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On a Monday afternoon.

In January twenty twenty three, a man opened fire at a mushroom farm in Half Moon Bay.

This kind of shooting is horrific.

The farm was in a small coastal town in California, about half an hour south of San Francisco.

It's a tragedy that we hear about far too often, but today is hit home here in San Minteo County.

The gunmen lived and worked at the farm California tra Garden.

San Mateo sheriff officials saying deputies were dispatched to a location after a report of a shooting with multiple victims.

The shooter killed three of his coworkers and a supervisor.

Then he got in his car, drove two miles to another farm where he had worked before, and opened fire again.

There he killed three more men.

In the end, seven people were murdered.

Authority sixty seven year old Half Moon Bay resident Chunlei Joao the suspect found hours later in his car in the parking lot of the Half.

Zaoas a Chinese farm worker, he allegedly had a dispute with the supervisor and one of the coworkers he killed.

After his arrest, he spoke about being fed up with conditions at the farm, including long working hours and mistreatment.

The seven people he killed were all immigrants, and he also shot one more person who survived.

His name is Pedro Romero Es, an immigrant from Mexico.

He took five bullets, one in his hip, two in the stomach, one in the elbow, and one in his face.

The shooting not only robbed Pedro of his peace of mind, it took away the closest person he had in the US, his older brother, Josepristal.

Healing from his physical wounds was going to be hard, but the path to his emotional recovery would be just as complicated.

From Pudromidia.

It's Latino USA.

I'm Marieno.

Today we head down to Half Moon Bay, California to witness how an unconventional music program is helping farm workers like Pedro in order to process their trauma and heal.

You just heard from reporter Erica Hellerstein.

She works for elting Bano, an online newsroom covering the Bay areas Latino and Mayan immigrant communities.

Erica covered the aftermath of the mass shooting, and more than a year after the mainstream media moved on, Erica kept on returning to the story.

She wrote about the grief, the isolation, the pain, but as time went by, she also started to see a beacon of hope of healing.

Today's story is a collaboration between Latino USA and elting Bano.

And now I'm going to hand the mic back to Erica.

Who's going to take us to when it all started, the shooting in three.

When a tragedy like the one in Half Moon Bay happens, there is a mad scramble of action, news cameras rolling around the clock, reporters asking questions, politicians showing up to make speeches for victims.

It can mean long stretches in the hospital, physical therapy, a focus on healing, and then it all goes quiet.

Victims are often left to sit with what happened alone, and I think that's part of why I kept coming back to this story.

I thought a lot about Pedro.

He watched his big brother, his protector and role model, get killed.

I've lived through a loss like Pedro's, and I kept wondering what it must be like to grieve so far from his support network.

I also couldn't imagine how much more agonizing it was for him to process his grief while knowing he was the only one shot who survived all this while living in a foreign country, far from every other family member who could help take care of him when he couldn't cross borders to visit them, and his family back home was unable to come to him.

In the summer of twenty twenty four, more than a year after the shooting, I spoke with Pedro.

He misses his brother a lot.

He was trying to.

Or kiss.

He often asked himself, why did my brother have to go?

Not letting I'll.

See a lunchis, Pedro says, since the shooting, he often doesn't sleep at night.

When that happens, he pulls this photo of him and his brother out and just looks at it.

It makes him feel like his brother is still right there with him.

At the time of the shooting, Pedro was twenty three, his brother, Jose was thirty eight.

Pedro had only been in the US for three years.

They were inseparable, Simplosa lavaraquovi.

They worked together, they lived together, they did laundry, cooked and ate together.

Pedro says, Jose made the best enchilavas.

They were a unit.

Jose had a wife and four children back home in Mexico.

He was here working long, hard hours in the sun in hopes they'd have a better life.

It's these thoughts of his brother that keep Pedro up at night.

But there's also the physical pain.

Is sometimes he feels a sharp, stabbing pain in his foot, and while it's starting to get better, he isn't far enough in his recovery to go back to work in the fields.

