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Days later, we learned from another worker that Luis had removed a safety guard from the soil-sort conveyor, enabling it to move linen down the line faster. The woman’s hand had been pulled under the belt, and it tore at her skin until someone pushed the emergency stop. We went to her house to see …

So being afraid that we were going to lose was no surprise. And there was no relief in saying it out loud, except that there was someone to whom to say it. You tipped your chin up slowly and nodded once, a gesture I had seen many times during house visits when the person we were talking with shared…

That summer, we heard a lot about violent boyfriends and husbands. We sat with a new coworker, who told us through split and swollen lips that domestic violence shelters called Immigration on people without papers, so she had nowhere to go. We had heard from another worker about a church that would…

Reina’s youngest son always wanted to wear your bracelets and would run into the backyard to avoid having to return them to you when it was time for us to leave. Lupe’s daughter liked to sit on my lap while she went in to stir whatever was on the stove for dinner. Analía’s son let me help him with …

Our work together was more targeted than the swath of home visits I was doing with the other committee members—we needed to fill gaps in the record Paul was assembling. We had Antonia’s statement about her warning, but needed to talk to Reina, who was working near Antonia on that day, so she could …