Episode #270
Omar Dieguez: My Hunger Strike Over Driscoll’s Berries

Omar Dieguez explains why he undertook a 30-day hunger strike to call attention to pesticides near schools in California’s berry-growing region. Speaking from Watsonville, )home of the Driscoll’s Berries headquarters) he describes spray drift, childhood illness, and the pressure campaign aimed at Driscoll’s to stop spraying near schools and convert nearby fields to organic. The conversation connects food, environmental justice, and farmworker health, asking what it means when the berries sold across the country are tied to harm in the communities where they are grown.

Our Omar Dieguez interview has been edited and condensed for clarity:

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Dave Chapam interviewed Omar Dieguez in California, January 2026:

Dave Chapman
Welcome to the Real Organic Podcast. I’m talking today with Omar Dieguez, who is youth coordinator for?

Omar Dieguez
Youth coordinator for Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos.

Dave Chapman
For Barrios Unidos?

Omar Dieguez
Barrios Unidos,Yes.

Dave Chapman
We’ll talk about why I’m here, but I’m here because you chose to go on a long hunger strike. How many days was it?

Omar Dieguez
Thirty days.

Dave Chapman
That was to protest the pesticides being sprayed in the community and particularly around the schools.

Omar Dieguez
Yes, our district has over 13 schools where pesticides are being sprayed, either right in their backyards or across the street. Growing up in this community, I’ve seen a lot of people suffer from the harms of pesticides. A lot of young people suffer from learning disabilities because I’m also a mentor in the schools.

Omar Dieguez
I’ve seen a lot of the effects that they have on my community, especially the young people, who are suffering from ADHD, learning disabilities, and some of them have childhood cancer. It’s a real serious problem, and that’s why I chose to do the hunger strike, to bring awareness.

Dave Chapman
A lot of the people listening to this won’t know anything about this. We’re in Santa Cruz right now we’re talking about… This is kind of focused in the Watsonville area?

Omar Dieguez
Watsonville and Monterey County. Pajaro Valley, Monterey County, those two counties. Watsonville is in Santa Cruz County, and then Pajaro is in Monterey County. But those two counties have the highest rate of childhood cancer and have the highest rate of learning disabilities.

Dave Chapman
In the state, or in the country?

Omar Dieguez
In the state.

Dave Chapman
In the state of California.

Omar Dieguez
In the state of California, we have a map that is provided by Jacobs Heart, and they put pins for every child who is suffering from childhood cancer on the map. If you look at their map throughout the state, you see one or two pins. But when you look at Watsonville, and you look at Pajaro and Monterey County, you see hundreds of pins in those areas.

Omar Dieguez
It’s because we’re exposed to pesticides. Large amounts of pesticides are being sprayed in our fields. We have a high rate of childhood cancer. A lot of our youth are suffering from learning disabilities, ADHD, and so many other disabilities that pesticides are causing in our county.

Dave Chapman
Again, people in other parts of the country, don’t know about California agriculture. It’s pretty amazing, as I’ve come out here and seen the intensity of it, and there are so many pesticides in this kind of agriculture, because his is Berry country. Very intensive. The climate here is just perfect for growing strawberries.

Dave Chapman
It’s that coastal climate doesn’t get too hot, doesn’t freeze to death. It’s kind of perfect. Especially strawberries, I think that’s the big crop.

Omar Dieguez
One of the biggest ones, yes.

Dave Chapman
The biggest crop. The thing about strawberries is the way they’re grown, conventionally, it does take a lot of pesticides. Is the biggest thing the fumigants?

Omar Dieguez
That is the biggest thing. Organophosphates, is one of the chemicals that is most dangerous that they’re spraying. Organophosphates is also one of the chemicals that was used in the war in the gas chambers by the Nazis.

Omar Dieguez
Now, if you think about it, it was used in the war, but yet we’re using it to grow our crops in California. How does that make sense? How is that okay to use the same chemicals they were using to kill people in the war, but we’re using it to grow our crops?

Omar Dieguez
Organophosphates is so dangerous, because what it does, it scrambles the brain – it affects the brain – and from there, anything that’s affecting the brain, it’s going to cause problems throughout the rest of the body. The movement against the pesticides is…

Omar Dieguez
There’s about 50 harmful pesticides that they use, but organophosphates is one of the most dangerous ones. It’s just alarming to think that this is a chemical they used in the war, but yet we’re using it to to grow our crops here in California.

