This Sunday, Sacred Heart Missionary Father Antonio Garnica will phone his 85-year-old father, Antonio Sr. in Mexico --- where he is visiting relatives and friends before returning home to Fillmore --- to wish him a happy Father's Day.

Before the conversation ends, Antonio Sr., will call his son "mijo," an affectionate form of "mi hijo" or "my son." He also will bless his priest-son, as he does during every phone call and visit, and he will say, "God bless you and take care of you, and our beloved Mother protect you. The angels of heaven bless you and take away danger. Receive your mom's blessing, too."

If Father Antonio were with him, he would kiss his father's hands at the time of the blessing. "I always kiss the hands of my papa," says the pastor of Sagrado Corazon y Santa Maria de Guadelupe Church in Cudahy. "And he kisses mine, as well, after the blessing."

This is the custom in the Garnica family where love, pride and reverence are preeminent. The nine children of Antonio and Maria Elena know how hard those hands have worked to provide over the years.

Rugged beginnings
During World War II, when Antonio Sr. was 23 and unmarried, he was very interested in a young girl named Maria Elena Mendez. But he was needed to help support his father and siblings, and it was hard to make a living in their town of La Ladera in Michoacan, Mexico. So Antonio became one of thousands to sign up for the U.S. government's new bracero program since, with most able American men in the military, U.S. farms desperately needed help.

From Mexico City, Antonio traveled by train to Colorado Springs and then to Montana to harvest sugar beets. Many would-be workers did not survive the torturous train ride, dying of dysentery or other diseases, unable to handle the desert heat. Those who survived found harvesting sugar beets tough work, with little machinery available.

The pay was about 52 cents an hour. Antonio sent as much as he could back to his father, and also corresponded with his beloved Maria Elena.

In 1948 the bracero program ended and Antonio returned to La Ladera where he married Maria Elena. Within a year she became pregnant with Antonio Jr. --- "Tony," the future priest. Now with a wife and family to support, Antonio returned to the U.S. where the need for workers from Mexico continued even though the bracero program had ended. About every two years Antonio would return to La Ladera. Every other year a child was born. Soon seven children made up the family.

Antonio picked oranges in Pomona and Ontario and earned around $1.40 an hour. He sent most of the money back to Mexico for Maria Elena and the children. But if the check was late, "my mom would send me, because I was the oldest, to the aunts in Jacona to give us a loan to support the family," recalls Father Garnica.

While Antonio Sr. was working in California, early each morning Maria Elena would wake Tony to go with her to the corn mill. They would drop off their cooked corn and then she and Tony would go to Mass. Returning home they would pick up the milled corn. "And then we would go to the bakery and the ladies would say to me, 'Oh, you're here Tony. You went to Mass? Good. I am going to give you one delicious piece of bread cooked specially for you.' I couldn't miss one day of the delicious bread."

Prayers for 'Daddy'
Going to Mass Father Garnica's mother used to say to him, "Tony, pray for your dad so God can bless him and bring him safe to us." During those years going back and forth between the United States and Mexico, she would tell the children to pray for their father. At every meal they would bless him, "Let us give thanks to God because we have this bread which is from Daddy who is working far away from us. But he is thinking of each one of you. So let us give thanks to God, to protect him and to give him work and to be safe."

Every two years he would return home. Sometimes he would stay only two weeks or sometimes a month. "He used to come early in the morning and my Mom would come and say, 'Wake up. Wake up, your dad is here,'" says Father Garnica. "It was a wonderful surprise."

Antonio also picked cotton near Fresno and earned 5 cents a pound. He worked long and hard hours. One day he was approached about working at a chicken ranch in Ventura owned by the Baker family, so he took the job. This "generous family" offered Antonio a small house on the land and suggested that he immigrate with his family to the United States.

In 1959 Antonio bought a yellow, two-door, 1954 Chevy and returned for his family. Once they had the papers they packed and set off for Ventura via the border crossing at Nogales, Arizona.

Moving to California
The Garnica family crossed the border into the United States on Jan. 1, 1960. After crossing into the U.S. the first thing Antonio did was to go a market "to buy food to make sandwiches --- ham, cheese, milk, everything," says Father Garnica. "He was preparing sandwiches. Delicious ones. It was the first food I ate in the United States."

When the yellow Chevy pulled into the chicken ranch in Ventura, the Baker family had Christmas presents waiting for them. In Ventura, two more Garnica children were born.

With their six sons and three daughters, the Garnicas lived well. The children attended school in Somis. At one point the family bought a home in Fillmore and their father continued working with chickens. All who were born in Mexico became U.S. citizens, and all built successful lives. The oldest attended the seminary --- and worked as a dishwasher, cleaned locker rooms and shined shoes at Las Posas Country Club, and studied at Moorpark College --- before he was ordained, at age 30, as a Missionary of the Sacred Heart priest.

Sadly Maria Elena died in 1994, but her spirit and legacy continue.

Proud family
All of the Garnica children have worked hard. Daughter Elena lives in Modesto and is a nurse in eye surgery. Esther earned a Master's Degree and she and her husband live in Washington, D.C., where she teaches. Robert entered the Air Force at 18 and is now a Chief Master Sergeant. Jaime drove ambulances, became a paramedic and is now an operating room RN. Hugo, or "Sam," entered the Navy and is now a welding and maintenance supervisor. Jesus, or "Chuy," was in the Air Force and is now head of maintenance for his school district and trains bus drivers in Fillmore. Ricardo owns a tire business. John went to West Point Military Academy after high school and currently is in a consulting business and a member of the Fillmore Unified School District.

Among Antonio and Maria Elena's 19 grandchildren and three great grandchildren are Jaime's two sons --- one at Cal Tech and one at the University of Florida, Tampa --- and John's son Tom, who went to Desert Storm and twice to Iraq.

"My brothers and my nephews have given their lives to the military services --- all to prove that they belong, too," says Father Garnica. "My nephews and my brothers have shown how much they care for this nation."

Reflecting on all his parents, brothers and sisters have accomplished, Father Garnica says, "They spent the beauty of their youth-time working and building this country. I am so proud of my dad and mom, and each one of my brothers and sisters. Nationality means nothing; love and taking care of the children is everything. That's all we want."

Not long ago, Antonio, Sr. told his priest-son, "I am so proud of you children. Be just, keep working, be useful people for yourself, your nation and your family --- and that's it, mijo."