Event honors farmworkers

Organizers spread word about heat safety rights

By ANDY STINY
Herald Staff Correspondent

You didn't have to tell these folks that the lettuce and tomatoes on their enchilada plates didn't start out at the grocery store.

Under blue, cloudless skies on Sunday, hundreds of people at Greenfield's Patriot Park watched swirling Mexican folk dancers, munched tacos de carne azada and enchiladas and received information important for farmworkers.

It was the 14th annual Dia del Trabajador Agricola — Day of the Agricultural Worker — and 27 agencies were on hand to offer information ranging from the dangers of pesticides to work opportunities. It was a fiesta with a purpose.

David Rivera of Gonzales has been there, done that. He picked broccoli, cauliflower and asparagus in the 1970s.

"People in the big cities think that the crops going to the stands in the markets (happens) by magic," he said. "No way, it's not magic — anything on this job — it happens from really hard work."

Rivera, who is now a production manager at a seed company, and Jesus Lopez, one of the event's organizers who is with the migrant unit of California Rural Legal Assistance in Salinas — and once worked in the fields — agree things are better than the old days.

Still, picking crops under the summer California sun can be dangerous as evidenced by the heat-related death of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez in May. The teenager was picking grapes near Stockton.

Heat-related deaths are a leading concern, said Lopez. "Some workers, they don't know they have the right to ask for a break when it is very hot. By law they have the right, but they don't know yet the right."

Some workers know about normal breaks, but don't know they have the right to an extra break if it's too hot, he said.

Another important issue of the day was pesticide exposure. "They (farmworkers) are exposed to pesticides, they got sick for one day, the following day they are not sick anymore, I mean they are not in bed," said Lopez. "But they don't what to do after they are exposed to pesticides."

Martha Elena Sanchez, a research scientist, staffed a booth for the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. They were offering information on "using the right protective equipment, what to do in case of an emergency, first aid or any other questions they have relating to pesticides," she said.

Color booklets titled "Proteccion de su salud (Protection of your health)," were available.

Lopez estimates there are thousands of farmworkers employed in Monterey County.

Many farmworker ailments are not your traditional workplace "accidents," said Lopez. "You know — my back hurts me a lot, my arms." He hopes the fruit and vegetable consumer will think of the hazards involved in harvesting crops when they go to the local grocery store.

"How many times do you believe a farmworker bends every single day?" he asks. "Like the lettuce workers: They are bending more than 7,000. The strawberry workers — they don't even stand up — just working and bending the whole day."

But the day was not all about work. As cumbias and folk music blasted from gigantic speakers, troupe after dance troupe took to the concrete ball court that served as a stage.

The group Santa Cruz group, Centeotl, originally from the mountainous southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, performed for an enthusiastic crowd — many from Greenfield, where there is a large Oaxacan community.

An announcer described in Spanish how various towns in Oaxaca have their own traditional dances. Centeotl performed the Danza de la Pluma (the dance of the feather), with dancers wearing elaborate plumed headdresses, fringed-leggings and colorful shirts, some adorned with the Virgin of Guadalupe — Mexico's most revered religious image — on the back. The dance, with religious overtones, represents the period of the Aztec ruler Montezuma during the Spanish Conquest.

They also performed a dance called the Pinotepa, in which the man uses a handkerchief in his role as a bullfighter while the woman uses her fingers for horns as a cow, who charges until the man is knocked sprawling to the ground.

There were donated goodies for those attending, which included a variety of 2,000 baseball caps with inscriptions such as "Dominguez Farm Labor" and "B.C. Harvesting, Inc."

"We just give away a lot of good things for farmworkers," said Jesus Lopez, as he opened a small box to show a reporter one of the freebies — a necklace with a cross.

Sponsored by SCORE (South County Outreach Efforts), its supporting agencies and the city of Greenfield, the day was a free, nonsmoking, no-alcohol event that lasted from noon until 7 p.m.