Dave Chapman
Omar, you’re not a farm worker; you didn’t come from that that world. You’re actually an activist working in a community organizer. Is that fair?

Omar Dieguez
Yes, that’s fair.

Dave Chapman
You’re working to provide opportunity pathways for people to have a good life, especially focusing on a Hispanic community that has got a bit of a difficult time in this region.

Omar Dieguez
You’re right about me not being a farmworker, but it’s hard to not know somebody that’s a farm worker in our community. It’s also hard to run into somebody that’s not suffering from pesticides. We know that when they spray pesticides in our community, the pesticides don’t just fall into the ground when they’re spraying them. We know that they travel up to a seven-mile radius.

Omar Dieguez
Watsonville is about a 10-mile radius, big. So if they’re spraying chemicals, and they’re traveling up to a seven-mile radius, more than half of Watsonville is being exposed to these harmful chemicals. I’ve lived many places in Watsonville, all the way to Monterey County, Moss Landing, and it’s hard not to live near a field where pesticides are being used.

Omar Dieguez
I’ve literally lived in the middle of a field where there was a house that I was renting at one time when I was younger. I remember them putting up the little signs on the corner of the field saying “danger.” They had just barely sprayed pesticides, but that’s all they put up. There was no notice at my door saying that they just sprayed the fields or anything like that.

Omar Dieguez
So not knowing what the dangers were when I was growing up and playing in those fields, we were being exposed to all that. It’s not only a problem for our health, but it’s also a problem for Mother Earth. It’s contaminating our water, it’s contaminating our land, it’s contaminating our air that we breathe. It’s going as far as contaminating the oceans, contaminating nature.

Omar Dieguez
I know that the monarch butterfly population has decreased because they found high concentrations, levels of pesticides. I always go to the monarch butterflies because they’re immigrants. They migrate from Mexico. Just like our people who come here to work those fields – the immigrants, the indigenous people – they’re being exposed to those harmful chemicals, just like the monarch butterflies.

Omar Dieguez
There’s a lot that they have to face as farm workers, as part of the immigrant community. Right now, we all know what’s going on in our country with ICE. Not only are they being exposed to these harmful chemicals, but now they’re living in fear of being deported when all we want to do is come here and work hard.

Omar Dieguez
If you ask me, working in the fields is one of the toughest jobs you could do – being exposed to the weather, being exposed to the chemicals, underpaid, long hours, and the respect that we show for our indigenous, our immigrant community – it needs to improve.

Omar Dieguez
We’ve been fighting for these pesticides to stop for many years, decades. I’m not the first one to bring this to the light. Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and before them, there were people fighting against the harms of pesticides. This is something that needs to change, and we need to really look into it. How can we better this?

Dave Chapman
One of the things that you’re saying that’s really interesting to me is there’s a lot of conversation about pesticides in the country – not enough in my opinion – but often people are talking about, “Well, is this strawberry going to make my kids sick?” That’s a good question.

Dave Chapman
We all have that question about the food that we eat, but you’re bringing up, “Is this strawberry going to make my kids sick? My kid who lives in Watsonville, my kid who is just going to school, are they going to get sick because of the way the berry is grown, maybe the residue on that berry?

Dave Chapman
Maybe it’s not toxic for your kid. I think it is, but maybe it isn’t. But still, for the people who produce it, and there are many, many people producing it, and they’re not just in Watsonville, they’re all around the world, making sure that people have strawberries every day of the year in all these different climates. This is asking a pretty important question for somebody.

Dave Chapman
When you eat that strawberry, you might be making my kid sick. You might never see my kid. My kid might not even be in America. My kid might be in Mexico. My kid might be in Peru, China, but somebody’s going to get sick the way this berry is grown.

Omar Dieguez
What we do know from studies, there’s a list called the Dirty Dozen, and strawberries are at the very top of that list as one of the most dangerous fruits that you could eat because of the exposure to the pesticides. If you think about strawberries, it’s not like an orange, it’s not like an apple that has a skin layer. They don’t have that extra skin layer where you could peel it off and then eat it.

Omar Dieguez
When they get exposed to pesticides, they’re absorbing all those pesticides. Even if you wash it with just water, it’s not enough. It’s not enough to get those pesticides out. So yes, you are being exposed to pesticides.

Omar Dieguez
Now, not everybody’s body is built the same. Some people could react to those pesticides sooner than others, but what we do know is that it’s a long-term effect that shows up later. It doesn’t happen overnight. You are being exposed to poisons.

