EDITOR’S NOTE: Betty specifically requested her last name be excluded in this piece.
She is touted as the Mother Teresa of Long Beach—and not because she christened herself with such a moniker, but because those around her, ranging from neighbors to friends who are inspired by her work, deemed her as such.
In fact, she is far too humble to ever take her work seriously. For her, it is a given. But for others—the most important facet of her work given that its focus is towards others—they feel a compulsion to exemplify her.
Kraig Lopez and Ernie Rodriguez, residents of Bluff Heights, sent me an email describing how, before moving to Long Beach in 2009, they would help feed the homeless in Costa Mesa. Upon arrival here, however, they were desperately searching to engage in the same type of philanthropic effort since they say it made them feel good.
“My partner and I wanted to put together over one hundred sack lunches—y’know, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chips, cookies and water—all for the homeless. And we did. Friends and family and neighbors gave enough that we were able to build somewhere around three hundred—and it was because of her,” Lopez told me, standing on the corner near this Mother Teresa’s antique shop.
Her name is Betty and she is, in her own words, “a warrior for love.” And as with any warrior, she bears signs of battle. Her beautiful face is weathered just enough to immediately tell someone that she is rarely indoors. Her smile is practiced but warm, and her eyes are simply fierce. When she speaks, she is—for much lack of a better or more appropriate term—not offering speak for the fodder.
Her aura, captivating to such an extent that before I realized we hadn’t even stepped inside her humble shop, we had been standing in the same place for well up to an hour. In an increasingly vapid culture where conviction often loses to apathy, Betty holds strong.
“It deeply disturbs me,” she said, her eyes darting in confusion. “My father would never be out on the street. My child would never be out on the street.” Her eyes darted again. “Hi!” she waved across the street, a young couple carrying various things as she leans in towards me. “She has a heroin problem and he’s a meth-head. But that blanket—I gave them that last week. You can’t make assumptions but you can make a better place, y’know? Do you want bread?” she yelled, cutting herself off.
The couple looked at each other, bickering amicably—”Yeah!” “We don’t need to take the bread, babe.” “We should grab it while we can.”—to which Betty insisted, “Stop! C’mere and grab some bread.”
Betty’s husband is perhaps the only force which could match hers. A few inches shorter, with an array of tattoos and weathered hands, he speaks with an enthusiasm that counters Betty’s.
“I didn’t get it at first. I don’t think anyone does. But I loved her, y’know? So I just went with her, helping these people out and… And I felt high.” His eyes lit up, his gestures gargantuan in their movement but still unable to match his excitement. “Have you ever spent Christmas with a family you didn’t know?”
Betty, though pairing the commentary with the fact that sometimes “we give too much during the holidays and forget about the rest of the year,” went on to describe Christmas after Christmas—each one with impeccable detail—that she and her family, including their daughter, have spent with those who are disconnected.
She is not one to reminisce too heavily. She paused and then said, seemingly out of nowhere, “The Untouchables. That’s what the police call them.” This stark juxtaposition of altering a family’s holiday with the harsh reality of how society perceives les sans-papiers. “The Untouchables. Untouchable? They have names. They have roles. They’ve been fathers, they’ve been mothers, they’ve been someone’s son,” she said, clutching the cross that hangs around her neck.
I facetiously said, “Wow, an actual Christian. What a concept.” She smiled, turned back to her store and gave an incredibly deep response for which I am sure she thought was a simple given “This is my church,” she said. “I don’t throw my beliefs on you; I act on my beliefs. And my belief is love. Nothing but.”
Though unwilling to probably admit it directly, Betty stands out from the pseudo-Christians who sadly use politics to retrofit their religion to their taste that contradicts and sadly miscasts the principles Christianity espouses. It is not easy to be an authentic Christian and yet, Betty envelops herself in the role so easily.
And her hand doesn’t just reach out from her shop—she often takes them into it, quite literally. Many men and women have stayed inside her shop—”I know these people, they aren’t going to steal, they just need warmth”—and many men and women have their mail forwarded there where, sometimes with a confused look due to illiteracy, she helps them understand the legal papers they receive.
If one allows me to digress (I assure you, the experience one has with Betty supersedes objectivity), I must say that at one point I was overwhelmed. It was a strange sensation, one mixed with a deep-seated fear—I can imagine little more horrifying than losing your home in every sense of the term: legally, physically, mentally, and socially—and deep-seated ineptitude. It reminded me of one of my favorite ethical professors, Peter Singer, who always begins his introductory ethics course with the following situation:
You are walking to your new job in your brand new suit. Passing by a pond, you see a three-year-old drowning. Do you save your suit or do you save the child? Of course, unless one of the students is severely psychopathological, every student always raises their hand. His response is one that still sticks with me, “Unfortunately, you walk past that three-year-old everyday.”
His point is not entirely literal: the three-year-old represents many people, suffering every day, and we walk by. There are many reasons for us walking by–being parochial and claiming, “I don’t know them, they’re not my family” or giving into some sense of futility and claiming, “What is one dollar going to really do?” or resorting to judgement and claiming, “They’ll just use it for drugs”–but these are inept reasons.
For even Betty said it well when she said, “Even just saying hi or shaking their hand or giving them a hug–it helps.”
Betty’s Antiques is located at 2236 East Broadway and accepts all donations in order to continue their mission of ending homelessness.