immokalee. There has been progress, but all we hear or read is bad. It goes on and on. On and on."

Like many who've lived in the town for years — and who, it must be said, have led far more genteel existences than the transient migrant field workers — she believes Immokalee's reputation is routinely marched to the gallows for no just cause. Folk like her recall idyllic times, the bygone days of the small farms, of when cattle was king, of mannered families with deep ties to the community, of a downtown that was more "American Graffiti" than "Village of the Damned."

To Immokalee's careworn defenders, life is salt and their beloved town a gaping wound.

"Sure, we've got problems," says Bruce Hendry, 55, who for more than 30 years has run an insurance agency out of a trim, neat building on Main Street. "But what bothers me most is that all this negative publicity overlooks the fact that there are some wonderful people who live and work here. People who work hard and do the right thing."

Mr. Hendry, whose ancestral roots run to some of the earliest and most prominent settlers of Immokalee and indeed the entire area, is an extraordinarily open and friendly man. At the drop of a hat, he'll pack up a visitor and show him the sights: the aforementioned Lake Trafford and its drowsy, sunbathing alligators; the raceway that draws large crowds on warm nights; the housing built by the good people at Habitat for Humanity; the colorful farmers' market with its stunning collection of fresh produce.

If it's around lunchtime, Mr. Hendry will conclude the tour with a trip to Lozano's for platters of some of the best Mexican food to be found in Southwest Florida.

The way he sees it, a lot of good that goes on in Immokalee is discounted or dismissed.

Neither oppressor nor oppressed

Mr. Hendry is on to something with his criticism.

For a journalist, Immokalee is an inviting target, easy to flail and eviscerate, regardless of your point of view. Even Gourmet magazine (hardly a citadel of hard-edged journalism) savaged the place in a recent article, taking shots both legitimate and cheap.

Stories involving Immokalee often become simplistic morality plays, pitting the oppressed against the oppressors, which unfairly excludes the likes of Mr. Hendry and many others who belong in neither camp.

But it must also be noted that Mr. Hendry concedes the Immokalee of today is not the Immokalee of his youth, and the changes to its small-town ways, for the large part, have not been for the better, at least from his perspective. And though Mr. Hendry maintains his landmark business in town, he actually lives 20 miles to the east on a 650-acre cattle ranch. It's a rare day, indeed, that finds him in Immokalee after sunset.

Perhaps the only locals who routinely receive favorable press are members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the activist organization that's recognized nationally and internationally for its efforts on behalf of migrants. Lucas Benitez, the coalition's most esteemed and charismatic representative, enjoys a stature that leads him to places like the United Nations.

This week Mr. Benitez and the CIW are receiving the Salem Award for Human Rights and Social Justice, which will be bestowed in Salem, Mass. This is but one of many such honors the CIW has earned.

The adulation Mr. Benitez and his organization collect rankles some in Immokalee. Off the record they say the coalition is inordinately fixated on self-promotion and the promulgation of left-wing political goals. Given the highly charged emotions attendant to migrant workers and immigration in general, the absence of such a charge would be more surprising than an actual allegation itself.

Immokalee is hardly a repository of progressive political orthodoxy, and the CIW does indeed lean left, putting it at odds with the town's entrenched Establishment. The reality is that few seem inclined to pick a public fight with the coalition, and even its staunchest critics cannot dismiss the obvious contributions it has made in advancing the migrants' cause.

For years, the coalition stood stalwart — and for the most part alone —against powerful forces of human exploitation. (The CIW did not respond to requests from Florida Weekly for an interview for

this article.) But that does not mean that the CIW is the lone force for good, despite its hefty collection of press clippings. A town of true heroes Often, the sensational headlines involving slavery offenses and worker mistreatment divert attention from lesscelebrated men and women who work, daily and quietly, to address the

avalanche of woes that confound and confront the town.

 

Take Sister Maureen Kelleher, for example.

A blunt-speaking nun/lawyer who specializes in immigration issues for the Legal Aid Service of Collier County, Sister Maureen worries about and advocates for Immokalee children (many of them born in the United States but to parents who are here illegally) who are consigned to destinies of stoop labor or criminal endeavor because they are barred from citizenship and thus denied opportunities for meaningful employment or higher education.

There's also Dr. Melanio Villarosa, a frenetic man with a loopy sense of humor who practices pediatric medicine. Though engaged in his own life-and-death struggle with cancer, Dr. Villarosa remains committed to ministering to the health of Immokalee's children, regardless of their finances or immigration status.

And there's Michael Dolan, the former honest-to-goodness Texas cowboy, who in his role as a Collier County sheriff's lieutenant and commander of the Immokalee Substation, is the town's most visible symbol of law enforcement. In addition to keeping the peace, the lieutenant crusades to find a way to prevent migrants from falling prey to those who make their living off the walking ATMs.

The efforts of Sister Maureen, Dr. Villarosa and Lt. Dolan alone will not salve Immokalee's long-festering wounds. But they are indicative and representative of a quiet band of men and women who believe Immokalee and its people, migrant and non-migrant alike, are worth saving. As Douglas Molloy, the federal prosecutor in Fort Myers, says, "There are true heroes in Immokalee."

Yes, there are, and their work is cut out for them.

The 'Lost Generation'

Of all the thorny, complex, hair-pulling and seemingly insoluble problems of immigration law that Sister Maureen Kelleher tackles on any given workday, perhaps none is more wrenching than her efforts on behalf of what some call Immokalee's "Lost Generation."

If you require an advocate, Sister Maureen is as good as any. After graduating from Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y., in 1960, she entered the Order of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary. She was a teacher and a social activist before earning her law degree from Catholic University in Washington, D. C. She's been in Immokalee, representing the immigrant community, for a quarter of a century. The Collier County Women's Bar Association named her "Woman Attorney of the Year" for 2008.

Receiving a visitor at her Immokalee office, Sister Maureen is cordial, correct, all business. It's clear she suffers fools poorly, and she apparently believes many of the news reporters who cross her path fit neatly into that category.

One imagines that beneath Sister Maureen's formidable nun/lawyer exterior resides a formidable nun/lawyer interior. With her there is no artifice, no posing, no posturing. She's a woman on a mission, and woe unto those who stand in her way.

The Lost Generation that Sister Maureen seeks to save encompasses undocumented young people who come to this country and stay on through high school graduation. Although they are longstanding residents of the United States and earn high school diplomas, they are not citizens and, as a consequence, their path for advancement is blocked because of their undocumented status.

These youngsters currently can obtain permanent status only through their parents. There is no way for them to do so on their own.

If the parents are undocumented, as is the case most often, that door is closed.

And if the child entered the U.S. illegally, regardless of how long he or she remains here, there is no method — none whatsoever — for becoming a legal resident. Even those who could return to a country of origin face waiting periods of up to a decade before being eligible for reentry to the United States.

Without status, these young people are without Green Cards, Social Security numbers or other documents that would allow them to enter the armed services, find meaningful employment or even pursue higher education. No matter how intelligent or academically gifted, regardless of their energy or patriotism, this Lost Generation runs smack-dab into a brick wall upon high school graduation.

They may have been born elsewhere, but they are Americans by orientation, experience and often language. The countries of their origin are as foreign to them as they are to those who were born in the United States. Through no fault of their own, under the current system they are without a country to call their own.

No one knows for certain how many of these students there are in Immokalee, but it is estimated that 65,000 high school seniors in the United States belong to this Lost Generation. Immokalee being Immokalee, it most certainly has more than its share, but they are very often afraid to speak out because of their undocumented status.

It is left to people like Sister Maureen to give voice to their dilemma.

DREAM act: a solution?

A solution has been proposed in Washington, D.C. This proposed legislation has bipartisan support, but it languishes in Congress. As Sister Maureen sees it, the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act —DREAM Act for short — could be the key to breaking the cycle of abject poverty and hopelessness that grips the Lost Generation.

"The (DREAM Act) says that if you came (to the United States) before the age of 16, if you graduate from our high schools, and if you will go on — either for more studies in, say, college or into the military — you will get, at that point, a temporary card," she explains. "Then after two years, you can apply for permanent status. But you won't get it if you haven't been successful, if you're dishonorably discharged from the armed service, for instance, or if you have dropped out of college." Provisions for good character must also be met, she says.

This legislation, Sister Maureen believes, can lift these young people to unimagined heights, while benefiting society as a whole. She is not alone in this view. The Immigration Policy Center in Washington, D.C., is a strong proponent of the legislation.

