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AS A MIGRANT WORKER pruning and harvesting Christmas trees in Oregon, Eusebio Herrera showed a talent for helping other Mexicans in his camp. He could navigate the social service agencies with his better-than-average English skills.

Now a social work graduate student at Portland State, Herrera took on a similar task this past summer as students and faculty from PSU and a university in Puebla, Mexico, looked at the health needs of seasonal workers at migrant camps in Washington County.

The students worked alongside staff from the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, interviewing seasonal workers on their health needs and teaching basic health skills. The nonprofit Garcia Center provides medical treatment and health education to migrant workers from May through August. The information gathered by the students will help shape the center's health programs, and it gives medical professionals from Mexico—part of the Puebla university group—an understanding of workers' needs once they return to Mexico.

Seasonal workers' living conditions and hard work shocked some of the students. Not Herrera. His father and six brothers have worked on Oregon farms for decades. He left that life once he earned a GED and bachelor's degree in Oregon. Today he works full time as a substance abuse counselor in Yamhill County while pursing a master's degree.

"This was invigorating for me," says Herrera. "I want to serve this population."

Students found depression and tooth decay were the biggest problems of the workers—concerns that need intervention here and in Mexico.