Pedro is eager to get back to it, but there's something that's been bringing him joy lately.

Because nowadays, when Pedro's inundated with thoughts of the past.

When fear and regret start to take over his head, he grabs his accordion, He practices his scales, and makes lists of new songs to master.

He's trying really hard to learn.

That's because Pedro is part of a music program started by Alas, a local farm worker cultural nonprofit.

The program began as a response to the trauma of the mass shooting at the farms, trauma that was exacerbated by the terrible living and working conditions and loneliness that many farm workers endure in this country, often without access to mental health services and support.

The shooting took place in the middle of a work day, so many of the people at the farm were there when it happened.

It was traumatic even for those who didn't take a bullet.

I think our initial response was a crisis response.

We know that trauma is ongoing, deep layered and profound.

Doctor Belinda Hernandez Ariaga is the executive director of Alas.

She's a licensed social worker who has worked for decades in community mental health.

She was looking for a way for farm workers to have a therapeutic outlet that felt accessible.

What we're learning about mental health here Allahs is reconstructing or creating mental health from the ground of not always thinking about mental health from the standard of what's been done in the past, but really thinking about farm work or mental health.

The idea Belinda came up with to help the farm workers was different from talk therapy and simpler and closer to the heart.

Therapy rooted in cultural practices.

The cultural medicine of art and music and spoken word and song and relationship and eating that really builds into creating like this kind of sacred circles of support and trust.

Alas started an accordion class with the express purpose of helping impacted workers deal with their shared trauma.

We were able to have three folks that had been part of the shooting participate and it's been transformational for them, completely transformational.

Coming up on letting know usay we hear the very real changes that this music program is having in the day to day life of people like Bedro.

And I was helping him process is trauma stay with us?

Not why?

Yes, hey, we're back.

And before the break we met Pedro just a few months after a mass shooting killed his brother.

We also met the volunteers using music to help people like Pedro process major traumas.

Now we're going to see how someone connected to the Mexican superstar band Los Digis in Norte also got involved in order to help.

Here's reporter Rika Hellerstein with more on how the music program works.

About eight months after the traumatic shooting, Pedro found something to focus on.

He and other farm workers were working towards a goal, taking up time and space in their lives and away from the memories.

It was a music program using one of the most cherished instruments in traditional Mexican music, the accordion.

Doctor Belinda Hernandez Ariaga, who leads the program and who we heard from earlier, says there was also a major connection with the instrument itself.

Accordion speaks language of home, whether it's something that you remember from your childhood, the music that you're Waalito's played or why you're on the radio, or your favorite music.

It spoke to their soul, It speaks to their heart, It speaks to their earliest memories, it speaks to home.

Assessing for PTSD and other damage takes time, communication, vulnerability, and honesty.

So when there's a societal stigma and lack of trust or familiarity, attached to speaking to a mental health professional, treating trauma can be even more difficult.

That's why music seemed like such a powerful, yet unconventional idea to me.

That's what I call cultural sensory.

The music, the culture, the community building, the food, coming together, the events, the dancing, the drumming, like all of that.

Shortly before starting the program, Bilinda had met Ednan Ernandez Junior, the son of Mexican and music royalty.

Ernan Ernandez Senior, a member of one of the most well known Noorthaniel bands ever, Los Tigres del Norte.

Ernan lives in California and is a musician in his own right.

Since the shooting, Ernan had been thinking about how to support the community.

We just didn't really kind of have an idea or grasp of what we really wanted to do.

Once we started visiting the ranches and coming out here to the fields, that's when I kind of said, Okay, I think I have an idea.

Ednan thought about the joy and purpose music brought into his own life, how big a part it played in his culture.

As the son of Mexican parents, he felt that music could heal.

Ednan also realized that for the students to fully benefit from the music program, they needed to take the craft seriously and commit to it long term.

He couldn't just teach them theory.

The student needed access to instruments.

Accordinions are expensive, several hundreds of dollars each at minimum.