In a statement last March, IPC Director Angela Kelley said: "(L)egal status brings fiscal, economic, and labor-market benefits to individual immigrants, their families, and U.S. society in general by permitting qualified children to pursue post-secondary education. The combination of legal status and a college education would allow DREAM Act students to earn significantly higher incomes than those with only a high school diploma, contribute more in taxes, and have more money to spend and invest. Currently, this wasted talent imposes economic and emotional costs on undocumented students and on U.S. society as a whole."

Pentagon officials, with a concerned eye toward the dwindling pool of enthusiastic and qualified enlistees, have also spoken in favor of the legislation. In Congress, however, immigration is an issue that discourages expedition, so the bill's future is uncertain and a timetable for is passage nonexistent.

Without the DREAM Act, it is possible for members of the Lost Generation to succeed. But to do so requires an alignment of stars so complicated and extraordinary that it rarely occurs. Even if undocumented high school graduates can find colleges willing to accept them (most will not), there's the matter of financial aid, much of which involves government funding and is therefore unavailable to anyone but U.S. citizens.

"I've had two cases, where (undocumented) students got private scholarship money," says Sister Maureen. "One went all the way through Dartmouth, and one graduated from (nearby) Ave Maria.

They both went all the way through as undergraduates. And it was all because they got private charity." Still, these success stories must confront the next hurdle: Finding an employer who is willing to hire them, despite their undocumented status. A mother's dream

 

Not far from Sister Maureen's office in Immokalee lives a woman we shall call Marie. Not a legal resident, she is wary of possible consequences attendant to publicity should her real name be published. But she is willing to talk, and to talk specifically about the future she envisions for her daughters, ages 11 and 3.

Marie, 45, is a Haitian who came to the United States seven years ago to flee deteriorating conditions in her homeland. Things in Haiti are so bad, she says, that is beleaguered people yearn for the "good old days," when the insidious Duvaliers — first Francois ("Papa Doc") and then his son Jean- Claude ("Baby Doc") — used terror and coercion to operate the country as their personal fiefdoms.

The final straw for Marie came when thugs in search of money invaded her office in downtown Port-au-Prince. They put guns to her head. Death seemed certain, until sirens from police cars racing to an unrelated incident nearby spooked the gunmen, and they fled.

Marie left Haiti with her 4-yearold daughter shortly thereafter. She entered the United States on a visa and stayed on after it expired. Another daughter, the result of a union with a Mexican migrant worker with whom she still lives, was born in Immokalee.

Marie is smart as a whip, fluent in English, Spanish, French and Haitian Creole. Her home is well kept. The father of her younger daughter is a friendly man with impeccable manners and a high-voltage smile. He will leave Immokalee soon for three to four months to follow the migrant circuit northward, into Georgia and through the Carolinas.

A trained accountant with computer skills, Marie earns her keep styling hair and cleaning homes, on the sly and thus illegally.

"I first came to New York from Haiti," she says. "But New York was really, really too much for me — too much language, too much noise, too much everything. Not a place for children, either. I like Immokalee because it is really calm, compared to New York. But then there is really nothing here."

Marie earns enough to get by, but that's about it. She doesn't complain, but she hopes her daughters will do better. Education, as she sees it, is the key. If the DREAM Act becomes reality, maybe there is hope, she says.

"You really need to be a citizen to succeed here," she says. "For me, that will not happen. I do not complain. I accept. I would love to be a citizen, but I know what the facts are. My daughters, they are a different story. I wish they can be more — much more — than I am today. I wish it so bad. So bad that it keeps me up at night sometimes."

Although the odds, as they stand today, do not favor Marie's children, she retains a disarming optimism.

The older daughter, the one born in Haiti, shows glimpses of academic achievement and ambition. Her mother's child. Marie encourages her to study, to learn. That is how Marie herself was raised. Do your best, she tells her daughter, and let's see what happens. Do not give up.

"A doctor or an engineer, maybe, that's what I see for her," Marie says. "But you do not know, if things work out, if she becomes a citizen, she may accomplish much more than that."

With citizenship papers in her pocket, perhaps Marie's daughter could fulfill her mother's hopeful prophecy. Without those precious papers, braiding hair and cleaning toilets — Marie's lot —could be what awaits this precocious child, no matter how mightily she succeeds in her schooling.

That fact, that fundamental injustice, is simply not acceptable to Sister Maureen.

"I do not see how anyone can deny these children the opportunity to succeed," she says.

