The bucolic city of Half Moon Bay is framed by rolling green hills and winding roads that stretch to the sea. Less than an hour outside San Francisco, the region is home to vast stretches of farmland, including California Terra Garden, where Pedro Romero Perez harvested mushrooms alongside his older brother, Jose.
Before it became the site of the worst mass shooting in San Mateo County’s history, the farm was the locus of the brothers’ shared life in California, where they worked, rested and stayed connected to family back in Mexico. Their routine came to a violent halt on January 23, 2023. That afternoon, a disgruntled worker marched into California Terra Garden with a gun, fatally shooting four workers, including Jose, and critically wounding Pedro. The gunman then drove to a nearby mushroom farm, Concord Farms, and shot and killed three former colleagues.
The attack shattered the world the two brothers had built in California, leaving the soft-spoken then 23-year-old Pedro without his companion, his roommate and his best friend. “Now I am alone,” Pedro said in Spanish on an afternoon in Half Moon Bay in late August, recalling their life together on the farm. “Sometimes I can’t sleep. I look at his photos, and see he is no longer with me, and that hurts a lot.”
The shootings devastated the tight-knit community. In total, seven farmworkers were murdered that day—five agricultural workers from China and two from Mexico. The dozens of farmworkers living in makeshift homes at the farms were relocated into temporary housing. Survivors were traumatized. As organizations and individuals rushed to the aid of shooting survivors, the glare of the national media spotlight descended onto the small city. In the aftermath, the brutal conditions of the workers who fuel a multibillion-dollar economy began to come into focus: wage theft, substandard housing and extreme economic insecurity.
It is within this climate that Pedro stepped forward. In April 2024, fourteen months into his recovery, Pedro sued California Terra Garden and the farm’s owner, Xianmin Guan, for negligence. The suit alleges that the farm failed to protect its workers from the attack, pointing to the shooter’s history of violent behavior and another shooting by a different employee at the property seven months earlier. It also highlights the poor conditions workers lived in, including some housed in converted storage containers without running water or insulation.
Neither California Terra Garden nor Concord Farms responded to El Tímpano’s request for comment.
At a press conference announcing the lawsuit, Pedro pointed to the different parts of his body where he had been shot: the stomach, the face, the arm, the hip. “I’m still healing,” he said quietly. “I’m still in pain, and I’m trying to get better.”
Pedro is the only survivor—and the only farmworker—pursuing legal action against either of the farms where the shootings occurred. In doing so, the now 25-year-old, who struggles to make eye contact when talking about himself or Jose, has become an unlikely public face of the story of January 23 and its painful aftermath. He is a victim of the violence that shocked Half Moon Bay and a subject of the poor housing conditions the shooting brought to light. He has also become a symbol of the community’s long road to recovery. It is not a role Pedro expected when he moved to Half Moon Bay four years ago. He just wanted to work. But, he adds, “we want things to get better. So that what we went through doesn’t happen again.”
‘This is the norm’
The shooting set off a series of shocks – first at the tragedy, second at the revelation about the living conditions the farmworkers had endured.
Judith Guerrero, executive director of the local nonprofit Coastside Hope, recalled the moment she learned of the attack from a colleague who saw the news on social media. Her first instinct was to check on her mother, an agricultural worker at a nearby farm, before diving headfirst into the urgent task of supporting survivors.
“It was all hands on deck,” she said. “There was no time to internalize what happened. You just kept going.”
The day after the attack, Governor Gavin Newsom weighed in, revealing that some farmworkers were earning as little as $9 an hour—well below the state’s $15.50 minimum wage at the time—and lived in shipping containers. Soon after, San Mateo County Supervisor Ray Mueller visited California Terra Garden and posted photos of the workers’ housing: decrepit homes cobbled together with plywood and plastic, outdoor kitchens where meals were cooked over camper stoves. “Deplorable, heartbreaking living conditions,” he wrote. “We must raise the quality of life of farmworkers, NOW.”
Mueller, just months into his term, had been warned by a county official that sharing the images would “create a firestorm,” Mueller recalled in an interview. He said he responded: “Good. Burn it big and bright so people can’t look away.”
The revelations about the conditions in which farmworkers lived—in California’s wealthiest county, no less—provoked outrage and disbelief. But for those within the farmworker community and their advocates, the photos shared by Mueller simply reflected a truth that’s been hiding in plain sight. “A shipping container is a lot better than some of the things I’ve seen,” said Ann López, executive director of the Center for Farmworker Families, which advocates for agricultural workers across the Central Coast.
López recounted seeing farmworkers camped along rivers, or crammed into apartments meant for a family of four, with as many as 20 people living inside—some sleeping on kitchen floors without mattresses, others in bathtubs. After the shooting, she adds, “Governor Newsom was upset. All these people are upset. No—this is the norm, folks. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to make changes statewide if you don’t like people living in shipping containers.”
