East of Los Angeles
For a year, the twins of 13 years old Ariel Jr. and Abraham Osorio connect to their classes online from their parents’ flower shop.
Ariel sits in a corner among flowers, bows and stuffed animals; meanwhile, Abraham settles down at a small table in the back, where his father used to work cutting flowers and keeping accounts.
It is not the best place to learn. Is noisy. It is narrow. It’s full of people. Still, when the twins’ mother, Graciela Osorio, was presented with the opportunity to send her children back to Brightwood Elementary School in Monterey Park, California, she decided against it.
“After what we have been through with their father, I prefer to have them at home, where I know they are safe,” said Graciela, from 51 years. “There is only one month left. It doesn’t make sense that they come back for such a short time. ”
The children’s father, Ariel Osorio Sr., who also had 50 years, died of COVID – 19 in January, four weeks after a trip to Mexico to visit his mother. He quickly fell ill and was unable to say goodbye to his children.
“I miss his presence,” said Abraham. “I was used to seeing him sitting in his chair working, but he’s gone.”
COVID – 19 has disproportionately affected Latinos and many families choose not to participate in in-person learning.
In California, Latinos are the 39% of the state’s population, but they represent the 47% of coronavirus deaths, according to the state Department of Public Health. Nationally, your risk of dying from COVID – 19 is 2.3 times higher than non-Hispanic whites.
Latinos are vulnerable to the highly communicable coronavirus because they are more likely than non-Hispanic whites to perform essential jobs that expose them to the public, said David Hayes-Bautista, a UCLA professor of public health and medicine and co-author of a study in January on this topic.
They are more likely to be uninsured, which you can do do not seek medical attention, he noted. And they are more likely to live in multigenerational households, which means that the virus can spread quickly and easily within families.
“Many are essential workers and breadwinners for their families and not they can afford to work from home, to physically distance themselves and to isolate themselves, ”explained Alberto González, a health strategist for UnidosUS, an advocacy organization for the Latino community in Washington, DC
The Osorio family has lived in a multigenerational home since Ariel’s death, and when deciding whether or not to send her children back to the classroom, Graciela had to take the other members of the family into account.
In February, Graciela and the twins moved in with their 74 year old mother, Cleotilde Servin , in East Los Angeles; 05 people now share the house of about 1 , 05 square feet, and each Tomorrow they crowd into the kitchen.
Graciela’s mother and the other adults in the house have been vaccinated, but the children have not. Although he forces his children to wear masks and does not allow them to visit their friends, he is terrified that his children will catch the virus at school and bring it home.
” My mother is active and takes vitamins, but it worries me, ”said Graciela. Her husband gave her COVID and she passed it on to her sister and niece. “I don’t want anyone else to get sick,” he added.
State and local education officials do not have recent data on face-to-face attendance by race, but an EdSource analysis of the data from the California Department of Public Health in February, shows that more non-Hispanic white students were likely to attend school in person than other students.
The analysis showed that the 12% of Latinos attended classes in person sometimes, in compared to 32% of non-Hispanic whites and 18% of all students.
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest in the country, serves more than 600, students and reopened to offer face-to-face classes in mid April.
Only a few centers opened, in mostly elementary schools, and they operate with hybrid schedules, combining in-person classes with distance learning.
“We have improved the air filtration systems in all classrooms, reconfigured the facilities schools to maintain proper distances, doubled support staff, and provide weekly COVID testing at school for students and staff, ”stated District Superintendent Austin Beutner on 22 March.
In a statement released on May 4, Beutner said that between the 40% and the 50% of primary school students in the “richest” communities have already returned to school; compared to 20% in low-income communities.
“We see the greatest reluctance for children to go back to school in families that live in some of the communities that we serve with the greatest needs,” he said.
Brightwood Elementary School is a facility that goes from elementary to 8th grade, with 870 students of which almost half are Asian-American and the 40% Latinos, said Robby Jung, its director. Only 15% of students have returned to school and about a third of them are Latino.
For the Osorio family, the main reason the eighth grade twins have not returned to Brightwood is fear.
Like many other Latino families — some 28, 000 Latinos have died – 19 in California – suffer the pain and trauma that the disease has caused them, and the fear that it will attack them again.
“The children go to a therapist to deal with the death of their father,” said Graciela. “I know that I should also talk to someone.”
With the memory of her husband’s death so present that she cannot speak of him without crying, Graciela is still adjusting to the burden emotional, and the day to day of having to run a flower shop alone.
Originally from Guerrero, Mexico, she opened Gracy’s flower shop with her husband in 1997. Ariel handled finances at home and at the store, and he was the one who spoke English the best of the two. “Now, being alone with the children, it is more difficult to do everything,” she said.
During the confinement, the children went to the store with their parents. Her husband sat with her children while they took online classes, helped them with homework and was the main contact with the school.
“They were always with us,” Graciela said.
“They grew up in the flower shop, so they had no problem setting up their school tables there.”
Brightwood reopened on hours a day, and the rest of the sessions online. But for Graciela that schedule does not work with her work obligations.
“I would have to take them to school, pick them up for lunch and then bring them back,” she explained.
“I can not do this. I have to work”.
But above all, she keeps them out of school because you want to lose another member of your family. He knows that virtual classes are not the same as teaching in person, “but they have maintained his grades,” he said. “I thank God for having good children. They listen to me. They understand why I left them at home. ”
The last day of class is 28 of May. Ariel and Abraham said they are looking forward to starting high school in the fall. Still emotionally charged by the death of the father, the children, who are shy and reserved by nature, are not clear if they would like to go back to school in person or continue their classes online.
“We may return,” said Abraham. “For now, we keep each other company.”