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Two years after a mass shooting claimed the lives of seven farmworkers in Half Moon Bay, the community gathered to honor the legacies of the deceased and advocate for improved living and working conditions for the farmworker community.
Organized by Ayudando Latinos A Soñar, a Half Moon Bay-based nonprofit, and the National Farm Workers Ministry (NFWM), the vigil featured community speakers, several music performances, a poetry reading, and religious rituals to remember the deceased.
“This is how we heal,” said Dr. Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga, executive director and founder of ALAS. “With culture, with music, with community, with food, with love.”
ALAS is a community nonprofit that provides a range of mental health, education, and social services. It is closely intertwined with the farmworker community. An hour before the shooting happened on Jan. 23, 2023, a team from ALAS was onsite at the farm where it occurred, said Enrique Bazán, director of strategic partnerships at ALAS.
“We knew the victims, and we knew the shooter,” Bazán said.
Mariachi Nueva Generación performs during a remembrance vigil at ALAS in downtown Half Moon Bay honoring the farmworkers who died in the 2023 farmworker shootings on Jan. 24, 2025. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Kathy, left, and Kelly Moresco, right, look at an altar in front of ALAS in Half Moon Bay honoring the farmworkers who died in the 2023 farmworker shootings. Jan. 24, 2025. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Members of the Grupo Campo Media Luna, an accordion and guitar music therapy program for Coastside farmworkers, prepare to perform at a remembrance vigil hosted by ALAS in Half Moon Bay to honor the farmworkers who died in the 2023 farmworker shootings on Jan. 24, 2025. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
The audience applauds a speaker at a remembrance vigil hosted by ALAS in honor of the farmworkers who died in the 2023 farmworker shootings. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Sandra Sencion, right, translates Rev. Dr. Nathan Hosler’s words into Spanish for an audience at a remembrance vigil hosted by ALAS in Half Moon Bay to honor the farmworkers who died in the 2023 farmworker shootings on Jan. 24, 2025. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
A guitar player watches the audience from off stage after performing with Grupo Campo Media Luna, an accordion and guitar music therapy program for Coastside farmworkers, at a remembrance vigil hosted by ALAS in Half Moon Bay to honor the farmworkers who died in the 2023 farmworker shootings on Jan. 24, 2025. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Candles burn on an altar in front of the ALAS office in downtown Half Moon Bay on Jan. 24, 2025. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
A crowd gathers under a tent in front of the ALAS office in downtown Half Moon Bay on Jan. 24, 2025, for a remembrance vigil honoring the farmworkers who died in the 2023 farmworker shootings. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Jose Luis Gonzalez Chombo, right, holds his accordion off-stage after performing with Grupo Campo Media Luna, an accordion and guitar music therapy program for Coastside farmworkers, at a remembrance vigil hosted by ALAS in Half Moon Bay to honor the farmworkers who died in the 2023 farmworker shootings. Jan. 24, 2025. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
A couple embrace during a remembrance vigil at ALAS in downtown Half Moon Bay honoring the farmworkers who died in the 2023 farmworker shootings. Jan. 24, 2025. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Mariachi Nueva Generación performs during a remembrance vigil at ALAS in downtown Half Moon Bay honoring the farmworkers who died in the 2023 farmworker shootings on Jan. 24, 2025. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
Since its inception as a nonprofit in 2013, ALAS has promoted artistic and cultural programs to preserve Latino culture, foster community connection, and improve social well-being.
In the aftermath of the shooting, ALAS developed a special music therapy program for farmworkers to learn to play the accordion and guitar. The program is centered around the idea that “culture heals,” exemplified by the group’s performing a song called Cruz de Madera — “the wooden cross” — at the vigil.
Pedro Romero Perez, a migrant farmworker from Oaxaca, Mexico, is a survivor of the shooting and has become a dedicated accordion player while studying in the music program. Perez’s older brother, Jose, was killed in the shooting.
ALAS also offers a wide range of free mental health services to individuals, couples, and groups within the community they serve, many of which are farmworkers. All clinicians are English and Spanish-speaking, and the work is holistic and art-centered, said Winsor Kinkade, a community mental health technician at ALAS. Kinkade uses they/them pronouns.
Before the shooting took place, Kinkade and their colleague, Wendy Rubio, had already built strong relationships with the farmworker community as members of a food distribution program and, later, as mental health clinicians who offered group therapy sessions to workers.
“It sort of opened up the door, I think, for folks to be even willing to engage with the community mental health clinician because they knew us as people first,” said Kinkade.
After the shooting, Kinkade and Rubio began a group for the survivors, witnesses, and friends and families of the workers who had been killed.
“Wendy and I, as clinicians, were also grieving alongside the community,” said Kinkade. “We were … all learning together, all kind of stumbling through the grief together. And that group is still ongoing.”
At Friday’s vigil, some speakers invoked the words of Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. to emphasize community solidarity. Other leaders expressed anger that the lives of workers who had sought a better life ended in such cruel acts of violence.
“What war was waged against us when we can only return to our country in a box?” said former East Palo Alto Mayor Antonio López in a spoken poem.
After photos of the “deplorable” housing conditions where victims lived with their families circulated on X following the shooting, city and county officials vowed to expand affordable housing in the area. While one housing development for farmworkers is expected to open in Half Moon Bay in May, another proposed development—555 Kelly Ave. — has faced delays due to logistical hurdles and waning community support for the project.
“When the shooting happened, everybody was like, yes, they don’t deserve that,” Bazán said. “But as soon as we started working towards building something, a lot of people of the community tried to shut it up. They said, ‘No, this is not the right place.’ But nobody’s giving us any other alternatives.”
As the vigil concluded, hundreds of community members milled to mariachi music, ate tamales, and drank atole, a sweet hot drink made from corn and popular in Mexico. Missing from the crowd, though, were some undocumented farmworkers who were too afraid to come to the event in light of President Donald Trump’s deportation policies.
“The county and city and ALAS have done a lot to improve conditions, but I fear that it will be even harder because people are going into the shadows,” said San Mateo County Supervisor Ray Mueller, who vowed to continue to provide services to all county residents.
“We need to organize,” he added.
Correction: The article has been updated to correctly reflect spelling of the last name Kinkade.
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