Some go for thousands of dollars.

So Arnan got to work.

I used my connections there to try to get the accordions.

And he did, having grown up in the world of Nathaniel music legends.

And then luckily we were able to get six accordions donated by our friends from Honor Accordions, who sponsored my father's band.

The instructors, led by Arnan, would take a bus out to the farms once a week and teach them there in a small shed in the fields.

My parents also worked in the fields.

I had a chance to work in the fields when I was little, and it's definitely something that I appreciate going through.

Ernan understands that farm workers like Pedro are just trying to support themselves in their families.

And so that could put a lot of pressure on one mentally, emotionally, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally.

Is really one of those things that I think in the Latino community is kind of hidden.

You know.

It's like if you have feelings or if it feels down, if you feel sad or you feel like you want to cry, it, hey, that's not allowed.

You know.

It's like this muchismo culture in a way.

And so we're just trying to kind of get rid of that stigma, like, hey, it's okay to hurt, it's okay to feel things, and it's okay to talk, and it's okay to heal.

For the rest of twenty twenty three and all twenty twenty four, week after week, the classes continued this summer.

Just a few months shy of the program's two year anniversary, I returned eager to see how things were progressing.

Okay, so right now we're in Half Moon Bay.

It's kind of an overcast but warm ish for San Francisco summer Bay area summer day.

Since my last visit in July twenty twenty four, so much has happened.

Local authorities have tried to improve farm workers' housing conditions, but the changes are slow and don't address all of the larger issues workers face, such as long hours under the sun, unsafe accommodations, and exceedingly low wages.

On top of that, Trump is back in office and is going to extremes to fulfill his promise of the largest deportation operation in US history.

ICE has descended on California full force.

The National Guard is also in town, helping ICE with its aggressive enforcement.

Even if you're not local, We've all seen the images on TV, the tension, the fear, the incessant action.

Trump initially said he would spare farms from the raids, but immigrants working in places like Half Moon Bay still feel vulnerable just showing up to work.

We are about to walk into the Alas House.

It's a yellow, small, single family looking home, surrounded by flowers and a white picket fence.

I see a mural that wasn't there the last time I visit it.

It's called the Heart of the Farmer.

The heart of a farmer has deep roots in the earth, spreads wings to migrate, and burns with the fire of passion in their work.

We should never allow this heart to extinguish.

The flower symbolizes work filled with love and farmer's devotion to the earth.

This flower should be a constant reminder of what happened in Half Moon Bay.

A call to never forget the events and commit to preventing them from happening again.

We must address.

As I'm approaching the door, I see a familiar face, Belinda, the Allas director.

Oh, here she is.

They're so nice.

She tells me that the biggest change since we met last year is that the classes have now moved from the farm into this space across the street from the Allah's house.

Students now gather in a safe, air conditioned classroom each week.

I saw smiles.

I saw excitement as they learned the scales, as they saw her non play the corridos at the end of class, and when Edna would say what song do you want me to play?

And they'd say, look, what's the nagna And he would play it and they would just flash back to I think, spaces and time of their life where you know, it was joyful, and so I kept seeing that It's so beautiful.

Blinda says, the progress has been mind blowing.

She was especially impressed with Pedro.

He consistently would come back and he said, I practice, and I practice, and I practice.

We'll be right back stay with us Monday.

Why, yes, we're back.

Reporter Erica Hellerstein again to wrap up the story.

Before class, I cut up to Pedro, the person who kind of inspired this whole thing, see megustain me.

I asked him how he likes the classes.

He tells me they are learning more about creating music.

I'm immediately struck by how differently Pedro carries himself.

He seems more confident.

He hugs his accordion proudly.

He's still quiet, but a little more assertive.

It's clear he has made a lot of progress.

Perronel aavera.

Vierta carta avierta a class corrido.

It's a love letter song about heartbreak and unrequited love that lasts forever.

He learned it from Ernan in class.

Ernan has become one of Pedro's biggest cheerleaders.

