Her friends call her an inspiration to the Hispanic community.
"Every day, she is doing something to help someone," Maria Theresa Penman said. "And sometimes people give to the community, and they don't get the recognition they deserve."
Emily Diaz-Torres, a Mexican social justice activist, was honored last month with the Maria Zavala Award during MSU's annual Dia De La Mujer Conference.
The award is not given based on the winners' education or credentials, but on the "commitment she has demonstrated to the Hispanic community," said Julio Guerrero, the conference administrator.
Examples of why Diaz-Torres, 61, won the award are too many to count.
She once met an uninsured man with a parasite-eaten jaw who couldn't afford to have it surgically repaired. She convinced hospital administrators to take his case for free.
When she meets recent immigrants who need rides to the doctor's office, she takes them.
She teaches members of Macomb County's Hispanic community how to apply for food stamps.
"Time and again, she has proven her love of people, justice and humanity with a servant's heart. Our community and the world is a far better place because of Emily Diaz-Torres," Penman wrote in her nomination letter.
Penman met Diaz-Torres while volunteering in two community groups — the Hispanic Coalition of Macomb and North Macomb Vicariate Cultural Diversity Team. Diaz-Torres is the chairwoman of both groups.
Diaz-Torres, who is from Minnesota, attended Northwood University in Midland. She worked for Ford Motor Co. for 31 years as a quality engineer, retiring in 2001.
Since her retirement, Diaz-Torres has been actively trying to correct injustices and improving the well-being of the Hispanic community in Macomb County, where she lives.
Currently, Diaz-Torres is helping a Washington Township man get back his driver's license.
Silvino Sanchez Molina, 54, got his license taken away in 2002 for a drunken driving offense. Now, he has been sober for five years. But because Molina, an immigrant, doesn't speak English well, he has had difficulties going through the process of getting back his license.
"He has been working on trying to find rides to work, and it is getting to the point he is not able to get a ride anymore and he needs to work," Diaz-Torres said.
Molina, who works as a landscaper, said this is third time he has started the process of retrieving his license.
Diaz-Torres thinks one reason people like Molina, who is documented, have trouble navigating the system is because of racial discrimination.
"You ask me why I do it. I do it because I get angry. I get furious at what they are doing to the Mexicans," Diaz-Torres said. "And a lot of times they are doing it because they are undocumented.
"The injustice of it all is just terrible."
One of the issues she speaks most passionately about is immigration. She talks about how undocumented immigrants from Mexico are "mostly poor people trying to earn a living.
"They get treated like criminals and get deported," Diaz-Torres said. "Police will pick them up, handcuff them in front of their children and then slam them against the wall. There is no reason for that."
Above all, she said she feels a spiritual calling to help end the injustices.
"It is what Christ wanted us to do," she said. "I am very Catholic, and that is exactly what we were asked to do in this lifetime."
