How Covid-19 is destroying working-class, Latinx Communities in the Coachella Valley / Riverside County:

(Yes, I even made a graphic because I'm pissed.)

1/7

Mostly white / affluent cities:

Palm Springs (48,000 people - 24% Latinx) - 259 cases
La Quinta (41,000 people - 78% white) - 237 cases
City of Indian Wells (5,400 people -95% white) - 17 cases

2/7

Predominantly Latinx cities (Lots of service industry workers -waiters, housekeepers, cooks, bartenders, etc):

Cathedral City, (54,000 people - 60% Latinx) - 518 cases
Coachella, (45,000 people - 96% Latinx) - 956 cases.
Indio, (91,000 people - 67% Latinx) - 1,129 cases.

3/7

Imagine being a Latinx immigrant that works as a waiter at a fancy restaurant in Palm Springs. You're assigned tables w/ non-masking tourists from OC. You can't enforce city code because they'll likely spit in your face w/ anger. And you'd forego tips to support your family

4/7

The restaurant owner is lax and wants to salvage business - so they let it slide. The county Sheriff, Chad Bianco, is going viral on Fox News refusing to wear a mask around concerned citizens at Riverside County meetings and refusing to enforce shelter-in-place policies.

5/7

The CA Senator in your district, @senatormelendez, is a raging bigot who tweets about tax dollars going to "illegal immigrants". The county just increased funding for the Sheriff and decreased funding for Hospital and Health Services. The President ...(I'll stop there).

6/7

What do you do? You smile and and say, "How can I help you?" ... You go home to your family with a pit of anxiety in your stomach, feeling powerlessness in a new but familiar way.

7/7

CC: @MyDesert @latimes @nytimes @ShawnHubler @thomasfullerNYT @singhvianjali @ItsCactusHugs @bdelossantos1