After tragedy struck Half Moon Bay on Jan. 23, government officials at all levels set their sights on improving the status of farmworkers on the Coastside. Complementing those initiatives are the efforts of mental health counselors, nonprofit employees and social workers who work with farmworkers, including those directly impacted by the shootings, almost every day.
Workers at Coastside Hope, a nonprofit that provides social services to low-income Coastsiders, including farmworkers, have been checking in regularly with the relatives, neighbors and co-workers of the seven shooting victims and of the person who was critically injured.
“We have definitely been paying more attention to this group the last few weeks,” said Judith Guerrero, executive director of Coastside Hope. “Not that we’re forgetting about everyone else, but they do require a little bit more assistance. We’ve been checking in to ask, ‘Are you guys doing OK? How are you doing?’ We shared our phone numbers in case they needed anything specific.”
For example, Coastside Hope has been helping some of the displaced farmworkers with their tax returns, and, starting immediately after the incident, the organization has been using donations from members of the community to provide direct financial support.
The people displaced by the shootings include 18 households and about 40 individuals, said Karen Decker, economic and community vitality manager for the city of Half Moon Bay. Initially, everyone was lodging in hotels. Since then, the city of Half Moon Bay arranged to move families and individuals into Airbnbs. That was made possible with the financial support of Airbnb.org, the nonprofit wing of the well-known short-term rental company.
“The city contacted Airbnb.org, which offers free, temporary housing for displaced households following a disaster,” said Decker. “Honestly, Airbnb.org was incredible. They responded to my call within 15 minutes.”
Guerrero was careful to protect people’s privacy as she talked about helping people transfer to short-term rentals.
“What I will tell you is that they were very happy to leave the hotel,” she said. Guerrero said she saw happiness spread across people’s faces when they heard they were going to an Airbnb. “I think we underestimate how much it means to have a kitchen and to cook our own food. They were very thankful for having that shelter, but they were happy to be in a more stable setting.”
Several people reported that relocating allowed them to have a good night’s sleep again, added Guerrero.
On Feb. 8, Wendy Rubio and Winsor Kinkade launched a grief group at the Half Moon Bay-based nonprofit Ayudando Latinos a Soñar for people who either witnessed the Jan. 23 shootings or were directly impacted by them in some other way. Rubio is a marriage and family therapist and Kinkade is a licensed social worker. Both are English-Spanish bilingual speakers who have worked extensively with many of the displaced farmworkers before and after the shooting incidents.
Rubio explained that the ripple effect of the shootings has been wide. “Everyone was a witness in a way,” she said. “Whether that was seeing the bodies or being there while this was happening. The other thing — and I’m sure you know — is that people live there, so these are their neighbors. Maybe they weren’t biological family members, but they saw them as a grandma or grandpa to their kids. They were so embedded in their lives.”
Rona Hu, medical director of the Acute Psychiatric Inpatient Unit at Stanford Hospital, is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and speaks fluent Mandarin. In the days and weeks following the shooting, Hu has been in frequent contact with the Chinese farmworkers from the two Half Moon Bay mushroom farms. Hu described triage efforts such as finding someone a new pair of shoes and sourcing toiletry items. She said Chinese farmworkers impacted by the shootings have been reluctant to vocalize their needs, in part for cultural reasons.
“People wanted to help, but the Chinese farmworkers kept saying no,” said Hu. “In general, people don’t usually ask for help because they don’t want to be a bother. They don’t want to be seen as taking advantage of people.”
Hu said that when she first went to help the Chinese farmworkers, they tried to comfort her.
“The first thing they said to us was, ‘Have a seat,’” she said. “They’d just been through one of the worst things that anyone can live through, and they said, ‘have a seat’ and were trying to provide for our comfort.”
Reflecting generally on the Chinese farmworkers she has been working with, Hu said that a lot of them have not really begun to process the tragedy. “I think denial is often the default coping mechanism in Asian cultures,” said Hu. “It’s not a great long-term solution, but when you don’t have anything you can do about a situation, then denial might be your best choice, not consciously, but you might get really used to doing that.”
Rubio said that the people she has been working with are grieving in more ways than one.
“They’re grieving the violence that happened, but they’re also grieving their safety in their workplace,” she said.
Guerrero has seen a similar response. “They’re resilient and they’re going back to work, but there’s still some uncertainty of, ‘Could this happen again? Are we safe?’ and all of the trauma that comes with experiencing an event like that.”
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