Here & Now

Welcome to "Noon Wednesday." I'm Marisa Wojcik, multimedia journalist with "Here & Now" on PBS Wisconsin. Today is July 8. Amid the protests and pandemic, the Latino community is asking for equality and justice as well. But what does that look like within a movement called Black Lives Matter? Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Executive Director of Voces de la Frontera, joins us today to talk about the significance of what some are calling Black and Brown Lives Matter. And Christine, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, it's my pleasure. I wanna start, has the Latino and immigrant community joined the Black Lives Matter protests? Absolutely, and we have been part of this movement from its inception. I think what we're seeing now is obviously just a historic upsurge that is very much challenging, not just police brutality, but also institutionalized racism and inequality in terms of economically, and across the board. And that it's really, there's a fierceness and a scale to it to really stand up against racism. So I think it's a very historic turning point. But we have been there part of that effort from its very beginning when it was coined Black Lives Matter. Why is that important to you kind of knowing this combination of people coming together under one big movement? It's critical because our struggle for justice is absolutely connected with the need to really link our struggles. And for the Latino community and the Black community, so much of what we experience is similar, different, but largely similar. Similar in terms of in the present, issues around police accountability. For example, we have been supporting Joel Acevedo's family, who is a Puerto Rican young man in his 40s, who very similar to George Floyd, was murdered by an off-duty police officer at a party through a choke hold that lasted 10 minutes. And the family has really had to lean into the community, this community-wide effort to really hold accountable the police chief for not immediately dismissing him. This officer, Mattioli, was found to have committed homicide and the family is seeking justice with not just in terms of that this police officer face, have to be fired and face justice. The other piece is also that the police chief also should be fired and as well as the other officers that were there standing by, in one case, like holding down his legs, that they also face criminal charges. And so, this effort is really something that has been very directly linked. So we had the attorney of George Floyd come to the steps of the Milwaukee County Courthouse to support this, because they see that each and every one of these local battles are critical to changing these institutions and this culture that is complacent. And not just complacent, but is actively leading to people being murdered simply for who they are. And so, there's a real connection, a very, very explicit connection. I would say also around the pandemic as it relates to essential worker rights. We recently did an action to condemn Vos trying to scapegoat immigrants for the pandemic. And we did it with a name of and with family and coworkers of two workers, one who died in Echo Lakes in Burlington, which is the district that Vos represents, he's a Latino. And then one with an African-American young father who died at Briggs & Stratton in Milwaukee County. And carrying wreaths and pictures both to the companies who have refused to pay for paid sick days. And in both of those cases, those men who died of COVID-19, died because these very large corporations are exempt and are refusing to pay for paid sick days for people who either not enough, or are simply not paying because they're not obligated under the Federal Care Act. And so this problem is not going to go away, and it's disproportionately affecting Black and Latino workers as well, given the nature of the job. For example, here in Wisconsin, while Latinos represent 7% of the population, 40% of the people affected by COVID-19 are Latino. For African-Americans, they are 6% of the population, yet 25% are dying once they get COVID-19. And I wanna get to the pandemic and COVID-19 in just a minute, but I wanna ask you, is it difficult to always combine Black and Brown communities together when their histories are different, and some of their modern day struggles are different? I think some of the challenges have to do with the fact that there's such an intentional effort to also pit one group against the other. And that is how so much of the inequality and racial economic and racial inequality have been cemented and upheld. So for example, you have this one very wealthy family called Eli, or one of the Eli family members, I should say, 'cause some are actually putting resources into greater democratic participation. But some are like putting money into nationally buying these very divisive advertisements and commercials. So here in Wisconsin, for example, for the last, in 2018 for the governor's race, you had commercials that were being run on Black radio saying how Democrats just want to take down walls and have people take your job. And on the other side, you have these very divisive... So there's such an intentionality of trying to pit people against each other that have so much in common. And I'm very proud of the progress that has been done. I think people do have to come together as a group. That's why you have certain voices, right? Like you have the women's movement, disability rights. You have different voices that have to be in leadership from direct experience to really speak to the needs that are out there and the reality, and to press hard for change. But it is also, our struggles are so common and so linked. And even the history of the experience of Black and Latino people is a product of colonialism. The folks who were brought from Africa who were then enslaved, and then from Latin America, here, the people who were and the Indigenous