By Paula Day

Sister Barbara Harrington, G.N.S.H., a person familiar to Atlanta’s Hispanic community, will be leaving her post as Hispanic program director of Catholic Social Services at the end of February. She has accepted a full-time position at St. Joseph’s Hospital as its coordinator of Hispanic Services.

Sister Barbara came to CSS 12 years ago this July from St. Pius X High School where she had taught Spanish for two years. She credits Dr. and Mrs. Jose Bordon for challenging her to become fluent in speaking Spanish, in addition to understanding its grammar and being able to read it. This fluency gave her the confidence, she says, to take on the work of outreach to Hispanics that CSS was developing at the time.

By 1976, to CSS’ work of resettlement of Cubans was added the task of meeting the needs of Asians coming to this country. To maintain contact with the Hispanic community, Father Jacob A. Bollmer, CSS director, foresaw the need for an outreach program that would assess developing Hispanic needs and create services to meet those needs. Sister Barbara was hired to head this outreach.

As one of her first tasks, she began to link up with other service providers. She initiated an Hispanic hot line in 1978 which was funded primarily by United Way. This hot line is still operative, manned by Vicki Gonzalez, a 14-year veteran at CSS. It provides information and orientation for newcomers to the Atlanta area and new information for longer residents. The hot line has also developed into a job placement and a case work tool.

In addition to installation of the hot line, Sister Barbara began Clinic Aid, a program to improve access to health services for Hispanics, and a seven-year “News In Spanish” program, which used volunteer announcers and aired early in the morning on radio state WABE. Sister Barbara also organized other short term projects, including self-help programs for low income families, which were funded from a variety of community sources.

During these years of outreach Sister Barbara recalls having two main objectives: living up with other groups who were working in the Hispanic community, and assessing and responding to needs. She felt a special responsibility “not only to respond myself, but to make others aware. Because of the Church’s traditional role in the lives of the Hispanic people, we have greater insight and awareness of their needs. This awareness brings responsibility.”

Two particular challenges, according to Sister Barbara, face the Church in Atlanta in its effort to carry out this responsibility. They are the wide geographic dispersion of Hispanics and an historic regional tendency to focus on the black minority’s needs.

At the present time, the number of Hispanics living in the metro Atlanta area is conservatively estimated to be 25,000. They represent a wide variety of nationalities: Cubans, Mexicans, and an increasing number of Central Americans, particularly Nicaraguans and Salvadorans, as well as immigrants from Colombia and other South American countries.

As conditions in Central America worsened in the early 1980s, Sister Barbara and others at CSS began to realize that someone was needed to bridge the immigration process. They were meeting Hispanics who did not understand the process, had no language skills, no confidence in themselves, and no money. It was apparent these people needed an advocate.

Sister Barbara took on this task, learning all the intricacies of the immigration process. From that effort grew a full-fledged immigration service that sought and received accreditation from the U.S. Justice Department and will continue after she leaves.

Technically, according to U.S. law, immigrants are those persons who come to the United States, either legally or illegally, of their own volition, as contrasted to refugees who are forced by a variety of circumstances to leave their native countries.

“It was really satisfying to see this particular service develop,” Sister Barbara notes, “and having the pro-bono assistance of attorneys with specialties in immigration has been most helpful to us.”

In 1983, Sister Barbara received the regional Humanitarian Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for her efforts on behalf of the Hispanic community.

Out of her immigration advocacy grew a more specialized task: preparing and submitting petitions for asylum in this country and Canada. The work involved understanding the legal standards of gaining asylum, evaluating the individual’s personal story, and advising that person on the best action for them. Sister Barbara says she “relied very heavily on volunteers to help” with this asylum work.

In 1987, volunteers worked over 7,800 hours in CSS’ immigration and legalization efforts alone. Sister Barbara noted that 60 to 75 percent of these volunteers are leaders in the Hispanic community. They have been involved in every aspect of the work – legal assistance, translation, emergency assistance, medical assistance, transportation, publicity and clerical. “They are considered part of the staff,” she adds.

When the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service began its year-long amnesty and legalization project last May, CSS already had in place a structure that could handle the task of helping illegal aliens gain work permits and legal status.

In 1987, the Hispanic hot line handled 3,100 contacts. From these contacts approximately 100 asylum cases developed; 55 deportation hearings before a judge were handled; 125 immigrants received permanent residence status; 30 people made application for U.S. citizenship. The legalization program, begun in May, has handled 540 cases to date.

Sister Barbara’s concern for members of the Hispanic community goes beyond her work at CSS. According to Sister Carol Bartol, G.N.S.H., who shares a house with her, “She works way over and above a 40-hour week. People have our home phone number and the phone is always ringing, day or night. She takes people food shopping, goes to the St. Vincent de Paul to get furniture and clothing. She gets money to pay for rent and transportation. We have taken people into our home.” Sister Carol recalls accompanying Sister Barbara “quite a few times, in the middle of the night, to help get people out of jail.”

As CSS’ immigration service has developed, more than 50 percent of its clients are non-Hispanic. Sister Barbara believes “it is time after 12 years for a new person with new vision and new energy to implement the agency’s continued dedication and commitment to the Hispanic population.”

For her part, in her new post, Sister Barbara will again work specifically for Hispanics. She will have the opportunity to develop a service she says has long been needed in the community, that of outreach to Hispanics for medical services under St. Joseph Hospital's director of mission effectiveness, Sister Josephine Patti, G.N.S.H.

Hispanic health needs are no different from those of the population at large, Sister Barbara points out. But many Hispanics are unfamiliar with health opportunities in this country. Because the Hispanic community is largely Catholic and is a growing component of the Church’s future in the U.S., and because health care is a need but language is an obstacle, she hopes to focus on resolving access problems to health care for this minority, as well as to find funding and support from the Atlanta community at large.

For his part, Steve Brazen, interim director of CSS, says, “We’ll really miss her here. She’s very highly respected within the Hispanic community. Our programs are respected in large part because of her relationship with Hispanics over the years. I’m glad she’s staying in Atlanta, though. It’ll be tough replacing her, believe me.”

Two leaders in the Hispanic community acknowledge her contributions. Raul Trujillo has known Sister Barbara since her days at St. Pius. “She has been extremely helpful to the Hispanic people,” he says. “She is sensitive to their needs – always offering good advice. She became one of them. Everytime you bring her a problem, even though she has 2,000 of them already, she’s always ready to listen.”

Carmen Macias, a fellow member with Trujillo on the Archdiocesan Council For The Hispanic Apostolate, agrees. “She always listens with an open ear, open mind and open heart – especially to the poor. She’s always open to help them form a bridge.”

On a personal basis, Mrs. Macias added, “She means a lot to those of us who work with the poor Hispanics. She’s like a mother to us.”