Oxnard, CA: Hard-work & Defeat
Oxnard, CA — a city attached to many positive characteristics and words that describe it. Oxnard,CA — known for the beach, good weather, strawberries and it’s latin people. Oxnard, CA — the place I’ve called home for 22 years. Oxnard is primarily comprised of Latinos of lower to middle class who migrated to this city because of its opportunities in agriculture.
I owe a lot of my confidence to my community for making me feel as though the color of my skin is merely a small factor of who I am. I am more than my brown skin and most of my peers will say the same. Although my community is known to be very hard-working, the let down of feeling like we’re at the bottom of the totem poll never fails. Most people who live in Oxnard — South, Oxnard, to be specific, are undocumented therefore causing the pandemic to hit extra hard in the city.
Agriculture workers must go to work during the rain, during the heat and unfortunately during the deadly pandemic. A sense of defeat is in the air in such a beautiful place I call home. Defeat, when thousand of citizens crowd testing cites, most of which don’t even have health insurance.
COVID-19 has definitely caused tension in this community as everyone is trying to protect themselves and their families. Concerns lie within some families who do not have health insurance because it does not fit their budgets or aren’t provided by their jobs. If COVID-19 hits these families, it can be a hard thing to move past. I would like to know more about how the community is staying safe, although they have to go to work, because life does not stop and bills do not come to a halt.
Most people in the Ventura County area follow news through publications like VC Star where most local news is covered. But, does VC Star target their news on families in need? Undocumented families who are still doing their manual labor through these tough times? Many farm-workers are seeing the vaccine as a life line that will protect them because their employers do not, this is something that should be covered across all news papers in the area.
Oxnard is known for its hard-workers, but what about when these hard-workers are facing defeat? Who will cover their stories, then? A chance to be covered and to be able to shed light on stories of families across Oxnard may help them get the financial help they need, especially during this pandemic.