In her exhibition at San Francisco’s Institute of Contemporary Art, artist Suchitra Mattai explores her own immigration story and those of her ancestors.

When people leave their home countries, Mattai said, they can carry only so many physical possessions. That makes their memories all the more precious as ties to their past lives. In recalling them, their identities clarify and are reinforced, but they can also shift, thanks to the fragility and malleability of the mind.

Those are the concepts that Mattai aims to capture in her art installation, “memory palace,” part or her larger exhibition, “she walked in reverse and found their songs,” her latest in a line of work that examines colonialism. Visitors can view Mattai’s installation for free through Sept. 15 at the museum, located at 901 Minnesota St., in the Dogpatch neighborhood.

The installation reflects the impermanence of memory, with recognizable as well as abstract, dreamlike elements: furniture that might be found in a living room, large balls of twisted colorful textiles, and videos of the Atlantic Ocean that Mattai shot on a trip tracing her ancestors’ journey. They were indentured laborers forced to travel from India to Guyana, South America, to work on sugar plantations.

“I wanted it to be the domestic space that then became inhabited with these strange sculptures and creatures, because the space of memory is ephemeral,” she said. “It’s always changing. It’s transformative, and that interior space allows for all of this to happen, so it’s a space of fantasy or myth.”

Reporter Emily Wilson interviewed artist Suchitra Mattai on her podcast, “Art is Awesome,” which airs on KSFP 102.5 FM and streams at KSFP.fm Fridays at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. Click the audio player above to listen.

The name “memory palace” refers to a mnemonic device by which someone imagines a location and places objects or information there, then revisits it later to recall those things. Mattai heard about the technique when getting her Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing at the University of Pennsylvania, and it intrigued her.

The exhibition is a sort of maximalist explosion of color. All the art pieces are fabric, from two-dimensional works that resemble paintings to a recreation of the house where she was born.

Called “Pappy’s house,” it represents the home as a single repository for remembrances, as a counterpoint to “memory palace,” which depicts the assemblage of things and thoughts that inhabit a living space. “Pappy’s house” is an ode to where her grandparents lived and where the family gather, often for important events like weddings.

“My earliest memories are in that house,” she said. “There’s something about capturing those stories and memories that helps define oneself, so I think making it or a version of it is a way to find something out about oneself.”

“Pappy’s house” is made of used saris, the ornate colorful garments that Indian women traditionally wrap around themselves, as a nod to her ancestors’ roots. It is “woven of memories of India,” she said. Like many houses in Georgetown, Guyana’s capital and chief seaport, this one stood on stilts to avoid flooding, and Mattai’s rendition almost seems to levitate above the ground.

Weaving a floating house of saris is no easy undertaking, and that made it fitting for the Institute of Contemporary Art, which is “dedicated to experimenting in public,” according to its website. Director Ali Gass encourages artists to try something they’ve always wanted to do, and that will push their craft to the next level. The ICA opened in October 2022 with a show by queer indigenous artist Jeffrey Gibson, who removed part of the floor to reveal the soil underneath as a way of honoring the land. And artist Patrick Martinez earlier this year had a sculptural installation that he called “a painting you could walk around.” Martinez is known for multimedia landscapes of Los Angeles using neon, spray paint and iron safety bars.

On the exhibition’s opening day, Mattai said she was thrilled by how it had turned out.

“I’m elated to see it all together and the way Ali’s curated it. I think that when you’re working on such a scale, you don’t know if it’s all going to work, right?” she said.

“We’re making the tapestries and wondering, ‘Are they all going to fit? Is [“Pappy’s house”] going to float in the way that I want?’ There are all these unknowns and things that are beyond your control,” she said. “Right now, I’m seeing the show as a whole for the first time and seeing all the parts feed into this idea of the “memory palace” and about the way memory functions in our creation of self, and I’m just so excited to see it all.”

The post Artist’s Show Weaves Together Memories and Immigration Stories appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

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Cuando Karen Rodríguez llegó a San Francisco tras huir de su país natal, Colombia, con su marido y su hijo de 6 años, Juan, la familia se alojó con la madrina de su hijo. Sin embargo, cuando tuvieron que marcharse dos meses después porque el contrato de alquiler no permitía alojar a más personas en la vivienda, recurrieron a dormir en el auto que tenían.

Como la familia era recién llegada, Rodríguez y su marido carecían de permiso de trabajo, lo que les dificultaba en gran medida encontrar empleo y poder pagar el alquiler.

Desde entonces, han estado alternando estancias en su coche y en hoteles pagados por el ayuntamiento y Fe en Acción del Área de la Bahía, una red de organizadores comunitarios de varias congregaciones religiosas. Juan tiene necesidades especiales, por lo que un refugio de emergencia sería traumático para él, dijo Rodríguez.

La familia Rodríguez es una de muchas familias de migrantes recientes que buscan refugio y una nueva vida en San Francisco, y que se encuentran en situación de calle sin tener una solución sencilla.

Los proveedores de vivienda en San Francisco, los defensores legales, los grupos religiosos y los propios migrantes advierten que no hay suficientes viviendas temporales como para dar cabida a la creciente necesidad, y que el sistema de respuesta de la ciudad no está equipado para manejar las complicaciones que surgen en la intersección entre la falta de vivienda y la migración. Los proveedores de vivienda afirman también que la ciudad subestima y subrepresenta intencionadamente la necesidad que existe.

