Teresa Martinez

On October 11, 2001, Teresa Martinez died at Stanford Hospital, Palo Alto, CA, from complications arising from a cesarean section. Her healthy boy and girl twins were born on October 9.

She moved from Mexico City about ten years ago to work in the strawberry fields of Watsonville, California. According to the San Jose Mercury News, she saw the tough labor as a chance to make enough money to one day return with her family to Mexico and build a home. She toiled in the fields each day to help make ends meet while her husband, Javier Perez Vargas, held down a job as an electrician's apprentice with Nunes Electric.

After work, family members say, she was a loving mother to her five-year-old daughter, Jessica. She continued to work for months while she was pregnant with twins. The family has no health insurance, and her husband now faces the daunting task of caring for the newborn twins and Jessica while working full-time.