By Maribel Hernandez and Reyna Alvarez
Like most of our coworkers, we spend about five months every year peeling crawfish in Louisiana. The majority of us are single mothers from northern Mexico on H-2B guestworker visas. And although we were living a couple of rooms apart and working shoulder to shoulder, we barely knew each other. But when we got sick after a COVID-19 outbreak struck our workplace, we became each other’s rocks. We managed to pick each other up and went to the hospital together. Then, our employer fired us and reported us to immigration authorities.
When we arrived in Louisiana, COVID-19 wasn't even a rumor. In March, our family members started warning us about the pandemic. That’s when our employer said he wouldn’t take care of any expenses if we got sick. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was not doing workplace or housing inspections; an outbreak was more than predictable. We were working so close to one another that our elbows would touch. We shared a house with around 40 coworkers. Bedrooms were so crowded, we could hardly move around crammed suitcases and bunk beds. Our main fear was financial. If we got sick, we wouldn’t be able to work. If we had to get treated at the hospital, how would we pay the bills?
By late April, we learned that our colleague and housemate was sick with COVID-19. Everyone started panicking. But leaving was not an option; we rented our house from our employer and our visas tied us to the company, so quitting meant losing our immigration status and becoming homeless.