Treating the young ones

Stocky and mature in his physique, the boy of about 3 years old looks something like a grown man shrunken to child size. His hair is thick, shaggy and dark, in need of washing and a bristled brush. His clothing is unkempt and his demeanor manic, bordering on frenzied, probably made worse by fever. A raging upper respiratory infection has left his eyes rheumy and turned his nostrils into hydrants.

His grandmother watches as the child absently rummages through a wastebasket in an examining room at the office of Dr. Melanio Villarosa, the 53-year-old pediatrician who is sometimes called the "Mother Teresa of Immokalee."

Shortly, Dr. Villarosa, with a presence so wispy and slight that it borders on spectral, enters the room, chart in hand, his eyes widening in horror at what he sees.

"No, no, no, no!" he cries, gently easing the child away from the wastebasket that holds discarded examining gloves, saliva-coated tongue depressors and other microbe-tinged items. Patiently, with no hint of reproach, he instructs the befuddled grandmother that she mustn't allow the child to play with such things. A brief lecture on the efficacy of hand washing and proper hygiene in general is also delivered.

Whether the clueless woman absorbs the good doctor's words is anyone's guess. But the moment is quintessential Melanio Villarosa.

Dr. Villarosa dispenses more than physical examinations, prescribed medications and helpful hints to his young patients and their parents and guardians. He also provides a full measure of humanity and respect to people who see precious little of either in their daily lives, and who require it even more when confronted by physical problems beyond their ken.

Knowledge can be as powerful and effective as an antibiotic, the doctor knows.

Born in Virginia but raised in the Philippines (where he attended medical school), he came to Florida after completing additional medical training in New York. His first job, in 1989, was in Immokalee, where Naples Community Hospital dispatched him to establish emergency medical services.

He left Immokalee for a position with Columbia HCA, but he missed the town and the people. They missed him, too, often calling him, asking when he would return. And return he did, in 1999, when he opened the pediatric practice that continues to this day. He still lives in Naples, commuting about two hours daily.

"I try to help my patients understand that there are things they can do to protect their health," he explains. "Diet, exercise, the proper attitude — these are things they need to know about as well.

"I've noticed that the Mexican diet — well, it doesn't have a lot of vegetables. Not good. No, not good. And television. Oh, television! The amount of television these children watch. It's crazy! Absolutely crazy. They are not getting exercise at all. We need to talk about these things. But it doesn't mean they will follow what you say, and that's tough. I know that sometimes I beg. I beg and beg and beg. They don't always listen. But you must keep trying."

The doctor needs doctoring

Given the exhausting pace of his practice and his outside community work (he spends evenings working with youth groups in Immokalee, principally at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church), it seems almost incomprehensible that just one year ago Dr. Villarosa was told he had but three months to live.

Problems with his sight led to tests that revealed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The prognosis was not sterling; the threemonth death pronouncement came from his oncologist.

An intensive round of chemotherapy and radiation ensued. Despite the draining treatments, which claimed his hair but not his good cheer, Dr. Villarosa continued his practice, although at a diminished pace. "I couldn't stop working totally," he says with a laugh. "I was getting poorer and poorer and poorer. I had to keep working. Man, I am in debt so much."

Even in times of robust health, money is never abundant. Were it not for patients with Medicaid, Dr. Villarosa would receive virtually nothing for his services.

"He has never, ever mentioned money to me," says the mother of a child who has been under Dr. Villarosa's care for years. "Never. He doesn't look into your pocketbook; he looks into your heart. God bless him! He is a man of people, not of money."

Dr. Villarosa says his cancer is now in remission, a circumstance he attributes as much to his Catholic faith as to the ministrations of his doctors.

His deeply held religious beliefs are evident throughout his cramped offices not far from Immokalee's center. His young patients see posters, in English and Spanish, warning against abortion and pornography and urging sexual abstinence.

"Maybe some of these (posters) are too much for some people," he says with a dismissive wave of his arm, "but if they are, that's too bad. I don't care."

This melding of the medical and the spiritual was recognized last year, when the physician received an honorary doctorate from Ave Maria University, the staunchly Catholic institution that rises like Oz from the flatlands near Immokalee.

"When I see a patient, I have to realize that he represents Jesus Christ, and I have to treat him like Jesus Christ," he says.

And if the patient or his family are not Christians?

"That makes no difference," he says. "My obligation as a doctor is to treat him medically, and my obligation as a Christian is to treat him as I would treat Jesus Christ."

