For ten years, Antonio Méndez has been carrying out a 50-mile walk for three days to raise awareness about the difficulties immigrants face when arriving in the United States.
“I did my first walk in 2014, a year after the first mass for immigrants was celebrated,” he says.
He remembers that he was looking at the relics of Santo Toribio Romo, recently brought to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Los Angeles, when he learned that there was a mass dedicated to migrants.
Santo Toribio is a Mexican Catholic priest who became a martyr after he was murdered during the anticlerical persecution of the Cristero War in Mexico.
“It was when I told Father Martín if I could walk to see the mass.”
Antonio says he started by walking from the town of Lake Forest in Orange County to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, about 45 miles.
After five years of carrying out the walk-pilgrimage between Lake Forest and the Los Angeles Cathedral, the headquarters changed to the Mission of the Basilica of San Juan Capistrano.
“It is 50 miles that I walk for three days, to arrive just on the day of the mass for the immigrants.”
He explains that although he started out alone walking the streets, little by little people joined his cause.
However, Antonio prefers not to give numbers of how many walkers manage to reach the Cathedral.
“It’s not about numbers, because people join along the way, often on the second or third day; and some, due to their physical condition, get tired and end up doing part of the section by car.”
But yes – he says – that before the pandemic, there were many more walkers for migrants.
Among those who have accompanied him, Monsignor Michael O’Connor, who died in February 2023, stands out.
Usually – he comments – they leave early when the morning is still cool and the sun beats down, and they walk all day until around six in the afternoon.
“It’s better to start early so you’re not so pressed for time.”
He says they don’t go out with a planned agenda of where to eat or spend the night.
“Sometimes they give us lodging where we are passing; or we can go to fast food restaurants; Sometimes, some parishes give us food and shelter, and we also stop in places to rest.”
He says that during the walk they pray, and it is a time that serves to clear the mind and thoughts, since he considers that we live very quickly.
Antonio, a father of four children, who makes a living in construction, says that he never thought when he decided to do the first walk for immigrants that he would continue it every year.
“Migrants have always been looked down upon, not just now. One day, a Latino friend of his who arrived in this country before the 70s and 60s, told me that once he was looking to enter a bathroom in Texas; On the one hand, it said for whites; and on the other, for African Americans. And he wondered where I was. Segregation has always existed, and it will continue if we do nothing.”
He says that it cannot be ignored that abuses against immigrants are also happening in other parts of the world with women and children dying on the way between Africa and Europe.
“In Los Angeles, since Bishop Onísimo Cepeda was there, we began to see a lot of persecution, abuse and discrimination against immigrants, but it is something that has always been there.”
When he himself emigrated to this country in the 80s, he did not have it easy.
“I came with a friend and since we had nowhere to sleep, we stayed on the street. I only had a quarter in my pocket. A Greyhound bus brought us to downtown Los Angeles. “Over time I realized that he had left us near the Cathedral.”
Antonio, 64 years old, is originally from the state of Michoacán, and resides in the city of Lake Forest in southern Orange County.
This year, the recognition mass for migrants will take place on Sunday, September 29 at the Los Angeles Cathedral.