Aunque los representantes de la ciudad dijeron que el Departamento de Personas sin Hogar y Vivienda de Apoyo está tomando medidas para reasignar fondos para abrir un refugio para familias y acelerar el ritmo al que las familias salen del refugio y acceden a una vivienda de más largo plazo, no fueron capaces de proporcionar un periodo de tiempo o instrucciones sobre qué deben hacer las familias que duermen en la calle mientras tanto.

Una necesidad profunda y pocos datos

La idea de que no hay suficiente vivienda temporal para estas familias entra en conflicto con el inventario de albergues de la ciudad, el cual es una plataforma en línea que tiende a mostrar un 7% u 8% de las vacantes que hay en los albergues para familias. No obstante, Hope Kamer, directora de política pública y asuntos externos en Compass Family Services, una organización sin fines de lucro que se ocupa de las familias en situación de calle, afirma que esta cifra no es un fiel reflejo de la necesidad que hay.
“Las familias vienen a nuestro punto de acceso a las 4:30 de un viernes y dicen: ‘No tengo dónde ir el fin de semana con mis dos bebés'”, dijo, calificando la necesidad como “profunda”.

A menudo, se rechaza a las familias porque no hay lugares disponibles en los albergues.

Eso fue lo que le ocurrió a Álvaro Tovar, su mujer y sus dos hijos pequeños cuando se presentaron recientemente a un punto de acceso a albergues, donde se evalúa si las familias reúnen los requisitos para recibir servicios, explicó Tovar. El personal le dijo que tardarían dos semanas en inscribirlos en la lista de espera, y más tiempo en conseguir camas. Le aconsejaron que comprara una tienda de campaña para su familia mientras esperaban.

“Eso me rompió el corazón porque, en primer lugar, no teníamos dinero, no conocíamos la ciudad. Perdí toda esperanza”, dijo Tovar en un evento de la comunidad el 7 de marzo que realizó Fe en Acción del Área de la Bahía para llamar la atención sobre la necesidad de refugio para las familias.

Kamer explicó que el refugio en Buena Vista Horace Mann, un gimnasio escolar que funciona como albergue nocturno para familias, recibe hasta 10 llamadas al día de organizaciones comunitarias que buscan camas para familias que no tienen dónde alojarse, muchas de las cuales el albergue no ha podido aceptar.

Laura Valdez, directora ejecutiva de Dolores Street Community Services, la organización sin fines de lucro que gestiona el centro de albergue para familias en Buena Vista Horace Mann, declaró al San Francisco Standard en diciembre pasado que la ciudad instruye a la organización para que no contabilice la cantidad de familias que rechaza.

Emily Cohen, subdirectora de comunicaciones y asuntos legislativos del Departamento de Personas sin Hogar y Vivienda de Apoyo, dijo que no tenía conocimiento de esa instrucción. Más bien, dijo, el departamento quiere que la gente vaya a los puntos de entrada al sistema de respuesta para personas en situación de calle para crear una lista de espera centralizada del albergue.

En los últimos seis meses, esa lista de espera ha tenido constantemente unas 200 familias, dijo Kamer. Explicó que en Buena Vista Horace Mann, el departamento evalúa la ocupación del albergue a las 5 de la tarde, antes de que los papás y mamás hayan regresado de trabajar y, por tanto, subrepresenta la necesidad.

“Esta falta de voluntad para captar la magnitud completa del problema significa que no hay rendición de cuentas ante estas familias y que, a su vez, no hay presión pública para construir la cantidad de albergues que necesitamos”, dijo.

Las mismas familias inmigrantes se han unido para ejercer esa presión. En colaboración con Fe en Acción del Área de la Bahía, las familias han exigido al Departamento de Personas sin Hogar y Vivienda de Apoyo que garantice alojamiento en el mismo día o que se proporcione un vale de hotel a cualquier familia que acuda a un punto de acceso; que acelere la transición del alojamiento de un albergue a una vivienda de largo plazo; y que haga un control en línea que le permita a las familias comprobar qué posición ocupan en la lista de espera de un albergue.

El grupo se reunió frente al ayuntamiento el 12 de marzo, el día en que el supervisor y candidato a alcalde Ahsha Safaí presentó una resolución no vinculante en la que pedía a la alcaldesa London Breed y al Departamento de Personas sin Hogar y Vivienda de Apoyo que respondieran a las necesidades de vivienda de las familias migrantes. La Junta de Supervisores celebrará una audiencia sobre la resolución el 22 de abril, según el personal de Fe en Acción del Área de la Bahía.

Otras barreras para encontrar vivienda segura

Además de la falta de camas en albergues, las familias migrantes se enfrentan a otros problemas cuando intentan navegar el sistema.

“Para muchas familias, el sistema de respuesta para personas en situación de calle en San Francisco es el primer punto de contacto con servicios sociales en Estados Unidos; es más, el sistema carece fundamentalmente de los recursos necesarios para proporcionar la atención informada sobre trauma y la navegación legal que necesita una familia que acaba inmigrar a San Francisco”, dijo Kamer.

Vanessa Bohm es la directora de los programas de Bienestar Familiar y Promoción de la Salud del Centro de Recursos Centroamericano, una organización sin fines de lucro que ayuda a inmigrantes latinx y a las familias con menos recursos del Área de la Bahía de San Francisco. Bohm explicó que hace 15 o 20 años era más fácil que la gente consiguiera hospedaje o trabajo a través de la economía informal o a través de conexiones con personas que conocían en el área. Hoy en día, no está tan segura de que sea así.

