By Arcenio J. López - Mixteco community leader*
Oxnard, California.- Since the beginning of the pandemic, the lack of accurate and effective information has been as deadly for my Mixtec indigenous community on the Central Coast of California, as the COVID-19 virus has been.
I remember exactly the first weekly meeting I had with my work team in March 2020, where several of us thought that the virus was just "an invention of the Government to scare our community" and that we should be calm. But on March 15, our organization closed its doors and we began our work virtually from our homes, because the virus had already reached our families.
Since then,
more than a dozen of our migrant indigenous brothers and sisters have died in the Ventura hospital after contracting COVID-19
.
I even lost an uncle who dedicated his life to the Oxnard agriculture industry.
The pain, the uncertainty, the fear are very vivid feelings in the lives of our community, as a consequence of a virus that we did not believe in until it took our loved ones.
“I thought that this thing about COVID-19 was not true.
Many peasants think the same.
But it hit me and it affected me a lot,” says Eulalia Natividad Mendoza, 44. Manuel Ortiz Escamez / Ethnic Media Services
Nobody was prepared to be able to offer correct information to our community about this virus in an effective and true way in our languages: Mixteco, Zapotec, Purépecha, among others.
Neither the authorities, nor ourselves as an organization of our community.
No one was prepared for what was to come.
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Chronic vulnerability and isolation
As of mid-April 2020, our organization was supporting the California Department of Social Services with its Emergency Assistance for Migrant Communities (DRAI) initiative, which offered a total of $500 per person—or $1,000 per family—as grant funds. relief.
I remember that some of the people who came to pick up their financial support card brought documents with them to translate.
One of the ladies who visited our offices in Santa Maria that month, very young and a Mixtec language speaker from the state of Guerrero, told me: "I went to the doctor because I feel bad and they gave me this," handing me several sheets.
Reviewing the documents I see that among them was his positive result for COVID-19.
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Asking the lady if she knew that her result was positive,
she answered with her eyes of astonishment and fear that she did not.
Along with her results, she had a list of recommendations that she had been given at one of the community clinics where she was tested for COVID-19 that said what to do when you are carrying the virus.
The problem is that no one had explained any of this to him, neither the results nor the medical recommendations, in his Mixtec language.
The lack of information in indigenous languages during the pandemic has placed our community
in a condition of chronic vulnerability and isolation and has been a determining factor in the difficulty this population has had in distinguishing between the myth and the reality of the virus.
The community still has doubts about the virus and how deadly it can be.
“
I thought that the COVID-19 thing was not true.
Many peasants think the same.
But it hit me and it affected me a lot,” Eulalia Natividad Mendoza told me.
She is 44 years old, originally from the Ñuu Savi nation of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, a widow and the mother of two children, ages 22 and 25.
Eulalia Natividad Mendoza in a strawberry field in Oxnard, California, last September. Manuel Ortiz Escamez / Ethnic Media Services
Mendoza was seriously ill for almost a month, lost her job in the fields, and now works as a community outreach worker with our Mixteco Project Community Organization (MICOP), where I am executive director.
Like many of us indigenous leaders in the MICOP organization, Mendoza began her voluntary involvement with the program at the Indigenous Leadership and Training Institute.
In 2019, she decided to be part of the training because of her experience as a farmer in the agriculture industry in Mexico and California.
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Mendoza had the opportunity to work as a 'mayordoma' (supervisor) making her almost the only indigenous woman to do this work in the strawberry fields of Oxnard, California, in Ventura County, where it is mainly non-indigenous men who assume the role. supervisory.
And he saw firsthand the discrimination, abuses and injustices that many peasants experience.
She did not believe in the COVID-19 pandemic, until she was infected.
“I was in bed for 25 days, in very poor health.
Also, I lost my job and then I didn't have money to pay rent, electricity and gas, and I was in debt.
This not only happened to me, but to many people in my community,” he said.
A hard and poorly paid job
Mendoza maintains that with COVID-19, the work of peasants is riskier than ever.
Although they are the ones who provide much of the food in the state of California and throughout the United States, their work is very hard, poorly paid, unhealthy and that makes them more vulnerable to contracting the virus.
There are no current figures on how many indigenous Mexican farmers work in the California agricultural industry.
The only available study was published in 2010 and says that there are approximately 160,000: mostly from the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero in Mexico and belonging to the Mixtec community.
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In addition to their low income, historical and structural racism, language barriers, and their immigration status, the working conditions of the campesinos expose them to serious health problems that make them more vulnerable to the contagion and effects of COVID-19.
Unlike many other workers in other industries, Mendoza as a farm worker did not have benefits like health insurance and/or unemployment benefits, or eviction protections during the pandemic.
Even when peasants have been categorized as essential workers,
they are far from being eligible to receive some kind of essential government benefits that contribute to better development and protection of their health.
This is due, in part, to the fact that a high percentage of this population lacks legal immigration status in this country.
According to the Pew Research Center, one in four farmworkers is undocumented.
Yes, it exists, it happened to me, I couldn't speak for 25 days, I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink water.
Yes, it exists and the vaccine could prevent you from dying or from what happened to me happening to you."
Eulalia natividad mendoza mixtec volunteer
Employers also do not usually provide farmers with the basic safety equipment at work recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), such as gloves, masks.
This has been a problem even before the pandemic, during emergencies like the 2018 fires in Ventura County, including the Thomas Fire.
In 2020 alone, MICOP's outreach team distributed more than 40,000 safety kits, primarily to workers in Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties.
Farmworkers cannot be asked to wash their hands regularly if employers do not provide enough toilets and sinks for them to do so.
If employers cannot provide them with masks, workers cannot be expected to be free from COVID-19.
Given the circumstances, it is essential that workers receive safety recommendations that apply to the reality of their working conditions.
When Mendoza recovered from the disease, she did not hesitate to apply for the job of a COVID-19 rapid response promoter, a position that MICOP launched in collaboration with the Ventura County Public Health department as part of the efforts to combat the coronavirus.
MICOP decided to hire Mendoza because of her experience as a farmer, her familiarity with her indigenous community, and she became a leading promoter of vaccines, COVID tests, and an interpreter in her Mixtec language for our community.
"Yes, it exists, it happened to me," says Eulalia Natividad Mendoza.
Now he uses his experience to offer guidance to other members of the community. Manuel Ortiz Escamez / Ethnic Media Services
Mendoza's education and outreach work begins every day at 5:00 in the morning by talking with farmworker women before the start of their work day: outside the bakery, in the field, or at family gatherings and community, where she carries information.
Many times,
she uses her personal experience of suffering from COVID-19 to motivate members of her community to get vaccinated.
Listening to her speak her Mixteco language, people feel more confident, they pay attention to her advice and most of the time they end up registering to receive the vaccine.
When our community receives information in their own language, it makes a difference and draws a line between life and death.
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“Now when I meet people who assure me that the virus [COVID-19] does not exist, I tell them: 'Yes, it does, it happened to me, I couldn't speak for 25 days, I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink water.
Yes, it exists and the vaccine could prevent you from dying or from what happened to me happening to you.
If you don't think of yourself, think of your children, your parents or your uncles who have a chronic illness,'” says Mendoza.
Mendoza is sure that the change starts from home, she gives her family as an example: several of them did not trust the COVID vaccine, but
based on effort and effective communication, they all got vaccinated
, including her 25-year-old daughter who refused to be immunized.
*Arcenio J. López is Executive Director of MICOP (Indigenous Community Organizing Project) and produced this story while participating in the
USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism 's 2021 California Fellowship Program
, with support from Ethnic Media Services.
