Sonia Perez has a ten-month lease but doubts her debt will be canceled soon: COVID-19 ended the life of her ex-husband, who helped her financially, and has left calls from her half-New York neighborhood empty, so few understand the tamales he has been selling for 20 years.
In Miami, a Nicaraguan woman named Claudia lost her use when the restaurant she worked for was closed due to the pandemic. He spends all his savings on food and rent and now juggles to survive.
“I have no job, no money, nothing … zero. Nothing, ”said the woman, who preferred not to give her appeal because she is in the country illegally.
This is how 2020 has left many Hispanics living in the United States.
The Hispanic community has been one of the groups most affected by COVID-19, which has reduced or eliminated its income. Millions, moreover, have not been able to access state aid due to its irregular immigration status. And a few don’t know if in 2021 – with a president more willing to help them and the arrival of a vaccine – they will be able to get afloat.
Many Spanish immigrants work in sectors that have been severely affected by the pandemic such as gastronomy, hotels and construction. Others do so in agriculture and meat packers, where high rates of infection have been reported due to a lack of distance and safety measures.
24% of COVID-19 cases in the United States are Hispanic and 14.7% of deaths, according to the latest federal data. The death rate from COVID-19 among Hispanics is 2.8 times higher than that of whites and hospitalization is four times higher, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). .
After nine months of pandemic, the virus’s nitrogen is now visible in the long queues that many make in front of agencies offering food. These are generally people who earn the minimum wage and do not have access to social, health, or financial benefits such as the $ 1,200 awarded by Congress to alleviate the economic effect of the pandemic.
“There are people who are suffering in ways that have not been seen before,” said state lawmaker Miguel Santiago, who represents a district of Los Angeles with a large number of immigrants in the California legislature. “Our economic system has to work for the most vulnerable, if not, what kind of country are we?”
Before the pandemic, Pérez was selling his tamales for two dollars. He now sells them to three as the prices of ingredients, such as corn tortillas, rose after the arrival of COVID-19. And she also stumbles upon calls with many immigrants who, after losing their jobs, set out to become street vendors like her.
“A lot of people have taken to the streets to survive,” said the 50-year-old Mexican, who has three of her four children and has to pay $ 1,000 a month in rent. “There were almost no vendors in this area. Now the streets are full on Saturdays and Sundays. “
Perez arrived in the United States in 1994 and lived in the country without a immigration status until he recently obtained a U visa, which protects victims of domestic violence. As a caress of social security number until recently can not be applied for at the time the federal aid that was available.
Unemployment among Hispanics rose from 4.8% in February to a peak of 18.5% in April. In October, the most recent dates were 8.5%, according to statistics from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), a Washington research center.
The impact of the pandemic was felt in every home.
16% of Hispanic households “sometimes” or “often” did not have enough food in September, according to an MPI study based on census data. The figure is more than double that of 7% of non-Hispanic white households going through the same situation.
This is the case of Guatemalan Doris Vásquez, the only breadwinner of her three children. Not to go hungry he makes a long line at five in the morning and receives a free lunch box delivered by a community organization to Homestead, south of Miami.
The 37-year-old woman, who is in the process of asylum, lost her job because she lived in a plant that had been closed for four years due to the pandemic.
He stayed home caring for his children because he missed face-to-face classes and then became ill with COVID-19. It took about six months until he found work in another nursery, which also closed. He now cooks rice pudding and tamales and sells them on the street on weekends, but the money is not enough.
In Miami, the restaurant where Claudia worked for four years as a kitchen helper closed at the start of the pandemic and the Nicaraguan was left without the $ 500 a week she kept her four children with. He had to resort to his savings to pay rent, food, electricity and water, but he also ran out.
After nine months without work he finally found himself twice a week in the kitchen of another restaurant. The income, however, does not reach him.
“I’m very scared,” admitted the woman, whose husband was deported to Nicaragua six years ago. “I only ask the Lord not to make me sick because, if not, who will take care of my children?”
The outlook for 2021 is uncertain.
“What could help Hispanics the most would be what would help any other worker,” said Daniel Costa, in labor affairs at the Institute for Economic Policy, referring to the passage of a law that would provide financial aid and grant work permit to immigrants performing essential tasks.
California and several cities like New York disbursed funds to immigrants without immigration status. But according to assistance groups and activists, they were not enough and it is necessary to repeat those initiatives.
The expectation is that President-elect Joe Biden will keep his promise to temporarily suspend deportations and implement a system that prioritizes the repatriation of immigrants who committed crimes, similar to that which prevailed during the last years of Barack’s presidency. Obama.
“It would also give less relief to workers without legal authorization,” Costa said.