Sacrificing for Next Generation!

Mrs. Singh is a 63-year-old, who doesn’t speak English and doesn’t own a smartphone, and is a line worker handling chicken parts at one of the meat-packing plants in USA. She had tested positive for the coronavirus, but she continues to go for work, where she might spread the infection to others.

Ever since she had COVID, she has felt fatigued and not able to stand for the long hours required by the job. She also has chronic neck and back pain after years of factory labor. Though her “bones hurt” now, she hid the pain from her supervisor out of fear that she might be fired. Why is she suffering like this in a place hundreds of thousands kilometers away, migrating long distances from her home country?

Though Mrs. Singh hails from India, her current work place is in a meat-processing plant in California’s San Joaquin Valley, USA. She is among the more than 400 employees at the plant who were diagnosed with COVID-19 last year, and one of about 90,000 cases linked to food-production facilities and farm work.

 

These farm workers suffer from disparities, including discrimination, low wages, limited labor protections, and inadequate access to health care, affordable housing and education. Most of them were born outside the United States, and many lack legal residency, with limited access to social services, such as unemployment benefits or health care, despite paying taxes. They live in fear and far below the poverty line. 

Why has Mrs. Singh and many other migrants like her have chosen to sacrifice their lives to endure from severe irreversible physical and mental damage that last a lifetime?

The answer lies in the fact that her son is now a medical student pursuing a dual degree at one of the leading public-health schools in the United States!

Read all about the catastrophic effects of the pandemic on one of the most affluent countries of the world:

https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-021-00943-x/