EL MONTE>> Twenty years ago, a loud wake-up call for the nation came screaming out of an indistinct apartment complex in El Monte: Slavery in the United States is not over.
On the morning of Aug. 2, 1995, state and federal agents raided the complex and found 72 Thai men and women imprisoned in a sweatshop, confined behind barbed wire and boarded up windows, with 24-hour guards keeping watch.