The California legislature and Newsom have kept their attention on farmworkers’ living conditions in Half Moon Bay and San Mateo county, as have local and county officials. Last month, Newsom signed three bills aimed at improving farmworkers’ living and working conditions, including legislation to expand access to farmworker housing and allow farmworkers to use paid sick leave during emergencies. However, progress since the farmworkers’ union first drew attention to the exploitation of the agricultural industry in the 1960s has been slow.
California’s agricultural industry generates more than $50 billion annually and is a cornerstone of the world’s fifth-largest economy. Yet this prosperity is sustained by the labor of hundreds of thousands of farmworkers who, despite harvesting the food that feeds the nation, live in poverty. Farmworkers earn some of California’s lowest wages, live in substandard housing, suffer from poor health outcomes, and face retaliation for calling attention to hazardous and exploitative working conditions.
These disparities have deep roots in California. In the 1930s, when the New Deal era ushered in progressive reforms for American workers, farmworkers were exempted from federal labor protections, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. The Bracero Program, which brought Mexican agricultural workers to the U.S. during World War II, only further entrenched these inequities. Migrant workers who protested poor working conditions were often threatened with deportation.
By the 1960s, the United Farm Workers Union helped bring national attention to the plight of California’s farmworkers, leading strikes and boycotts that pushed for fair wages and safer working conditions. While their activism helped to secure key victories, including landmark legislation in California granting farmworkers the right to unionize, many of the issues advocates called attention to decades ago persist today. “These are not new issues,” said Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga, the executive director of the nonprofit Ayudando Latinos A Soñar, which supports Half Moon Bay’s Latino farmworker community. From housing exploitation and labor abuses to exposure to toxic pesticides, “we have been talking about this since Cesar Chavez and before,” Hernandez-Arriaga said. “This has been going on.”
Nicolas Romero-Gonzalez has seen these conditions endure for years. At 63, after spending nearly two decades working in the fields around Half Moon Bay, he has seen only marginal improvements in his colleagues’ living and working conditions. “It’s almost the same, but a little better. Ten percent better,” he said in Spanish. After the shootings, Romero-Gonzalez became an advocate for the farmworker community, serving on a county commission representing agricultural workers. The role has shown him the community’s most persistent labor issues: withheld wages, inadequate housing and retaliatory firings. Especially troubling to Romero-Gonzalez is the culture of silence on many farms, driven by workers’ fears that speaking up about poor conditions could lead to their dismissal or even deportation. “Many keep quiet about what they suffer,” he said, “because they are afraid.”
From farmworker to survivor
Pedro grew up in a mountainous region of Oaxaca, Mexico. At 20, he left for California to pursue work. He first landed in Santa Rosa, where he worked in the vineyards, harvesting grapes. By the end of 2020, he moved to Half Moon Bay, where his brother Jose soon joined him. A few months later, the two were hired to work at California Terra Garden, where they spent long hours harvesting mushrooms. Off the clock, they relaxed in the trailer they shared on the farm.
The brothers were inseparable. Jose, 15 years older, was married with four children back in Oaxaca, and he took on the role of the elder sibling protector. “He took care of me,” Pedro said. They often cooked together after long days at work, Pedro taking notes as Jose made his specialty barbecue. “We were always together,” he adds. “He’s always in my heart.”
The brothers were off-duty the day of the shooting. Chunli Zhao, the alleged shooter, who is awaiting trial, burst into their trailer and opened fire. Zhao, a fellow worker at the farm who was reportedly enraged after his supervisor asked him to pay $100 to repair a forklift damaged in an accident, is accused of shooting and killing his boss and another colleague. He then allegedly entered the brothers’ room, where Jose was asleep. Jose was shot and killed. Pedro was hit five times.
Pedro spent the next two months in the hospital, undergoing three surgeries: two on his stomach and one on his arm. He was discharged in April and moved into a temporary rental paid for by the county for the first year. While his medical expenses and ongoing physical therapy treatments are covered by workers’ compensation, his recovery has been slow. He struggles with pain in his foot because of his injuries and is uncertain if he will ever be strong enough to return to work in the fields. “I still don’t feel well,” he said. “The pain bothers me a lot.” Even a quick trip to the grocery store leaves him exhausted. “I am not well anymore, I am weak, and I am not sure if I can work.”
‘We’ve got to speak up for ourselves’
Even before the shooting, the situation for farmworkers in the Half Moon Bay region was precarious. Local agricultural workers were still recovering from the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, a series of natural disasters and a shrinking agricultural industry, all compounded by the region’s notoriously expensive housing market.
“The storms and Covid and the fires had a strong impact” on workers’ already precarious financial states, explained Romero-Gonzalez, the farmworker who educates colleagues on their labor rights. “It was a major catastrophe for us in terms of the number of days without work.” Adding to these challenges is the difficulty of recouping lost wages for undocumented farmworkers, who make up an estimated sixty percent of agricultural workers in California and are ineligible for unemployment benefits.
Then came January 23, 2023. The shootings prompted investigations into the two farms, leading to penalties from state and federal officials, including a $165,000 citation from California’s workplace safety agency and a $450,000 wage theft settlement from the U.S. Department of Labor.
