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Migrant Advocate Fosters Hope

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By RONNIE BLAIR, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 14, 2007

DADE CITY - When Gladys Sanchez learned an elementary school girl needed eye surgery, she slid behind her desk and picked up the telephone.

Sanchez is a maestro of the telephone. It is an art she has picked up during her 11 years working for the Pasco County School District as an advocate for migrant students and their families.

Her style is simple. She makes a call. If that person can't help, she hangs up and makes the next call. Then the next. And the next.

Sanchez works with a hope that help is out there - just one more call away if only someone will bother to make that call.

Sanchez bothers.

Her persistence paid off when a Tampa doctor agreed to perform the surgery at a reduced fee. The Pasco Pediatric Foundation also chipped in. The girl's family had no insurance and little money, but they put up what they could.

"She ended up getting the surgery done," Sanchez said. "She is doing well in school."

Sanchez, a 4-foot-9 fast-talking New Yorker with a Puerto Rican heritage, takes the word "advocate" in her job description seriously. These days, she works with about 215 children who are enrolled in Pasco schools and are eligible for migrant services provided through a federal grant.

"I feel that I'm doing something that's going to have an impact," she said. "It impacts them and it impacts me."

Her chief goal is to keep the students in school so they earn diplomas. Ultimately, she achieves that in any number of ways.

Maybe it's by helping find assistance when a child's family needs food, medicine, transportation or a translator. Perhaps it's by letting parents know about tutoring assistance for their children. Perhaps it's by exposing the student to a college campus.

"I believe in education; I'm a product of that," Sanchez said. "I strongly believe all of our migrant students are capable of seeing this through."

Last month, Sanchez was named Florida's Migrant Advocate of the Year at a conference in Orlando. A couple of weeks later, the Pasco County School Board paid tribute to her.

"By understanding the cultural needs of the migrant community, Ms. Sanchez is able to build a bridge between the home and school lives of students," her supervisor, Elena Garcia, said in a prepared statement.

The migrant lifestyle doesn't always mesh well with the public school calendar year. Migrant students often start school late. They often leave before the school year is over.

"That's a difficult thing," Sanchez said.

Sometimes Sanchez sits in on parent-teacher conferences to act as translator. It can be intimidating for the parents to come to the school, sit across from several teachers and not speak their language.

"The language should not be a barrier," Sanchez said. "I want them to feel comfortable coming to school."

Her Migratory Ways

A small lamp Sanchez picked up at a yard sale provides the only illumination in her office at Cox Elementary in Dade City.

The overhead light works fine, but Sanchez prefers the ambiance the lamp creates.

"Where I can manipulate my environment, I like to," she said.

She plays salsa music on her computer while she works. Family photos decorate the desk. She does what she can to give her work area a homey feel.

That's harder to do these days because she is assigned to five schools, forcing her into migratory habits herself.

She goes to Cox, Pasco High, Pasco Middle, Lacoochee Elementary and San Antonio Elementary.

Sanchez has noticed a change in her job since the country began debating what to do about illegal immigrants.

She senses fear sometimes when she makes home visits.

"I'm 4-foot-9; I'm not a threatening person," Sanchez said.

She understands, though. She comes wearing an identification badge. She looks official. Families wonder whether they can trust her.

Here is another thing she has noticed: She gives parents her cell phone number and tells them to call if they need help with something.

Now that cell phone is silent too often. The parents aren't calling.

She can't say for certain, but Sanchez attributes that to the mood in the country right now.

Regardless of the political climate, though, the services for migrant students continue, and Sanchez approaches her duties with her usual gusto.

"Here we are," she said. "We stand ready to serve."

Growing Up Bilingual

Sanchez, 51, likes to say she is from the black-and-white era of entertainment. She loves movies from the 1930s and 1940s, especially those starring Clark Gable.

She also fondly recalls watching such television fare as "Roy Rogers," "Fury" and "I Love Lucy" growing up in the Bronx.

Her parents came from Puerto Rico to seek a better life, much like many of the migrant families she works with today. They settled in New York, and that's where Sanchez was born in 1955.

She grew up bilingual.

"My parents never spoke to me in English, ever," Sanchez said.

Her parents put a premium on education, even though they were unable to pursue much in the way of a formal education for themselves. Neither attended high school.

The south Bronx was a rough place to grow up, Sanchez said. It was a world of gangs and drugs, and the odds of going to college were long.

Sanchez went to college.

After graduating from high school, she enrolled at Herbert H. Lehman College in the Bronx. She described herself as a hopelessly naïve undergraduate who was unaware she needed to attend orientation and was surprised to learn she had to pay for textbooks.

Herbert H. Lehman College was perhaps a fitting place for a future migrant advocate to study.

The college was named for a former New York governor and senator who championed the underprivileged. In 1950, Lehman voted against an anti-immigration bill that was popular at the time, according to the school's Web site.

Sanchez earned a bachelor's degree in sociology and social work. Later, when she was 40, she added to that a master's degree in social work from the University of Pennsylvania.

After college, Sanchez spent many years moving around because her ex-husband was in the military.

She has two adult children. Her daughter teaches at Seven Oaks Elementary in Wesley Chapel, and her son recently graduated from the University of South Florida and plans to go to law school.

Sanchez will be 52 next month and, like a 15-year-old about to turn 16, already proclaims herself a year older. She prefers to embrace aging, even when it's occasionally unkind.

"I'm trying to get used to these bifocals," Sanchez said, slipping off her glasses and eyeing them disdainfully. "I'm not doing too well. I don't like them."

Hope Begets Hope

After the little girl's successful eye surgery last year, the Pasco Pediatric Foundation invited Sanchez and the girl's family to attend a foundation dinner.

The family couldn't make it, but Sanchez arrived ready to thank the foundation for its assistance in making the surgery happen.

What she didn't know was the foundation planned to recognize her with its Children's Advocacy and Recognition of Excellence award.

"I was speechless, and speechless is not in my repertoire," Sanchez said.

She composed herself long enough to blurt out some sort of thanks. Later, she couldn't be sure whether she spoke in English or Spanish.

Her foundation award came with $500 she could donate to a favorite charity. She chose the Harvest of Hope Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides assistance to migrant farm workers and their families.

At the time Sanchez made her donation to Harvest of Hope, a migrant advocate in Texas was desperately trying to find assistance for a down-on-its-luck family as Christmas neared. Harvest of Hope earmarked Sanchez's $500 for that family.

One act of kindness had made possible another.

Reporter Ronnie Blair can be reached at (813) 948-4218 or rblair@tampatrib.com.

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