In a Day's Work
Page 20
While the bill worked its way through the legislative process, the promotoras took their activism outside the halls of the statehouse with the goal of bringing visibility to workplace sexual assault. In Sacramento, they blocked traffic at an intersection near the capitol, unfurling a banner that said, END RAPE ON THE NIGHT SHIFT. The union organized rallies and marches in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego, where workers held up signs that said STOP THE RAPE and YA BASTA. They held screenings of the “Rape on the Night Shift” documentary throughout the state, and promotoras attended to hold up personalized signs like I KEPT SILENT BECAUSE I DIDN’T WANT MY KIDS TO KNOW or I STAYED SILENT BECAUSE NOBODY CAN HEAR YOU WHEN YOU WORK ALONE AT NIGHT. At speakouts during these public events, women took turns telling their stories of harassment and abuse on the job.
In the final week before the end of the California legislative session, the union and the promotoras were still out in the streets making noise. The bill’s final version required janitorial companies to register with the state so that government inspectors could track the labor conditions at the smallest and hardest-to-reach companies like the one Georgina Hernández had worked for. It also called on janitorial companies to provide sexual harassment training to all workers.
After passing both houses of the state legislature, the bill now sat on Governor Jerry Brown’s desk, awaiting an unclear fate. Under California law, the governor has thirty days to sign a bill and give it his official endorsement. If he did nothing, the bill would still automatically become law.
What the promotoras worried about was a veto. The opposition to the bill by influential business organizations had softened, but like the domestic workers demanding worker protections in statehouses throughout the country, the promotoras worried that because they were disenfranchised workers and voters, the governor was not going to prioritize their cause.
To keep the pressure on, the union and the promotoras decided to stage a hunger strike in front of the state capitol on the five days leading up to the governor’s deadline to sign the bill.
On a Monday morning in September, more than a half-dozen female janitors assembled on a shady patch of grass near the capitol to begin the fast. In the mornings, that day and each day for the rest of the week, the women met with supporters. In the afternoons, as their energy began to wane, they rested before holding a spiritual ceremony to close out each day. Each evening, they slept at a local church, returning to the capitol lawn in the morning to resume their vigil.
Georgina Hernández had come to the hunger strike with her young daughter, who played among the chairs and blankets arranged on the grass. She couldn’t fast because she was pregnant but she sat with the others in solidarity. As in the fight for wagetheft legislation, Hernández had been a frequent presence in Sacramento and at events throughout the state to support the bill to combat workplace sexual assault. Just weeks before, at a community event in Oakland to rally support for the legislation, she’d stood at the front of the room holding up a sign that said, I KEPT SILENT SO I COULD FEED MY KIDS, and another that said, I KEPT SILENT BECAUSE I WAS ASHAMED.
For years those pressures had kept Hernández mute, but the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund had shown her that she could demand redress. Her promotora training, which had yielded a community of confidantes, had helped Hernández translate her trauma into action. “Now when I see a woman in the street in tears, I walk up to her and ask her if she’s okay,” Hernández says. “If she is experiencing violence, I tell her it doesn’t have to be like that—join us.”
On the afternoon of their fourth day of fasting, the sun had begun to drop behind the horizon when the group saw a woman in a business suit walking purposefully toward them with a cell phone in her hand. When she reached the promotoras’ encampment, the woman told them that she worked for the governor’s office, and just moments ago, the governor had signed into law the bill dedicated to curbing sexual harassment and assault on the night shift. On her phone, she showed them a picture of the document with the governor’s signature at the bottom, and everyone crowded around to look.
There was a single beat of stunned silence before the women collapsed into a teary group hug. In a cry that emerged as if from instinct, the women began to spontaneously chant, “¡Sí se pudo! ¡Sí se pudo!” Yes we did! Yes we did!
Valles says this effort to curb sexual harassment and violence has shown her that unions need to address the working conditions of its members more holistically and that organized labor can step outside of traditional advocacy strategies. More important, she says, it was a reminder that unions should remain ever vigilant by listening to their members: “This issue had existed and it wasn’t until women in the union, through their own experiences and through collective action, that they felt more empowered to lead on this issue.”
These efforts have inspired other locals of the Service Employees International Union to start similar legislative efforts for sexual harassment prevention in Seattle and Portland. UNITE HERE, the union that represents hotel workers, has also become proactive in pushing for local laws that would protect hotel cleaners and casino workers from sexual harassment and assault. In the fall of 2016, for example, workers in Seattle helped pass a local ordinance that gave housekeepers panic buttons for use in case of emergency. Following activism by the local union, the city of Chicago followed suit a year later.
A coalition of unions, worker organizations, and anti-violence groups have since come together to seek broader strategies for addressing harassment and assault at work. The coalition emerged out of the janitorial workers’ efforts and calls itself the Ya Basta Coalition, the Enough Is Enough Coalition.16 Its focus, however, is inclusive and comprehensive. “This is bigger than janitors,” says García of the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, which is a member of the coalition. “I know that restaurant advocates have taken this on, the garment industry, there are stories about sexual assault in domestic work. Society blames the victims and we are looking to expose and eliminate that.”
