Across the United States, workers at meat and poultry processing plants are becoming infected with COVID-19 at work. Some of them are dying. These are primarily immigrant workers, many of whom are undocumented. The pay they receive for keeping Americans fed is minimal, forcing their families firmly below the poverty
White progressive leaders from blue states have been receiving widespread praise for their handling of the novel coronavirus. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has received raves in the media for being the first governor to call for a statewide shelter-in-place order. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s poll numbers have surged
Vivian and Alexa Rivera think of their mother, Ana Celia Martinez, as “a survivor.” Martinez and her siblings lost their parents when they were just children in Puerto Rico, forcing them to take care of each other and fend for themselves. When Martinez moved to the United States, she carved
Cecilia’s job processing contracts at a car dealership isn’t essential, but that doesn’t mean she can stay home. With the dealership open for vehicle servicing and online sales, the single mother of two is still expected to deal with paperwork on site. That means leaving her 5-year-old
Last weekend, as temperatures around the country lifted into the high 70s and 80s, swarms of families and friends made their way to public parks, piers, and beaches, eschewing social distancing protocols in favor of typical late spring activities. Photos captured in Piedmont Park in Atlanta showed crowds walking past
In a letter dated April 15, Craig Cesal wrote, “I face too high of a risk for death which was not my sentence.” Cesal is 60 years old, diabetic, and suffers from lung blockage. Now incarcerated in the Federal Correctional Institution, Terre Haute (FCI Terre Haute) in Vigo County, Indiana,
“Lina” hasn’t seen her 17-year-old son since March 6 when she last visited him in Central Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles, just a week before the probation department ended family visits in the county because of the coronavirus pandemic. “Mom, don’t come,” she remembers him saying. “I don’
For 25 years, Ilana Dubester’s North Carolina organization El Vínculo Hispano has served rural Latinx communities in Chatham, Alamance, Randolph, and Lee counties. As the COVID-19 pandemic began to unfurl across the state, she heard firsthand from immigrant workers that outbreaks were forming in rural Central North Carolina’s
Maricela Martinez was thrilled when she was hired in early April to work as a housekeeper at Mountaire Farms in Siler City, North Carolina. Overnight, she became an “essential worker,” performing a crucial but dangerous job at a poultry processing plant with multiple confirmed COVID-19 cases. It was grueling work,
The irony isn’t lost on “Maria” that she has to return to work at the Mountaire Farms meat processing plant on May 1, otherwise known as International Workers’ Day. Maria, who prefers to use a pseudonym, is one of Mountaire Farms’ many contract workers in Siler City, North Carolina,
On Feb. 29, a funeral for 64-year-old Andrew Jerome Mitchell in the small rural town of Albany, Georgia, unknowingly became what health experts call a “super spreading event” for the coronavirus. In the days and weeks following the service, the surrounding county of Dougherty—with a population of just under
With another round of COVID-19 stimulus funding being considered in Congress, questions loom about support for the United States Postal Service (USPS). At a press conference Wednesday, citing concerns due to the USPS funding crisis, American Postal Workers Union (APWU) President Mark Dimondstein, joined by Vermont Secretary of State Jim
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