On the local level, San Mateo County responded by establishing a task force to inspect farmworker housing, ensuring it complies with health and safety standards. The task force is currently inspecting farms throughout the county’s unincorporated parts to make sure employer-provided housing isn’t just permitted, but meets minimum health and safety codes, meaning workers have access to basic necessities like potable water, plumbing, heating and electricity. The county also created an Office of Labor Standards Enforcement to investigate and prosecute wage theft cases among low-wage employees, including farmworkers, and rolled out a Farmworker Advisory Commission that reports to the county’s Board of Supervisors on local agricultural workers’ concerns and needs.
These initiatives are still in their early stages. The Office of Labor Standards Enforcement is getting off the ground, and likely won’t be fully staffed until the end of the year, while the housing task force is currently undergoing inspections across the county, and hopes to publish a report outlining the findings in the next few months.
In the meantime, housing remains a primary concern for survivors and the broader farmworker community. While county officials pledged to invest in affordable housing after the shooting, workers are still waiting for concrete results. In June, after months of infighting, the city finally green-lit a 40-unit housing complex for senior farmworkers. Despite the project’s approval, construction is not expected to begin until 2026. Another proposal to build 47 manufactured homes for farmworkers, with priority given to survivors displaced by the shooting, is still being developed.
Pedro’s lawsuit has brought further attention to workers’ living conditions and labor issues. The lawsuit, combined with the state and federal investigations, has intensified scrutiny of California’s agricultural industry. Advocates are pushing for deeper structural reforms, including stronger enforcement of labor laws and better housing conditions. They hope the focus on farmworkers’ issues will endure.
“My community got a lot of attention because of what happened, but I want to make sure that we are not forgotten,” said Guerrero of Coastside Hope, who sits on the Farmworker Advisory Commission. “That we continue to be remembered. We are a community that faces all these challenges: housing, access to health care, homelessness. I want people to see Half Moon Bay for all these beautiful things, but also the challenges that are in our community.”
Guerrero, whose family spans three generations of farmworkers, has noticed a subtle but meaningful shift in farmworkers’ willingness to speak out.
“My grandparents came from a generation that kept your mouth shut,” she said. “If something was wrong, you didn’t say anything. You didn’t want to jeopardize your job.” But today, she explained, agricultural workers are increasingly finding their voices, and it is becoming harder to ignore their needs. She pointed to a farmworker convention her organization co-hosted last year, where agricultural workers spoke directly to local policymakers and community members. “If you had told me that that was going to happen 15 years ago, no farmworker would have agreed to be in front of that panel,” she said. But now, Guerrero added, “we’ve got to speak up for ourselves.”
“I did not think I was going to suffer like this here”
Over the last six months, Pedro has taken on the responsibility of being the public face of the legal action against California Terra Garden, even as he grapples with the long shadow of January 23, 2023: his physical recovery, the emotional trauma of the shooting, the loss of his brother and the uncertainty of how he will financially support himself in the future.
The injuries he sustained in the shooting, along with his ongoing recovery, have left Pedro unemployed. His weakened state makes him unsure if—or when—he’ll be able to return to the agricultural sector. In the meantime, he survives on temporary disability checks, paid every two weeks through his workers’ compensation case, which is ongoing and will ultimately provide him with a permanent disability financial settlement. Pedro’s lawsuit doesn’t specify the amount he is suing for, but a win would presumably offer a financial lifeline for Pedro, given his struggles making ends meet. Even with the disability payments, Pedro can find it hard to stretch his money to the end of the month. Rent, food, phone bills—all these expenses add up as he works to rebuild his life. “When I left my town in Oaxaca, I was not expecting this,” he said. “I came to work and I did not think I was going to suffer like this here.”
Tributes have sprung up for Jose and the other fallen farmworkers, from Oaxaca to Half Moon Bay. In the days following the attack, a small group of workers gathered for a spontaneous vigil at California Terra Garden. They lit candles in remembrance of the victims, praying at the site of the shooting. Some of them wept because they were so upset, recalled Hernandez-Arriaga, who participated in the ceremony.
In Oaxaca, family and community members held a funeral for Jose, carrying his casket up a steep, winding road into the mountains. Pedro, still recovering in the hospital, was unable to attend or say goodbye to his brother alongside his family. Now, he is part of a local effort to honor Jose and the six other farmworkers who were killed. He serves on a committee in Half Moon Bay tasked with designing a memorial downtown. Though plans are still in the early stages, the tribute may include a memorial garden, or a statue symbolizing the farmworker community, explained Julissa Acosta, the project lead and a management analyst for the city. Organizers hope the memorial will serve as a gathering space for survivors like Pedro, as well as the wider community, to grieve the victims and honor the farmworker population at large.
For Pedro, grieving remains an ongoing process. Sometimes, it hits him when he stops for a bite after work and remembers that Jose is no longer there to join him. Other nights, Jose visits in dreams, and they catch up like they used to. But there are also evenings where the memory of Jose keeps Pedro awake. “Sometimes I don’t fall asleep until one in the morning, when I think about him a lot,” Pedro said. “It hurts me a lot to remember my brother.”
