As Latinx and Black Americans die of Covid-19 at disproportionate rates, the pandemic has revealed a contradiction about the workers we consider essential: while they have kept our most valued systems working, many are struggling to care for themselves and their families.
Few groups exemplify this disparity more starkly than undocumented workers. Although there are more than 11 million undocumented people in the United States today, many do not qualify for unemployment assitance or stimulus checks. Immigrant workers also make up a large portion of the food delivery, public transit and grocery store personnel that are keeping cities working.
As a response to stark racial and economic disparities, mutual aid groups that are helping vulnerable people during the pandemic have sprung up across the country.
In New York City, which has had more than 16,000 Covid-related deaths, Bushwick Mutual Aid exemplifies the immediate impact of community-based organizations. The aid group was formed during the early stages of the pandemic and has since worked to fill the vacuum for immigrant families in dire economic need. The collective is made up of local volunteers who buy and deliver groceries to households that cannot afford them or are unable to leave their homes because they have a disability or tested positive for Covid-19.
Bushwick Mutual Aid began delivering grocery deliveries to just ten households but quickly grew to serve more than 200, a majority of them Spanish-speaking. In the weeks after it was created, the organization established a hotline in English and in Spanish and recruited several more volunteers.
Every Sunday, they organize food drives from 8am-11:30am at Latinos Unidos in Bushwick. Chaos+Comrades visited them on a Sunday and interviewed some of its organizers.
Maria
“I’m Cuban-American and there’s no official support for undocumented people. Sometimes, they can’t advocate for themselves because of their English so we have to advocate for each other.”
Emily
“At the beginning, we were paying for the groceries ourselves, which was costing us a lot of money. That’s when we got the idea of buying bulk groceries from wholesalers to knock out 100-200 families a day.
I got involved with Bushwick Mutual Aid because in the early stages of lockdown, I thought this could get really, really bad, we didn’t know what the hell was happening, everything was changing all the time. And I was just thinking about elderly people and people who can’t get out of their homes because the risk is too high or maybe they’re disabled. And I genuinely thought, ‘What are people gonna do?’ So that was what drew me to it was like, ‘I have time, I’m young, I have energy, I can do something and help people so like why not?’
Ceci (right) and her husband
“I identify a lot with the people who come here because we’re all migrants, we don’t have the same rights as everyone so we have to look out for each other.
After this, I hope that we have more solidarity in general. During this crisis, I saw a lot of people who had the mentality of,” if I’m fine, no one else matters.” I hope that will change.”
Samuel
“I knew that this community was going to be impacted the most severe since the very first week because a lot of the Latino and undocumented workers who live here, they are low-income workers who were already struggling before this. They were churro vendors, cleaners and working service jobs.
I grew up on food stamps, charity and governmental programs so I know what it’s like for a single mother or families with a lot of children. The government doesnt care about undocumented families so we needed to take matter in our own hands.”
If you would like to volunteer with Bushwick Mutual Aid click here. To donate, click here.
