Antonio De Loera-Brust discussed issues faced by Latino workers in Yolo County
By RORY CONLON — city@theaggie.org
On May 25, the Davis Community Church hosted local activist Antonio De Loera-Brust for a discussion on the challenges faced by Latino workers in Yolo County.
Vai Ramanathan, one of the organizers for the event, introduced Loera-Brust as the communications director for the United Farm Workers (UFW) labor union. Ramanathan said her organization, the Adult Formation Committee, invited Loera-Brust to speak on the range of issues faced by Latino immigrants in Yolo County.
“Immigration right now is a profoundly difficult, complex issue,” Ramanathan said. “There are very local concerns and articulations [of this issue] that we need to be paying attention to, and Antonio [De Loera-Brust] is going to be helping us with that.”
Loera-Brust was born and raised in Davis. He first became interested in immigrant and farmworker issues when he started reflecting on his family history.
“My grandpa had come to the country as a bracero farm worker in the late ‘40s and ‘50s,” Loera-Brust said. “He went back when he was done, so my parents both grew up in Mexico City and came to the [United States] on student visas in the ‘90s. I was born here, so I always grew up with a little bit of that bicultural framing.”
In college, Loera-Brust ran an afterschool program for the Yolo Interfaith Immigration Network, which introduced him to migrant farmworker families within the community. After graduation, Loera-Brust served in Washington, D.C. as a staffer under the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris administration.
Three years ago, he returned to Davis to join the UFW. As part of the organization, Loera-Brust said he often interacts with “working poor” families in Davis.
“In Davis, we have these pockets in the apartments along 8th Street and the apartment buildings in South Davis where you have a lot of what I would call ‘working poor’ families,” Loera-Brust said. “These are the folks who do a lot of the housekeeping work, the gardening work and the [work in] all the Davis downtown kitchens.”
Loera-Brust, who specializes in helping Latino workers navigate labor disputes with their employers, said the main issues faced by this population have to do with working conditions rather than outright racial discrimination.
“I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard real discrimination issues in the sense of someone being fired for speaking Spanish or being told they won’t be rented to because they’re Hispanic,” Loera-Brust said. “What I hear all the time is, ‘I can’t pay rent,’ ‘my wages aren’t what they’re supposed to be,’ ‘my scheduling is not flexible [enough] to meet with my family,’ ‘my boss is an asshole.’”
Loera-Brust said he is working with an undocumented woman who got injured on the job.
“She had a hernia, she went to the doctor, she got a note that she couldn’t lift more than 10 pounds and she requested accommodation for that,” Loera-Brust said. “The manager was unwilling to give the accommodation. This led to a series of back-and-forths where they ultimately fired her.”
Since being fired in August 2024, the woman’s case has moved through two state agencies. Loera-Brust said she could potentially receive a substantial amount of money in withheld pay and back wages from wrongful termination, but the case is still ongoing.
Loera-Brust said the case is an example of how prolonged labor disputes prevent workers from advocating for their rights.
“The No. 1 thing that keeps immigrant workers silent in the face of labor abuses [and] disempowered politically, socially and culturally, is poverty,” Loera-Brust said. “No. 2: labor relations. It does not make financial sense for most people to advocate for themselves or exercise their rights.”
Loera-Brust also discussed how labor rights intersect with immigration rights. In 2022, the UFW started organizing workers on a mushroom farm in Yakima, Washington, with the ultimate goal of demanding better working conditions.
After Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained a local man, an immigration lawyer held a “Know Your Rights” training in the community. Loera-Brust said that, as a result of this training, the workers attending organizing committee meetings dwindled from 50 people to 20 people.
“[The immigration lawyer] gave what, in her view, is the best legal advice, which is: ‘Do not risk it, do not speak out,’” Loera-Brust said. “But for us as a union, [our] job is to empower workers to fight, organize and be outspoken. I feel like this just undid years of work.”
Juan Carlos Ruiz, who works in educational and cultural affairs at the Mexican consulate, also spoke at the meeting about national policies that could affect Latino workers. He said that in addition to the direct threat of deportation, a proposed law could tax the money Latino workers send home to their families.
“This is money earned by hardworking families that already pay taxes,” Ruiz said. “The first time [the bill] went through the House, it failed, but now it’s [been] approved for a 3.5% tax. Let’s see what the Senate does.”
The proposed law would put additional pressure on immigrants who work in the U.S. and negatively impact families that rely on that money in other countries. Ruiz said one way to combat the issue is to speak out.
“There is a campaign that has been launched,” Ruiz said. “It said, ‘Please write to your local congressman, to your senator, and say that you don’t want this.’ If you’re Mexican and you live in the U.S., you can help with that.”
To conclude the meeting, Loera-Brust outlined ways community members could help out locally. He said that there have been three ICE detentions in Yolo County under the Donald Trump administration: two in Davis and one in Woodland.
Loera-Brust said community members could donate to non-profits like the Immigrant Legal Defense or directly to the families of detained individuals.
“Macro, you can support organizations to expand their capacity to represent folks pro bono,” Loera-Brust said. “Micro, you can support individual local families who find themselves needing to pay for private representation because the most important thing is to make sure everyone has their rights and their lawyers.”
Written By: Rory Conlon — city@theaggie.org