Omar Dieguez
These companies that are growing these vegetables, these fruits, they’re using the pesticides because they want to be able to ship them around the world so that they look bigger, they look more colorful, they last longer on the shelf, and so that they could ship them out around the world.

Omar Dieguez
And at what cost? At the cost of our Mother Earth, at the cost of our farm workers, at the cost of our air, our water, and at the cost of our nature, marine life, and our monarch butterflies. So it’s not just a people problem; it’s a problem that’s affecting a lot of things in our world.

Dave Chapman
I would add at the cost of our democracy, because I think that one of the problems with these big companies is that they have a lot of influence. They have a lot of influence with the people who are supposed to be regulating them. The bigger they are, the more influence they have, the less the regulations work.

Dave Chapman
One thing before we go on, I think it’s important for people to understand about strawberries that the soil gets ill if it grows strawberries after strawberries, after strawberries, but the economics of it is that the land is very expensive here, and it’s very tempting to grow strawberries after strawberries.

Dave Chapman
This has been true for a long time, and so they fumigate the soil. They use things like methyl bromide. I’m not even sure if that’s still legal.

Omar Dieguez
I don’t think it still is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they sneak it in there, because, in reality, how do we keep track of all those chemicals they’re using? Are they being truthful about it? No.

Dave Chapman
There’s a lot of chemicals. But here’s my question. I have read a little bit about it, and what I understand is methyl bromide doesn’t carry over into the fruit. You can say, “Hey, you’re in Illinois, and you’re going to have that strawberry, you’re not going to get sick from the methyl bromide.”

Dave Chapman
But when they spray it in Watsonville, it’s in the air, and it travels very well. That is dangerous. Those particles in the air are very dangerous. Do you know how far they travel?

Omar Dieguez
From what I’ve learned, it’s about a seven-mile radius. We live next to the coast. When I do these presentations in schools, one time I was driving home, and I saw when they were spraying these chemicals, these pesticides, in the fields. So I started taking pictures to show the kids. I wanted to get an idea of what it looks like when they spray these chemicals.

Omar Dieguez
They had three tractors, two going opposite ways, the other one filling up on the side to make sure they could continue to spray. What you see is these big white clouds behind these white tractors, and they’re just hitting the ground and just bouncing off the ground. Then you see the draft of the white cloud drifting into the community.

Omar Dieguez
We live next to the oceans where the currents are strong, and so yes, they are traveling. When they are traveling, there’s been instances when I’ve driven in front of a field where they’re spraying, and as soon as I drive by, my windshield turns white from the chemicals because it lands on my windshield.

Omar Dieguez
If you start thinking about them traveling up to a seven-mile radius, a lot of our schools are literally across the street. So what’s happening if the windows are open at those schools? Where is it landing? What happens to that drinking fountain these kids are running up to take a drink at lunchtime or break time?

Omar Dieguez
They’re getting contaminated by these chemicals. They’re landing on everything – on the playground, they’re landing on their books, on whatever is outside. If the doors are open, they’re drafting into the class. Yes, it’s dangerous.

Omar Dieguez
When I decided to do the hunger strike, Dolores Huerta came to Watsonville. She said a couple of things that stood out to me. One of them was that she talked about how the Nazis used these chemicals in the war – that stood out to me.

Omar Dieguez
Then she talked about how our farm workers are being exposed, and if they give birth to children, how their children are being born without limbs or lungs because of the exposure to pesticides.

Omar Dieguez
I’m a big advocate for our youth. I’m passionate about the work that I do, working with the youth, and it’s very important that we protect them, and it’s very important that we educate them.

Omar Dieguez
When I heard these things, and then I heard testimony of a farm worker who was exposed to pesticides, how she had her stomach removed because of cancer, and she talked about how her children got affected, it really got to me because it’s been going on for decades. I said, “We have to do something.” That’s when I decided to do the hunger strike.

Omar Dieguez
When I decided to do the hunger strike, the goal was to bring awareness to as many people as possible of the problem, to bring awareness and to educate the public, and through that education, hopefully people would start to rise up and do something against these harmful pesticides.

Omar Dieguez
We’re asking for Driscoll’s to stop spraying near our schools. They own most of the fields in our district. They own thousands of fields around the world. We’re asking for about 20 fields around our schools to be converted to organic. It’s not a big ask. They can do it. Why don’t they do it? We don’t know. Only they know.

