Nearly every day, the onetime Ontario, California, warehouse employee said, he was stunned to hear racist slurs from Latino co-workers.
"They said it in English — they said it in Spanish all the time," recalled Leon Simmons, a Black father of four with a deep voice and gentle manner. "When they look you right in the eye and call you the N-word to your face, that's dehumanizing."
Thirty-two miles away at a Moreno Valley warehouse, it was the same story. Another Black laborer, Benjamin Watkins, described how a Latina co-worker called to him: "'Hey, monkey! Yeah, you!' and waved a banana in her hand. A group of women burst out laughing."
