Storm adds to financial hardship for farmworkers

Because most aren't eligible for state or federal aid, low-income immigrant populations fear for future

Before dawn on a recent morning, as the mud coating Coachella Valley farm fields began to crisp, Entrika Zacarias made her first attempt to drive back to work at a Thermal peach field after four days of no work.

With some roads still blocked, muddy or flooded, driving was risky after Tropical Storm Hilary dumped nearly a year's worth of rain on the desert town.

Like other immigrant farm workers living there, Zacarias had lost hundreds of dollars because of the storm and couldn't afford to miss any more days of work. She had rent to pay on the mobile home where she lived with two daughters.

After a couple of days in the peach fields the work ran out. Now she's looking elsewhere for a job. But her options are slim after the storm left some fields muddy and wet, and others damaged.

“We're thinking about where to work next and I'm realizing there's not a lot of work,” she said. “I never stop working all year. I only stop in times like these.”

While Tropical Storm Hilary caused little damage to Southern California's beaches and cities, rural desert regions like the Coachella Valley were deluged with months of rain over a single weekend. The storm caused an estimated $126 million in damages in Riverside County alone, county officials said, with most damage in the Coachella Valley.

Low-income immigrant communities across the region bore the brunt of the flooding.

Like Zacarias, many farmworkers in Coachella Valley lack legal status as citizens and therefore don't qualify for most federal and state disaster aid.

“There's a lack of financial assistance,” said Yunuen Ibarra,

program manager with Líderes Campesinas, a network of women farmworker leaders. “What do farmworkers do when they lose their job or a day of their job or a week and they're not eligible to receive specific financial assistance?”

When the worst of Hilary arrived that Sunday, strong winds

shook the trailers of the Oasis mobile home community. Zacarias could hear branches smacking her roof and water seeped through a closed window.

Her two sisters, Martina and Maria Teresa Zacarias, had a similar experience in their homes in another section of

ADRIANA HELDIZ — CALMATTERS Entrika Zacarias rests at her home at the Oasis Mobile Home Park in Coachella Valley on Aug. 23. Like many other farmworkers in the area, Zacarias lost four days of work during Tropical Storm Hilary.