community that were also colonized then pushed off their land. And then as part of racism being used to really create cheap labor and be able to pit workers against each other. So it's a strategy that has been around for a really long time. And I think it's important to make sure that there's space for people to put their demands up. But if we don't link together our struggles, we won't have the power to achieve the changes that we need. Are there issues affecting the Latino and immigrant community that they are bringing to the table when they come to these protests, but maybe aren't, the message isn't getting out because it's been mostly around the Black Lives Matter specific movement? I think right now our participation has really been to really lift up the value of Black lives, and to really give space and voice for that and to really lift up. In our case, for example, we have a very multiracial youth arm called Youth Empowered in the Struggle. So that in Racine, the event that we organized, a 200-car caravan, that it did also bring in the voices of... So it was very much about Black families who had been impacted by police brutality, and lack of accountability. But it also did bring in also some of the voices of Latinos who have also been impacted. But I think that's one of things that I find very inspirational has been the linking of these struggles. So for me, I was very proud to see, like as part of this car caravan, you had some Mexican flags (laughs) out there. And I think part of the immigrant rights movement has had very strong support from Black political leaders, from the churches, from the community itself, from organizations, because there is this understanding that these struggles are linked. So, for example, in our fight against 287G, when then former Sheriff Clarke wanted to bring that to Milwaukee County with strong support from Black political leaders, organizations. And we saw that this problem of mass incarceration and mass detention, that these for-profit private prisons that are really pushing for policies that criminalize and hold people in there longer, hold children in there. There's money, there's money that's being made. And so, being able to... There's an understanding that this is also part of what's linking our struggles. And every time we make progress in one area, it means we're getting to a better place for everybody. So like a lot of these anti-immigrant laws, they've also legalized racial profiling. So that's another piece that automatically you don't have to be immigrant. If you're a person of color, you're basically, each of these laws is eroding the gains of the civil rights movement, and promoting this kind of culture of division and harassment. So issues like workers' rights, you mentioned access to healthcare, within the protests they're being brought to light. But they're also realities that the pandemic has shown us. Why is the Latino community experiencing higher rates of COVID-19? Very high numbers of Latino workers are not able to work remotely from home. So they are definitely on the front lines of essential work. Many of the cases that we started to engage in as of mid-April, now it's way over 15 cases, disproportionately, this was during the Safer at Home order, were in the food industry. So the first two being like meat packing at JBS and American Foods in Green Bay. And you have really high numbers of Latinos who are working in these, especially food industry, and these plants where the air is not being circulated because it's like, you don't have a lot of fresh air circulating where people were not being provided what you need to stop the spread and exposure. So people working shoulder to shoulder for long hours, very hard physical work. And the fact that you don't have, in all of these places which are now over 15 that we've put in formal complaints with OSHA and the Health Department, you see it over and over again that the failure to provide masks, to provide physical distancing. A big, big shift for resistance to that which is critical. And the need to have policies that don't punish workers with like a point system or losing your job if you need to take sick days. And on the contrary, really having strong policies of non-retaliation for expressing concerns, and offering paid sick days. Like I said, if you're in a private company with less than 500, or a public, or you work for a public sector, the federal CARE program, which will soon expire, is provided, said you had to provide this as a way to prevent exposure, to really drive this problem down. But it exempted the largest corporations. And that's what we're seeing, and especially with these two recent deaths, that it was inadequate at Briggs, and it doesn't exist at Echo Lakes. And so, that is we see that over and over again, that economic necessity forces people, and in many cases, people just get sick and obviously you have the more extreme cases where someone passes. But that economic necessity is a key driver of why people continue to work when they should be either quarantined 'cause they're COVID-19, or because they have been exposed. I would say also I was very, very disappointed in the recent decision by the Health Department here in Wisconsin. As part of this complaint, we've been finding complaints with them on an ongoing basis and with OSHA, and then encouraging people to go public. They decided to not announce just shortly that they don't wanna make public the information about workplace deaths, or who's been exposed. And it's one of the things that we brought to them to say we need to make this information, workers need, one of the key components is as soon as someone is sick in a department, you don't need to know their name. But you need to know that that person was positive. You need to know who was exposed so that people can make sure that they don't spread it. So I think that decision, we'll have a meeting coming up with the Health Department