Silvia Ramos, gestora de casos y facilitadora de grupos de apoyo para el programa de bienestar familiar del Centro de Recursos Centroamericano, dijo que muchas familias llegan a San Francisco con trauma del viaje que emprendieron y que se sienten desplazadas al entrar en un sistema al que les es difícil adaptarse. Cuando las familias llegan sin ningún lugar donde alojarse y la ciudad no tiene camas disponibles, Ramos busca en albergues en Oakland o en otras ciudades cercanas y le enseña a la gente a utilizar el sistema de transporte rápido del Área de la Bahía (BART).

Muchos proveedores explicaron que navegar estos sistemas puede ser aún más difícil para las personas que no hablan inglés o que proceden de entornos culturales diferentes.

El papel del sistema judicial de migración

A la vez que buscan tener acceso a una vivienda, las familias también deben preocuparse por el proceso de asilo y el tribunal de inmigración. Sin embargo, los proveedores se han dado cuenta que hay una falta de conexión entre los sistemas de respuesta legal y para personas en situación de calle, y los grupos que ofrecen otros recursos como atención médica o alimentos.

“No hay ayuda gubernamental para conectar el sistema de respuesta legal y el sistema de respuesta para personas en situación de calle”, dijo Kamer. “Los proveedores de atención directa están averiguando cómo hacerlo”.

Milli Atkinson, directora del Programa de Defensa Legal para Inmigrantes en el Centro de Justicia y Diversidad del Colegio de Abogados de San Francisco, dijo que los casos de asilo de la mayoría de las personas no se deciden hasta dentro de años y que a menudo se preocupan más por cubrir necesidades inmediatas como la vivienda o la comida.

“Muchas personas se pierden en el sistema, simplemente porque no tienen la capacidad mental de resolver todas estas cosas a la vez, y primero atienden a sus necesidades básicas”, dijo.

Sin embargo, tener representación legal durante el proceso de asilo ayuda a los migrantes a obtener un permiso laboral, lo que les permite ser más autosuficientes.

La inestabilidad de vivienda puede afectar los casos de inmigración de otras maneras. Uno de los mayores obstáculos para las personas en situación de calle, según Atkinson, es que el sistema judicial se basa en gran medida en tener todo por escrito y en papel por lo que la comunicación se realiza principalmente por correo tradicional. La expectativa es que las personas mantengan al tribunal al corriente del cambio de domicilio.

“Si el tribunal te envía por correo información sobre tu caso y no la recibes, es culpa tuya”, explica.

La llegada de migrantes

Los proveedores de vivienda, los defensores legales y el Departamento de Personas sin Hogar y Vivienda de Apoyo contaron como anécdota un aumento en el número de personas que buscan servicios y que huyen de Latinoamérica debido a los disturbios políticos, la pobreza y otros tipos de violencia.

Atkinson dijo que en los últimos años, su organización ha visto un mayor número de migrantes procedentes de países como Nicaragua, Colombia, Perú y Cuba. Como la cantidad de países que viven inestabilidad política en los últimos años ha aumentado, la cantidad de personas que llegan a la frontera también ha incrementado, dijo.

Dado que San Francisco es una ciudad santuario, las preguntas sobre el estatus del migrante o refugiado durante el proceso de entrada coordinada (un sistema que se utiliza para determinar qué recursos se pueden solicitar) son limitadas. Esto dificulta decir qué porcentaje de la reciente oleada de familias que buscan refugio son inmigrantes, dijo Cohen, aunque señaló a forma de anécdota que ha habido más personas de Centro y Sudamérica que llegan en busca de ayuda.

Los datos de la ciudad muestran que la cantidad de hispanohablantes y personas latinx en situación de calle está en aumento. El porcentaje de hispanohablantes en el sistema ONE de la ciudad, que monitorea a las personas que reciben asistencia del Departamento de Personas sin Hogar y Vivienda de Apoyo, aumentó a más de una cuarta parte de la población de personas que reciben apoyo del departamento en 2024. Además, de 2019 a 2022, hubo un aumento del 55% en la cantidad de personas latinx que carecen de un techo, según los datos recopilados en ese momento determinado en 2022, que es un recuento bianual de la cantidad de personas que se encuentran en situación de calle.

La historia de Leslie

Una vivienda segura y estable les permite a las familias migrantes prosperar.

Leslie, que pidió mantener su apellido en privado, huyó de Nicaragua en noviembre de 2019 con su hija y su pareja cuando el país se enfrentó a un aumento en la violencia política lo que provocó que tanto ella como su pareja perdieran sus empleos.

“Había una guerra y mataron a mucha gente. Había mucho caos por todas partes y la economía ya estaba en mal estado”, dijo al señalar que no tenían qué comer. “Así que nos fuimos en busca de un futuro mejor”.

Cuando llegaron, Leslie se enfrentó al maltrato de los familiares con los que se alojaba y se vio obligada a mantener a su hija, que tiene autismo, en su habitación para protegerla del acoso.

“Sentí mucha frustración, mucha desesperación; no sabía qué hacer”, dijo.

Al final, Leslie, su pareja y su hija se marcharon. Cambiaron de domicilio al menos tres veces; pasaron de un albergue a la casa de una amistad, y luego a un hotel financiado por la ciudad. Fue allí, donde dejó de dormir en el suelo y donde empezó a sentirse más cómoda. Leslie empezó a ver a un terapeuta y a recibir atención médica, y aprendió cómo inscribir a su hija en la escuela.

