Amy K. Liebman: It is hard for me and so many of us to come to a migrant health conference and not have Shelley Davis, our colleague and our friend, among us. For those of you who did not have the honor of knowing Shelley and working with her, we'd like for you to share with us as we celebrate Shelley's life, a life that inspired so many of us and called us into action to fight the good fight. Shelley believed deeply in society's moral imperative to protect and support those less fortunate.

For more the 30 years she fought for those who:

• had been victimized for their political beliefs;

• had been kept out of jobs or schools or denied government benefits, because of their physical or mental disabilities;

• or as migrant and seasonal farmworkers, or immigrants, had been short-changed, exposed to highly toxic pesticides or otherwise worked long hours in hazardous conditions for extremely low pay, with the fear of deportation constantly at their back.

Working as an advocate for migrant and seasonal farmworkers for more than 25 years was Shelley's life's passion. In a speech to public interest lawyers (which she of course opened with a bad lawyer joke), she said, "We have the rare privilege of living out our most deeply held principles, every single day. This is a privilege, I would not give up for higher pay or more status - or frankly, anything."

Shelley was a constant voice for farmworker justice.

I have invited two of Shelley's companeros to join me in the privilege of honoring and celebrating her tireless efforts. Before I turn it over to my friends I want to thank our conference sponsors for letting us take the time to honor Shelley. And I also want to welcome Shelley's family and friends who have come just for this tribute.

...

Amy Liebman: Next I'd like to introduce Dr. Matt Keifer, a pesticide researcher and occupational medicine specialist from the University of Washington who stills hangs out in the trenches as a migrant clinician at the Yakima Valley Farmworkers Clinic. Shelley and Matt were colleagues and Shelley often used his work to support her efforts.

Matt Keifer: It is an honor to be asked to participate in this tribute to this great woman.

Shelley, whom I knew only professionally and not well personally, had a significant effect on the work I do and the people for whom I care as a physician. To site a few examples:

In several lawsuits against the U.S. government, Shelley challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) decisions about the legal use of pesticides that harm farmworkers and their families. Her actions have challenged the use of such toxic pesticides as dinoseb, guthion, phosmet, chlorpyrifos, and diazinon, to name a few.

The 2008 Farm Bill includes a new pesticide safety research program that Shelley designed to study the relationship between pesticide exposure and cancer, with the goal of acquiring the data needed for better policies and health prevention programs for farmworkers. The new Farm Bill program also includes research to develop medical testing for farmworkers exposed to pesticides and new technology for testing pesticide residues in the fields to determine safe re-entry times. This passed. We need support for funding.

In 2006, she organized an effort to oppose EPA's proposed human-testing regulation, which would allow companies to conduct pesticide toxicity studies by intentionally dosing human subjects. She joined forces with environmental organizations to sue the EPA for adopting the final regulations.

Shelley worked with other farmworker advocates, medical experts and community organizations to advocate for greater use of medical monitoring of farmworkers to help reduce pesticide poisoning.

Shelley helped make workers' compensation more accessible to farmworkers and was a national resource on this issue. She wrote articles and educational manuals to help health centers and farmworker advocates navigate state workers' compensation .

I think with the departure of the Bush administration we are filled with cautious optimism. We can now hope that our country will listen, at least at times to the advice of its better angels. With Shelley gone, we do this with one less angel.

Shelly was there to tell the powers that be when they were being unfair, when they were not protecting those whom they should protect and when they were failing to do what the law said they should do. Shelley's effect was like a strong magnet. She pulled along and aligned those around her; those who were like her but not as strong.

I'm sure you have heard it said that it is the ninety percent of lawyers that give the other ten percent a bad name. Well if Shelly were the first lawyer you had met, you would think the opposite. She made you believe that the law was there to protect those who could not protect themselves. She was frank but kind and afraid of no one and no authority. And she had such crystal clarity on issues that listening to her made you wish you were a lawyer (Now that is an angel). I will not miss her personally for I did not know here well. But I can assure you that you and I all will miss her goodness, her strength, her skill, and her courage and her thirst for justice.

Amy K. Liebman: Shelley's tireless advocacy and brilliance as a litigator led to strengthened worker safety protections for farmworkers and their families. Matt and Mily have touched on a few and I will touch on a few more.

