Standing up for the invisible
By Cynthia J. Drake
Deborah Shear credits much of her
success to her mentor and professor Gary Dunbar.
Some people turn their heads and walk quickly when they see a homeless person or someone with a disability.
Not Juan Salazar. He invites them into his office and tries his best to help them through a system that often makes people feel helpless, like the odds are stacked against them.
Salazar, ’78, knows how it feels to be invisible. He spent a lot of his life feeling that way. And then he found his calling.
Weslaco, Texas – September 1960
First-grader Juan Salazar sits in a small classroom in South Texas, seven miles from the Mexican border. His teacher is speaking, but he doesn’t know what she’s saying.
If he speaks up in the only language he knows – the language his parents and all his classmates’ parents speak – he will be punished. There’s a rule here in segregated Weslaco – no Spanish in the hallway, no Spanish in the classrooms.
Despite going to school in fear of the teacher’s wooden paddle, young Juan is fluent in English within a few months. Neighbors start coming to his house, knocking on his door.
“I have this legal document …” they tell Juan’s parents. But they can’t read what it says. So his father calls him over, and Juan starts translating court summons and mortgage statements before he is old enough to know what a mortgage is.
The neighbors give a bag of onions or whatever they have to thank the Salazar family.
By the end of sixth grade, Juan’s school holds a graduation for the “brown kids.” This seems to be the end of the line for him, the farthest his teachers expect him to go in his education.
But Juan has other plans.
New Salem, Michigan – June 1967
Juan is now 13 years old, the oldest of nine children in his family. His father and uncle are heading north for the summer, and Juan climbs into the back of a pickup truck for the long trip to Michigan.
In New Salem, he works alongside all the other migrant workers at the DeBruyn Produce Company. He lies about his age for the privilege of sweating through long, back-breaking days of washing, packaging, and loading carrots, celery, and onions for transport.
Juan learns what it is like to feel invisible – “thousands of people [migrant workers] came to Michigan and it seemed like no one knew we were here,” he says.
Some kids will keep working alongside their families into the school year, but not Juan.
“My parents were people who believed education was the key to a better life,” he says. So Juan continues his education through high school in Texas, with his eyes always set on college.
A guidance counselor tries to derail Juan, telling him point-blank: “Your people don’t go to college.”
“I had no use for him,” he says. And he moved on.
Mount Pleasant, Michigan – August 1973
CMU offers a scholarship to migrants, and Juan feels drawn to the rural beauty of a town he’s never seen, so he makes another trip north – this time for an experience unlike any other in his life.
At CMU he studies secondary education and meets other Mexican American students who share a lot in common with him.
Juan’s friend Maurilio Arellano’s first impression of Juan was that “he sure was not shy about expressing his views on issues, even if it meant strongly disagreeing with someone. I came to understand that he was an assertive, proud, and confident person who was not afraid to speak his mind, and that part of his passion for those in need is rooted in his family values and his belief in fairness.”
Juan and his compadres hang out at The Cabin bar for pool games and heated political discussions, fueled by 25-cent beers. They join COPA – Chicanos Organized for Progress and Action.
“These are good memories,” says Arellano. “As a Chicano community at CMU, we were trying to blaze trails where very few roads existed for farm workers. Some of us dropped out; yet there were many others who went on to have great success. Among our ranks are doctors, lawyers, teachers, and public administrators.”
Juan’s activism takes hold at CMU. He marches on behalf of farm workers and thrives from the intellectual stimulation of his classes.
“I met a lot of interesting professors,” he says. “I had a sociology professor I really liked. I remember him saying that people are all the same – the only difference is that they’re either an ‘innie’ or an ‘outie.’”
In 1973, not all faculty members embrace diversity.
An earth science professor repeatedly calls him “John Salazar” during roll call, even after Juan corrects him.
After the third time, Juan starts to take to his feet in the lecture hall. His fellow classmates warn him to take it easy – they don’t want him to draw attention.
“I stood up and I said, ‘Excuse me, professor. My name is Juan Salazar. I am named after my paternal grandfather, and I am proud of my name,’” he says.
There is a big tree on campus near Rose Arena. In late August when he arrives at CMU the first time, the tree is totally green. Over the school year, Juan watches in amazement and sadness as all the leaves fall off in the late fall – he has never seen leaves falling off a tree like that, and it seems like death to him. But in the spring, before he leaves to go home for the summer he sees that the tree is starting to bud again.
“Every year I would visit that tree,” he says. “It was like my life.”
Grand Rapids, Michigan – June 1978
Just like he did when he was in grade school translating legal documents for neighbors, Juan gets drawn into helping people who are invisible to the system.
Following graduation, Juan spends time working for Michigan Migrant Legal Assistance and then moves on to Legal Aid of Western Michigan, a nonprofit organization responding to the call for equal access to the court for everyone, including the poor.
“I decided that helping those less fortunate in the community was not a bad thing to do,” he says. “I found my calling here, my mission.”
For several decades, Juan tirelessly works as a public benefits advocate to help clients who have no access to legal representation for housing issues, landlord/tenant disputes, divorces, domestic violence, disability assistance, and credit problems.
Juan begins to specialize in Supplemental Security Income, benefits that are offered to people who are not eligible for Social Security and are disabled, blind, or at least 65 years old with limited income.
The clients Juan sees all have been denied benefits and are hoping for a last chance at what may make the difference between having a roof over their heads and living on the streets. The work gets harder, and the number of cases grows in direct proportion to the plummeting economy and a decrease in job opportunities.
One day a single mother comes to Juan for help. Her 8-year-old son has cystic fibrosis and is diagnosed as “failure to thrive” by doctors.
The mother has mounting medical bills and spends most of her time taking care of her son’s health, including supplementing his food with special protein just so he can maintain his weight.
“Somebody thought they could save the government some money by taking him off disability,” Juan says.
He takes the case before a judge, who rules in favor of the woman and her child.
“You change the world one client at a time. For that individual who made it to our office, we made a difference,” he says.
But there are many others who don’t find their way to Juan.
Grand Rapids, Michigan – December 2007
A man stands by a traffic light near an overpass on Pearl Street in downtown Grand Rapids holding a sign that says, “Homeless veteran. God bless you.”
Light snow falls on a line of cars idling at a red light while the man walks past, glancing tentatively at each driver until one rolls her window down and hands him a few dollars.
There are 11,000 SSI cases pending in the West Michigan Social Security Administration office, waiting to be handled by just six administrative judges. Those cases take two to two and a half years before a hearing is scheduled before an administrative law judge.
In the meantime, some people wait with few options left.
“It’s frustrating because poverty and racism and unfairness persist, and we see people who are victims of it day in and day out,” says Leslie Curry, litigation director at Legal Aid of Western Michigan, who has worked with Juan for 25 years.
“There is a tremendous amount of people seeking SSI,” Juan says. “When the economy changes, people have no other recourse. It weighs heavy, but I can’t speed up the system. We have electronic filing now to make things faster, but when you assume that everyone is poor and some people are illiterate, how are they going to fill out a 20-page application online?”
Still, Juan is successful in 90 percent of his cases. He ensures that his clients have medical records and documentation that shows proof of their disability. When they are approved for SSI, they’ll receive about $600 a month, in addition to Medicaid and food stamps.
“Some judges are skeptical. My job is to make believers out of them,” he says. “I am a good advocate in that I don’t give up. I am persistent, and I don’t give up.”
By the way, we checked in on Juan’s tree a few days ago. It’s still standing proud underneath a thick blanket
of snow. •