Sin embargo, Leslie no sabía cuánto tiempo iban a poder quedarse, lo que le causaba ansiedad; además, había otros problemas.

La terapia “me abrió los ojos al maltrato que estaba sufriendo a manos de mi pareja, así que decidí dejarlo”, dijo. “Aquí no tenía familia ni amigos. Solo tenía a mi hija”.

Con la ayuda de Compass Family Services y servicios prenatales para personas en situación de calle, Leslie pudo finalmente solicitar una vivienda permanente para ella y su hija de 7 años de edad. Se mudaron en septiembre de 2023.

“Ahora que hemos encontrado una vivienda estable, ella se siente segura, las dos nos sentimos seguras”, dijo al señalar que la estabilidad es buena para su hija.

La seguridad le ha permitido a Leslie hacer prácticas profesionales en un preescolar y formar parte del Consejo Asesor de Familias de Compass Family Services para compartir sus experiencias sobre cómo ha navegado la vida sin un hogar en San Francisco. Haber vuelto a la escuela le ha hecho sentirse útil.

“Me hace sentir que tengo un futuro mejor aquí”, dijo y señaló que no estaba segura de si tendría que dedicarse a limpiar inodoros de por vida en Estados Unidos. “Realmente me llena de vida y me encanta estar con los niños. Me encanta aprender”.

Madison Alvarado realizó este reportaje a través de la Beca de Datos 2023 del Centro Annenberg sobre la Salud de USC, el cual proporcionó formación, tutoría y financiamiento para la realización de este proyecto.

Traducido al español por Andrea Valencia a través de Linguaficient, una empresa local que ofrece servicios lingüísticos profesionales. Valencia interpretó nuestra entrevista con Leslie, una hispanohablante monolingüe. Yesica Prado, periodista de San Francisco Public Press, interpretó nuestra entrevista con Karen Rodríguez.

The post Proveedores de ervicios opinan que SF subestima la necesidad que hay a pesar de que cada vez más familias migrantes buscan acceder albergues appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

A separate, possible $20 million outlay could help unhoused families cover rent for a limited time, the department’s spokesperson also said at the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee hearing. The funds must be approved in budget negotiations this summer.

But these new measures would fall short of serving all the families in need, the spokesperson acknowledged.

“There’s these huge communities of people fleeing violence, persecution, gangs, all these things, trying to survive and we’re basically telling them, ‘Sleep on the streets,’” said Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who chairs the committee and represents District 9, which contains the Mission District.

Migrant families have joined service providers and faith-based advocates in a push for a policy response to the mounting crisis, including increasing access to temporary housing and providing greater transparency about where families are on the waitlist for shelter. Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, who represents the Excelsior, Oceanview and other neighborhoods of District 11, recently took up the issue and wrote a non-binding resolution that called on the city to ensure migrant families would receive immediate shelter, among other services. He then convened Monday’s hearing, in which District 10 supervisor and committee member Shamann Walton was also present, to discuss potential policy solutions with staff from various city departments.

Following the homelessness department’s proposal, Ronen questioned whether the migrant families would be eligible for the rent subsidies that the $20 million infusion would fund. She referenced existing programs that prioritize recipients who have been homeless in San Francisco for many years.

Those programs are “not for the newcomer people that are coming, because they’re going to be really low on the list,” Ronen said.

Families from several countries shared their struggles accessing safe housing and pressed the city to do better.

“I don’t want my kids to end up on streets to relive trauma,” said Luz Mejía, an unhoused migrant from Peru. Her family had gotten a slot in the city’s temporary shelter system, but it had space for only three people so her husband stayed there with their kids while she remained on the streets.  

“We need to respect our kids’ integrity, we need more transparency, more humanitarian effort, and more movement to find permanent housing for families,” said Margarita Solito, a mother of four from El Salvador who works with Faith in Action Bay Area. The organization has helped migrant families pay for short hotel stays, outside of government programs, and raise the alarm about the dire situation.

Supervisors Ronen and Safaí questioned why no one had declared a state of emergency.

Safaí, who is running to unseat Mayor London Breed this November, said Breed had the power to make that declaration, as she had in 2020 to give the government greater flexibility to confront the coronavirus pandemic. Department staff can recommend that she make a declaration.

Immigrant families newly arrived here might struggle to find housing or jobs, experts say.

“The increased number of migrants arriving don’t have the support networks or systems that previous waves might have had,” said Jorge Rivas, executive director of the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs.

The city lacks robust quantitative data on migrant family homelessness, Rivas said. That’s largely because many departments do not ask about immigration status when assessing people for services, in accordance with San Francisco’s “sanctuary city” policies.

But “all the qualitative data affirms that we are experiencing a steady stream of newcomer asylum seekers,” Rivas said.

For example, the number of public school students who are recent immigrants has risen steadily over the past three years, he said, and during this school year it reached its highest level in the last decade, at 1,566 children. Some of those students reported being unhoused, Rivas said. And a waitlist for legal representation by the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative has ballooned to more than 900 people; typically it hovers at around 100 to 200 people, he said.

The supervisors said community members were raising these issues with them.

“We’re hearing anecdotally that hundreds of people are coming into the Bay Area every day,” Ronen said. She added that one family shelter reported “turning away people every single night. We’re hearing from our outreach workers that they find children sleeping on the streets every day.”