Beginning in the 1980s, Shelley played a major role in ending massive wage abuses worth tens of millions of dollars to H-2A workers. When these cases settled, she worked diligently to make sure the workers got their back pay (about $1,000 to $3,000 for each for worker) even when it meant that she would go to remote villages in Mexico to give the workers their checks. Shelley said, "The most moving to me was what I saw in their eyes. As each worker approached me, I could see that they had been cheated many times in their lives - but what was different here - was that someone had made it right."

She was a strong and constant voice in forcing the EPA to include acceptable regulations to protect farmworkers and fought a battle that is still on-going - to include "know your rights" education as part of the Worker Protection Standard.

She also advocated for children - for improved legal protections for child farmworkers and to reduce their exposures pesticides.

Shelley fought to prevent employers from housing farmworkers in flimsy tents and to improve labor camp standards.

And while she advocated or litigated on behalf of farmworkers, she also worked with them, to give them a voice. Shelley developed award-winning health education programs to bring preventive health messages to thousands of farmworkers around the country by training lay health educators, or promotores de salud in HIV/AIDS prevention, pesticide safety and environmental health. It was in developing some of these programs that Shelley and I began our work together almost a decade ago. Shelley saw how powerful the promotora model could be and ran with it to help empower thousands of workers.

Her efforts to give farmworkers a seat at the table did not stop with community education. She brought farmworkers to the halls of Congress and the EPA so they could testify first hand about the conditions they endure. Two years ago, the EPA organized a Pesticide Worker Safety and Health Conference that included speakers like Matt and me and all sorts of researchers and practitioners. Farmworkers, however, were absent from the agenda. Shelley would have none of that. She got the EPA to bring in her Mixtec farmworker partners from Oregon to talk about the conditions that indigenous populations endure in the fields. And not only did she make sure the workers spoke and were heard, she wanted to make sure they had a heck of good time in Washington. So Shelley, unstopped by her battle with cancer and not slowed after a full day's of work, made sure the workers had a good time. And she took all of us to a bar in the middle of DC.

Shelley often said "it was a privilege to work." And work she did. Shelley spent countless hours working on behalf of farmwokers. While some of her work took place in the court room, most of it took place behind the scenes. Day in and day out, Shelley consistently, steadily, looked out for the interest of farmworkers. Shelley knew who was who and mobilized the parties that needed to be front and center.

Shelley was incredibly versatile. With ease and grace, she went from chatting to a worker to taking on the head of a chemical company and thinking nothing of it. Shelley served on numerous government advisory committees. For the past several years Shelley and I served on the same EPA Pesticide Committee. It was here that I so often had the honor of watching Shelley in action. And it is in this arena where I perhaps learned the most from Shelley and where I am so thankful to have had Shelley as a mentor. Shelley could cite policies, studies and regulations without a second thought. She simply knew them and used this knowledge to make her point. She knew what was needed and made sure those in power heard. It was hard to argue with Shelley. The thing about Shelley is that she was always so right. And you knew that if Shelley was in a meeting with you, the right things would be said. And if you were co-signing a letter she had drafted, you knew before you read it, that it was right and that it needed to be written.

Shelley always looked forward. Her optimism and continued commitment never ceased. In accepting one of her many awards she said, "It is my great pleasure to accept this award on behalf of the farmworkers I represent, not because of any great accomplishments of the past, but as a commitment to fight this fight until we succeed."

So what are we to do without Shelley in our worId? We have to ask ourselves this question-It's a hard question to ask. But we must ask what are we to do without our friend? Our mentor? Our colleague? Our fighter? We all have enormous shoes to fill. Each day, as we work on our worthwhile programs and grant funded projects, and for all of the clinicians in the crowd, as you get up each day and help one patient after the next, we all make our own mark in this world to help migrants. And all of these efforts are so needed. But we must also ask ourselves what are we doing to bring about change that will fundamentally and systematically improve the lives of migrants? What are we doing to affect policy change? It's hard to do when we're at the mill day after day. So we need Shelley. We need that strong voice. We need our advocate.

Farmworker Justice and Shelley's family have created a Memorial Fund. All of the information is in your hand outs. You see, the idea of this Fund is to find someone who can leave the mill; someone who can dedicate their career to keep up the advocacy and bring about the policy and legal changes that are still so desperately needed.

More than anything, I know Shelley wants us to keep up the fight and raise our voices for the farmworkers she was humbled to serve. We must do that for Shelley and we must do that for the farmworkers we serve.

So here's to you Shelley. And hear our commitment--loudly and strongly--to fight the good fight until we succeed!