With Diversity, There is Strength
In Oaxacalifornia by Odilia Romero, there are similar issues which intersect with the structural issue I am researching. Odilia speaks about the experiences immigrants face when migrating to this “country of perseverance” and how from being landowners, they become low-wage workers. “In the United States, we are in the same condition: we are over 20 percent of the agricultural labor force in California, but we face discrimination, structural racism, and labor exploitation, along with racism from our other Mexican brothers and sisters” (Oaxacalifornia, 40). Odilia believes that immigration should not be a forced necessity but rather a voluntary decision for indigenous people. These migrants end up living in stressful urban conditions which is the complete opposite from the environment that they come from. “She was ten years old, and she was struck by the jarring change in her environment, going from living in a natural landscape, next to a river lined with trees, to spending her time inside in a room she rarely left, in a neighborhood where she was not allowed to go outside and play. “It was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. I think I suffered from depression, but I didn’t know it”” (Oaxacalifornia, 40–41). This is closely related to what my research topic is about. Many children like Odalia are suffering mentally, adjusting to their new home with so many new things to learn without realizing it is possibly affecting their mental health. “When she was only fourteen, she even acted as an interpreter for another native of Oaxaca preparing for a state exam to be licensed as a hairdresser” (Oaxacalifornia, 41). Many immigrants who only speak Indigenous languages, not spanish, and lack of interpreters for indigenous languages, is another example of the communication gap that exists which can lead to disastrous results in places like hospitals or courts.
An article that has given me a deeper understanding of an issue related to trauma and chronic stress related to experience in both countries of origin and in the U.S. is a published article titled “The Burden of Deportation on Children in Mexican Immigrant Families” by Joanna Dreby. In this article, 91 parents and 110 children in 80 households were interviewed. Drawing back to these interviews, they showed that it is not the deportation act itself, but the possibility of deportation, or a migrant’s “deportability” that has affected an even greater number of children. I can agree with this because when I was younger, I would find myself asking my parents over and over again if we would ever be sent back to El Salvador and just the thought of the possibility being present, put so much fear onto me of being separated from my parents.
This piece illustrates another reason why census data is so important as it can inform the need for indigenous-language interpreters — which is why the Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales (FIOB) was active in the last Census in 2010 (Oaxacalifornia, 49). The structural issue I am researching translates into being “Hard-to-count” because in the Canal, there is a big percentage of immigrants who are especially from Guatemala aside from other Central American countries. Many of the immigrants living in this community did not obtain a High School diploma, are living in housing units with more than 1.5 persons per room due to the high amount of rent they are paying causing them to have more than the acceptable amount of people in the household which make them hard-to-count.
Some specific benefits for the people I am working with in being counted are building new homes and revitalizing old neighborhoods, more support in community initiatives involving legislation, quality-of-life and consumer advocacy. The relationship between having an accurate count and potentially addressing the structural issue of facing deportation is that more organization funds to non-profit organizations like Canal Alliance would help out these immigrant families keep up with local news and receive legal help.
What I have learned from the community members I am working for so far is that there is strength in unity. My community partner has a big strength and that is communication. They have a subscription hotline where if ICE is around the canal area, they are able to send out an alert text to everybody in the community who is subscribed to it to be notified immediately. I find that to be very beneficial for the community especially since there is a high percentage of immigrants living in it. The community in general is also very supportive to one another and that is something very special it holds.