Dave Chapman
Okay, a couple of things. First, I know who Dolores Huerta is, but I would like you to tell people who she is. She’s a hero.

Omar Dieguez
Dolores Huerta has been doing work for the farm workers. She’s 96 years old, and she’s still doing it. She’s one of my heroes. She has fought for equal rights for the farm workers. She’s fought against the pesticides. She’s done a lot of different campaigns for farm worker rights.

Omar Dieguez
She was Cesar Chavez’s – not left man, but left woman. She came up with the phrase Si se puede.

Dave Chapman
Yes we can.

Omar Dieguez
Yes we can. A very strong lady. I’ve had the opportunity to see her about four times within the last year, and I’m impressed every single time I get to see her. Her message is always strong. She’s not only advocating for farm workers in the fields, equal rights, and against pesticides, but with the current events

Omar Dieguez
She’s advocating for justice, advocating for people to stand up, speak out, rise up, and fight for the right to live. Dolores Huerta, she’s an amazing person, and she’s done a lot of amazing work over the years. She’s been through a lot, but my respects to her. At 96 years old, still doing the work.

Dave Chapman
Thank you. She’s spectacular. The other thing I wanted to return to is you talked about Driscoll. When you decided something had to be done – we have to somehow make people aware of what’s going on with the spray drift and all the heavy use of pesticides – and in the hunger strike, did I get it right that you chose to target Driscoll’s? You chose to be talking to Driscoll’s. “Will you change?”

Dave Chapman
They’re the big dog. Driscoll’s is just in organic – they’re over 70% of the organic berries sold in America, and that’s only 20% of their business; 80% of their business is using the chemicals. They’re the biggest berry company in the world.

Omar Dieguez
Their headquarters are in Watsonville.

Dave Chapman
Their headquarters are in Watsonville. Have you met with them?

Omar Dieguez
I haven’t met with them personally. A lot of the organizers that I work with have. What he has said is that, “We’re working on it – we’re working on making those changes.” Basically, it felt like it was just a way of saying, “We’ll get to it when we have time.”

Omar Dieguez
We need to put the pressure on him. Miles Rieterer – we need to put the pressure on Driscoll to convert to organic. What we’re asking is not a big issue. One thing I’ll share with you is when I went on this hunger strike, I was doing presentations all over California. I went up to Berkeley, down to Monterey County, to Gilroy, to all these areas around here.

Omar Dieguez
I was going into schools and giving these presentations on pesticides. When I tried to come into my own district, in our area, to give the same presentations, our district stopped us from giving those presentations. They said they were too controversial – talking about pesticides. What we do know is that Driscoll donates money to schools.

Dave Chapman
That’s what I was talking about – dangerous to democracy. They don’t want you to speak.

Omar Dieguez
Even when we went to Jacob’s Heart to get information on the numbers of childhood cancer, they didn’t want to release that information to us.

Dave Chapman
Who was that you went to?

Omar Dieguez
Jacob’s Heart – they work with children who are suffering from childhood cancer. You would think they would share that information, those numbers, with us, but they declined to share that with us. Why? Guess who’s a donor? Driscoll’s.

Omar Dieguez
Driscoll’s donates money everywhere in the community. The way we see it is, it’s a way of them silencing the people – buying their silence: “We’ll give you money. Don’t talk bad about us. Don’t tell people the truth about the berries being poisoned in our fields, being poisoned in our water, and all that other stuff.”

Omar Dieguez
They donate so much money to so many organizations that people have embraced them. But the reality is that they’re harming us, and why don’t they turn some of that money into finding ways to grow safer and better ways to farm in our communities?

Omar Dieguez
Why don’t they invest money to protect our farm workers who are out there working hard, and why don’t they invest money to help our students learn about better ways of farming? It’s something that we need to address.

Omar Dieguez
The campaign, hopefully this year, this new year coming up, will do better and push harder to bring this. When we did this hunger strike, we met a lot of different organizations. Now it’s time to connect the dots and see how we all can come together to really push this issue.

Dave Chapman
Let’s talk about that. That’s so important. You’ve shown me around here, and you’re doing amazing work – lots of it. You’ve got a lot of people involved with your organization, which is not just about pesticides and not just about agriculture; it’s about people. But on this issue, you’re also connecting with other organizations. What kind of organizations?