The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing will issue 35 new hotel vouchers, each giving the recipient household a two-week stay in a hotel. At the end of the period, the department could extend the stay or the voucher could go to another household, said spokesperson Emily Cohen.

The requested $20 million would pay for up to 100 five-year rent subsidies for families. That could still leave many families on the streets, based on figures Cohen presented at the hearing. As of last week, at least 375 families were waiting for rooms in homeless shelters to become available, she said.

Safaí said he would probably hold a follow-up hearing within the next two months to check on whether the homelessness department had issued the new vouchers and waitlist management had improved.

Fixing migrant family homelessness will require long-term solutions, said Hope Kamer, director of public policy and external affairs at Compass Family Services, which serves the unhoused population.

“I really, really hope that money will hit the streets and the safety net will be supported,” she said.

The post SF to Offer Some Homeless Migrant Families Temporary Hotel Stays, as the Rest Languish appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Todos los sábados, Aurelia Ramírez llena una bolsa con folletos sobre servicios locales de apoyo social, compra unas docenas de pan dulce y una caja de café, y camina por su vecindario del Distrito de la Misión, conectándose con personas que viven en la calle.

“Nuestro trabajo es verificar si las personas están bien,” dijo Ramírez, quien se mudó a San Francisco desde México hace 23 años.

Ramírez es embajadora comunitaria de la Oficina de Participación Cívica y Asuntos de Inmigrantes de San Francisco. Dijo que quería un trabajo que le permitiera ayudar a la comunidad Latina – especialmente gente de ascendencia maya de Yucatán, como ella.

“Es triste,” ella dijo. “No saben qué pueden hacer. Especialmente la gente de Yucatán.”

Mientras ofrece café y comida, ella comparte información sobre dónde va para recibir atención médica, servicios sociales, refugio, baños y lugares para lavar la ropa. Dijo que la pandemia causó un sufrimiento profundo en su comunidad y muchos nunca se recuperaron.

“Ellos perdieron un trabajo, perdieron la casa. No tienen dinero. ¿Qué pueden hacer?” dijo Ramírez. “Ya sabes, la gente que vende drogas te la dan gratis la primera vez, pero después tienes que pagar. Eso es el problema. Y ahora algunas personas, ya no están bien.”

De hecho, la tasa de muertes por sobredosis entre los mayas de Yucatán que viven en San Francisco ha aumentado lo suficiente desde la pandemia de COVID-19 como para alarmar a la Cónsul General de México en San Francisco, Remedios Gómez Arnau, quien procesa el certificado de la muerte de los ciudadanos mexicanos locales antes de su repatriación.

[ Leer también: “Proveedores de Servicios Exigen Acceso a Reclusos Latinos” ]

En un día inusualmente cálido y soleado de febrero, Ramírez despertó a la gente de sus casas de campaña y parecieron agradecidos por el café, la comida y la información sobre cuando estaría abierta una clínica dental gratuita.

Instó a los yucatecos a llamar a sus familias en Yucatán desde una oficina en Daly City llamada La Casa Del Yucateco que fue inaugurada por el gobernador de Yucatán, Mauricio Vila Dosal, en octubre pasado para brindar servicios gubernamentales a los yucatecos en San Francisco y sus alrededores.

Varias personas sin hogar le dijeron a Ramírez que lo que más necesitaban son viviendas e ir a un refugio estaba fuera de la discusión porque tenían miedo a la violencia y los robos. Ramírez explicó que cuando las personas que conocen están interesadas en recursos, ellos también enfrentan obstáculos.

“A veces, tienen listas de espera: listas de espera por refugio, listas de espera por ayuda,” dijo Ramirez. “Y ellos no quieren esperar. Quieren la ayuda al mismo tiempo.”

Buscando una vida mejor

En la Península de Yucatán, México, los indígenas mayas enfrentan discriminación sistémica, y acceso limitado a la educación, atención médica, oportunidades económicas, y representación política.

La situación lleva a muchos a buscar mejores oportunidades en otros lugares. Y durante generaciones, han estado emigrando a San Francisco y el Área de la Bahía, según Lydia Candila Chan, directora ejecutiva de la Asociación Mayab, una organización en San Francisco que ofrece recursos comunitarios esenciales, educativos y culturales.

Posiblemente, hasta 70,000 mayas yucatecos viven en la ciudad y sus alrededores, pero nunca ha habido un recuento oficial; es una estimación que Candila Chan obtuvo del Instituto para el Desarrollo de la Cultura maya con sede en la capital de Yucatán, Mérida.

Candila Chan dijo que los mayas yucatecos vienen a San Francisco en busca de oportunidades financieras “para darles a sus familias una vida mejor.” Pero la barrera del idioma puede ser un obstáculo grande para encontrar trabajo porque para muchos el español es una segunda lengua. Más de 500,000 mayas de Yucatán hablan la lengua indígena maya, según el último censo mexicano.

Algunos mayas alcanzaron el éxito y, para muchos, dijo Candila Chan, gracias a sus reconocidas habilidades culinarias.

“Son los mejores cocineros aquí en San Francisco,” ella dijo. “En cualquier restaurante al que vayas, verás a una persona de Yucatán.”

La representación de la población en los restaurantes la hizo excepcionalmente vulnerable durante la pandemia, cuando se cerró la industria.

“El sueño americano a veces les resulta muy triste,” dijo Candila Chan. “Están tan decepcionados entonces cuando sus amigos dicen ‘Vamos a tomar una cerveza y hablar,’ empiezan a empezar más y más. De repente, están viviendo en la calle. De repente mueren. Veo muchos.”

