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He came to America looking for a better life. He found it and works every day to make his community even better.
By JANET ZINK
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 28, 2003
WIMAUMA -- Cayetano Polanco wants to change the way people see Wimauma.
The town has its problems, he acknowledges. There's a great deal of poverty among the Mexican farm workers who live there.
"We know people need food. People need clothes," says Polanco, who for many years traveled from Florida to Tennessee as a migrant field hand. "But we don't want our community always extending our hands."
The community, Polanco believes, should use those hands to lift itself.
With that philosophy in mind, Polanco has become a tireless advocate for Wimauma's Mexican community.
He serves on the Wimauma Community Council, is president of the Pastoral Council at the predominantly Hispanic Our Lady of Guadelupe Catholic Church, and coaches the under 8 team of the Rural Youth Soccer Association, a team he named "the Future of Wimauma."
In 2000, he was named Father of the Year of Pocos Hijos, a family planning education and referral project that focuses on the needs of farm workers and their families.
In 1990, Polanco organized the Mexican Independence Day parade and festival. It is held each year in Wimauma on the Saturday before Mexican Independence Day, which is Sept. 16. Last year, more than 4,000 people watched the parade, which is open to anyone with any kind of vehicle that is decorated with the colors of the Mexican flag.
"If he's behind what you're doing, you'll have everybody there," says Alayne Unterberger, executive director of the Florida Institute for Community Studies, a nonprofit research and service organization focusing on farm workers and other underserved populations in Florida. "He embodies the civic spirit there."
"If he says he's going to do something he comes through on it," says Jesse Villarreal, the Wimauma sheriff's deputy who works with Polanco on the Wimauma Community Council, a citizen's advisory group that helps identify and solve problems ranging from school truancy to street lights. "He's been a great asset to our community council and helping the Hispanic community get the services they need."
Cayetano Polanco was born in 1953 in the town of Matamoros in Tamaulipas, Mexico. His father operated a small farm, and his mother crossed the Mexican border every day to work in the fields in Texas to support their seven children.
Polanco, the youngest in the family, came to Wimauma with his mother in 1978 in a caravan of pick-up trucks carrying four families looking for a better life in America.
A year later, he went back to Matamoros to get his wife and two children.
He had never gone to college, and had a hard time making a decent living in Mexico, where even professionals worry about earning enough money to pay the bills, he says. Polanco recalls a friend, who had just graduated from law school and was looking for a job, considered becoming a farm worker in America.
"He asked me, 'Cayetano. I want to come with you.' I said, 'No, man. You stay here and do something.' "
Polanco has made a point of "doing something" in Wimauma.
In addition to his community service work, Polanco and his wife, Nalda, organize fundraising efforts to match money contributed by a Tampa doctor to establish a college scholarship for students from Wimauma.
The money doesn't cover tuition, but allows students to concentrate on their school work instead of holding down a job.
"We can't let them go to work too soon, because when they start to work, their grades go down," Polanco says. "If we can help with books and gasoline, they have no excuse."
-- Janet Zink can be reached at 661-2441 or jzink@sptimes.com . Do you know someone interesting who we should profile? Please let us know. Send suggestions to shelaine@sptimes.com or call 661-2426.
AGE: 49
CHILDREN: Claudia, Cayetano Jr., and Karla
HOW HE PAYS THE BILLS: Polanco works for Landmark Home Services, a company that provides lawn fertilization and pest control to homeowners throughout the county.
PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT: A proofreader for his hometown newspaper.
LOVE AT FIRST SOUND: Cayetano fell for his wife, Nalda, before he ever even saw her. He heard her speaking in another room and knew she was the one.
WHAT HE DRIVES: A blue, 1988 Ford station wagon that he calls his limousine.
HITTING THE BOOKS: Polanco's youngest daughter, Karla, received a scholarship to attend the University of South Florida and is now working on a master's degree in social work.