Omar Dieguez
I’ve been working a lot with SASS, Safe Ag Safe Schools and I’ve been working with Future Leaders of Change, which is a youth-led group that helped push the SprayDays California website. These are young people, some as young as sixth graders, who went to Sacramento to advocate against pesticides and to support the development of this website, where you receive notifications every single time pesticides are being sprayed.

Omar Dieguez
They’ve done amazing work. I’m so impressed with them because they’re so young, and they’ve done incredible work bringing this website to life. You can enter up to 10 different addresses, and it will notify you every time pesticides are sprayed in that area.

Omar Dieguez
In one month, I received up to 60 notifications for just one address. Sometimes I would get them three times a day when harmful pesticides were being sprayed. It tells you the exact pesticide being sprayed. It tells you the exact time it will be sprayed. It gives you a one-mile radius.

Omar Dieguez
I think everyone should visit this website at least once, sign up, enter an address, and see how much we’re being exposed. Future Leaders of Change, Center for Farmworker Families, CORA and SASS. I’ve met people like you there who are in organic media. I’ve done several interviews, and we’ve brought a lot of awareness. Now we need to connect.

Omar Dieguez
One thing I learned during this hunger strike is that when I would go into my community and give presentations about pesticides, I would always ask, “How many of you here know somebody who is suffering from pesticide exposure or has died because of pesticides?” When I would ask that question in my community, more than half of the room would raise their hands.

Omar Dieguez
When I asked that same question in neighboring communities that are not being exposed, and I asked that question, no one would raise their hand. What I learned is that we now need to extend the invitation to our neighbors to join us and help us fight against pesticides. It’s alarming to think that this is environmental racism.

Omar Dieguez
Our community is being exposed. It just happens that our community is mostly Indigenous, mostly immigrants, and mostly elderly. There is a lot of environmental racism going on. We need to extend the invitation to our neighbors to come and join us.

Dave Chapman
Of course, the real solution here is to stop doing chemical agriculture, then you don’t need to necessarily go, “Oh, they’re going to spray on Tuesday.” It’s like, “Let’s make it that they never spray.” I would say that I don’t think the ultimate solution is to say, “Great, we’re not going to spray in Watsonville. Watsonville is going to be all organic.”

Dave Chapman
That would be wonderful, but if it doesn’t change the ratio of organic to chemical, it means they’re going to spray more somewhere else if they move the chemical stuff somewhere else. I think that it becomes part of an even bigger conversation.

Dave Chapman
We want to start with, “At least let’s know when they’re spraying, and let’s see if we can get them,” to “not spray in this neighborhood.”

Omar Dieguez
When Dolores Huerta came to speak, another thing that caught my attention was when she said, “Everywhere else in the world, they don’t use these harmful chemicals, but in the United States, we do. If everywhere else in the world can do it without using these harmful chemicals, why are we still using them here in America?”

Dave Chapman
I think they are still using these harmful chemicals in Mexico. We’ve tested the produce, and it comes back with bad residues.

Omar Dieguez
Yes, it is. It is being used, but there are a lot of other places that don’t use it. How can we mimic what they’re doing? We’re in 2026. We’ve been to the moon, we’ve got robots, and we still can’t figure out a better way to farm? It’s crazy.

Dave Chapman
It’s interesting because Driscoll’s does know how to farm without chemicals.

Omar Dieguez
They do.

Dave Chapman
They do. Twenty percent of their production is certified organic.

Omar Dieguez
How organic are their fields? We know that they have fields here in Watsonville that are organic. They have a field that’s certified organic, but on the side of each of those organic fields, there are fields where they’re using pesticides. So how organic is it? Not very organic, in my opinion, because we know that the chemicals drift.

Dave Chapman
I’ve had my conversations with Driscoll’s about how organic is their organic. But still, if we can keep building even the almost-organic, and people do want to buy food that is clean – that is true – we can connect the dots in the market, in production, in distribution, and in the stores, so that everybody does better, and the people who are harvesting that crop aren’t getting sick.

Omar Dieguez
I have family members that told me stories of them being sprayed with chemicals as they’re working. I know a man that was working in a field, and a helicopter flew so low, he ended up getting caught by one of the blades and swung, and ended up dead when they were spraying these chemicals as people were working.

Omar Dieguez
This is the world that we live in, and this is what people have to fear when they’re working in these fields.

Dave Chapman
Is Driscoll’s any worse than the other companies? They’re not the only company.

Omar Dieguez
They’re not the only company, and we plan on addressing some of these other companies. But because our county is the most exposed throughout the state – which is Santa Cruz County, Watsonville, Pajaro Valley, Monterey County, and Salinas Valley – we want to start there.

