Deaths among Latino immigrants soared by 90% as COVID tore through this California county
This story is part of the Central Valley News Collaborative — a bilingual, community journalism project funded by the Central Valley Community Foundation and with technology and training support from Microsoft Corp. The collaboration includes The Fresno Bee, Valley Public Radio, Vida en el Valle, Radio Bilingüe and the Institute for Media & Public Trust at Fresno State.
Pedro Cruz Mendoza developed a cough and fever in March. Yet he continued to toil in the Central Valley’s fields for four days, even as his symptoms worsened.
The 60-year-old immigrant from Oaxaca, Mexico, worried about missing a day of work, fearing he could lose his job and his ability to provide for his wife, Claudia Medina. He didn’t take safety precautions and believed COVID-19 was a hoax, she said.
Cruz Mendoza’s health quickly deteriorated, landing him in the Hanford hospital where he died 20 days later.
In California, Latinos have suffered a greater increase in pandemic-era deaths than any other group, with immigrant Latinos experiencing the largest increase in deaths, according to a recent UC Merced Community and Labor Center analysis of California Department of Public Health data.
Latino immigrants in Kings County were hit especially hard, UC Merced researchers found. There were 102 additional deaths among Latino immigrants between 2019 and 2020 — or a 90.3% increase. The data includes all Latino immigrants who died in Kings County, whether or not they were county residents.
Among California counties that recorded at least 25 Latino immigrant deaths in 2019, Kings County had the second-highest increase in death among Latino immigrants during 2020. Only Imperial County, along the California-Mexico border, had a higher increase in Latino immigrant deaths during 2020 — a 97.5% increase.
In Kings County, 16% of the county’s 150,000 residents live in poverty. More than half of all residents identify as Hispanic, while 18.3% were born outside of the U.S. and 41.5% speak a language other than English, recent census data shows. It is home to about 11,000 undocumented immigrants, nearly all of whom are from Mexico or Central America, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Among Kings County’s top industries are agriculture, meat packing and food production.
Even before the pandemic, researchers had found that Latino immigrants of working age were healthier than other racial groups, but died at disproportionately higher rates. COVID-19 accelerated that phenomenon, with Kings County becoming ground zero for the deaths of immigrants like Cruz Mendoza.
“The biggest reason why we believe that there was a larger increase in deaths among immigrant Latinos in Kings County versus other counties in California was because of the large industries employing people in agriculture and meatpacking and the longstanding issues that those industries have with workplace health and safety standards,” said Dr. Edward Flores, co-director of UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center.
Kings County officials did not respond to The Bee’s requests for comment.
Inequities put Latino immigrants at increased risk for COVID-19
Cruz Mendoza immigrated to the U.S. when he was a young adult to escape poverty and build a better life. Medina joined him a few years later with their son, who was 11 years old at the time. They eventually settled in Kings County, where Cruz Mendoza worked as a farmworker picking seasonal crops.
Cruz Mendoza was an extroverted person who loved to make friends and host backyard get-togethers with his neighbors and coworkers, his family said. He and his son Juan each supported rival Mexican soccer teams — he supported Cruz Azul and his son Club América — and they often spent Sunday afternoons watching them play.
As a low-wage immigrant worker, Cruz Mendoza was a prime target for COVID-19.
While immigrants are less likely to engage in behaviors that are tied to a lower life expectancy, including smoking or using recreational drugs, experts said, they are likely to work and live in environments in the U.S. that are detrimental to their health.
And amid the pandemic, “systematic and social inequities” across healthcare, income and education put Latinos at increased risk of getting sick and dying from the disease, said Dr. Ana Penman-Aguilar, chief science officer and associate director for science at the Centers for Disease Control’s Office of Minority Health and Health Equity.
“There are factors that are counterbalancing the overall good health of people who have immigrated to the United States,” she said. “And now we have entered this pandemic where these challenges have really resulted in a lot of death and illness to Latino communities.”
Immigrants in California between the ages of 20 to 54 years old were 11 times more likely to die from COVID-19 compared to native-born Latinos and white residents, according to a University of Southern California study released April 5.
According to the study, those who died were predominantly Hispanic, “consistently older, more likely to be male, had lower educational attainment, and most were foreign-born.”
Some farmworkers continue working while sick with COVID-19
Medina first developed bad chills and a fever, which she later confirmed were symptoms of COVID-19, in late February. She believes she contracted the illness while working at a restaurant. By the time she recovered in early March, Cruz Mendoza started feeling ill. Their son and two grandchildren also contracted the disease.
Medina said she begged Cruz Mendoza to stay home and recover, but he refused to believe he had COVID-19 and did not tell his supervisor he was sick.
