Coronavirus affects Boulder County's Latinx community differently

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, lay people and experts alike have said that this is a virus that does not discriminate based on age, sex, race or class. But just by looking at the numbers alone, it's obvious that this belief isn't exactly the case.

"When you look at the population of Boulder County that are people of color and positive cases, those numbers are shocking," said Manuela Sifuentes, the language access program manager for the City of Boulder. "I think that, to me, they're not surprising."

Philanthropiece Foundation's Operations manager Laura Soto echoed Sifuentes, saying, "Now that we have an epidemic that does not discriminate, we are seeing that the most affected communities are those affected by racism in the past."

Boulder County's Latinx (the gender-neutral variation of the ethnic label "Latino/Latina") population is one of those groups most affected. A large reason for that is because this population tends to be in "essential service" roles or positions that do not allow them to work from home, and in many cases, put them in harm's way..

Even under normal circumstances, Latinx workers especially, but bilingual employees, specifically, often have fewer economic opportunities. For example, while bilingual frontline employees serve a need to help people coming into an organization, it is often difficult for them to move up in leadership positions because of the potential loss of help in customer-facing positions.

Another way in which many Latinx community members are affected relates to education. Since moving online, the City of Boulder, for example, has set up a number of hotspots for children to do schoolwork. But even if the matter of internet access is partially solved, for many students and families, there is also the issue of limited equipment.

"The expectation that K-12 and our higher education kids should be doing a full-time job [of being a student] is problematic," said county commissioner candidate Marta Loachamin.

However, the arguably larger reason that this community is affected is because of the lack of effective language access and lack of access to resources.

Boulder County alone is home to approximately 5,000 undocumented or mixed status families. As such, many of these families have been left out of the stimulus check and other benefits associated with the CARES act. "They were set up strategically from our federal government [so] that they will not receive relief [or] protection, and putting them at a higher risk of infection," explains Maya Sol Dansie. Dansie works with Boulder County public health and is the program coordinator for the Genesister Program through the county.

As a result, many of the community partners like Philanthropiece have partnered with the county's Cultural Brokers Resilience Program, led by Guillermo Estrada-Rivera to create a massive index with resources, specifically aimed at helping the Latinx community, but particularly, monolingual Spanish speakers. "It's so hard and overwhelming for a person to navigate, then add the barrier of language and culture and the fear of exposing yourself," said Soto.

What is most exciting about this resource database is that it's language accessible and the cultural brokers are finding ways to effectively get that information out to the community, Estrada-Rivera explained, "Cultural brokers have been in the picture since about the 80s, but they weren't acknowledged until after the [2013] floods. It was institutionalized this year to help people connect communities and act like bridges between the services provided and the communities they serve."

One reason cultural brokers are so important and useful is because they often come from a background where they already understand the community. So in distributing information, they often know which channels work and know how to best explain situations.

Sifuentes described how many of our immigrant neighbors might interpret guidelines too strictly, or they might not understand. For example, saying "six feet," makes sense to many, but if a person is more familiar with the metric system, it is more meaningful to say "two meters."

"The main tool is google translate, for any language, it's not accurate," explained Loachamin. "Boulder County now has a group of community volunteers to donate time to translate now under COVID. The issue with that plan is that it's not sustainable to ask volunteers to do the work of the local government, and it's [disrespectful to translators who translate for a living]."

Dansie agreed, "It's not just language translation, it's a whole cultural literacy that's needed to be inclusive."

Estrada-Rivera explained that language access should be the minimum for the county to strive for. However, more important is creating trust and a relationship between community members and the boards and organization which serve them. "If people don't trust you, they aren't going to access it [the resources]. It's a multilayered process. You need to invest in cultural brokers and create those relationships where the community can feel at ease accessing those resources."

In addition to the resource database, Philanthropiece has raised $75,000 for the "Undocu-Relief Fund," which was created to give cash assistance to families most in need but ignored by the CARES act. Soto stressed that it is a supplemental fund, and one they designed to strategically connect community members with other resources.

It is the hope of all these community members that stronger relationships can be built between the various levels of Boulder County government and the various sub-communities they serve.

"It takes time to work through government," said Sifuentes. "Rebuilding that trust with our community is going to take time, but we're in it for the long run."

For more information about the "Undocu-Relief Fund" and the culturally appropriate information in Spanish about resources, ordinances, safe practices, etc., please visit Philanthropiece on Facebook.