Omar Dieguez
But we’re not going to stop there. We start there and continue the fight. I really feel that we could win this fight if we stick with it – if we keep the pressure, and if we invite our neighbors to join us and rise up with us.

Dave Chapman
Have you been calling for a boycott or anything like that? What do you see as your path toward creating a movement that will create enough pressure to create change?

Omar Dieguez
Right now, I think we have called a boycott. We’ve been collecting signatures all around our community. We’ve collected so many signatures, and we’re going to continue to collect those signatures. One day, we’re going to go to Driscoll’s and say, “Hey, here are the signatures. This is how many people want to see change in our community.” We want to bring those signatures and deliver them with a letter saying, “You need to make changes soon.”

Omar Dieguez
But that’s not the only thing we plan on doing. We plan on boycotting. We plan on going to school board meetings and city council meetings. We have some secrets. We’ve been discussing about doing some billboards with messages, maybe billboards like the ones at bus stops with messages.

Omar Dieguez
They didn’t let us go into the schools, but there are billboards in front of these schools. Let’s raise money to put that message in front of these schools, on the harms of pesticides.

Dave Chapman
Omar, you’re welcome to speak in other schools and other districts. Did I hear that right?

Omar Dieguez
Yes, I’ve been to it, but except for my district.

Dave Chapman
Except for right here locally. You go and speak to kids in other schools. You tell them about pesticides and agriculture. Is that what you’re talking about?

Omar Dieguez
Yes. The whole goal of the hunger strike – I prepared for it for six months. I didn’t just do it from one day to the next. The goal from the beginning was to bring awareness to the students, because I believe that students have the strongest voice in any movement. It’s their future.

Omar Dieguez
That was one of the questions: What kind of future do you want for your kids? Do you want your kids to be exposed to these harmful pesticides, or do you want them to have a better, greener world? I believe that young people are strong – they have a strong voice – and they’re the future.

Omar Dieguez
One organization that I work with, for those young people, I think has a perfect name: Future Leaders of Change. They are the future leaders of change. It’s important that we plant those seeds in them now so that they can grow up to make better changes.

Dave Chapman
Yeah, that’s very good. Tell me, how do you prepare for not eating for a month? Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever gone three days without eating. How did you do that?

Omar Dieguez
I did a lot of research, but I started by first cutting meat out of my diet. I stopped eating all the sweets and all that stuff. I was weighing close to 280 pounds when I started. I lost 52 pounds throughout the hunger strike. What I did was, like I said, it took me six months to prepare.

Omar Dieguez
I first started by not eating for one day, then I bumped myself up to two days, three days, and then I would take a break. The next week, I would do four days, take a break, five days. It became easier. I never did the full 30 days while preparing, but it became a habit.

Omar Dieguez
I felt really good because I was not eating all that junk food, and I felt more energized. A lot of the other things I did were spiritual and mental preparation. I knew it was going to be a spiritual journey and a mental journey, so I did a lot of sweat lodges.

Omar Dieguez
I talked to other elders who had done hunger strikes. I spent time with them, asking questions about how they dealt with it. But I think the biggest part of this hunger strike was that it was a spiritual battle and a mental battle.

Omar Dieguez
I didn’t realize it until I was giving these presentations to students. It wasn’t a big thing at first. I don’t think I really understood what I was doing until I was maybe three weeks into my hunger strike. I was giving a presentation to some students, and my legs gave out. I didn’t have the energy. I just fell to the ground right there in front of the students.

Omar Dieguez
It hit me right there: what I’m doing is pretty serious. I could die from it. I learned that your organs can start to shut down after 20-something days. You get weak, and I started to experience all that. The goal was to keep doing these presentations, but toward the end, I had to say, “You know what? I don’t know if I can continue these presentations. I need to really rest.”

Omar Dieguez
I ended up in the hospital on day 26 or 27 – I can’t remember – but I got an infection from malnourishment. I told the doctor, “Look, I need to finish this commitment. Whatever you have to do to keep me alive, I’m not going to start eating. I just need to finish this commitment. I only have three days to go.”

Omar Dieguez
They gave me an IV and some antibiotics, and they said, “You’re good to go.” I finished it. On the last day of my hunger strike, I was staying at a hotel and was going to check out. As I was standing there, a conference got out, and these guys were carrying strawberry boxes. They were all dressed nicely. I started looking at them and said, “Excuse me, are you guys growers?”