Despite having a cough, fever and chills, Cruz Mendoza went to work for four days without telling anyone he had COVID-19, potentially exposing other workers to the virus, Medina said. She said many agricultural workers don’t report feeling sick or a positive COVID-19 diagnosis to their employers because they fear losing their jobs or risking deportation.
When she later confronted his supervisor, asking him why he didn’t send Cruz Mendoza home, Medina said the supervisor claimed he didn’t notice Cruz Mendoza was sick.
“When I called, his supervisor said to me, ‘I didn’t know he was sick,’” she said in Spanish while sitting on a red rectangular couch in her compact mobile home. “But if you just looked at him, you could tell. Like I said to the supervisor, ‘what type of supervisor are you, that you don’t realize that one of your workers is sick?’”
Cruz Mendoza is among many farmworkers who have continued working, despite showing symptoms of COVID-19.
As part of a study on COVID-19 among California farmworkers last year, researchers from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and medical professionals from Clinica de Salud del Valle de Salinas, a health center, found that 57% of 1,091 participants who had COVID-19 symptoms continued to work during the pandemic. Of those, nearly three-quarters said they did so because they felt well enough to work, while others expressed concern about forgoing a paycheck or losing their jobs.
That’s why many experts believe protecting farmworkers also means guaranteeing that they can afford to stay home from work if they have been exposed to the virus or have symptoms.
“They work hard, have strong family values, don’t use welfare, are healthy, don’t drink, don’t smoke, etcetera — but for all that work ethic, they are very poorly rewarded,” said Dr. David Hayes-Bautista, director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at UCLA’s medical school. “The harder Latinos work, the poorer they are, the less likely they are to have health insurance. They get punished for good behavior.”
State faces shortage of Spanish-speaking doctors
Cruz Mendoza’s condition eroded to the point where he could no longer breathe or get up out of bed. Though he still didn’t want to get help, Medina took him to the hospital.
“It hurt me so badly to come home from work and see him in that condition,” she said. “I did what I thought was right because he was really sick.”
As Cruz Mendoza’s condition worsened, Medina said a hospital worker at Adventist Health in Hanford called to inform her that he would not recover. But Medina, who only speaks Spanish, said she could not understand the English-speaking healthcare worker. She said she asked for a Spanish-speaking doctor or interpreter to help deliver the news, but was told none were available.
Though her bilingual son Juan helped translate, the experience left Medina feeling helpless and frustrated.
“I wanted to talk to someone who could speak to me in Spanish,” she said. “I asked for an interpreter because I do not speak English.”
Amanda Jaurigui, a spokesperson for Adventist Health, which is the only hospital in Kings County, said “more than 300 staff members” at the hospital offer interpretation services in person and via telephone or video.
“Ensuring that all patients and families can effectively communicate with our providers and staff about their condition, or the condition of a loved one, is essential to providing quality care and is of the utmost importance to Adventist Health,” she said.
Hayes-Bautista of UCLA said the lack of Spanish-speaking healthcare practitioners and resources is all too common in California’s rural communities with large Latino populations.
Though California is home to more than 14 million Latinos, there are just 7,000 Spanish-speaking physicians across the state, Hayes-Bautista said. To address the shortage, he added, the state would need at least 54,000 more Spanish-speaking physicians.
“At the rate at which the medical schools — both public and private — of this state graduate medical students, it will take 500 years to make up the shortage for 2020,” he said. “The institutions of the state have turned their back on Latino health — COVID just threw sharp light onto that. Who’s paying the price? The campesinos in Kings County.”
Son: COVID-19 ‘is real and it can kill you’
Medina didn’t have enough money to pay for Cruz Mendoza’s funeral. So she borrowed money from friends, used her tax returns and asked family for help. Residents of Lemoore, the small city where they lived, and the surrounding region also pitched in to help Medina and their son with the costs.
Medina says she’s grateful for all of the friends Cruz Mendoza made over the years and how beloved he was in their community. She said it’s hard to accept he’s gone.
“I was with him for 39 years,” Medina said, fighting back tears.“We had our ups and downs like any other couple, but we were always together. It’s a long time to be with a person. It’s so hard for me to accept.”
Their son, Juan, is also struggling with Cruz Mendoza’s death. He said he will especially miss watching soccer games with his dad.
“I’ll always remember my dad as a happy person — he loved throwing parties, he loved to dance and have a good time, he was a good dad,” he said in Spanish. “I was one of those people that didn’t think COVID-19 was real — until I experienced it. Now I see it’s real and it can kill you.”
This story was originally published April 14, 2021 at 5:00 AM.