Candila Chan hace lo que puede para ayudar ofreciendo programas que brindan recursos esenciales, así como actividades culturales que unen a la comunidad de una manera saludable.

Más de 250 familias se benefician de la despensa semanal de alimentos de la Asociación Mayab. El centro también ofrece clases y presentaciones de jarana, el baile tradicional de Yucatán, artes y artesanías, capacitación en interpretación maya, y una liga de béisbol que ha crecido hasta incluir ocho equipos y 144 jugadores.

La población indígena no recibe advertencias sobre el fentanilo

Gómez Arnau, cónsul general de México en San Francisco, preguntó al socio comunitario Jorge Zepeda, director de salud latina de la Fundación Contra el SIDA de San Francisco, sobre la tasa elevada de muertes por sobredosis que estaba observando entre los indígenas mayas.

En ese momento, Zepeda estaba consultando con el Departamento de Salud Público de San Francisco para evaluar la salud de las poblaciones latinas en viviendas de un cuarto. Le dijo a Gómez Arnau que estaba viendo la misma tendencia y se dijo al departamento de salud.

“Le dije ‘¿Sabes cuántas personas que hablan español y maya han muerto por sobredosis?’ Dijeron ‘No estamos seguros,’” dijo Zepeda.

Desde enero de 2020 hasta diciembre de 2023, 2,955 personas murieron por sobredosis accidentales en San Francisco, según la Oficina del Médico Forense Principal. De ellos, 456 fueron categorizados como latinos. Pero es imposible obtener tasas de mortalidad de subgrupos de la población latina, ya que las autoridades de salud de las agencias municipales, estatales y federales agrupan a todos los latinoamericanos.

Eso no tiene en cuenta la diversidad de idiomas que existe dentro de sus subgrupos, lo que significa que es posible que información vital, como advertencias sobre los peligros del fentanilo y dónde obtener ayuda para los trastornos por uso de sustancias, no lleguen.

Categorizando a todos los latinoamericanos juntos también lleva otros problemas, según defensores como el Dr. Seciah Aquino, director ejecutivo de la Coalición Latina para una California Saludable. La organización fue parte de una campaña de años para intentar que los departamentos estatales recopilen y desagregaran datos más detallados para las comunidades latinas e indígenas.

“No somos un monolito,” dijo Aquino. “Necesitamos comprender y recibir datos que detallar más en esos subgrupos específicos. Si no lo hacemos, entonces estamos perdiendo datos de calidad que podrían llevarnos a tomar mejores decisiones en términos de los fondos que se asignan a la comunidad, a la región y cómo se distribuyen.”

La senadora estatal Lena González de Long Beach presentó el año pasado un proyecto de ley de equidad demográfica para fortalecer la colección de datos estatales. La Legislatura aprobó el proyecto de ley, pero el gobernador Gavin Newsom lo vetó en octubre pasado, diciendo que era inapropiado porque la Oficina de Administración y Presupuesto de los Estados Unidos estaba actualizando los estándares federales para recopilar información sobre raza y origen étnico.

El 28 de marzo se anunciaron estándares federales actualizados que no tenían en cuenta a las poblaciones indígenas latinas. González volvió a presentar su proyecto de ley el 27 de febrero y está avanzando en el Senado estatal.

Necesidad extrema de concienciación sobre las drogas y servicios de salud

Después de descubrir la brecha en la conciencia sobre el uso de drogas entre los latinos y los latinos indígenas, Zepeda se asoció con Laura Guzmán, directora ejecutiva de la Coalición Nacional para la Reducción de Daños, y el Dr. Carlos Martínez, investigador de antropología médica y salud pública de UC Santa Cruz, para realizar un estudio con financiación del Departamento de Salud Pública de San Francisco. El informe de su estudio, “Unido/xs Contra La Sobredosis,” se publicó en septiembre de 2022.

Descubrieron que la mayoría de los latinos e latinos indígenas de San Francisco que consumían sustancias intentaban llevar a cabo un objetivo específico y sabían muy poco de los riesgos asociados con esas sustancias.

“Sabían el efecto que quería, como seguir trabajando, relajarse o dormir,” dijo Zepeda. “Cuando les preguntamos: ‘¿Saben el nombre de la droga?’ ‘No. Pero puedo obtenerlo de una persona que conozco.’”

Concluyeron que para minimizar las sobredosis y los daños relacionados con las drogas en las comunidades latinas e indígenas, la ciudad debe educar a poblaciones específicas sobre los tipos de drogas, impactos del uso de drogas y conciencia de que las drogas a menudo están contaminadas con el opioide fentanilo, que puede causar una sobredosis letal.

El estudio también reveló una brecha evidente en la disponibilidad de servicios de tratamiento. Dijo que la mayoría de los proveedores comunitarios que prestan servicios a la comunidad latina “no se sentían cómodos” haciendo una derivación a un proveedor de servicios de salud por uso de sustancias en San Francisco porque no tenían la capacidad de interactuar con personas que hablan español o maya.

Zepeda dijo que ha visto un progreso desde que se publicó el informe, incluido que las solicitudes de propuestas para la salud conductual han incluido programas en español y maya recientemente.

