(YesMagazine) - In Sonoma County, women are coming together to support one another and advocate for the safety of undocumented fieldworkers who often work in isolation.

*Sofia’s hands are worn like soft, tanned leather from years of picking grapes from the vines that carpet the rolling hills of Sonoma County, California.

“I grew up pizcando, harvesting maize,” Sofia recalls. “My father taught me because he always said, ‘One day you'll need to be an independent woman, and this is a skill that will help you.’ He was right. This work is my life.”

Originally from the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, 58-year-old Sofia has been living in Sonoma as an undocumented fieldworker since 1989. She has labored on countless farms over the years: planting, picking, pruning, and fumigating.

In Sonoma County, the main agricultural product emerges in blue, purple, and green bunches on the long trellises that cover the countryside and lure wine aficionados from around the world. Viticulture, or la uva, “the grape,” as Sofia and other Latino farmworkers refer to the sector, also draws undocumented workers, mostly from Mexico and Central America. Journeying to the United States to work is the dream held and died for by hundreds of thousands, but the reality is hard work, long hours, and meager pay.

The fields are what brought Sofia to Sonoma and what continues to draw men, women, and children across the U.S.-Mexico border in search of opportunity and political security. According to the Migration Policy Institute, there are 3 million undocumented workers living in the state of California. Of that number, nearly 50 percent are women, while 82 percent are originally from Mexico and Central America.