SCARS of the PANDEMIC 2v5b6i

Flavia says that her first coronavirus symptoms were a slight cough and a feeling in her body that she can hardly describe. "I just started taking something for the cough, ibuprofen, corn on the cob ... homemade things," she recalls. She was terrified of going to an emergency room and becoming the protagonist in one of the tragic stories she saw on television.

“I looked at the situations in hospitals, for example, in New York, how people left home and didn’t return. Then I would say, 'I can't go to the hospital, I have my little daughter, what will become of her?’” she says. But that huge fear was just one of several factors causing a worsening tightening in her chest.

The coronavirus got into her house, adding to the problems she has juggled since she migrated with her husband from Nicaragua to the United States 14 years ago. She’s undocumented and doesn’t have a driver's license or health insurance, and when the pandemic raged in her neighborhood, Allapattah, she also lost her job cleaning houses. The same thing happened to her husband, who worked in construction.

In the case of Latinos, “a lot has to do with the fact that they work in the hospitality industry. In March and April, we had closures that hit them greatly,” explains Olugbenga Ajilore, senior economist at the Center for American Progress. Women, he adds, were the worst affected, ing 20% ​​unemployment in April, higher than any other group.

"You have to look at what types of jobs they have and how they work in the hospitality industry, they are on the front lines of this pandemic and are more likely to contract the virus," says Ajilore. "Hispanics tend to have low-wage jobs, so it's not just about how much they earn, but about the benefits they have, access to sick leave, sick leave for a relative."

According to a study by Univision News based on data from the American Community Survey, which analyzes census data, the median income of Allapattah does not exceed $30,000, and a large portion of the salary earned in sectors such as construction and services, is only enough to pay for rent. Moreover, Hispanics across the country live in a similar situation.

At Flavia's house, the coronavirus resulted in 21 days of confinement that were spent praying that they not infect their 14-year-old daughter and the agony of finding ways to put food on the table each day.

Only two of the houses that Flavia cleaned called her again. Others stopped hiring her as they feared that she could catch the virus on a bus and make everyone sick. The $1,500 she made a month almost completely dried up, leaving her with only $200. “Between the health crisis and this economic crisis, you don't even know what’s going to happen to you,” says Flavia, speaking slowly.

Undocumented immigrants like Flavia were excluded from the massive $2.2 billion stimulus package approved in March by Congress. They borrow here and there to pay rent and feed themselves thanks to donations from community organizations.

And her daughter, who is a US citizen, was also left out, like 5.1 million other children, mostly born in this country, relegated from benefits due to the status of their parents, according to a report by the Center for American Progress.

“If we have a number to pay taxes, why can't that number help us to receive (help) at this very difficult time?” she asks, referring to the taxpayer's personal identification number, known as ITIN Number, which she uses to declare her taxes.

Flavia's anxiety and hopelessness spread in Allapattah as quickly as the coronavirus. It hit with special brutality among small entrepreneurs who for years have been struggling to stay afloat as the Latino essence of the neighborhood has confronted the challenge of gentrification.

Fernando Trinidad is one of them. He walks between the empty tables and chairs that were stacked after the last party he had in his ballroom. This Dominican cannot believe that his banquet hall, the business that had finally consolidated him as a small businessman, lost "the war against covid-19."

In a matter of days, nine years of work in Allapattah disappeared, where he settled after living in Europe and New Jersey. In that time, he had gone from being a barber to being the owner of a barbershop — a trade inherited from generation to generation in his family —, a hairdresser, a nail salon and an event room.

But he looks around him and realizes that the same pain that he feels is shared by his neighbors in Allapattah, a microcosm of business owners — 'mom and pop shops' — and their workers. The relationship between them is so close, that the bad luck of a few becomes everyone’s bad luck — a domino effect.

A seven-minute walk from Fernando Trinidad's barber shop is Fidel Aquino's tailor shop. He’s also trying to keep his head above water, but out of 10 clients he used to serve a day, now only two arrive. Still, he’s unwilling to close the doors of his only business: “If I close, it's worse. If a client comes and can't find me, it's worse.”

At 79, he its that he feels “drowned”, like never before since July 5, 2005, when he opened the tailor shop. He lives by "surviving," he says. He gathers as much as he can to pay rent and pays two employees while waiting to be approved for a small business loan that he requested under the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) approved in the CARES Act aid package.

There are no available figures on the number of businesses that have closed in Allapattah due to the coronavirus, but as of August, in all of Miami Dade County there were 14% fewer businesses open than there were in January, according to databases compiled by Harvard University and Brown University.

After months of the pandemic, that rate remains almost unchanged, at 13.2%, despite the fact that some businesses have reopened and the authorities have relaxed physical distancing orders, according to figures from the Labor Department for August.

Economic crises tend to be harshest on blacks and Hispanics. They are the first to be laid off and once the outlook improves they are the last to find a new job, explains Ajilore, an economist at the Center for American Progress. He envisions that the recovery from this crisis, the worst since the Great Depression, will stretch into next year or even 2022. It may take longer if Congress fails to approve new financial aid, such as the expansion of federal unemployment benefits.

"One of the things that people say about this pandemic is the scars it will leave ... There are specific groups that will never recover," he warns. "For Latinos, whether they are undocumented or not, it will be worse because they earn the least, they don't have protections, they don't have the benefits, they don't have the things that help them to be resilient in the economy," he emphasizes.

Not even the scurrying about of his children can lower the sense of anxiety felt in Aneuris Rojas' apartment. The odd-jobs that he used to get in construction or fixing tiles disappeared with the pandemic.

He speaks calmly and tries to put on a good face. He even finds the humor to make a joke while watching cartoons with the children. But the accumulated burden escapes him in occasional gestures, like when he squeezes his hands over and over again.

Aneuris has five children, the youngest is not yet a year old. He has been waiting for weeks for an answer to his request for unemployment benefit, the same crusade faced by almost 243,000 Hispanics who have applied for unemployment assistance in Florida since March and still haven’t received it.

The savings he had with his wife — who is not working either — went down the drain and since "nothing comes in and we owe for everything," the possibility of being evicted with his family is what distresses him the most. "All parents fear is to not be able to pay for the house and to get behind three or four months and to hear them tell you: 'I'm sorry, you have to get out of here.' When you have a family, and especially if you have children, that is the biggest concern you can have.”

Nearly half of Hispanics in Florida who participated in the Census survey said it has been somewhat difficult or very difficult to meet their household expenses. The same happens when they were asked if they had any or no confidence that they will be able to pay their rent: 17% said they will not be able to do so and 29% said they have slight confidence in making it.

And while the debts accumulate, the emotional drain of the sum of those worries is brutal. “A traumatic event”, as described by psychologist María Basualdo, who helps Latino immigrants who have suffered trauma.

Aneuris recognizes that at home he doesn’t sleep. The pandemic has turned everything upside down. He tries to play as much as he can with the children and his biggest distraction is going out for food, pushing the shopping cart and listening to the salsa and meringue that usually resonate through the streets of Allapattah.

He returns home and the uncertainty of what will happen haunts him again. And also, the helplessness he feels when his efforts aren’t enough to resolve the situation. "A hurricane could occur, but right now we are already trying to recover. We can work, but in this pandemic there is no work, there’s no way to be productive," he laments.

“For the most vulnerable people, the focus is how I am going to pay my rent, they do not talk about the pandemic,” he explains. “My immigrant patients are not afraid of covid, they are not afraid of being infected; they are afraid of not eating, of not having something to give to their children. Being afraid of catching it is a privilege. It’s terrible that this happens in the developed world, that someone is not afraid of dying because they are starving to death.”