Los funcionarios del Departamento de Salud Pública rechazaron las solicitudes de entrevista. En un correo electrónico, el departamento afirmó que ofrece 10 camas en el Managed Alcohol Program para pacientes latinos e indígenas. Y acaba de lanzar una iniciativa que se llama Health Access Point, que da servicios de reducción de daños a clientes latinos a través de un programa liderado por el Instituto Familiar de la Raza, el Mission Neighborhood Health Center y la Fundación Contra el SIDA de San Francisco.

Además, el departamento anticipa que una expansión planificada de 33 camas de un centro de tratamiento de salud mental y uso de sustancias para mujeres que han sido arrestadas, acusadas, condenadas o encarceladas será competente en español.

Necesitan programas culturalmente sensibles

Sin embargo, los proveedores de servicios dicen que la competencia lingüística no es lo mismo que los programas culturalmente sensibles y que son casi imposibles de encontrar para las comunidades latinas. The Latino Commission es la única organización que da ese tipo de tratamiento residencial en San Francisco y solo tiene 10 camas.

La directora ejecutiva de la Latino Commission, Debra Camarillo, dijo que conectarse con la propia cultura es fundamental para la sanación.

“Entramos en recuperación y podemos conectarnos y encontrar un sentido de nosotros mismos,” dijo Camarillo. “Y al encontrar ese sentido de uno mismo y desarrollar ese amor propio, surge un valor que al final entendemos que, como humanidad, como seres humanos, somos sagrados. En eso está lo sagrado.

“Si puedo entender ese lugar y puedo vivir en ese lugar, entonces mis acciones serán diferentes. No voy a tratarte como quizás te hubiera tratado en el pasado. No voy a tratarme a mí mismo y no voy a aceptar un tratamiento que quizás haya aceptado en el pasado.”

Para aumentar los programas sensibles lingüística y culturalmente para las poblaciones latinas necesitan a más médicos latinos, dijo la Dra. Marlene Martin, profesora asociada de UCSF y coautora de un estudio, publicado en el Journal of General Internal Medicine en enero de 2022, titulado “Falta de diversidad racial y étnica entre los médicos especializados en adicciones.”

Los autores del estudio concluyeron que diversificar la fuerza laboral médica requeriría una mayor financiación para las facultades de medicina en comunidades desatendidas, ayuda financiera para estudiantes sin acceso a la riqueza generacional, políticas de pago de préstamos más integrales y programas para exponer a los estudiantes a las carreras médicas.

Martin también es director de iniciativas de adicción en el Centro de Excelencia Latinx de UCSF, que está ayudando a satisfacer la necesidad de un tratamiento culturalmente sensible. Se han asociado con la Coalición Nacional para la Reducción de Daños en la educación sobre el uso de sustancias para organizaciones comunitarias latinas en San Francisco.

Sylvie Sturm informó esta historia mientras participaba en la beca de datos 2023 del Centro de Periodismo de Salud de la USC Annenberg, que brindó capacitación, tutoría y financiación para apoyar este proyecto.

Traducido al español por Cassandra Garibay.

The post Las Muertes por Sobredosis entre los Mayas en San Francisco Muestran la Necesidad Urgente de un Tratamiento Culturalmente Sensible appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Lee esta historia en español.

When Karen Rodriguez arrived in San Francisco after fleeing her home country, Colombia, with her husband and her 6-year-old son, Juan, the family stayed with her son’s godmother. But when they had to leave two months later because the lease didn’t allow for extra people in the unit, they resorted to sleeping in their car.

Because the family was newly arrived, Rodriguez and her husband did not have work authorization, making securing jobs and paying rent extremely difficult.

They have since been bouncing between stays in their car and stays in hotels paid for by the city and Faith in Action Bay Area, a network of community organizers from various faith congregations. Juan has special needs, so an emergency shelter would be traumatic for him, Rodriguez said. 

The Rodriguez family is among many recent migrants seeking shelter and a new life in San Francisco, who are falling into homelessness with no easy way to climb out.

San Francisco housing providers, legal advocates, faith groups and migrants themselves warn that there is not enough temporary housing to accommodate the increased need, and that the city’s response system is not equipped to handle the complications that arise at the intersection of homelessness and immigration. Housing providers say also that the city is intentionally under-counting and under-representing the need.

While city representatives said the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing is taking steps to reallocate funds to open a family shelter and quicken the rate at which families move out of shelter and into longer term housing, they were unable to provide a timeline or instructions as to what families sleeping on the street should do in the meantime.

‘Profound’ need and poor data

The notion that there isn’t enough temporary housing for these families conflicts with the city’s shelter inventory, an online dashboard that tends to show family shelter vacancies around 7% or 8%. But Hope Kamer, director of public policy and external affairs at Compass Family Services, a nonprofit focusing on family homelessness, said this is not a true reflection of the need.

“Families are coming to our access point at 4:30 on a Friday and saying, ‘I have nowhere to go for the weekend with my two infants,’” she said, calling the need “profound.”

Often, families are turned away for lack of shelter slots.

That happened to Álvaro Tovar and his wife and two young children when they recently showed up at a shelter access point, where families are assessed for service eligibility, he said. Staff told him that it would take two weeks before he could put their names on the waitlist, and longer to get beds. They advised him to buy a tent for his family to stay in while they waited.

“That broke my heart because first of all, we didn’t have any money, we didn’t know the city. I lost all hope,” Tovar said at a March 7 community event that Faith in Action Bay Area hosted to bring attention to the need for family shelter.

Kamer said the Buena Vista Horace Mann Shelter, a school gym that functions as a family shelter at night, gets as many as 10 calls a day from community-based organizations searching for beds for families who have nowhere to stay, many of whom the shelter can’t take in.

