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Mushroom farmworkers were already dealing with storms and poor housing. Then came the shooting [1]
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Date: 2023-01-27
“Water was dripping into the trailers,” Half Moon Bay City Council member Joaquin Jimenez told The Washington Post. “A lot of their items were ruined. Their mattresses got wet, blankets were wet. That’s why the tarps were brought in for them, so they could put over their trailers.”
It’s fair to ask what the employers were doing to help their workers during theses storms. The Washington Post said that while an owner zoomed onto the farm in a silver BMW and would only comment that “[w]e grow and sell mushrooms,” a spokesperson was left to defend the company, saying farmworkers get above-minimum wage pay and numerous benefits, that trailers have indoor plumbing and kitchens, and that rent is low. (It’s actually deducted straight from workers’ paychecks.)
While the spokesperson said the housing is state-inspected, San Mateo County Executive Officer Mike Callagy called the trailers “not healthy. It’s not safe.” Officials said workers cooked outdoors and used portable toilets. The spokesperson acknowledged this, but claimed it’s for when families have large gatherings. Callagy also said that the owners have claimed they didn’t know about living conditions. It doesn’t appear to be an extraordinarily large farm. “They know that now,” he told The Washington Post. “And they understand that they’ve got to make changes.”
Substandard conditions are unfortunately pretty common for farmworkers in many areas, advocates said. “After reviewing the photos from the mushroom farm, Irene de Barraicua, director of operations at Lideres Campesinas, a network of female farmworker leaders, described them as ‘very typical images … for California and for the country,’” the report said.
Following the devastating shootings Monday, some workers were temporarily relocated to hotels and offered services to deal with ensuing trauma and other health-related issues. The county said members of the Behavioral Health and Recovery Services’ Crisis Response Team had been dispatched to meet with families. But while the county’s health team has Spanish speakers, there aren’t any who speak Mandarin. Christopher King, a nurse practitioner with the county health department, said this is being addressed.
ALAS has also been raising funds for the community, while families have received meals and other donations at their hotel. It’s unclear what’ll happen to the survivors in the weeks and months to come because San Mateo County Supervisor Ray Muller said "[n]o one is going back to live” at the farm.
"Horrible. Horrific. Deplorable conditions,” Muller said according to ABC 7 News. “We saw what basically looked like sheds. Storage containers that people were living in. No insulation. No running water. Nowhere where you would want to prepare food."
The San Mateo County’s Coroner Office has since identified six of the seven people killed by the gunman, The Guardian said: “Zhishen Liu, 73, Marciano Martinez Jimenez, 50, Aixiang Zhang, 74, Qizhong Cheng, 66, Yetao Bing, 43, and Jingzhi Lu, 64. Charging documents named Jose Romero Perez as the other person killed.” While some survivors did not speak to media—perhaps afraid, perhaps because of legal status, perhaps a combination of the two—others have previously described how the deceased came here to make a better future for themselves.
“You look to improve your life and then you end up with this,” said a cousin of Romero, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. One Guatemalan worker who did not want to be identified said the job was his first in America. “I don’t know restaurants, hotels, all of that,” he told The Washington Post. “What little I know is on that farm.”
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