From the fields of the Central Valley to the hallways of BART, our new Director of the Office of Civil Rights fights for the public good

Rudy Garza, BART's new Director of the Office of Civil Rights.

Rudy Garza and his fellow investigators from the U.S. Department of Labor were up at dawn one morning in the late 90s for a surprise inspection of crops in California's Central Valley when they made a disturbing discovery.
"We saw kids working the fields," said Garza, BART's new Director of the Office of Civil Rights. "There were even infants out there."

Garza's team referred the children to social workers, seized the entire crop, and started an investigation that ended with significant civil penalties for the farmers, including back wages paid.
His time patrolling the fields in the 1990s was a turning point for Garza, the grandchild of Central Valley farm workers himself.

Garza is deeply influenced by his family's journey to California. His grandmother immigrated from Mexico and met his grandfather, a veteran of World War II, in the southwest. They eventually made their way to Fresno, living in tents while working the fields. At the end of each work day, Garza's grandfather would come home to construct the family's future two-bedroom house with his own two hands.

"I am proud to come from an immigrant background and demonstrate that immigrants -- all immigrants, not just Hispanic immigrants -- are the backbone of this country," he said, "where hard work and never giving up is the foundation of who you are."

Garza entered the military at 17. While serving, he saw the Berlin wall fall; Germany win the World Cup; and the decommissioning of the Pershing nuclear missile arsenal as the Cold War came to a close.

When Garza came back home, he had stints in law enforcement and even worked as a part-time high school football coach back in Fresno. But his work at the Department of Labor gave him a new sense of purpose.

"That was really my first taste of civil rights," he said. "I really enjoyed that, protecting the public good."