About 100 marchers paused outside the San Joaquin County Courthouse in Stockton late Monday afternoon to remember Maria Isavel Vasquez Jimenez, the 17-year old pregnant grape worker who needlessly died from the heat in 2008 because the farm labor contractor who employed her flagrantly and repeatedly violated California’s heat regulation. This was the same courthouse where early this year two officials from the contracting firm were let off with community service instead of jail time after being charged with criminal homicide. We held a brief rally there MC’d by Jose Rodriguez, president and CEO of the Latino organization El Concilio of Stockton. Also joining us were Maria Elena Serna, sister of the late Joe Serna Jr., Sacramento’s beloved mayor who was a stalwart UFW activist, plus Doroteo Jimenez, Maria Isavel’s uncle, together with members of his family who marched all day. From there we made it to Teamsters Local 601 on Miner Ave. in Stockton, where the union, led by Secretary-Treasurer Ashley Alvarado, provided dinner. Local 601 is also hosting UFW organizers who are working on the march.
Among those marching with the farm workers on Monday were Rob Bonta, son of a UFW staff member from the 1960s and now vice mayor of the city of Alameda, and Marcie Bayne, executive director of the North Valley Labor Federation, which supplied breakfast and lunch on Monday. During the lunch break, Marcie observed the blistered feet of many of the marchers. So the labor federation went out and purchased many dozens of pairs of socks for the marchers, which they gave us last night. Marcie is also organizing a busload of union members who will travel from Stockton to Sacramento on Sunday, the last day of the pilgrimage to the Capitol.
Following Mass at 7 this morning at Local 601, we had breakfast and a nurse tended to the marchers’ blisters. Then we took off headed north to Lodi, about 35 marchers, mostly our core group, which today also includes the UFW’s state Capitol lobbyist, Esperanza Ross.
Arturo S. Rodriguez, President
United Farm Workers of America