Omar Dieguez
I had never met this man, but the guy I was talking to wasn’t saying anything. Another guy says, “Yes, we’re all growers.” I asked, “Do you guys grow organic, or do you use pesticides?” They kind of looked at each other. They didn’t say anything. I said, “I’m just curious. I live in the area and this and that,” and one of the other guys says, “This is Miles Reiter, the owner of Driscoll’s.”

Omar Dieguez
I was so happy. I said, “It is no coincidence that we met today. I am Omar Dieguez, and I’m the one who’s been doing the hunger strike against pesticides. I would love to sit down with you and have a conversation.” His response was, “I’ve talked to some of your people. I’m very aware of who you are.”

Omar Dieguez
I didn’t want to be too pushy because I do want to have the conversation in the future with him and see how we could come to a solution. But it was a gift to be able to see him on the last day of my hunger strike.

Dave Chapman
That’s amazing. For people who don’t know, Miles Reiter was the CEO. I think he’s still probably chair of the board. I think his daughter is taking over the family business.

Omar Dieguez
Yes, he is. He’s still pulling the strings behind…

Dave Chapman
That’s right He’s guided Driscoll’s for a long time.

Dave Chapman
Was the first day, when you were getting ready and training, the day you said, “Today I’m not going to eat anything”? Was that easy?

Omar Dieguez
I think I worked myself up to seven days without eating; I was just drinking fluids. It was easy for the first couple of weeks. By the third week, I started to experience weakness. I would get burnt out really easily. I was doing presentations, going to universities, walking all these stairs. It was tough.

Omar Dieguez
I had people driving me there and making sure that I was okay. I was told that I was a little moody – that I was a little hard to be around. It wasn’t because I was trying to be mean. You can only imagine: you don’t eat, you start to get irritated and stuff like that.

Omar Dieguez
What kept me going was the fact that I was able to talk to the youth. After I gave my presentations, there was always one or two young people who would come up to me and say, “Thank you for what you’re doing. My grandmother died from pesticides. My dad died from pesticides,” or “I’m suffering from childhood cancer, this and that.”

Omar Dieguez
That right there was, I don’t want to say rewarding, but for them to be able to share a tear with me, it was well worth what I was doing and let them know that they’re not alone. It was an honor for me to experience that with those one or two students who would always check in with me afterward.

Omar Dieguez
That’s what gave me strength to keep going. I think the hunger strike was very successful in bringing awareness. We still have work to do; it’s not over.

Dave Chapman
There were some people who were fasting much shorter periods of time in solidarity with you?

Omar Dieguez
Yes. There were a lot of people. Some people did four days. I think one lady did two weeks, and Providence, I call her Provi Alanise, was going to do the 30 days with me, but she ended up in the hospital 17 days into it. It was getting dangerous for her, so we asked her not to continue. We didn’t want anyone to die.

Omar Dieguez
But there was also a 17-year-old student from Pajaro Valley Middle School who fasted for five days, and we had to ask him to stop too, because we didn’t want him to harm himself. We know that young people’s brains are still developing; everything is still developing. We didn’t want him to end up hurting himself.

Omar Dieguez
To me, that was a big deal. I applauded him for taking that initiative to want to bring change and to go to that extent, to try the hunger strike. I told him, “Hey, thank you for being courageous and doing what you did, but we don’t want you to get hurt.”

Omar Dieguez
What came out of the hunger strike, too, from not letting us go into the schools, was that the students at Pajaro Valley Unified School District, Pajaro Valley High School, organized their own town hall meeting. They brought me and a bunch of other organizations – SASS, Safe AG, Safe Schools, CORA, Center for Farm Worker Families – to be guest speakers and talk about pesticides.

Omar Dieguez
Now they’re applying for their civic engagement credit with the state to get that under their diploma. They filmed their own little commercials that they play on social media about how to clean your vegetables from harmful pesticides using vinegar.

Omar Dieguez
Then they made other little commercials about pesticides. They have their own Instagram page. That was the whole purpose – to get the youth to do something about it and to awaken them to want to make change in their communities.

Dave Chapman
It’s very popular on Instagram to take pictures of your food, what people are eating. This is a different kind of picture of food, one that’s really profound. Yes. After the hunger strike ended, you went back to your very rich world.

Omar Dieguez
Well, I don’t know about rich.