and that's definitely on the agenda because it's very disappointing that when you read the news articles, you're seeing, well, they consulted the Grocer's Association and other employer associations. This has to be provided, there has to be public support, federal and state, for paid sick days and then access to information. We've seen too many times that information is being manipulated, and people are being told, oh, by the way, you're COVID-19, five minutes before clocking out. Or people who have been exposed are not being told. Given that we have had enough time and data to show some of these trends, what is the reasoning that you are hearing back when you bring these complaints to the table? The law doesn't require it. I hold up some good examples, and there are employers that are doing a good job. But I'm glad out of this process, we're obviously we're getting people approaching us because they're afraid, and we're able to do this anonymously, too. But the public part in speaking out is undoubtedly extremely important. But I would say the big thing is is that they're just not obligated. However, I will say, like, for example with JBS and American Foods in Green Bay, just specifically those, that we're very pleased that they decided to offer paid sick days. Now, the law would not have required them to, but they went ahead and did. And they did meet the other demands that were necessary to stop what, at one point had been, represented in Brown County out of those two plants, 40% of Wisconsin's positive cases. So workplaces can be a problem or they can be a solution. And they have to be a solution. But this I would say, yes. How it should be is that these should be required. And they should have, if a company has the means, they should have the means, they should be required to help workers during this time and their families. And then, of course, we need for the federal government to do more. And if not at the state level, and no one should be excluded. Most people probably know, but immigrants, for example, are excluded from unemployment, though they contribute to it from their payroll. Most, or not all of them, don't have access to unemployment. And through this federal program, not only do you not have access to the cash support, if you have, especially for many who are in the restaurant industry, were not able to work. They also have not, if you're in a mixed immigration status family, even if your spouse and your children are US citizens and one member of that family files their taxes with an individual tax identification number, which is how undocumented workers are required to file, report their taxes. Then the whole family is denied. So it's a blatant discrimination. The only thing that that does, especially during a pandemic, is means that you're putting everybody at risk because people are gonna be forced to work. Or they're even like tests. In some cases, we're having to do a lot education so people know you shouldn't have to pay for this test. Places like Milwaukee, you can easily get a test now, thank goodness. It's a wonderful thing. But in other places, it's very limited and many people have been told they have to pay for it. In Wisconsin, the Latino community has, the population has grown a lot in the last 15 to 20 years. And some political pundits are saying this is gonna be a huge voting bloc in the November elections. How do you see all of these things contributing to how people are showing up at the ballot box in November? For VOCES, we really wanna make sure that people know these problems that they're dealing with. For example, our emergency fund for families that are completely cut out of any kind of support. You have a lot of single moms with children suffering. Or, with these workers who have lost someone, or have gotten sick or had the threat of it. They have to know that there are, these are policies that matter when election time comes. That whether it's a federal level or a state or local level, it's important to be informed about where these candidates stand on the issues that we care about. Such as paid sick days. Such as not excluding anyone. Such as making sure large multinational companies contribute, pay, pay for, and just the dignity, the dignity of the lives of people. So, that's why I mean, what we're doing is we've created a network called Voceros Por El Voto. And vocero means someone who will create a list, a network of people that they know, family and friends, who are eligible to vote even if they are not. So, for example, with the DACA decision recently. While DACA, there's 6,000 DACA recipients in Wisconsin, while they may not be eligible to vote, they have family, friends, employers who love them, who recognize, see their journey and can vote on their behalf. And so, it's really about what we have found is that that's the most effective way, especially for the Latino community, to turn out. That they have, that we have a kind of network system where people that they know, that they trust, are able to share the information about where the candidates stand on the issues we care about, and the information. Right now, we're really pushing for helping people vote early and vote from home. So the registration process. The Latino community is a decisive voting bloc in this election. It's really kind of astounding to me, even when, I've not been doing this since 2004 when we started doing electoral work. But, just the undocumented, well, I'd say largely Latinos who are turning 18 eligible to vote in November for the first time is more than 23,000 votes. That's Trump's margin of victory in Wisconsin in 2016. Just that, that means they're not even on the voter... All right, well, unfortunately, we lost Christine. But we will have to end it there. And we thank Christine so much for joining us. For more from "Here & Now" and PBS Wisconsin, you can join us at pbswisconsin.org. And thank you so much for joining us on "Noon Wednesday."