A Black Lives Matter mural was created in downtown Santa Cruz as a confirmation that the city supports and values African Americans and the ethnic diversity of all groups that live in the County. However, in July 2021, two men took turns defacing the mural by repeatedly driving over it and leaving burnout marks across the yellow ”Black Lives Matter” lettering stretching a block in front of Santa Cruz City Hall.
The two men pleaded no contest to a felony vandalism charge along with a misdemeanor reckless driving charge. The men are being held accountable with a two-year probation period. If they don’t complete their sentence, they could serve time in jail. They will be required to pay a fine, and each must serve 144 hours of community service hours. Finally, they must receive racial sensitivity counseling and undergo cognitive behavior therapy while participating in restorative justice interventions.
I have been working with farmworkers as the Director of Center for Farmworker Families for many years. Last month I received a call from a hysterical woman farmworker claiming that she had been sexually assaulted while working in the field. A couple of weeks before her call; during a heat wave, I received a call from a farmworker claiming that farmworkers were working in the field in heat ranging from 101 degrees to 108 degrees. They begged their supervisor to be let go for the day, and the supervisor refused the request. Consequently, farmworkers began fainting in the field. One woman fainted and hit her head. She had to be taken to a local hospital in an ambulance. I frequently get calls from other farmworkers in the field claiming that pesticides are being sprayed near their working site, and they feel dizzy, nauseous, and faint and are vomiting in the field.
These are not isolated incidents. I get calls every week! The Southern Poverty Law Center and UC Davis studies confirm that 60 to 80 percent of farmworker women are sexually harassed, groped or outright raped in the field. Environmentally, farmworkers are the most exposed population to toxic pesticides. Scientific studies verify the devastating impact that pesticides have on farmworkers, especially on their children. I regularly meet the children of farmworkers with cancer, ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, learning disabilities and birth defects. Yet, because farmworkers live in grinding poverty, they are least able to provide these children with the special services and care that they need.
Three pesticides are regularly used in the County: 1,3-dichloropropene (Telone), a carcinogen; chloropicrin, a toxic air contaminant, and glyphosate (Round-Up), another carcinogen. Telone, a soil fumigant manufactured by Dow/Corteva, is drift-prone; can drift up to 7 miles from the application site, and sterilizes the soil. It is the third most heavily used pesticide in the state with 12.5 million pounds used in 2018 on strawberries and almonds, among other crops. It is a state recognized proposition 65 carcinogen that causes birth defects with chronic short and long-term health effects, including cancer. It persists in the environment and is so harmful that it has been banned in 34 other countries. The Department of Pesticide Regulation recently proposed a draft resolution that will allow growers to use even higher levels of Telone.
Lawsuits pointing to glyphosate as the source of plaintiffs’ non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cases, abound. Farmworkers are regularly exposed to these pesticides in any combination. A UCLA study found that people exposed to combinations of pesticides simultaneously suffer damage potentiated beyond what any single carcinogenic pesticide can cause.
A full 60% of all Latinx residents in Santa Cruz County live in the 95076 zip code which includes Watsonville. However 98.5% of the 171.4 pounds of pesticides associated with childhood leukemia and 95.2%, or 2220.1 pounds of pesticides associated with childhood brain cancer were applied in 2019 in this zip code alone.
To date, I have not heard of any arrests of farm supervisors on rape charges in the field, or for violating the law by forcing farmworkers to stay in the field and work in blistering heat. Nor has there been any accountability for excessive numbers of children of farmworkers whose lives have been upended by exposure to pesticides with resulting cancers and other anomalies. Would environmental racism on this massive scale be tolerated in north County? Los Gatos? Saratoga? Where are the court appearances, sentences, penalties?
Farmworkers are the MOST essential workers. Without their labor, the entire industrial farming system that feeds us would collapse. This is no way to treat the very people responsible for our food survival! It’s time we ask the question: Why don’t farmworkers’ lives matter?
Ann Aurelia López, Ph.D.
Professor, Author, and Director
Center for Farmworker Families
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