Invisible Heroes: Undocumented Immigrant Essential Workers

Amid the pandemic, governors across the nation urged their residents to stay at home, except those whose jobs were declared as "essential," to slow down the spread of coronavirus. Among those essential workers are approximately 6 million immigrants at the front line, helping us stay at home, safe and fed. However, some immigrants, especially the undocumented, have been excluded from the safety-net benefits. Banning some immigrants from our safety net stems from a deeply rooted issue that has been present in our country for decades because undocumented immigrant labor often goes unseen. So far, we appreciate doctors, nurses, and first responders for their hard work and sacrifice; that is why we call them heroes. But we forget that we still have food on our table because many undocumented immigrants had the necessity and responsibility to go to work. We are taking advantage of their desperation so we can stay at home safely, but because they are undocumented, they are the invisible. In this presentation, I will argue that immigrants' exploitation is a systematic issue because our nation has failed to honor the dignity of immigrant labor for hundreds of years. 

Speaker: Elizabeth Vargas, Social Work ‘21 

Elizabeth was born and raised in a small village in the central region of Mexico. In 2003, at the age of fifteen, Elizabeth and her family moved to Riverside, California, where she attended high school and graduated in three years. She is the first one in her family to graduate from high school and pursue higher education. She is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Social Work. Her goal is to continue on the educational path to obtain her master’s degree, which will help her to assist better the most vulnerable population, especially the Latinx community, because as an immigrant she understands the challenges an immigrant faces in the United States.