A Note from the Editor

An Indiscriminate Virus in a Nation Divided

By Ricardo Sandoval-Palos

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, I’d been describing a recurring nightmare to anyone who’d listen: In a dystopian future, the United States has slipped into cruel classism that undermines our democracy.

I call this nightmare the American apartheid: a country effectively divided by race and by class, where lower-income masses toil in service of a small, powerful upper caste. All this while E Pluribus Unum remains our national motto, still stamped on our dollar bills.

OK, I know apartheid was the singular oppression of a large population by an abusive ruling minority in South Africa. But in my vision, our apartheid is just as insidious. It’s sneaky though. It’s unofficial, and with passive-aggressive American undertones: There’s justice for all, but better justice for elites who pay lawyers to grease the wheels of the system. And, while most of us pay large premiums for bare-bones medical care, the 1% have the best doctors and drugs on speed-dial.

Today, as the nation hibernates in hopes of slowing the coronavirus, we are, indeed, all in this together. Only it feels like most of us are huddled in steerage, while the wealthy are comfortable up in first class, already with dibs on the lifeboats.

In the horror show we’re living through, the COVID-19 pandemic is widening our civic divides.

The coronavirus has so far proven to be indiscriminate. Rural hamlets and big cities have been hit. Paupers and princes alike are infected, as are janitors and prime ministers. The tragic difference is a more adverse impact on communities already vulnerable before the first deaths were reported in Washington state.

Millions have since lost jobs and businesses at a rate not seen since the Great Depression. But as stimulus checks and business bailouts start to go out, it is clear that many immigrants who’ve long done the dirtiest jobs, for the lowest salaries, won’t share in the government’s promised rescue.

In a real democracy, a crisis would be met with a response based on thoughtful equality.

This is where palabra. comes in. We can tap a network of freelance and independent journalists -- members of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists -- who can reach people forgotten by the government and a society more worried about the toilet paper supply. We have the cultural empathy, the language skills and community connections that enable us to tell their stories.

That's what we will do as this pandemic deepens around us. Today we feature stories from where the U.S. outbreak began, in western Washington state. We are in New Jersey meeting the distraught owner of a crippled family restaurant. And, via the Internet, we’re even in Hollywood, where creators of the hit Netflix show, “Gentefied,” talk about streaming success in the time of quarantine, and of a new wave of Latinos in front of, and behind, the cameras.

Journalists Jason Buch, Monica Castillo, Andra Arzaba and Cora Cervantes, and photographer Jovelle Tamayo and video storyteller Jorge Melchor, introduce us to real people working through fear and uncertainty.

In the coming weeks, palabra. reporters will add insight into the new lives of U.S. and Latin American citizens living in Europe’s COVID-19 hot spots, displaced university students, and immigrants with no official access to public health. We will also provide space for personal accounts of first responders, essential workers and healthcare professionals in a Diary of a Pandemic.

The coronavirus is moving faster than our response. It has infected and claimed colleagues and family. So, please stay safe out there. But as journalists we now have a responsibility to chronicle a diverse nation in crisis. If you’re a freelance writer or audio or visual journalist, and an NAHJ member, tell us about the people you know who must be made visible, who must have an equal voice.

-- Ricardo Sandoval-Palos, @RicSand