After the word came down that the governor had signed the bill, Hernández and the other promotoras reveled in their victory on the capitol lawn as the sun went down. When the euphoria had worn off, some of the women suggested they continue their hunger strike until the next day at noon, as they had originally planned. There was some rousing commentary about how the hunger strike wasn’t just about the legislation—it was also about reclaiming control over their bodies. The idea caught on with five of the women, who went back to the church with empty stomachs for one more night’s rest.
The next day, the entire group assembled for the last time on the capitol lawn. Noon arrived quickly for Hernández. With the sun high in the sky, the group held a ceremony to close the event. All of the women had written letters to their attackers on the van ride from Southern California to Sacramento, and one by one they read them aloud before ripping them up and placing them into a circle of stones they had created on the capitol lawn. Farmworker organizer Dolores Huerta offered a closing prayer. Then, each woman released a white dove, an idea that had come from Hernández.
Alejandra Valles, the janitor union’s secretary-treasurer, said that in her work battling and excavating one of the most taboo topics among immigrant workers, she learned a crucial lesson about why women like Hernández are especially hesitant to talk about sexual violence at work. To start, there is the predictable list of barriers: fear of losing their jobs, fear of being blamed by their husbands or partners, and the immutable sense of shame. They’re terrified of what it might feel like to talk about the assault, and they have real concerns about what it would mean for their safety. They worry about what would happen to their families if they are deported as a result of coming forward.
Then, for women like Hernández, who were desperate and driven enough to cross borders to leave impoverished and violent homes, there is one more complication to add to the list: “You have to ask how they were living before they got here,” Valles says.
/> The union leader says that she has heard from women who, before being sexually assaulted at work, had been held captive by gangs in their home country, abused by their husbands, or raped when crossing the border. Then, once they find jobs in the United States and their supervisors or co-workers assault them, Valles says, they’re told, “‘Just shut up and be quiet—you already have it better than you had it before.’ You get used to your own body being raped and you become numb to that. And those who are willing to exploit women in this situation know it.”
The work that needs to be done now, she says, is to convey to these women that even if it is seemingly better than before, none of the abuse is acceptable. And the abusers need to understand that there are consequences for their actions and that “it’s not okay to exploit someone because they’ve had it worse,” she says.
Georgina Hernández had already survived so much by the time she arrived at a job to clean the hotel lobby near the Los Angeles airport. Her life had been branded by poverty, physical abuse, and self-sacrifice. Trauma had been layered upon itself until it had been pressed into the core of her. Still, she had found a way to refuse defeat. With every rally she attended, every meeting with the promotoras, every decision she made to share her story, she had gotten a little bit of relief. It was like letting out a little bit of internal pressure, like finally exhaling.
Hernández hadn’t had a chance to learn to read or write, so when she had been asked to write a letter to her attacker, she had asked the union’s Sandra Díaz and another promotora to help her put down her thoughts as she dictated.
“I survived,” Hernández had begun. “I used to believe I was the only one / But we are thousands and thousands of women who have endured this fear / It was not easy to break our silence / The first time I couldn’t even get the words out but I’m not afraid anymore, I’m not ashamed anymore.”
Hernández had found these words on the long road from inexorable silence to the recognition that she was more than the worst things that had happened to her. It wasn’t a coincidence that she had been the one who had requested that each woman release a dove to close the hunger strike—the realization that she could banish the shame she had harbored for so long had given her the sensation that comes with releasing a bird to the sky.
“Today,” she had said aloud for one of the first times in her life, “I know it was not my fault.”