Dave Chapman
Not that kind of rich. A world rich in meaning and in impact. Did your diet change as a result of not eating all that time?

Omar Dieguez
I got sick and tired of chicken broth and beef broth; I just was over it, because that’s what I was using to supplement food. It did change. I thought I wasn’t going to eat meat again, but holidays showed up, and all that holiday food – you be Mexican, you can’t resist those tamales, all the sweets that come.

Omar Dieguez
But it has changed. I try not to put too much food in my system anymore. I learned to eat better. I learned that you don’t need to stuff yourself all day long. It showed me to appreciate food and what I’m putting into my body now. I don’t drink sodas anymore. I don’t eat all the sweets that I used to eat.

Omar Dieguez
I try not to eat junk food. I eat more vegetables, which I didn’t really do before. I do try not to eat too much meat now, which is hard being Mexican. All our traditional foods have meat, are greasy, and stuff like that, but it’s good food.

Omar Dieguez
Then my mom suffers from cancer, and she eats healthy. I try to go visit mom as much as I can and eat with her what she’s eating. Yeah, it did change my diet a little bit, and I am more cautious about what I’m putting into my body.

Dave Chapman
Yeah, beautiful, Omar. It just strikes me that your hunger strike of not eating for a month – and the purpose of it – was to look at how food is grown. You used food as a pathway to call out how food is grown. It’s all connected.

Omar Dieguez
I couldn’t eat food right away after I finished the hunger strike. It took me a while before I could put real food in my system. From the infection I ended up getting, the doctor told me to stay on a liquid diet. I go, “You’re just extending my hunger strike right now. I’ve been on a liquid diet.” But it was a good experience.

Omar Dieguez
People have asked me if I would do it again. I would do it again. I think this time I would probably do it in a different way, as far as where I would post up. Maybe to send a stronger message to Driscoll’s, camp out right in front of their main office, or somewhere where I’d be more visible.

Omar Dieguez
What people don’t know is, when I was doing my hunger strike, I was homeless at the time. I was in between places. I didn’t have a place to live. I was a student at Cabrillo College. I had barely started my classes, and I also had a job that I had to take a month off of, but I really didn’t, because I was still going to the schools and doing these presentations.

Omar Dieguez
I would plan my hunger strike better, because I think I put too much stuff on my plate at the time. But it was a good experience to learn that, “Hey, we can’t save the world.” What I did learn about the hunger strike is you have to take care of yourself more. If you want to stay in it for the long run, you have to give yourself time to heal. You’ve got to spend a lot of time with yourself.

Omar Dieguez
I did a lot of reflecting on my life, my relationships with everybody, and I asked myself, “Where am I heading? What are my goals?” That was something that I got out of it, but I’m very grateful for the experience. I’m very grateful for everybody that supported me.

Omar Dieguez
A lot of people supported me in this hunger strike. I have to say this: the people that showed up the most in my hunger strike were the women. They were there by my side, taking me to presentations. They were making sure I was getting my nutrients. They were making sure I was okay, checking on me. Nothing but women showed up to stand by my side. I always honor them for the work that they do and the balance they bring to our world.

Omar Dieguez
When I do the sweat lodges, I always talk about the women, how they bring balance, how they bring warmth, how they bring love, and they play an important role. Without them, we can’t do it on our own. I’m very grateful for the women that were by my side throughout my hunger strike.

Omar Dieguez
I also tell the kids, “Appreciate the women in your life. Appreciate your mom, the things that they bring to us, the warmth, the love, the caring, all that stuff, that balance.” It was a good experience, and I’m grateful for being able to experience it.

Dave Chapman
All right, Omar, before we close, is there anything I haven’t asked that I should have asked, or anything you want to say?

Omar Dieguez
The only thing I would say is a lot of people want to make change in this world, and a lot of people don’t know where to start. One of the things that I always would say to the youth is, if you don’t know where to start, start with yourself. Start by loving yourself. Start by taking care of yourself, because you can’t take care of anything or anybody until you take care of yourself, and from there, everything else will fall into place.

Omar Dieguez
Love yourself, take care of yourself, and never give up a fight. I always told the students, “Don’t ever let anybody tell you you can’t do anything in life.” When I was told I can’t do something, I would tell them, “Tell me I can’t. I’ll show you I can.” That’s the message I want to leave everybody with.

Dave Chapman
All right. Omar Dieguez, thank you so much for all your work and for this conversation.

Omar Dieguez
Thank you.