He says.

Nan calls him every weekend, he checks on him.

They chat.

Ernan even took Pedro to see his dad's legendary band perform live in concert twice.

Our conversation ends as students to shuffle into class.

Five students show up today.

They're good.

I can hear the difference from my last visit and Pedro.

He's a patient student.

He's mastered his scales and it's clear he now knows his way around the accordion.

He's even joined a band with none other than ed None recently.

They even played live at a fair filled with people.

We played the song Cumbia that my dad and his man used to play when they were younger.

Audio and Pedro they wanted to play that song because that's one of their favorite sis.

They loved the song.

Ednan shared with me a video of the event, and I see Pedro, who was just a beginner in these classes over two years ago, and now he's on stage with a full band playing his accordion, looking joyful.

It was that an experience that I will never forget because just seem to look on their faces of like, oh, we're doing music on a stage.

This right here, this makes all the time invested in class worthwhile for et Non.

After all, some of his family members also worked in the fields.

And those songs were what gave them strength to keep going, to keep working, and to wake up every day and made them feel seen.

I guess you could say, you know, so when I get to teach music to farm workers, it feels like I'm continuing that legacy that my father helped create.

It's not just about teaching notes or chords, but about honoring their stories and building something joyful and beautiful with them through music.

Belinda hopes that the program will continue to grow and also maybe guide others working with immigrants to find ways to cope with the emotional toll of living in a country that goes after them, to help deal with the separation from home and the harsh conditions that many farm workers face.

Elis is really becoming a model.

We're writing about it.

We have Stanford here at the table with us, We have folks that are coming as researchers and clinicians, psychologists, and we have become a think tank to really put into practice how we're seeing the work.

Alas is also making sure culture is part of the equation.

How does kultura kura, which we know as culture cures not just the saying, but how are we implementing that as a mental health intervention?

And we do see in the feedback that we're getting that this is making a real difference.

She's also hoping that it helps change the dynamic around access to mental health resources.

Most people say that Latinos don't want mental health.

There's this stigma around it.

But as we are here, and when our clinicians are also very much engaged in the arts and different practices, and we're going out into the homes, into the fields, and we're using food as part of healing and all the different processes.

We're actually seeing that people aren't scared to come to counseling.

She's proud of the achievements of the program, but she also can't ignore the new and scary challenges immigrant families are facing around the country.

I mean, this topic makes me want to cry because there's no sugarcoating that the community is in shock, that they feel scared.

Mothers are going out into work not knowing if they're going to see their child when they get home.

Fathers are going out to do construction and not knowing if they're going to be beaten down, tackled, deported by us.

And on such a broad scale, it's hard to know what you can really do to help.

This is a mental health crisis, and we're talking about it from a political perspective, but we really need to be talking about it from a mental health and a health perspective.

It's making our community sick, physically sick.

For now, Blinda and the rest of Alas do their best.

They keep their doors and ears open to whoever needs help in their small community in Half Moon Bay.

Their successes show up in people like Bedro Once, a reserved, quiet young man who couldn't find the words to explain what he was feeling, but who has now found a new outlet through the keys and whales of his shiny red accordion that is worth a million words.

This episode was produced by Julietta Martinelli, with reporting by Erica Hellerstein.

Production assistants by Roxana Aguire and Adriana Rodriguez.

It was edited by Andrea Lopez Cruzado and it was mixed by gabriel Le Bayez.

Special thanks to our partners at el Pinpano.

Fernando Echavari is our managing editor.

The Latino USA team also includes Julia Caruso, Jessica Ellis, Renando Lanos Junior, Stephanie Lebau, Luis Luna Glodimar Marquez, Monica Moreles, Garcia, JJ Grubin, and Nancy Trujillo.

Penile Ramirez and I are co executive producers.

I'm Your Host Mariano Josa.

Latino USA is part of Iheart's MYDA podcast Network.

Executive producers at iHeart are Leo Gomez and Arlene Santana.

Join us again on our next episode.

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