Roxsy Lin reported this three-part series while participating in the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s Domestic Violence Impact Reporting Fund. Read Pt. 1 here and Pt. 2 here.
We have changed the names of some sources in this story to protect their safety and privacy.
THERMAL, Calif. – Adriana was eight months pregnant and living in Thermal, California, when her husband Pablo came home from a family party the two had attended. Angry that she had left before him, he pointed a pistol at her pregnant belly.
“The three of us are going to die,” he threatened her. Frozen with fear, Adriana spoke softly, trying to convince him to lower the gun. “I was so scared that I even peed myself,” she said in Spanish.
Eventually, Pablo lowered the weapon. But the violence didn’t end that night.
When their daughter was 3 years old, he slapped Adriana across the face twice, hitting her so hard that her lip split and began to bleed. She called the police, and he was taken into custody for a couple of days.
Soon after, her husband left Adriana and their child, while his family — the only family she had nearby and her sole source of financial support — turned against her.
Adriana’s story reflects a broader pattern of domestic abuse experienced by migrant farmworker women in Thermal, a majority Latino community located in the Coachella Valley.
For survivors, especially those who lack legal status, their experience is exacerbated by cultural and linguistic barriers, and a fear of interacting with public agencies.
“Domestic violence affected me more psychologically because I was in a country where I didn’t know the language, without documents, without family, without friends, [and] with my daughter, who was still very young,” Adriana said in Spanish. “That made it even more traumatic for me.”
This is where the non-profit Líderes Campesinas comes in.
For more than 30 years, the organization has worked to reach women like Adriana, offering monthly meetings and targeted outreach that help survivors come to terms with what they have lived through, understand their rights, and begin to heal.
“Thank God, I found Líderes Campesinas,” said Adriana, who first encountered the organization at a local grocery store where they had an informational table. Soon after, she began attending gatherings.
“They spoke to me, and I began to see that they could help,” recounts Adriana. “I began to understand that there are many types of domestic violence, not just physical abuse.”
For the first time, she explained, she had a framework to understand what she had been subjected to. The gatherings, she said, provided her with “a lot of strength [and] wisdom.”
They also connected her to critical resources, including a psychologist.
According to the California Department of Justice, Riverside County, where Thermal is located, received 6,984 domestic violence calls for assistance in 2025.
ACoM submitted a California Public Records Act request to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office to obtain data on the number of cases referred for prosecution. The office declined to release the information, citing, among other reasons, that it would require manually searching over 20,000 cases for protected and sealed information, a process it described as “unduly burdensome and thus not in the overall public interest.”
Adriana’s story is echoed by other farmworker women in the Coachella Valley.
Ana was a victim of rape in Mexico when she was 12 years old. In the aftermath, her mother urged her to marry Daniel, a teenage boy, believing marriage would shield her from the stigma and criticism that followed the assault.
Years later, the past resurfaced unexpectedly. While Ana was still living in Mexico with Daniel and his family, the man who had assaulted her walked into the family’s small neighborhood store. After getting drunk, he began talking about what had happened years earlier and confessed to Daniel and his relatives.
Rather than responding with compassion, Daniel erupted in anger. Ana said he shoved her to the ground and struck her with a piece of red-hot firewood from the pit where the family was making tortillas, burning her hair and clothing. Instead of intervening, she said, his relatives laughed.
“I couldn’t even speak because the fear was so overwhelming, and the pain was so intense that I couldn’t say anything anymore. All I could do was cry and cry and cry,” she said in Spanish. “No one supported me. No one told me, ‘Don’t worry,’ or ‘Come home, leave him, you’re going to be okay.’ No one. I lived through all of that alone.”
Two years later, Ana decided to leave both Mexico and her abusive relationship with Daniel. She migrated to the United States, where she found work in the agricultural fields of the Coachella Valley.
At a community event in Thermal, she met Maricruz Ramirez, then a member of Líderes Campesinas, and Elvira Herrera, the organization’s Violence Against Women Program coordinator. That encounter marked the beginning of a new chapter, one in which Ana found support after years of enduring abuse alone.
Herrera and Ramirez invited her to the Lideres Campesinas monthly gatherings, where she learned about the concept of domestic violence for the first time.
“I didn’t know I was experiencing domestic violence,” said Ana. “I didn’t know what domestic violence was. When I started hearing the information from Líderes Campesinas, when they began inviting me, that’s when I said, ‘I was experiencing domestic violence.”
The meetings helped Ana revisit her own life with a new understanding. She grew up believing that a partner’s violence was simply part of life. Being yelled at and hit, she assumed, were “normal” behaviors in a relationship.
That perception began to change after she attended the meetings. In conversations with women who had lived through similar experiences, she found the understanding, solidarity, and support she previously lacked.
Today, Ana is part of Líderes Campesinas’ leadership team and advocates for women experiencing domestic violence.
“We don’t wait for people to come to us for information,” explained Herrera. “We are not waiting for women to be beaten. Instead, we go into the community.”
A report published by Esperanza United found that women farmworkers face multiple forms of gender based violence, including “domestic and intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and workplace violence and/or harassment.”
In a 2022 survey of 295 Latina farmworkers in California, 89% reported unwanted sexual attention and coercion, while 30% reported experiencing sexual harassment. Another study out of San Diego found that one-third of the 292 female agricultural workers it surveyed had experienced physical violence, two out of ten had experienced sexual violence, and 80% had experienced psychological aggression.
To meet the need, Lideres Campesinas regularly sets up informational tables and delivers presentations on domestic violence in locations frequently visited by farmworkers, including parks, check-cashing businesses, Mexican bakeries, and other community gathering places.
Regardless of weather conditions, staff and volunteers maintain a visible presence in these locations. Herrera noted that they even operate an information table next to a bakery in Coachella that opens at 5:00 a.m., allowing farmworkers to access resources before beginning their workday.
Every month, the organization hosts two-hour educational meetings that provide in-depth information about domestic violence and other issues affecting farmworker communities.
Herrera emphasized that these extended sessions are what make the difference: creating opportunities for participants to ask questions and share experiences, and, in the process, to better understand their own situations.
According to Herrera, the organization receives approximately 120 calls each month from individuals seeking assistance related to domestic violence. Many come following in-person interactions with the community.
Beatriz Félix, the daughter of Ramona Félix, the organization’s director of membership, runs a youth group as part of Lideres Campesinas. Beatriz’s daughter, Itzel, 19, is part of the group.
The group brings together young farmworkers, the children of farmworkers, and their friends, creating a space where they can find support, guidance, and a sense of community.
Itzel recalled a conversation in their group text, when a member asked whether her boyfriend’s behavior was “toxic.” The members talked through what she described and, together, recognized the behavior as unhealthy. With their support, the young woman decided to end the relationship.
“You realize that being in these meetings truly does make a difference, and it is also very beautiful to see how the young women grow with Líderes Campesinas,” said Itzel in Spanish.
Beatriz explains that many young people grow up without consistent guidance because their parents work long hours in the fields, returning exhausted with little time or energy left after a demanding day of work.
She said group meetings make a meaningful difference for young people by giving them access to information, support, and opportunities they might not otherwise have.
Ana echoes that same sentiment.
“Now that I know more about the issue,” she said, “when I meet someone who wants me to help them, I can guide them to where they can find resources, who can help them, and what kind of help is available.”
Roxsy Lin is a California Local News Fellow with the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
