September 22, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically shifted life in America. In the early days of lockdown, one of the only places people could reasonably go to was the grocery store. For the first time, families began cooking at home en masse, and it even became popular to create sourdough starters and start making bread from scratch.
But have you ever stopped to wonder who kept the grocery store shelves stocked? It wasn’t just the essential workers in the store who contributed to the food supply, but the farmworkers who grew and harvested the food available for purchase.
80% of these farmworkers in America are Latino / Hispanic / Spanish-speakers.
That means that despite the discrimination and hardships that the community faces, they were the ones keeping America fed during one of its darkest hours. Latino workers have propped our country up, often at great personal cost. The Latino narrative is largely ignored by our media, which means that their plight is largely invisible. Fifty-two million people in the United States identify as Latino, yet their news coverage and news contributions are sparse.
An opinion piece in the New York Times summed it up nicely when they said:
“The inventory of exclusion is long. Latinos have been shut out of prestige magazines that confer authority, awards and book deals. New York City is about 30 percent Latino — 2.5 million stories to tell. Yet on its contributor page, The New Yorker magazine does not appear to list a single Latino; the magazine declined to confirm or deny. Because of the publication’s union, some newsroom inequalities have recently been addressed. The New Yorker should tackle racial inequalities too so that excluded groups, including Latinos, particularly nonwhite Latinos, are hired as high-level editors and writers and the magazine can credibly cover Nueva York.” (source).
If you or a loved one feel like you are being ignored or discriminated against as a Latino community member, then it is your duty and right to stand up for yourself. Contact Para Los Trabajadores in Glendale, California today about help and representation.
We understand that Latino farmworkers have kept this nation moving during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we pledge to honor that contribution with culturally competent legal representation for every Latino client.
