You Ask, What’s Wrong with America?
"It’s a Family Falling Apart. People Are
Drifting away from God"
(Deacon Luis Trevino)
To be poor: Having few or no material possessions,
wanting means to procure the comfort or the
necessities of life; so destitute as to be dependent
upon gifts or allowances for subsistence.
(The Oxford English Dictionary)
A Report by Robert R. Schwarz
1. In writing this report about the subculture of race track "residents" working and living less than two miles from my middle-class suburban home in Arlington Heights, Illinois , I have relied on memories of poor people with whom I have interacted during past decades. There were people in a high crime neighborhoods when I was a young reporter for the Chicago City News Bureau; and there were the poorest of the poor in Calcutta during my global trek as leadership development manager for Lions Clubs International. Memories and insights also come from a tour of the hellish Soweto slum in apartheid-afflicted South Africa; sharing soup with a widow in her South Korea hut; a rag-dressed child in the middle of a downtown Manila intersection holding out her hand to me as my taxi paused at a traffic light; and a dirt-poor family in western Arkansas whom I knew for several months when they helped my retired father renovate our family's falling-down barn and house which never had plumbing indoors.
2. “Your chaplain is expecting me," I told the security guard at the end of a private road leading into a rear area seldom seen by patrons of this Arlington Race Track (now closed) known nationwide for its classy architecture, dining and cocktail facilities, and its annual million dollar purse. The guard waved me in, and I drove a short distance to the track's Internet Café, a fast-food oasis for the track's hundreds of itinerant, mostly Mexican residents, whose homes change with the horse racing seasons.
Two young residents of the race track
Walking through the café towards the chaplain's "office", I entered an active environment of excited shouts in Spanish from four men playing pool and several others watching a live-streaming horse race on each of three elevated televisions sets . A few feet away were some telephone booths for placing bets.
I was soon shaking hands with Luis Trevino, the then 74-year-old Catholic deacon and race track chaplain . He is National Advisor for the Race Track Ministry. Talking cheerfully, Luis escorted me into his office, a colorless, all-purpose room that reminded me of a large closet . There were a few mismatched chairs and cafeteria-style tables, all crammed together to make room for whatever might be scheduled.
"Luis," I said, " I want to hear what you have learned about being poor, from the people living here on what is called the back-stretch.”
Luis pulled out a couple of chairs and a small table, and we sat down. He appeared eager to talk about the Back Stretch residents . All of them , he said, had a working role here : dads groomed and fed the horses , their sons walked the horses between 3 and 4 a.m., and moms “do what most moms do"—with one-star rated appliances, that is—they cleaned, cooked, and washed clothes . "My mission, " Luis said, "is to make life a little less miserable for all of them.”
Luis has been a deacon here for almost three decades—"without compensation," he said, "officiating at weddings and funerals and," he added, " assisting a priest, when one is available, at the 7 p.m. Sunday Mass held in this room. The faith of the Hispanic people is really strong, " he said. "We'll soon have 65 children confirmed ." He and his wife have attended a world conference for race track chaplains in Rome , where the Pope blessed him and his wife their 50th wedding anniversary.
The Trevino's have three children and three grandchildren. He and his wife, Ludivina, have been married more than 50 years. He was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and at age 18 immigrated to Chicago to join his father and two older brothers help run a small printing shop.
I perceived Luis to be a work-weary man , especially when he said, " My biggest challenge here is that I'm getting old. I would like to start lining up a few candidates to take over for me. I'm like Noah , just floating." Luis today also serves as a chaplain at O’Hare International Airport and at church in nearby Schaumburg. During winter months , he officiates at marriages and baptisms at surrounding events like carnivals and circuses. “I’m like a portable church ,” he told me. He rises at 4:30 a.m. and says he “passes out” when he gets home.
at the race track's back-stretch
3. An hour later Luis and I were walking down a long dirt corridor in the Back Stretch, past a row of small , barrack-style dwellings. Outside, children were playing with a variety of inflated toys and two soccer balls. At a long outdoor table sat two families eating and making merry like families doing a television commercial. "Most families have three or four kids, but everybody has some kind of a job here," Luis said. "They move out when the horses do," he said, referring to the track's May- through =September season. Rent is included in whatever small salary they make , he said . When asked for a dollar amount, he replied, " I don't want to get into that , but they are very poor. People drop off clothing for them."
" Luis, please tell me, how are these people different from you and me," I asked. He obviously welcome the question, especially when I told him his comments would be read on my Exodus Trekkers blog in several European and in two African countries.
" For starters, " he began, "we don't pray the same way. You and I might pray for a lighter load in life; these guys will also pray to Jesus but ask for a stronger back. They don't want God to give them anything except to place them somewhere where they can work for it. They don't need to go on any ego trip. But one thing they do have is family unity . For them, family comes first, then their job, and then church. The biggest thing to help these people is education. Most can not read or write even Spanish..."