Laughter as medicine

The seriousness Dr. Villarosa brings to his practice and to his faith is leavened by his quirky humor.

True, when discussing Dr. Villarosa the Mother Teresa label is invoked often, but Henny Youngman should be thrown into the mix, too. His jokes are rapid, off-the-wall and delivered in a thick Filipino accent that's more Ferdinand Marcos than Marcus Welby, and they always draw a laugh — from the doctor, at least.

"You want a bottle of water?" he asks. "No? How about a Diet Coke? No? How about a diet whiskey? Ha-ha-ha."

Here's another, as told to a mother whose child suffers from intestinal distress: "How are the bowel movements? Hmm, that bad? Interesting. How about the child's movements, are they bad, too? Ha-ha-ha."

And, finally, there's the time he says something, in Spanish, that obviously takes the hovering aunt of an infant by surprise. Asked what he has said, Dr. Villarosa replies, "I told her that I just discovered he has a third (testicle). Haha ha."

Well, maybe you had to be there.

Leaving his mark

Dr. Villarosa long ago accepted that there would be no extravagant perks for him or his family. No lavish home. No vacations to exotic lands. No economic security at all, for that matter.

He cannot afford the vehicle of his wife's modest dreams: the Toyota Rav4 (base price, about $21,500). But while he would like to provide more for his family, he is a man at peace with the decisions he has made.

He and his wife have been married for 25 years, their three daughters attend the University of South Florida, and their son is a student at Naples High School. The family is whole, happy. He's cancerfree, for the moment. All in all, from his view, a life well lived.

He hopes his children see it that way.

"I want to make sure that before I die, I have made this community better," he says. "I want to leave a legacy to my children, that they will know their dad did something good for the community and its people. That's what I want."

The doctor's family has sacrificed along with him and without reservation. Perhaps having your father and husband favorably compared to the world's most famous contemporary saint trumps a new Rav4 in the driveway.

Policing the town

"When I speak to the academy or to civic groups, I tell them, 'This is not your daddy's Immokalee.' "

Those are the words of Lt. Michael Dolan, who for the last six years has commanded the Collier County Sheriff's Office Substation in Immokalee. He is uniquely qualified to make that observation.

"Back more than 30 years ago, when I was in high school in Naples, my father used to come out to Immokalee, because he was a drinker," Lt. Dolan recounts one afternoon during a quiet moment in his office. "He would come out to have fun, to drink at the places that were here back then. He was a full-blown alcoholic, and it was sad."

Lt. Dolan never accompanied his father on these lost weekends, but he heard the harrowing stories. It was not a pretty picture.

"Back in those days, Immokalee was a bloody bucket," the lieutenant continues. "It was a slice-and-dice, stab-'em, shoot- 'em-up frontier town. That is not the case today, thankfully."

Yet Immokalee still faces a variety of law enforcement challenges, some of which are distinctive to the town.

The sheriff's office works closely with state and federal agencies on cases involving slavery and human trafficking.

Lt. Rene Gonzales, head of the department's Victim's Services Bureau, oversees the Human Trafficking Unit, which has a detective and a victim's advocate assigned to it. "We're seeing more people come out and report (trafficking violations)," he says. "The level of trust is building."

Douglas Molloy, the federal prosecutor, says the cooperation between federal agencies and the sheriff's department is "excellent."

"We have our share of bad guys," says Lt. Dolan. "If you like being a policeman, this is a great place to work. Everything you train for in the academy you will see out here."

But crime is dropping, he stresses.

"Over the years, in partnerships with code enforcement, the fire department, the health department, the school system, we have come together as a team, and as a result, I can assure you this is not the same Immokalee that my dad visited."

During the past six years, Lt. Dolan says, violent crime in Immokalee is down 40 percent, and property crime is down by the same percentage. "These are huge decreases."

From cowboy to cop

A trim, muscular man of 50 who carries himself like the college wrestler he once was, Lt. Dolan traveled a circuitous route to his current position.

"I came down to Naples with my parents from New York and graduated from Naples High," he says.

From Naples, it was on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where Lt. Dolan, in his owns words, "bombed out."

"I majored in fraternity and wrestling," he says.

During his second year in college, he knew something had to change, a decision made more acute by a religious conversion.

"I decided I wanted to be a cowboy, and I wanted to be a policeman," he recalls. "That's all I wanted to do." He dropped out and went to West Texas to become a cowboy, "because that's where all the spaghetti westerns I had watched were set."

