Interview with Irene de Barraicua

Interview with  Irene de Barraicua,
Director of Policy, Advocacy & Communications, Lideres Campesinas

Louie: Can you tell everyone a little bit about Lideres Campesinas?

Irene: We're a statewide organization as far south as Coachella, Imperial, and Imperial County. We span all across the state, reaching Sonoma and Napa. What Lideres Campesinas does is organize women, either current or former farm worker women, to uplift their voices and ensure their human rights and that of their families. So, we focus on issues related to workers' rights, health and safety of women, gender violence, as well as environmental justice work. Those are some of our priorities, but we really do a lot more work. We do research with various universities and different projects that protect farm workers. We are a non-profit, and our board is made up of farm worker women with a representative from every region where we have a chapter.

Louie: What’s been the atmosphere in the immigrant farming community since the beginning of the year, at least in California?

Irene: Sure. In early January, we began to see raids happening, impacting our farm worker communities. Kern County is where we first saw them really hitting hard. People began to be scared to go to work, they were scared to go out, to even get their basic needs, their shopping done, taking their children to school. It's very sad because we had just kind of lived through years, of different kind of chaos with the pandemic, right? With COVID-19 and really ensuring our most vulnerable communities, especially that were deemed essential by our federal government, that there were protections in place for them. And now, this has all been reversed with what we're seeing today with our current attacks on our communities.

When we first started hearing about these different raids happening, starting in Kern County, we noticed that a lot of people weren't really aware of what their rights were. So, we had to really organize and in similar ways that we did during the pandemic, like getting in touch with our public officials, with the law enforcement, really doing temperature fields, in the various communities where we represent, or have representation. We also began to create a directory of immigration services, rapid response, in different communities. Rapid response networks are usually like a collective of organizations with legal providers, during legal clinics, know-your-rights clinics, and with advocates as well.

 Oscar Guerrero Lopez Guerrero and Irene de Barraicua at WINeFare 2025

Kern County was one of the first to establish a strong, rapid response network. And Lideres Campesinas was able to be a part of that. Sometimes people are too scared to also attend these clinics. So, what Lideres Campesinas has been doing is getting the information out as to how people could educate themselves, really learn how to protect themselves, to know their rights. Some of these have been offered virtually, so that really helps as well.

Louie: A couple of years ago, we started talking about the idea of creating a wine label, we being Lideres Campesinas and The Vinguard, that different wineries could use to draw attention to vineyard workers. Oscar Lopez Guerrero, who was a farm worker and a muralist, created this beautiful drawing for us. So far, we've had two participants, Margins and Camins2Dreams, and I know there are others who are very interested in joining this campaign. How do you think Guardian Vital can make a difference?

Irene: I think this is an excellent collaboration. It's an example of a solution driven, tangible sort of result that, can really sort of bring together - the advocates, the workers, growers, wine producers, distributors, and consumers - bring us all together to ensure that farm workers are being treated right, or are working in a setting that is really intentional about protecting their safety, their workers' rights. People are also educating themselves on different policies that protect them because we find ourselves in a situation right now where many of those farmers or maybe the employers are often people that voted for the current administration that is impacting the vineyard workers that the employers depend on.

Louie: For the people who aren't familiar with it, this (Guardian Vital) is a campaign that we started pushing a few months ago. There are 15 different requirements. The reason for doing this is that you have a glass of wine, and the winemaker is glorified, but there are so many other people, and not just in the vineyard, but there are people who help out in a variety of ways that go into making that glass of wine. But where it all starts is in the vineyard. Vineyard workers are the most essential part of the wine-making process. If more people see that there are human beings who are essential to this industry and who are really deserving of protection, hopefully, we could garner more support in lieu of what's happening right now with the ICE raids in California and elsewhere.
What can consumers and people in the wine industry do to protect and help our immigrant community?

Irene: Well, I think being a part of a campaign such as Guardian Vital, I was gonna mention Louie too, just the beautiful collaboration that just went into creating the name and the label, in itself. And the person that is reflected in that drawing is an actual vineyard worker. It came from a photograph that was taken in Petaluma. And so, it's just beautiful that it was very intentional, to also name it “Guardian Vital,” which is like an essential guardian, which, as we know, farm workers, vineyard workers are all a part of the essential workforce, right? They were considered essential during the pandemic. And so, I just think overall that message is sort of reflecting this conscious perspective of those behind the scenes, highlighting those behind the scenes.

People look at the website where the QR code goes, and it's meant to be a hub, for those that maybe need help and maybe they want to create organic grapes. And, you're gonna have more examples of winemakers that do this work. Hopefully, in the future, we will have more ways for people to learn from them, and we're here to help. Like you mentioned, if a potential winemaker or vineyard owner wants to be a part of this campaign and wants to find ways to pay the workers better. So, this is a way to work together, right? It's not something where we're here to attack anyone or anything like that, it's to actually help workers grow, like you said, in workforce development, but also those producing the wine.

The QR code takes you to the Guardian Vital website, and we have some policy, some legislation that we would like for people to kind of read through, know what they can support, locally at the statewide level, and even at the national level. So, there are some bills out right now that have to do with protecting workers in various ways. Also, access to land will help small farmers and vineyard owners to access land if they need it as well. And, maybe even help those who are working in vineyards start their own little farm, right? On the website, there's also resources to protect your workers, if you are an employer. Sharing those resources with the community goes a long way.

Louie: Thank you.

For more information about Guardian Vital, go to https://liderescampesinas.org/guardian-vital/.
 If you make wine and are interested in participating, please email info@thevinguard.com.