Oregon’s $100-million-dollar Christmas tree industry -- the largest in the world -- is borne by the labor of immigrant and migrant workers.

In Marion County, the area’s abundant agriculture draws many, and a tight-knit community has formed. Last year, the county hosted an estimated 26,673 migrant and seasonal workers and their families -- the second largest migrant population of any county in the state, an Oregon State University study found.

“It’s cold, long hours,” said labor contractor Jose Mota Gonzales.

So on Thanksgiving, he brought his workers mashed potatoes, chicken and tortillas to keep them warm and fed while harvesting Christmas trees at Holiday Tree Farms in Corvallis.

Three of those workers would be killed in a crash the following day.

“We saw them, talked to them, fed them; we never thought that the next day we’d give them their paychecks and never see them again,” Gonzalez said.

On Friday evening, 13 Guatemalan Christmas tree workers finished up a long week of harvest and stopped at Gonzalez’s house to pick up their paychecks. They’d spent about a month working for Gonzalez’s company, JMG Labor Contractor, at Holiday Tree Farms, he said.

The group -- some relatives of each other, Gonzalez said -- were exhausted from harvesting and loading trees into trucks, and piled into their Chevy passenger van to head home. They traveling eastbound on a darkened Sunnyview Road Northeast, just a few blocks north of Gonzalez’s house, when the driver, Pablo Gaspar-Ezequiel, 35, attempted to turn left onto Cordon Road Northeast.

A Ford F-350 traveling westbound, driven by Cory Kudna, 18, smashed into the passenger side of the van in a T-Bone crash, Marion County Sheriff’s Sgt. Jeremy Landers said.

Marion County deputies found Andres Alonzo-Canil, 41, and Miguel Alonzo-Lucas, 39, dead at the crash site, according to a news release. A third passenger was killed, but investigators, facing difficulties with language barriers and struggling to reach family members in Guatemala, have not publicly released that person’s identity, Landers said.

Gonzalez ran to the crash site from his house, but couldn’t reach anyone as Marion County deputies and emergency responders blocked off the area. He spent the night at the hospital with the families of the crash victims, waiting to hear news of his workers’ conditions.

As of Monday morning, two victims were still recovering at the hospital, and one remained in critical condition.

For Reyna Lopez, the executive director of PCUN, an Oregon advocacy group for farm workers and Latino families, she sees her own family’s history reflected in the tragedy.

“My dad came here to be a Christmas tree planter,” Lopez said. “So this really cuts close to home.”

Lopez said that the crash, and its aftermath, sheds light on the dangers and barriers immigrant and migrant workers face.

“In addition to the treacherous travel conditions people have to deal with during the winter, it sheds light on the fact that farm labor is still one of the most dangerous occupations,” she said. Marion County’s Christmas tree workers are representative of the country’s larger farm worker population -- often from a Central or Latin American country, she said.

Lopez worries whether the families of the victims will be able to find language-accessible support services in the wake of the crash.

“We know that the barriers are a little harder for our community -- especially for immigrants that have language barriers, immigration status barriers,” she said.

And the holiday season is a devastating time for a family to lose its main earner, Lopez said.

Gonzalez said the bodies will be flown to Guatemala City, where they will be transported by car home to the victims’ families.

Landers said it’s too soon to tell whether any criminal charges will be filed against either driver. The investigation may take weeks as the team works to reconstruct the scene and analyze evidence from the vehicles.

Meanwhile, Lopez and PCUN are reaching out to the families and friends of the 13 Guatemalans involved in the crash.

“This is a huge blow for our community, especially people in the Salem area -- it’s a tight knit group,” Lopez said. “We’re really feeling for our brothers and sisters. We want them to know that we’re here for you, and we’re going to do whatever we can to try to band together and support one another.”

-- Emily Goodykoontz; 503-221-6652; egoodykoontz@oregonian.com