When you can’t drink the water
WHEN SARA GALLEGO* turns on her faucet, she’s never sure what will come out. “In the mornings, it’s the color of coffee,” she said. At other times, “It’s super yellow.”
Gallego is one of the roughly 1,900 residents of the Oasis Mobile Home Park, a community of 220 dilapidated trailers in the unincorporated community of Thermal, California. Located on Torres Martinez Indigenous land, Oasis is home to low-income people with few other housing options. Many are farmworkers, and many are also undocumented.
The trailer park is bordered on one side by agricultural fields, but the park itself is characterized by unpaved dirt roads and seeping sewage. Fields of tall grass encroach on its edges. At home, Gallego and her four kids use bottled water for drinking and cooking. For showers, dishwashing and brushing their teeth, however, they still depend on the tap. Lately, Gallego has emerged from her showers with red eyes, clumps of hair in her
