MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif. (KMUV-TV) Project VIDA may have been seen in different parts of the county by those who have not yet been vaccinated.
In February, all residents with zip code 93905 in East Salinas received at least the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
READ MORE: 100% of East Salinas residents have at least the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine
In Monterey County, 84% of residents have already had their first vaccination and only 75% are fully vaccinated. But one of the statistics that most alarmed the government was that only half of the Indigenous and African-American communities have their first COVID-19 vaccine.
We got to find out, talking to these communities and this is what they told us.
“People have information, they’re not trusting it,” said Vanessa Lopez-Littleton, the director of the Department of Health and Human Services who is studying why the county has such a low vaccination rate.
“There’s a tremendous level of resentment that still exists in my family because of what happened,” said Michael Woody, a representative of the Salina Tribe that ships parts of Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties. “So when I look at my mother, for example, she took a year to get vaccinated because she has very little trust in the government.”
Woody is a professional engineer who spends his free time representing his native tribe. He recounted how San Luis Obispo sheriffs chased his great-grandmother and the family off his property on Toro Creek through Morro Bay at gunpoint.
“You have to keep in mind that our families have been dealing with the theft of our land, the theft of our culture, and a genocide that has been going on in this country, especially here in California, for two hundred and fifty years,” says Woody. “So when the government comes along and says, ‘Hey, everybody, trust us, get vaccinated,’ there are a lot of people in our families who say, ‘No, we don’t trust the government.’
Between enslavement and land theft experienced by the families of many Native Americans and African-Americans, these communities suffered at the hands of the US government – many in less than a century.
“Come knock on our door, seriously, knock on our door, sit with us, share a meal with us, talk to us,” Woody advised. “Listen to our stories in first person and see why we have such mistrust.”
But what else can the government do to serve these communities?
“We want to listen to the communities to see what the best methods are. And so we in the Vida program adapt to the needs of the community to gradually increase that percentage,” said Joel Hernandez Laguna, one of the officers of the Fundación Community for Monterey County. He, with the help of the rest of the foundation, coordinates the vaccination centers for Monterey County.
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