Chapter VI · Living ex-votos
Testimonies of those who returned
Accounts of migrants who say they were helped by Saint Toribio Romo as they crossed the desert, or assisted in desperate situations. Stories documented by the shrine itself, by the Mexican and American press, and by anthropological research.
Editor's note
How to read these testimonies
The testimonies that follow have been gathered by different sources over the course of forty years: by the shrine itself through the priests who have been in charge, by journalists who have covered the phenomenon since 2002, and by academic researchers like Renée de la Torre and Alejandra Aguilar Ros who have compiled them in peer-reviewed work. Some witnesses are identified by full name, age, and origin; others remain anonymous by their own choice, particularly when the journey involved undocumented crossings. This archive preserves names only when they have already been published in print or in verifiable academic sources.
The purpose of this section is not to prove or refute the apparitions. It is to preserve the testimony as it was received. The Catholic Church has not officially pronounced on individual accounts — the de facto patronage of migrants rests on popular devotion, not on canonical decree. What follows is the voice of the migrants themselves, gathered with respect and with no substantial editing.
The man from Zacatecas
«When you earn enough, go to Santa Ana»
Jesús Buendía Gaytán, a peasant from Zacatecas, tells the story of a crossing into California in the mid-1990s. His testimony was published on the official page of Catholic.net and has been referenced in multiple Mexican media since.
Two decades ago I decided to go undocumented to California to look for work on some plantation. I contacted a «coyote» in Mexicali, but as soon as we crossed the border we were spotted by the Border Patrol, and to escape I went into the desert with two companions. We had gone two days with no water. A tall young man with light eyes, dressed very simply, appeared and gave us water and lent us a few dollars to pay for lodging. He told us: «When you earn enough, go to Santa Ana and ask for Toribio Romo. That's my name.» With the money we paid for lodging and, sure enough, got work in the place he mentioned. A few months later we came to Santa Ana. When we entered the church and saw the portrait on the altar, we immediately recognized him as the priest who had helped us. When we asked about him we were told he had died seventy years before. We began to cry and gave our testimony.
Jesús Buendía Gaytán · Peasant from Zacatecas, 45 years oldTestimony recorded by Catholic.net · ca. 2004
Since then, Buendía visits the temple of Santa Ana de Guadalupe at least once a year. His testimony is among the most cited in popular literature about Saint Toribio — the structure has all four classic elements: the extreme situation (thirst in the desert), the young stranger, the precise instruction («go to Santa Ana»), and the subsequent recognition in the photograph on the altar.
Victoria, Texas · May 14, 2003
The trailer ex-voto
In May 2003, a trailer carrying 74 migrants was abandoned by the smuggler in Victoria, Texas, during a heat wave. Nineteen people died of asphyxiation. A survivor, Dagoberto Rodríguez Chávez, from Tecomán, Colima, left an ex-voto at the Santa Ana shrine, handwritten on cardboard. Anthropologist Renée de la Torre recorded it word for word in her 2017 academic work. It is still preserved at the shrine.
Tecoman Colima. Dagoberto Rodríguez Chávez survivor of the trailer they abandoned in Victoria Texas on may 10 2003 o glorious and king of emigrants Santo Toribio Romo. I come to thank you for getting us out of that trailer in which died 18 people from the states of Oaxaca Colima and Puebla and from Honduras and from State of Mexico I Dagoberto come to thank you and give you my he[art].
Dagoberto Rodríguez Chávez · Tecomán, ColimaEx-voto on cardboard, shrine of Santa Ana de Guadalupe · Recorded by De la Torre (2017). Translated preserving original spelling and voice.
The ex-voto is kept exactly as it was written, with its popular spelling intact. Correcting it would strip it of what makes it true — the concrete voice of a man who wrote in the handwriting he had, on the cardboard he found, a few weeks after watching eighteen companions die inside a sealed trailer from the ambition of a smuggler and the neglect of the State.
Companionship in the desert
The figure by the ocean
Luciano López shared his testimony with Aleteia magazine in 2016. The episode is especially striking because the recognition came through his wife, who was praying for him in Mexico without his knowing.
