Vol. 71/No. 42      November 12, 2007

Media attention has focused on wealthy and middle-class areas affected, painting a picture of orderly and adequate evacuation and relief efforts. The scene at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium was “closer to a tailgate party than a disaster evacuation,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

But workers living in Potrero and Tecate, overwhelmingly Chicano towns near the Mexican border, told the Militant a different story.

Marta Gómez and her husband Pablo, a retired tow-truck driver, live in a small rented house in Tecate. On October 21 the fire raced through their backyard, burning down a van and a trailer where many of their belongings were stored. About 20 of their chickens and two dogs died in the blaze. They had left in time because a neighbor called to warn them.

“We never got a reverse-911 call” to evacuate, said Marta. “We didn’t know where to go.” They ended up with about 30 neighbors in the yard of the customs house at the Tecate border crossing.

The Gómezes have been relying on family, friends, and neighbors for support. It took nearly a week for Red Cross personnel to show up, and they brought only water. The family still has no electricity or running water.

Daughter Sandra Gómez said her union, the California Nurses Association, helped get food and water. “I think the whole setup was wrong, because they left my mom and dad without food and water,” she said.

Those who went to Mexico to escape the fire have not been able to come back, because that border crossing was closed.

Authorities required those receiving relief supplies to provide identification, supposedly to prevent people who were not fire victims from “stealing” food and clothing.

Lorena García, an accounting office worker in Potrero, took in three other families whose homes were closer to the fire. “On the fourth day we went to the Volunteer Fire Department for supplies,” she said, because they were cut off from the usual shopping centers. One of the people handing out supplies questioned why they needed toothbrushes, since their homes weren’t destroyed. “I told him, ‘We’re not here to be humiliated but because we need these things.’”

“They accused us of stealing things,” said Teresa Argiles, also from Potrero. “And it was very little what they offered us.”

The Western Service Workers Association and other groups in San Diego have been collecting donations of food, clothing, and other necessities to bring to working people in rural areas.  
 
Immigrant workers affected
The fires have taken a toll on undocumented workers. In Carmel Valley, workers never stopped picking tomatoes at Leslie Farms, despite being in a mandatory evacuation zone, according to an October 26 article in the Spanish section of the San Diego Union-Tribune. The bosses claimed they were in a voluntary evacuation zone and there was no need to worry.

“They’re more interested in the harvest” than the life and limb of workers, said Juan Ramón of the Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations.

At least 14 immigrant workers were taken to the Medical Center’s burn unit at the University of California in San Diego. There are many undocumented day laborers living in tents and shacks in the canyons outside the city of San Diego. So far it is unknown how many of these workers may have died as fires swept through. On October 25 Border Patrol agents found four charred bodies in a canyon, bringing the official death toll to seven.

By October 26 immigration cops reported arresting 100 immigrant workers made visible by the fires.

Immigrant rights activists report that some workers have been denied help at shelters because they lack proper identification, and others have been hesitant to go to evacuation centers where they might be picked up by the immigration police. Border Patrol agents were redeployed to “help” at evacuation centers and with other relief efforts.

Several immigrants were arrested at Qualcomm Stadium and deported. Cops handed them over to la migra after accusing them of stealing relief supplies.

Rick Trujillo contributed to this article.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home