Epilogue
The full text of Georgina Hernández’s letter to her attacker:
I survived
I used to believe I was the only one
But we are thousands and thousands of women who have endured this fear
It was not easy to break our silence
The first time I couldn’t even get the words out but I’m not afraid anymore, I’m not ashamed anymore
Today I know it was not my fault
I survived
Since girlhood I’ve borne this pain, I thought the world was cruel
You made me lose my dreams
My life became a nightmare, where I distrusted even my shadow
With such disgust I recall the first, second, and third time you took me as if I were a dessert
You humiliated me as if I were an animal
You were like a lion, awaiting your prey
I survived
Today I know we are many
Today I know that when I broke my silence I joined many who had done the same
Today I know I am not alone
Today I know it was not my fault
And today I say with my head held high that I feel no shame
Today I ask God to bless you and forgive you so you never do this to anyone again
I survived
I am here as a Promotora
I am here as a woman who dreams of changing the world
I am here as a Rape Survivor
Today I tell you smiling that I have begun to heal and that I begin a new era, guided by love for my daughter and for the new hope that will come soon
I am here with all of you and with my heart brimming with pride I tell you, We did it
El texto completo de la carta de Georgina Hernández a su agresor:
Sobreviví
Antes yo pensaba que era la única
Pero somos miles y miles de mujeres que han pasado por este miedo
No fue fácil romper el silencio
La primera vez ni me salía el habla pero ahora ya no tengo miedo, ya no tengo vergüenza
Hoy sé que no fue mi culpa
Sobreviví
Desde niña vengo cargando este dolor, yo pensaba que el mundo era cruel
Tú me hiciste perder mis sueños
Mi vida se convirtió en una pesadilla, donde desconfiaba hasta de mi sombra
Con que asco me acuerdo de la primera, segunda y tercera vez que me tomaste como si yo fuera un postre
Me humillaste como si fuera un animal
Eras como un león, esperando a tu presa
Sobreviví
Hoy sé que somos muchas
Hoy sé que cuando rompí el silencio me uní a muchas que tan bien lo hacían
Hoy sé que no estoy sola
Hoy sé que no fue mi culpa
Y hoy digo con la frente bien en alto que no siento vergüenza
Hoy pido a dios que te bendiga y que te perdone para que nunca más vuelvas a hacerle esto a nadie
Sobreviví
Estoy aquí como Promotora
Estoy aquí como una mujer que sueña con cambiar el mundo
Estoy aquí como una Sobreviviente de Violación
Hoy les digo sonriendo que he empezado a sanar y que empiezo una nueva etapa, donde me guía el amor a mi hija y a la nueva esperanza que vendrá pronto
Estoy aquí con todas ustedes y con el corazón lleno de orgullo les digo, Lo hicimos
Acknowledgments
This book is a testament to the power of collaboration. It emerged from years of teamwork, from the seemingly improbable scenario where journalists from various news organizations came together to produce long-form pieces for print, radio, and television, in both English and Spanish, on a topic that no one seemed to want to acknowledge or talk about.
The projects that resulted from this work, “Rape in the Fields” (2013) and “Rape on the Night Shift” (2015), were possible because organizations like UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program, KQED-FM, PBS Frontline, Univision, and The Center for Investigative Reporting, where I work, came together to tackle challenging and resource-intensive reporting.
These projects serve as the foundation of this book, and my heart-felt thanks go to Linsay Rousseau Burnett, who originated this line of reporting, and to both Lowell Bergman and Andrés Cediel, who were crucial in initiating these collaborative investigations.
I am also forever indebted to the core reporting team from both projects: Daffodil Altan, Lowell Bergman, Andrés Cediel, Sasha Khokha, Hannah Mintz, Lauren Rosenfeld, Grace Rubenstein, and Nadine Sebai. It was a pleasure to work with professionals and humans of such exceptional caliber. I feel fortunate that in the process of poring over court records in our cubicles, shadowing night-shift janitors in Southern California, and embedding ourselves in the apple orchards of Eastern Washington, I have also found life-long friends.
I am also grateful for the editorial guidance we received in helping shape, refine, and vet the initial reporting on which a good portion of this book is based, especially from Judy Alexander, Raney Aronson-Rath, Ingrid Becker, Gary Bostwick, Andrew Donohue, Mark Katches, Isaac Lee, Tim McGirk, Richard C. Paddock, Susanne Reber and Bob Salladay.
It has been deeply rewarding to expand upon this reporting by writing this book, and I extend my sincerest thanks to zakia henderson-brown, my editor at The New Press, for giving me this opportunity—and for offering such thoughtful and patient guidance throughout the process.
This book would not be possible without the moral support of my friends and family. I am especially thankful for my partner, Javier, whose encourage
ment and home cooking kept me fortified when I felt adrift in a tsunami of words and unfinished thoughts.
Last but certainly not least, I hold the deepest appreciation for the women workers at the center of this reporting. As a journalist, I am keenly aware that I serve as an intermediary to those who have critical stories to tell. I cannot thank enough the many women who have been so generous and brave in helping illuminate and humanize a long-buried problem. I stand in awe of their power and resilience.
Notes
Introduction: The Weight of Silence
1. A compendium in English of our reporting for “Rape in the Fields” can be found at https://www.revealnews.org/article/female-workers-face-rape-harassment-in-us-agriculture-industry, at www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/rape-in-the-fields, and at ww2.kqed.org/forum/2013/06/25/rape-in-the-fields-an-investigation-into-the-sexual-assault-of-female-agricultural-workers.
2. Our reporting in English for “Rape on the Night Shift” can be found at www.revealnews.org/nightshift, at www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/rape-on-the-night-shift, and at https://ww2.kqed.org/news/tag/rape-on-the-night-shift.
3. Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (July 1991): 1241–99.
4. Sexual harassment and violence at work happen in all industries and affect both sexes and all gender identities, as evidenced by press accounts and the docket of sexual harassment claims in federal and state courts. This book, however, focuses on sexual violence against immigrant women in low-wage jobs, a phenomenon that has been underreported.
1. Finding the Most Invisible Cases
1. See the State of California Department of Industrial Relations press release on this case, “California Labor Commissioner Cites Two Janitorial Companies More Than $1.5 Million for Multiple Wage Theft Violations,” May 8, 2014, www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2014/2014-42.pdf.