I saw a blurry figure standing near what looked like an ocean. The person waved at me and began to walk. He guided me to a rest area with food and water. When I told my wife what had happened, she said: «The one who took you to safety was Saint Toribio, patron of migrants. I had been praying to him for you.»
Luciano LópezTestimony published in Aleteia · 2016
Juan Manuel Aguirre · BBC Mundo
The water jug that didn't empty
Juan Manuel Aguirre runs the civil organization San Toribio Romo Migrante, dedicated to feeding undocumented migrants attempting to cross the border. In a 2013 interview with BBC Mundo, he gathered several testimonies he has heard in his daily work. Two appear below.
A young man told me that he was about to die of thirst when a person appeared and gave him water. When he drank and began to recover, he realized the person had disappeared, but a full jug remained.
Anonymous testimony · Relayed by Juan Manuel AguirreBBC Mundo · December 2013
Some migrants were hiding and when the Border Patrol passed by they weren't seen because at that moment they were praying to Saint Toribio.
Anonymous testimony · Relayed by Juan Manuel AguirreBBC Mundo · December 2013
Aguirre notes that, over time, a circuit of visible signs has formed in the desert itself: «Those who say they found the saint sometimes leave signs of the apparition along their path — crosses, marked stones, or small altars with the images they were carrying.» The geography of the crossing has, in a sense, become a devotional itinerary.
Late thanks
Twenty-five years later
A more recent ex-voto, recorded at the shrine in 2024, shows that thanks are not always immediate. Many pilgrims return decades after their crossing, once life has settled on the other side.
Thank you Santo Toribio for helping me cross the desert in 1998. Now I own my house in Chicago and my kids went to school. I come back to thank you twenty-five years later.
Roberto G. · ChicagoEx-voto recorded at the shrine · October 2023
Variant
The blond man
A frequent variant of the testimony, collected by Father Miguel Ángel Padilla himself, the current rector of the shrine, is that of the saint appearing with non-Mexican features — blond, white, blue-eyed, speaking Spanish with an accent. Anthropologists have noted that this variant says something about how migrants imagine help: the savior is not only Mexican; he is also, momentarily, American.
There are even testimonies from migrants who say they saw him looking like an American citizen: blond, white, with light eyes. When they return to give thanks and see the holy card, they recognize him just the same, although they still insist that the one who helped them did not look Mexican.
Fr. Miguel Ángel Padilla · Rector of the shrineInterview with Desde la Fe · 2024
The new generation of testimonies
Beyond the desert
With the tightening of US immigration policy beginning in 2017 and the shift of crossings toward formal asylum routes, the testimonies at the shrine have changed in character. They are no longer only desert stories. Increasingly, they are thanks for administrative processes that moved forward, court hearings that went well, deportations avoided, family reunifications.
Thank you Santo Toribio for last Friday's hearing. The judge granted me asylum after four years of waiting. I promised to come and thank you if I got out of court. Here I am. I kept my promise.
Anonymous ex-voto · Shrine of Santa AnaRecorded in 2024
My son has been detained at Eloy since March. Every week I come to light a candle. The lawyer says there is hope. Saint Toribio, you who know the fear of being locked up, get him out.
Anonymous motherIntention left at the shrine · 2024
These testimonies do not follow the classic structure — there is no apparition, no water in the desert, no recognition in a photograph. They are of a different nature: sustained petitions, thanks for long processes, companionship in waiting. The migrant saint who guided in the desert still guides, but now also in the courts, the consulates, the waiting rooms. The devotion adapts to the geography of obstacles.
Coda
Those who did not arrive
Any honest archive about the migrant cult has to recognize this: the shrine receives the testimony of those who arrived, but there are also those who did not. Those who died in the desert, those who stayed in the trailer, those who were sent back, those who disappeared along the way. For them there are no ex-votos, because the dead do not write on cardboard. But they are there, implicit, in every wall covered with thanks.
Anthropologist Renée de la Torre has insisted on this point: the devotion to Saint Toribio is not a statistical demonstration that the saint saves migrants (it is not, it cannot be). It is something humbler and deeper — a way of making sense of the experience of crossing, of diminishing fear, of sustaining the families who wait. Those who were saved bring holy cards and offerings. Those who were not, without meaning to, leave behind the weight of all who cross. The walls of the shrine hold both.