New America
New America CA

Latinx Economic Resilience During and After COVID

Latinx leaders outline an equity agenda for tumultuous times
Blog Post
By 

Lili Gangas

July 23, 2020

The Latinx community has been the backbone of the US economy and is projected to be the largest driver of its growth over the coming decade. During this pandemic many Latinx workers have been shown to be even more critical in our most-needed sectors; Latinx represent the majority of essential workers, from farm fields to grocery stores to delivery jobs to education and caretaking. While we might applaud their contributions during this crisis, for many, showing up to work was not a choice.

The fact that so many essential workers are Latinx is taking a toll during the pandemic. In California, where Latinx represent 39% of the population, they also represent 55% of the COVID-19 cases. For those working on the ground on equity issues, the disparities impacting Latinx with respect to occupations, wages, housing, healthcare, immigration, and education are not new. However with COVID-19 the stakes and consequences without intervention are deadlier. So what do we do in times of crisis?

New America CA, Kapor Center, and Google.org recently partnered on a webinar series to deep-dive on what we can do to move forward. Focusing on key issues disproportionately impacting Latinx communities during the pandemic, we curated a space for Latinx to unite, address challenges, and uplift the community with a path-forward agenda. (You can find recordings of the events here and here.)

Many of our panelists expressed the pain of losing family members themselves while still needing to show up to do the needed work at their respective organizations. This same resilience is what the broader Latinx community across the US has been undergoing rather quietly — narratives of sacrifice untold. Our panelists came to ring the alarm about the disproportionality of the pandemic’s impact on Latinx communities, but also stressed the need to uplift the stories of resilience, creativity, and hope that are needed to craft a new path forward. These cross-sector Latinx leaders included:

The webinars were moderated by myself (Lili Gangas, Chief Technology Community Officer, Kapor Center), and Hector Mujica (Jobs and Skills Lead, Americas, Google.org) in partnership with Cecilia Muñoz (Vice President, Local Initiatives, New America and Former Director of the Domestic Policy Council, Obama White House.)

Our panelists discussed a longer-term agenda for investing in Latinx communities, including:

  1. Empower and invest in Latinx workforce development, Latinx issue-centered nonprofits, and Latinx businesses at significant new levels.
  2. Close the “Digital Disconnection” impacting millions of Latinx, not only by providing high speed broadband and devices but also creating pathways for digital upskilling that will lead to better-paying jobs. We need to rethink the training and jobs of the future.
  3. Be in solidarity with Black and Afro-Latinx communities in uplifting the need to end anti-blackness and multi-generational racism, while also building multicultural alliances.
  4. Lead with values of resilience, creativity, and inclusion knowing that we belong, that we are home and that we need to build forward with the understanding of what our ancestors sacrificed.
  5. Push for public and private sector collaboration centered on solidarity economics, where the key value is mutuality. COVID-19 has shown that without a robust public sector, a robust private sector cannot exist.
  6. Be counted by the Census without fear.
  7. Show up louder than ever before this November on election day.

We have the opportunity to reimagine our systems and reset our social constructs — in everything from universal healthcare to universal basic income to universal high speed broadband — to create an inclusive innovation economy. We owe it to our next generation of talent, which is majority Black and Latinx, to help change the current course. Given the cross-cutting role technology has played in this COVID-19, digital-first world, we will do this reimagining together at this year’s Latinx in Tech Summit (LTX Fest 2020)— the largest summit of its kind in the U.S. We need Latinx of all generations, skills, and zip codes to be at the forefront of this discussion. We need to show up and build forward, mas unidos than ever.

To learn more about some of the resources discussed in our series, including work being done by our panelists, check out the following: