Father Richard Estrada, a main figure in the rights of the rights of immigrants who was known for having opened the first refuge in Los Angeles for young homeless migrants and devoted his life to plead for the oppressed, died Monday at the age of 83.
Estrada was hospitalized in March for pneumonia after having contracted COVID-19, and he died of complications related to COVID, according to Angie Jimenez, a family friend.
Estrada, son of Mexican immigrants, was born in Los Angeles on March 1, 1942. His father worked as a welder and his mother cleaned office buildings. He devoted his years to adults to defend the causes of people who, according to them, have been treated as second -class citizens, including immigrants, agricultural workers, women and members of the LGBTQ +community.
Estrada was a tireless defender of migrants who crossed the United States illegally to flee violence and poverty, find work and provide for their families. More than 30 years of activism, he helped deliver thousands of water gallons to migrants crossing the desert along the border, offered his church as a sanctuary for people threatened with expulsion and hypothecated his house to collect funds for JENES Inc., the organization of young non -profit migrants that he has founded.
From 1977 to 2014, Estrada was a pastor associated with Notre-Dame Queen of Angels, a Catholic church known as the Placita, before leaving to join the episcopal church, claiming that it felt that its principles were better aligned with its values.
“Father Richard Estrada was a visionary,” said Andrea Marchetti, executive director of JENES. “His sense of humanity and his unconditional commitment and his love for the most vulnerable were the guiding principles of all the actions he carried out, whatever the challenges he was confronted in his last years.”
JENES Inc. started organically while Estrada, in the late 1980s, began to see young migrants showing up at his Olvera street church without parents or support. He opened his house in East Los Angeles to many of them before founding Jenes in 1989. With the support of Estrada, the operation has prospered and extended over the years in a dynamic campus of Boyle Heights offering a continuum of services covering housing, health care, education and career development for 700 young people, aged 18 to 24.
In a 2015 profile, he told Times that he was guided by the concept of La Posada – Which means its inn or accommodation. “I am within the framework of the shelter,” he told journalist Kate Linthicum.
At La Placita, he opened the doors of the church to house young migrants during a period of tense speech on immigration, and federal officials accused him of promoting illegal behavior. He handcuffed himself to a federal building to draw attention to the fate of immigrants in detention, the first of a dozen times he was arrested for civil disobedience, said Jimenez. His last arrest occurred in 2023, at the age of 81, while he was walking for workers’ rights.
He also opened his Los Angeles church to weekly HIV tests, working with Richard Zaldivar, founder of the Wall Las Memorias Project, at a time when the Catholic Church was not welcoming in the LGBTQ +community. Zaldivar remembers asking Estrada if he was afraid of being in trouble.
“He was like a shooting star; he was not reluctant,” recalls Zaldivar. “He has inspired so many people to believe that you could change the community and change the systems by raising your voice and organizing. He also inspired people to believe in their faith – faith in God, but also in faith in yourself that you can create a better community. “
In the 1970s, Estrada organized himself for the rights of agricultural workers alongside Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, participating in marches for united agricultural workers and organizing grape boycotts in East Los Angeles. He was a key figure in the Chicano movement, lending his stature as a religious leader to defend the poorly served communities.
When he advocated to open the first shelter for young undocumented people, hundreds of people presented themselves in the opposition, recalled the senator of the state Maria Elena Durazo, who represents the center and the east of “he remained calm, comprising their fears, but reminding everyone of our humanity”.
Actor Edward James Olmos said he had known Estrada thanks to their common interests in immigrant rights and to speak to young people who are imprisoned. Over the years, Estrada has relied on Olmos to support various causes, and Olmos has often answered this call. “Ok, father, we are on the way,” he said Estrada.
Olmos said he remembers Estrada expressed frustrations when it was clear that members of the Catholic Church covered children’s sexual abuse, an episode that contributed to his decision to leave the institution – and another example of his condemnation to express his mind.
“He was one of the greatest human beings I met in my life,” said Olmos.
As Minister at the Epiphany Church, an episcopal church by Lincoln Heights, Estrada baptized Jimenez when she was a child, then baptized her two daughters. He was present through difficult times, she said, including the death of his sister, offering comfort and advice.
“It was almost as if you were next to a saint. When you were around him, it was one of the most comforting feelings,” she said.
Estrada remained an active presence in JENES as president of the board of directors until the beginning of this year. Just after his birthday on March 1, he fell ill and received a diagnosis of COVID-19 and pneumonia, said Jimenez. He died on Cesar Chavez’s day.
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