Justice for a farmworker

Justice. We all like to believe that justice will be served when a wrong is committed.
But I am beginning to question whether there is justice for everyone on an equal basis. In fact, my belief in the justice system is quickly eroding. I say this after finding out that the individuals responsible for the heatstroke death of a 17-year-old farmworker may not serve jail time because of a plea deal that is being worked on.
Maria Isabel Jimenez died in May 2008 after working in a vineyard outside of Stockton, CA. When the circumstances surrounding her death became known, not only was there outrage but international media coverage about her death.
I wrote the following piece to mark the one-year anniversary of her death. I think it is appropriate to share it again.


It was a year ago today that in vineyard in San Joaquin County, a few miles east of Stockton, a 17-year-old girl collapsed.
She died two days later due to heatstroke.
Her death should have been prevented.
Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez had been working nine hours. It was an unseasonably hot day. According to reports the temperature hoovered around 96 degrees. But anyone who has worked or stepped foot in an ag field knows the temperature is often several degrees higher.
During those nine hours she was denied drinking water and shade.
California's heat regulation law requires employers provide drinking water and shade and regular rest breaks for any employee working in the sun when the temperature reaches a certain threshold.
This didn't happen in Maria Isabel's case. When she collapsed in her fiance's arms, supervisors refused to call emergency personnel. Instead ordering the driver who had brought them to take the whole crew home.
Eventually Maria Isabel was taken to a clinic, where nurses called an ambulance to have her taken to the hospital. But by then it was too late.
At the hospital, doctors learned she had been two months pregnant.
Maria Isabel remained on life support for a couple of days before her family - and uncle and aunt - made the difficult and heartbreaking decision to have her taken off life support.
At a time when Maria Isabel should have been enjoying life like most teenagers, she was making adult decisions. She left her home in Oaxaca, Mexico and made the journey to the United States in order to help her widowed mother and siblings.
She arrived in February 2008 full of hope. She came out of love for her family. She loved them enough to leave them at the tender age of 17 in order to help them.
But instead of the endless possibility she had hoped to encounter, she encountered death.
When her death and the circumstances surrounding it came to light - thanks to the coverage of Univison 19 in Sacramento - there was outrage and sadness that this could happen.
The United Farm Workers organized a peregrinacion in her honor to the state Capitol. I was the communications director at the time.
Along the way people from all walks of life would stop and ask what the march was for. All had heard Maria Isabel's tragic story.
Her death received national and international coverage.
But a year a later how many still remember her?
Her mother will surely remember the daughter who she no doubt saw leave their small pueblo full of hope only to return in an ataud.
I for one will not forget her. Her death, still brings tears to my eyes. The thought of her returning home in a box and alone haunts my memory.
We can't forget her, for doing so would mean her death was in vain. And we as a society cannot let that happen. 

And I will add this, we cannot let those responsible for her death escape with merely paying a fine. For that would be the cruelest of injustices and would send a message that the life of a farmworker not only has a price, but is expendable.