Church leader is 'a gift of God' for Hispanic community

VIRGINIA BEACH

Janice Sigala's busiest office hour starts the minute St. Gregory the Great Catholic Church's Spanish-language Mass ends on Saturday nights.

Her customers seek her in the bustling lobby: A young Latina looking for information on free flu shots. A parishioner donating 250 prayer cards for an Our Lady of Guadalupe festival. Jorge Medina, a civilian Navy worker, who offers Sigala assistance for an immigrant newcomer she's helping.

"Almost everybody that has needs, when they talk about Hispanic ministry, everybody goes to her," Medina said of Sigala. "She's a gift of God for this community."

Puerto Rican-born, with the compassion of a Florence Nightingale and a love for her native Latin culture, Sigala, 43, has helped South Hampton Roads' fast-growing Spanish-speaking community for 18 years.

She's led St. Gregory's Hispanic ministry since 2000 and worked for the Richmond diocese's Tidewater Hispanic apostolate in the 1990s.

Though her background and employer is Catholic, Sigala's reputation is as advocate and caregiver for all Hispanics, said Augusto Ratti-Angula, publisher of El Eco de Virginia, a local Spanish newspaper.

"She does feel a sense of responsibility for her community. The only thing you can see of religion with her is that she helps - she doesn't preach."

At St. Gregory's, Sigala coordinates the Spanish Mass, with its volunteer ushers and lilting Latino singers and guitarists. She reads the weekly announcements from the worship platform.

But on weekdays, she may be fielding calls from Hispanic domestic violence victims, helping migrant workers with visas or pushing state legislators on immigration policy.

When a drunken Mexican motorist killed two Virginia Beach teens in an auto accident in 2007, Sigala was among Hispanic leaders who spoke at a news conference. They reiterated their condolences and pledged to redouble education among Hispanics on drunken driving.

Social ministry was far from Sigala's mind growing up in Puerto Rico, where her father was an electrician, her mother an artist. She wanted to become a veterinarian; she cared for countless strays dropped off by neighbors who knew her warm heart.

Instead, she studied business administration at the University of Puerto Rico then earned a graduate degree in organizational communications from Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. During graduate school, she also met Jaime, a Navy man and Californian of Mexican descent.

"We were the only ones who were not white, blue-eyed people," she said of their first encounter. "He looked at me, I looked at him. He asked me to dance, and we danced all night." They married in 1990 and moved to Virginia Beach.

With her husband often at sea, Sigala found fellowship in a place she hadn't spent much time: the Catholic Church.

In Puerto Rico, her Catholicism had been more cultural than religious. There were prayers, Lent, a striving to be a good Christian. But she didn't attend Mass weekly, and she wasn't even confirmed in the church until shortly before her wedding.

But in her new surroundings, her faith and church suddenly felt precious.

"The closest I could feel to home was through my Catholic church and my Spanish Catholic church. The music, the people, the warmth made me feel close to home."

She got work in the Hispanic apostolate office; it became more than clerical when Ratti-Angula urged her to help Hispanic victims of domestic violence.

Sigala did, as a victim's advocate trained in a Norfolk court-sponsored program. She accompanied women to court, translated, gave them rides and sometimes saw women go back to their abusers, with dire results.

"I learned not to judge. If they call you back with the same situation, you go back again and help them again."

Gradually, Sigala evolved into Hispanics' liaison with the police, immigration experts, tax professionals, Head Start, Samaritan House and social services.

Her client pool mushroomed. Between 1990 and 2006 as Hampton Roads' Hispanic population nearly doubled. In Virginia Beach, they represented 5 percent of residents and ranged from 2 to 4 percent in other South Hampton Roads cities.

"When I moved here there was one store selling Spanish products and few Mexican restaurants." Now, "everywhere I go, I find somebody who speaks Spanish."

Spanish Masses also expanded - there are at least four Catholic churches in South Hampton Roads now holding the services.

St. Gregory's service draws a spectrum of people, from temporary workers from Mexico to American-born Hispanics and naturalized citizens from Latin countries.

Some are the target - unfairly, Sigala says - of American angst about immigrants.

"There's a lot of hate and ignorance," among the public, she said. "Every time I write a letter to the editor, I get the comments, 'They should go back home,' " she said of callers angry at her defense of immigrants.

The attacks are the opposite of the Christian tradition Sigala said she grew up with.

"In my house, the doors were always open to everybody. If someone shows up, you have to serve them food. If there's not enough food, you have to give up your plate and give it to someone else."

In Sigala's case, she regularly gives up her time after Saturday Mass to help Hispanics in need.

On a recent evening, the smile lines at her eyes wrinkled often as she greeted acquaintances, including three men stationed at a cardboard collection box.

"They're trying to collect money for Our Lady of Guadalupe, for the mariachi," she said, and laughed at the men's report. "There's two dollars!"

After a half hour of lobby conversations, Sigala headed for her office, trailed by five people.

The first, a woman, had Sigala notarize correspondence needed to keep benefit checks coming from Colombia.

Then a trio of Mexicans - Pedro Gonzalez Torres, Dario Macias Munoz and Sergio Blanco Valdes - settled, relaxed and easy, into seats as Sigala pulled out letters from the Internal Revenue Service.

The men had working papers and jobs doing roadside maintenance, but because their residences were temporary, Sigala agreed to receive their mail, which tonight included their IRS economic stimulus checks. There were smiles all round.

The three said they discovered Sigala after coming to St. Gregory's church services. They said they know she can be trusted.

"There is nobody else like her," Munoz said.

Sigala's last client was a short young El Salvadoran displaced by a 2001 earthquake who has a temporary U.S. work permit.

"Every so often they have to renew their permit," Sigala said. "If they went to a lawyer, they could be charged up to $1,000. We do the paperwork here" for free.

Sigala showed the fellow where to sign the form.

"Gracias," he said.

"No problema," Sigala replied.

Steven G. Vegh, (757) 446-2417, steven.vegh@pilotonline.com