Vicente Flores, Juan Espinoza, Guadalupe Molina, Sergio Hueso, Geraldo Rivera, Juan García, Servando Páez, Roberto Graves, Linda Maya and Erasmo Paz, were some of the names that were read this Wednesday during an emotional event outside the headquarters of the New York City Mayor’s Office, in which New York immigrants and leaders of community organizations built an altar in honor of the Day of the Dead.
With flowers, fruits, skulls, bread of the dead, crosses and butterflies, the altar, which had the Municipal building in the background, was a way to remember those essential workers who lost their lives during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Big Apple and other New York counties. It was also a protest against the local Administration, state and national authorities to demand that they reveal how many excluded workers died in the pandemic in the middle of their work, which in their words, prevented New York from dying.
“Ambrosio Ariza He was a Mexican day laborer who worked in construction and a family man who lived in Yonkers, and although he was an essential worker, he died from COVID after days of intense coughing at home, thinking that he could get better. We cannot allow him to be forgotten,” Francis Mendoza said in the middle of the altar, looking at the photo of his friend. “But it wasn’t just Ambrosio. There were many essential workers who died and although they said they were valuable and heroes, there is not even a count of how many died. They are worth it and we demand that it be revealed how many victims died.”
The request of the immigrant worker and the protesters who raised the so-called altar of justice, not only in New York City but in other parts of the state and in other locations in the country, is part of a national campaign in which requires that localities prepare a report that brings to light the impact they suffered from the pandemic. It is estimated that of the more than 80,000 deaths due to coronaviruses that have been recorded throughout New York, of which 45,586 have been reported in the five boroughs, a good part are workers who in the darkest days of COVID took to the streets, being vital to the functioning of the Big Apple.
A foundation to promote protections
Jorge Torresdirector of campaign strategies of the National Network of Day Laborers and Day Laborers, urged the Administration of the alcalde, Eric Adams to create a report that shows with figures the deaths of essential workers not only so that their value is recognized but so that these data serve as a basis to create and promote greater protections and support programs for vulnerable communities, families of the deceased and the working class.
“The demand we make is that the City takes responsibility, and finally tells us how many essential workers died, because we know that the statistics basically serve to distribute more funds for workers, for undocumented families and for our communities, and when the statistics are not there, they leave us without resources and it is not known what the funds are intended for,” said the community leader. “There is not even an estimate of how many workers died locally, and it is a right to know, especially when we know that Latinos and immigrant workers bore the brunt.”
Come on Flores, community leader, attacked national and local policies and demanded that in addition to revealing the figures on workers who died in the pandemic, more resources be allocated to support programs.
“This is a space in which we want to remember all those who have died because their struggle and their death cannot be in vain and while this Government continues to send millions to Israel to kill Palestinian people and continues to spend money on the wall in the border and in arms, they continue to take away from us workers the right to have dignified lives,” commented the young woman. “Our lives are also valuable. “They must stop exploiting us and give us our value.”
Nadia Marin Molinafrom the National Network of Day Laborers, demanded that the page not be turned and the lives that were lost be ignored.
Essential workers demand to know how many of theirs died in the pandemic. Photo Edwin Martinez
“Those of us who are here are remembering those who are no longer with us and we want to tell both Biden and Mayor Adams that workers cannot be forgotten, especially when they told us that we were essential,” said the activist. “They sacrificed a generation and We are not going to allow these workers to be erased from history. and they need to give us the numbers of the dead because they haven’t even bothered to count them.”
Maria Lopezwho lost her husband in the midst of the pandemic, who worked as a food deliveryman after losing his job in 2020, regretted that until now there are no figures or data that can better depict the tragedy that families like his experienced.
“It is painful for me to know that my husband and many of my neighbors died while working and other people were sheltering safely in their homes. My husband is no longer here and my children are left without a father and it seems that no one, not the president, not the mayor, not anyone cares,” commented the Mexican mother.
The immigrant, who has lived in the Big Apple for 12 years, added that if New York City conducted a survey or study to determine how many people like her husband died while being essential, tribute could be paid to them and in the process it could serve to demand relief.
“I remember that the state provided some funds for the excluded, but many of us did not have access to those monies that, although they did not return my husband, would help us have a calmer and more bearable life. I want them to count them all, just as they did with the old people who died in the nursing homes, because they told us that they were heroes and now they are ghosts,” the woman warned sadly.
The Adams Administration He did not issue any comment on the protesters’ call, ensuring that it appears to be another call for President Biden’s Administration, and after the altar was raised next to the Mayor’s Office, minutes later, it was removed by a group of cleaning staff from the Municipal Administration.
Rosa Garcia during the installation of the Day of the Dead altarCredit: Edwin Martinez | Impremedia
The Governor Hochul’s Officefor his part, assured that he will comment on the clamor of the protesters, who at the end of the small ritual they carried out with the altar of Justice, held a kind of procession in the City Hall park, carrying images of death and chanting phrases remembering those who died in the midst of the pandemic.
In the five boroughs, although thousands of workers lost their jobs or stopped working, thousands of others, many of them undocumented and immigrants, joined different jobs, which allowed the city not to collapse.
2023-11-02 10:00:00
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