From 1978 until 1982, he worked the badlands as a cowboy. "Then I got lonely, and I thought it was time to get married," he says. So he came back to Naples and got a job as a sheriff's deputy. " Now I'm married, with four kids and two granddaughters."

Just like that.

In Texas, Lt. Dolan witnessed the injustices illegal immigrants endured daily. It profoundly affected him.

"My personal philosophy — and the sheriff hasn't said this, this is me speaking only for myself — is that if half the people here in Immokalee are illegal immigrants, that doesn't mean we should stop loving them as people when they crossed the border, even if it was illegally," he says. "I'm glad they're here, and I embrace them, and I protect them to the best of my ability. I have a heart for the migrant worker."

Lt. Dolan and his wife do not live in Immokalee, but they often attend religious services there. He's an enthusiastic supporter of a chess club and a martial arts group (which he founded) that are sponsored by the sheriff's department and geared toward young illegal immigrants.

"Some people say, 'Why are you teaching these kids chess? Shouldn't it be something simpler, like checkers?' But we say, 'No.' Why shouldn't they learn chess? They learn leadership skills and life lessons through chess. We stress that; you're in command of something when you play chess. Let's don't sell these kids short."

Persistent fears of deportation

But despite the outreach efforts, Lt. Dolan realizes there is a deep level of suspicion toward law enforcement as a whole within the migrant community.

Sister Maureen Kelleher, the Legal Aid lawyer, insists that most illegal immigrants view the sheriff's office as little more than an extension of the much-feared U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some of the misgivings stem from the controversial 287(g) program, which was put in place by Don Hunter, the former sheriff in Collier County. Basically, 287(g) is a federal program that trains local officers in immigration enforcement. Opponents say the program turns local law enforcement into de facto ICE agents.

That view is vigorously disputed by many in the law enforcement community, including Lt. Dolan and Cmdr. Mike Williams, the sheriff's official who is in charge of the program in Collier County.

Cmdr. Williams says the training is designed to help deputies cull violent and habitual offenders who also happen to be in the country illegally. It is not meant, he stresses, to identify lawabiding migrants or those who commit minor offenses and target them for deportation.

Critics nonetheless argue that regardless of the intent, the program has exacerbated the problem of police-migrant relations.

Lt. Dolan does not dispute that work needs to be done to improve the level of trust, and he says community involvement has become as important as traditional policing. At times, though, community involvement and traditional police work dovetail. Such is the case in the matter of the cash the migrants carry or attempt to hide in their dwellings.

Cash-only targets

Because they have no bank accounts, the practice is for migrants to cash paychecks, often at facilities that charge onerous fees for the service, and then simply stuff the cash in their pockets. Many wire money back to relatives in their native countries; to keep the wire fees to a minimum, they let their earnings collect over time.

Last December, Lt. Dolan notes, one migrant worker, brought to the jail not because of a criminal offense but because he was too drunk to care for himself, was found to have $18,000 in cash. Some of the bills had begun to mold in his pocket. In another incident, during a routine traffic stop of a battered pickup truck, deputies uncovered $12,000 in cash. These are not isolated or unusual occurrences, according to Lt. Dolan.

The walking ATMs are a vexing problem, not only for Lt. Dolan but also for others interested in migrant welfare.

"We've been working very hard with the migrant population, and we've worked with the Mexican Consulate… because these people have no place to put their money," says Lt. Dolan. "They can't leave (the cash) at their house because they often live with five or six other workers, so it's not safe. They can't open bank accounts because they don't have a Social Security number, and if they carry it around they are subject to being robbed."

David Garcia of 6Ls packing company, one of the largest employers in Immokalee, says lock boxes for valuables and cash are provided for workers who live in company housing. Yet a mere fraction of Immokalee's migrants live in company housing — 6Ls' or any other. Most are herded into fetid "camps" composed of clusters of mobile homes in varying states of flagrant disrepair. Security in such compounds is risible, making them fertile grounds for thieves and burglars.

Even more dangerous than the camps, however, are Immokalee's streets and alleys in the wee hours, when the bars are closing. Robbers know the walking routes and shortcuts favored by migrants, many of whom have partaken heartily in the taverns. They watch and wait. To protect themselves, migrants travel in groups and many carry knives, which poses a threat of another kind.

"If we answer a call for a drunken altercation involving a migrant, for example," says Cpl. Esteban Rodriguez of the sheriff's department, "we have to be aware that there is a strong possibility the person is carrying a knife."

