A Crowded Waiting Room and One Familiar Face
The hallways of the Riverside County Courthouse on a Thursday morning are rarely quiet. Families clutch folders stuffed with documents. Children sit on plastic chairs, swinging their legs nervously. A woman near the water fountain whispers a prayer in Spanish. And then, cutting through the noise, comes a calm, familiar voice.
“Estoy aquí. No se preocupen. Vamos juntos.”
I am here. Do not worry. We will go together.
That voice belongs to Miguel Reyes, a 58-year-old retired middle school teacher from Moreno Valley, California. Every single Thursday for the past four years, Miguel has walked into that courthouse as a volunteer interpreter, offering free translation services to immigrant families who would otherwise navigate the legal system entirely alone, in a language they barely understand.
He is not a lawyer. He is not a court employee. He is not paid a single dollar for his time. He simply shows up, because he knows what it feels like when no one does.
“I Was That Kid Once”
Miguel’s story begins not in a courthouse, but in a cramped apartment in East Los Angeles in 1977. His parents had immigrated from Oaxaca, Mexico, just two years earlier. His father worked double shifts at a garment factory. His mother cleaned offices at night. Neither spoke more than a handful of English words.
“When I was nine years old, my father got into a minor car accident,” Miguel told me during a conversation outside the courthouse. “Nothing serious, nobody got hurt. But there was a legal notice, some kind of insurance dispute, and my parents had no idea what it said. They were terrified.”
The family had no interpreter. No advocate. No one to explain the difference between a settlement offer and a court summons. Young Miguel, who had picked up English quickly at school, sat at the kitchen table and tried his best to translate official legal documents that no nine-year-old should be responsible for.
“I did not understand half of what I was reading,” he admitted. “I remember feeling so scared that I would get something wrong and something terrible would happen to my family. That fear never really left me.”
That memory, dormant for decades, came rushing back in 2020 when a neighbor knocked on his door in tears. Her teenage son had been summoned to a juvenile hearing and she could not understand the paperwork. Miguel helped her that day. Then he helped someone else. Then someone else. And eventually, he reached out to the court’s self-help center and formalized what had become a calling.
What a Thursday Actually Looks Like
Miguel arrives by 7:45 a.m., before most of the families. He brings a notepad, two pens, and a small laminated card listing the most common legal terms and their Spanish equivalents, a reference tool he made himself after his first month volunteering.
On a typical Thursday, he assists anywhere from four to twelve families. The cases vary widely:
- Custody hearings where a parent cannot communicate their own wishes to the judge
- Eviction proceedings where tenants do not understand their rights or deadlines
- Immigration status check-ins that carry life-altering consequences
- Small claims disputes where the paperwork alone creates paralyzing confusion
- Restraining order applications filed by domestic abuse survivors
“The paperwork is one thing,” Miguel explained. “But what people really need is for someone to look them in the eye and say, ‘I understand you. I will make sure they understand you too.’ That is not something a pamphlet can do.”
Court clerk Diane Portillo, who has worked the self-help desk for eleven years, described Miguel’s presence as transformative. “Before Miguel started coming, we would watch people leave in tears because they simply could not communicate. They would miss deadlines, sign things they did not understand, or give up entirely. He changed that. He is genuinely one of the most impactful people who has ever walked through these doors.”
The Moments That Stay With Him
Ask Miguel about the cases that have affected him most, and he pauses before answering, choosing his words carefully.
He describes a mother who came in last spring for a custody modification hearing. Her ex-husband’s attorney spoke rapidly, using technical language that even fluent English speakers sometimes struggle with. The woman had been nodding along, not wanting to appear lost, not realizing she had just appeared to agree to terms that reduced her visitation rights significantly.
“I caught it just in time,” Miguel said. “I asked the judge if I could clarify something for her. We stopped. We backed up. And she was able to actually respond to what was being asked.” He paused. “She got shared custody. Her children go home with her on weekends now. That would not have happened if she had kept nodding.”
There was also a young man, nineteen years old, who came in for what he thought was a routine paperwork filing and discovered he was actually due in front of a judge in twenty minutes for a hearing he had not prepared for. Miguel sat with him in the hallway, walked him through the process, and stood beside him as a language support volunteer during the proceeding.
“Afterward he shook my hand and he could not stop saying thank you,” Miguel recalled. “I told him, just pay it forward someday. That is all I ask.”
Why He Does Not Accept Payment
Several families have tried to pay Miguel. Some leave envelopes with cash on the bench beside him. Others bring homemade food, tamales wrapped in foil, pan dulce in paper bags. He always accepts the food with genuine gratitude. He always returns the cash.
“If I take money, it becomes a transaction,” he said simply. “And what I am doing is not a transaction. It is a responsibility. There is a difference.”
His wife, Elena, who taught second grade for thirty years before retiring, says she was not at all surprised when Miguel started volunteering. “He has always been someone who feels the weight of other people’s problems,” she said. “It is not a burden to him. It is just who he is.”
Their adult daughter, Sofia, added: “Growing up, our house was always the house where people came when they needed help filling out a form, understanding a letter, navigating something official. Dad was just the person everyone knew they could come to. The courthouse is just a bigger version of that.”
What We Can Learn From Miguel’s Example
Miguel Reyes is not famous. He has no social media presence promoting his work. He has never been featured on the local news. His name does not appear on any courthouse wall or community award plaque, though it arguably should.
But the impact of what he does ripples outward in ways that are difficult to measure. A mother who retains custody is more stable. A tenant who understands their rights does not lose their home unnecessarily. A young person who gets a fair hearing has a better chance of a fair future.
Here are a few things his example teaches us about meaningful service:
- Proximity matters. Miguel shows up in person, consistently, in a specific place where need is concentrated. Presence is powerful.
- Your past pain can become someone else’s protection. He turned a childhood memory of helplessness into a lifelong skill offered freely to others.
- Consistency builds trust. Families begin to ask for him by name. His reliability is itself a form of advocacy.
- You do not need credentials to make a difference. Miguel is not a lawyer or a licensed interpreter. He is a bilingual human being who decided his skills were worth sharing.
- Small acts, repeated faithfully, accumulate into something enormous. Four years of Thursdays. Hundreds of families. Thousands of moments of clarity given to people who desperately needed them.
How to Find Your Own “Thursday”
Not everyone speaks two languages. Not everyone can sit in a courthouse. But Miguel’s model is replicable in dozens of ways.
Many organizations are desperately searching for volunteers who can offer consistent, recurring time rather than occasional bursts of enthusiasm. Literacy councils need tutors every Tuesday. Food pantries need sorters every Saturday morning. After-school programs need mentors every Wednesday afternoon.
The regularity is the point. Showing up once is kind. Showing up every week for four years is transformational.
If you are bilingual and want to explore legal interpreting volunteer programs in your area, organizations like Volunteer Legal Services, LawHelp.org, and many county courthouse self-help centers have formal volunteer programs that welcome community members who want to serve the way Miguel does.
Still There, Every Thursday
As I watched Miguel that morning, a grandmother approached him near the elevator. She spoke quickly, anxiously, holding out a document with shaking hands. He took it gently, scanned it, and then looked up at her with a calm smile.
He told her what it said. He told her what she needed to do. He told her she had time, that everything was going to be alright, and that he would walk with her to the right room.
Her whole body seemed to exhale.
Miguel Reyes does not save lives in dramatic, cinematic moments. He saves them in hallways, in waiting rooms, in the quiet act of turning confusion into clarity for people who have traveled very far and risked very much to be here. He does it every Thursday, without fail, without fanfare, and without asking for anything in return.
Some people talk about making a difference. Miguel just shows up and makes one.