Farmworkers focus on living conditions
One year after a deadly shooting rampage at two Half Moon Bay mushroom farms highlighted the poor living conditions of many California farmworkers, grassroots organizers in San Mateo County on Sunday hosted what they billed as the first “convention” of its kind focused on their plight.
The nonprofits Coastside Hope and Puente de la Costa Sur convened dozens of community organizations, county agencies and more than 200 farmworkers at Pescadero High School “to voice their concerns and seek solutions” regarding housing, clean water, health care and labor conditions, according to organizer Rudy Espinoza.
During one of the main panels, female farmworkers shared stories about harassment and immigration issues, Espinoza said. They also discussed financial practices, given that many undocumented farmworkers cannot access wages paid into Social Security.
The convention comes more than one year after Chunli Zhao, 67, allegedly used a legally purchased semiautomatic handgun to shoot eight co-workers, killing seven and injuring one, in January 2023. The eight victims were Hispanic and Asian, and three were Mexican citizens, including the man who survived. All of the victims worked at two separate farms, where the shootings occurred in what authorities described as “workplace violence.”
Zhao, who has pleaded not guilty, could face life in prison without parole or the death penalty if convicted as his case heads to trial.
Half Moon Bay marked the anniversary of the shootings in January with a panel of local leaders and a candlelight vigil.
Earlier this month, the federal government agreed to send San Mateo County $3 million to help build affordable housing for farmworkers. The money will be used to buy up to 20 home units for farmworker housing and create a recreation space for residents, county officials said.
Addressing the attendees, keynote speaker José Hernández, a former astronaut, described his trajectory from farm work to space. As a child, Hernández helped his migrant farmworker parents and later studied as an engineer, becoming an astronaut at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where he flew on the 128th space shuttle mission aboard the Discovery in 2009.
“We have to sacrifice so that the next generation has it better,” Hernández told attendees.
Organizers hope to convene other farmworker-led events and forums about worker conditions, signaling, Espinoza said, “a new chapter in the struggle for farmworker rights.”