Among those seeking a solution to this problem is Erin Heil, assistant professor of criminology and sociology at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. Dr. Heil studies the problems of farm workers, and has done extensive work on the subject in Brazil. Drawn to Immokalee both as an academic and an activist, she consults with Lt. Dolan on the cash problem.

"The conditions I've found in Immokalee are similar to what I've seen in Brazil," Dr. Heil says.

Of the matter of cash-toting migrants, she says: "There must be something done about this. I've brainstormed with many people, including some financial experts. It seems so simple at first, but then you try to find a solution, and you see that it is not simple at all."

A huge problem is that workers don't have identification, which the Patriot Act requires of anyone seeking to open a bank account. Trust is another problem, Dr. Heil says. "The migrants fear that a bank might report them and have them deported. But there has to be a solution. As it stands, the migrants are inviting targets for criminals."

Lt. Dolan and Dr. Heil say an option under review is having the workers purchase prepaid debit cards offered by Wal- Mart. These cards are marketed toward those who cannot qualify for traditional credit cards and who do not have bank accounts. But this possible solution is rife with problems. First, local merchants must accept the cards, something many of them are loathe to do because it's more complicated than a traditional cash sale.

"It won't work if the local taco guy won't take (the card)," Lt. Dolan says.

Additionally, there are a variety of fees associated with such cards, making them an expensive alternative. Finally, there's the issue of accessibility. The Wal-Mart store nearest to Immokalee is 22 miles away, according to the company's Web site, and few migrants have automobiles.

"I can't tell you what the solution will be," says Lt. Dolan, "but we will find one."

Meet Manuel and 'No Name'

Up the block and around the corner from Lt. Dolan's office, a migrant who calls himself Manuel and a friend he identifies as "No Name" fritter a splendid morning at a worn cement table outside of Zapateria El Oasis on Main Street. The men sip mango-flavored sodas

from longneck bottles, enjoying mild temperatures and a benign sun, knowing that South Florida's heat will fall like a slab later in the day. The evening past, Manuel explains in fractured, slurred English, he and No Name enjoyed a convivial get-together with friends at a mobile home not far from where they now sit. He says the night was long on strong drink and

playing cards and depressingly short on female companionship, and as a consequence, Manuel's breath still carries the bouquet of the decanter.

 

No Name rattles in machine-gun Spanish, spitting out words and phrases in low, guttural voice that rarely exceeds whisper. At intervals, he crosses himself,

spreads his arms wide and summons divine being.

Manuel, amused by his companion's conniptions, puts his right index finger to his temple and moves it in quick circles, underscoring the obvious: No Name is crazier than a sprayed roach.

Unexpectedly, No Name bolts to his feet and runs to the street, waving both arms wildly like a demented cartoon character. He hails a passing car, whose driver pulls to the curb. No Name says something to the man sitting in the front passenger's seat and is invited inside. The automobile emits a wheezing gasp of charcoal-colored exhaust and departs, with No Name in backseat, crossing himself furiously.

Manuel clearly is relieved to be shed of his manic compadre. There is no work in the fields for him this day — his late night rendered him unfit for labor that begins with a predawn muster — so he is alone to contemplate a path of assiduously pursued idleness. His front right pants pocket carries the telltale bulge of tightly folded cash, but he says he is safe. He fears no assailant; he can care for himself, he insists, although his soft, slight build offers little assurance.

Besides, his filosofia, he announces with suddenly and with a flourish, is something on the order of "whatever will be." He repeats the line twice — whatever will be — obviously gratified by the grandiosity of this alcohol-infused palaver.

Buoyed, Manuel drains his soda, bids adios to one and all and embarks, solo, on a blithe stroll in the general direction of First Street, never looking back, never breaking stride, headed for who knows where to do who knows what.

It is, after all, just one more day in Immokalee.

One of many for Manuel, No Name and all the rest.

Whatever will be. Indeed.

..

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bill Cornwell has been a writer and editor for newspapers in Alabama, California, Florida and Texas. He has won awards for writing from the Associated Press, the Alabama Press Association, the Florida Society of News Editors and Sigma Delta Chi. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Nation, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Miami Herald and other publications. He first wrote about Immokalee more than 25 years ago as a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times. He is a native of Decatur, Ga., and a graduate of Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama, where he earned a degree in history in 1971.