We continued to walk and talk about poverty. " To me," Luis said, "many people don't need much to survive. These people here are on a survival mission, not only for themselves but for their families back home [ in Mexico ]. There is a unity here; no one is more important than the other one. "
We paused at a door and Luis knocked . " I'll show you poverty, " he said. A woman named Señora Maria , perhaps 50 years of age , opened and immediately welcomed her amigo, Luis. She spoke no English . My Spanish was rusty but usable. Luis asked if we could come in , that I would like to ask her a few questions and take some photographs for an article. " Claro, que si, " Maria replied.
We entered a cement floor dwelling with a single room no larger than twelve by twelve feet. Alongside a simple bed at the far wall was a small table with an unlit candle next to a sacramental of the Virgin Mary. On the opposite wall a small sink and equally small refrigerator had been squeezed in . Near the door was the home's only window, on which hung a clean but tattered curtain, and next to that was Maria's closet: inside on a pole hung two or three clothing garments. In this dwelling I saw neither a toilet nor a stove.
" Where do you cook?" I asked Maria , glancing quizzically at Luis.
"You saw the grill outside the door, " he said. "They are not allowed to cook inside. "
"No one is? " I asked Maria. She nodded.
The three of us talked for several minutes. In spite of my probing questions , Maria had nothing negative to say about anything in her life, though I'm sure she too had her bucket list. Maria apologetically said she had an appointment with an ill neighbor and invited us to return later.
Outside, I took a photograph of three small, well cultivated vegetable gardens growing beans and tomatoes . Their organic beauty seemed to be defying what encircled them : lots of tall weeds , a battered metal fence , and a tidy pile of various what appeared to be junked home items, all of which I suspected were frequently used and valued. Beyond the horizon of the racetrack compound and less than a quarter mile away were cars now streaming by on Illinois 53, and a few hundred yards southeast of this was the towering Randhurst shopping center.
‘‘So, Luis, as you being a deacon, I really would like to hear what this Back Stretch has taught you about poverty, about poor people.”
"I learn more from them than what I can give them. How to be humble. How to appreciate what God has given me.
“Why don't you come and see more at next Sundays' Mass here ? We'll have a priest"
the race track's back-stretch
4. That next Sunday I was back in Luis’ office , now sitting in front of a small altar listening to Fr. Matt Foley deliver his Spanish-spoken funeral homily on “the bread of life”. Fr. Foley at the time was pastor of my church and no stranger to poverty or violence . Each year he uses his two-week vacation as a volunteer chaplain for a dental mission to indigenous farmers in a mountainous region in Mexico ; he's also pastored a church on Chicago's West Side, where he comforted families at funerals for murdered Hispanic gang members; and prior to coming to my church, he made four deployments to war-plagued Afghanistan as a U.S. Army chaplain with a captain's rank.
I couldn’t help but focus now and then at the bunker-like, unpainted walls that seem to entomb us and at the only light source coming from four florescent light bulbs. And, there was that water leaking down from a ceiling air-conditioner, making muddy shoe streaks on the floor. But, none of this , I felt, diminished the funeral solemnity of this hour. Faces expressed this solemnity , especially the faces of ten or so children who crowded around the very small altar. I counted 35 adults, 15 youths, and the family forced to stand and another family sitting on the floor. Propped up against the altar table on the floor was a large print of Our Lady of Guadalupe (the title of the Virgin Mary associated with the honored pictorial image housed in a basilica in Mexico City ). The print was flanked by two vases with long stem roses and pink and white flowers.
When Mass ended and dollar bills were tossed one after another into a wicker basket being passed by a teenage girl, we all sang Vienen con Alegri ( " They Come with Joy" ).
5. On October 22, 2022, at a McDonald’s , I had my final interview with Luis for this report. We both got serious about the causes of poverty and poor people . Luis did not spare any incriminating words about some very wealthy people. “Poverty exists,” he began. “not because we don’t have enough to feed poor people but because we don’t ever have enough to please the very wealthy. For them, money has glue on it, once they get it, they won’t let it go... But the poor also have to take care of themselves—We cannot draw from an empty well! The very wealthy worry much [ about what they don’t have]. They should take one day at a time. Poor people get up in the morning and look in the mirror and tell themselves, I’m lucky to be alive.”
I had to ask: “Any message for these very wealthy, Luis ?”
“ Sure. Follow the Commandments, those two Commandments of Jesus : Love God with all your heart mind and soul and your neighbor as your self…” Then Luis added with a subdued chuckle: “Trouble is, some don’t love themselves, let alone a neighbor."
“ I feel sad,” he said, that I have only so much time to give to help people. "
Our talk ended with...“ Luis, what’s really wrong today with our country?" He smiled. “It’s like a family falling apart. You know, all the problems we have now start in the home, and people are drifting way from God.”
The End
Next Sunday: The Busy Heart
Of a Concierge in an Assisted
Living Home
All comments are welcome
rrschwarz777@gmail.com
© 2022, 2023 Robert R. Schwarz
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