Laura Valdéz, executive director of Dolores Street Community Services, the nonprofit that runs the Buena Vista Horace Mann family shelter, told the San Francisco Standard in December that the city instructs the organization to not count the number of families it turns away.

Emily Cohen, deputy director for communications and legislative affairs at the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, said she wasn’t aware of that instruction. Rather, she said, the department wants people to go to entry points for the homeless response system to create one centralized shelter waitlist.

Over the past six months, that waitlist has consistently contained some 200 families, Kamer said. At Buena Vista Horace Mann, the department counts the shelter occupancy at 5 p.m., before parents have returned from their jobs and thus under-representing the need, she said.

“This unwillingness to capture the full scale of the problem means that there is not accountability to these families and there is, in turn, not public pressure to build the amount of shelter stock we need,” she said.

Migrant families themselves have been banding together to create that pressure. Partnering with Faith in Action Bay Area, the families have issued demands to the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing: guarantee same-day shelter or a hotel voucher for any family who goes to an access point; expedite the transition from shelter to long-term housing; and create an online dashboard that lets families check their position on a shelter waitlist.

The group held a rally outside City Hall on March 12, the day supervisor and declared mayoral candidate Ahsha Safaí introduced a non-binding resolution calling on Mayor London Breed and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing to respond to migrant families’ housing needs. The full Board of Supervisors will hold a hearing on the resolution on April 22, according to staff from Faith in Action Bay Area.

Other barriers to safe housing

Besides lack of shelter beds, migrant families face other issues as they try to navigate the system.

“For many families, the homeless response system in San Francisco is their first touch point for social services in the United States, and the system is fundamentally not resourced to do the legal navigation and trauma-informed care that a family that has just made an immigration journey to San Francisco needs,” Kamer said. 

Vanessa Bohm is the director of the Family Wellness and Health Promotion programs at the Central American Resource Center, a nonprofit that helps Latinx migrants and under-resourced families in the San Francisco Bay Area. She said that 15 or 20 years ago, it was easier for people to get rooms or jobs through the informal economy or through connections to people they knew here. Today, she’s not sure that is the case, she said.

Silvia Ramos, a senior case manager and support group facilitator for the family wellness program at the Central American Resource Center, said many families arrive in San Francisco with trauma from their journey and feel displaced as they enter a system that is difficult to adapt to. When families show up with nowhere to stay and the city has no beds, she will look for beds in Oakland or other nearby cities and teach people how to use Bay Area Rapid Transit.

Navigating these systems can be even more difficult for people who don’t speak English, or who come from different cultural backgrounds, many providers said.

Role of immigration court

While trying to access housing, families must also worry about the asylum process and immigration court system. However, providers noted disconnects among the legal and homeless response systems, and groups that offer other resources like medical care or food.

“There is no government help coming to connect the legal response system and the homeless response system,” Kamer said. “The direct care providers are figuring out how to do that.”

Milli Atkinson, director of the Immigrant Legal Defense Program at the Justice and Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco, said most people’s asylum cases aren’t decided for years and they often worry more about immediate needs like housing or food.

“A lot of people get lost in the system, just because they don’t have the capacity mentally to figure all of these things out at once, and they’re going for their basic needs first,” she said.

But having legal representation during the asylum process helps migrants get work authorization, enabling them to become more self-sufficient.

Housing instability can affect immigration cases in other ways. One of the biggest hurdles for people experiencing homelessness, Atkinson said, is that the court system relies heavily on paper and communication is primarily done through the mail. People are expected to keep the court updated on their addresses.

“If the court mails you things about your case, and you don’t get them, it’s your fault,” she said. 

Influx of migrants

Housing providers, legal advocates, and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing anecdotally noted an increase in the number of people seeking services who are fleeing Latin America due to political unrest, poverty and other violence.

Atkinson said that in recent years her organization has seen a greater number of migrants from countries like Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru and Cuba. As the number of countries experiencing political instability in recent years has risen, the number of people seen coming in at the border has also gone up, she said.

Because San Francisco is a sanctuary city, questions about immigration or refugee status during the coordinated entry process, a system used to determine what type of resources people qualify for, are limited. This makes it difficult to say what percent of the recent surge of families seeking shelter are migrants, Cohen said, though she anecdotally noted that there have been more people from Central and South America asking for assistance.

City data shows that the share of Spanish-speakers and Latinx people experiencing homelessness is increasing. The share of Spanish-speakers in the city’s ONE System, which tracks people receiving assistance from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, increased to over one-quarter of the department’s client population in 2024. Additionally, from 2019 to 2022, there was a 55% increase in the number of Latinx people experiencing homelessness, according to data collected during the 2022 point in-time count, a biennial count of the number of people experiencing homelessness.

Leslie’s story

Safe, stable housing enables migrant families to thrive.

Leslie, who asked to keep her last name private, fled Nicaragua in November 2019 with her daughter and her partner as the country faced increased political violence and she and her partner lost their jobs.

“There was a war and a lot of people were killed. There was chaos everywhere and the economy was already in bad shape,” she said, noting they had no food. “So we left it looking for a better future.”

When they arrived, Leslie faced abuse from relatives she was staying with and was forced to keep her daughter, who is autistic, in her room to shield her from harassment.

“I felt a lot of frustration, a lot of desperation, not knowing what to do,” she said.

Eventually, Leslie, along with her partner and daughter, left. They changed addresses at least three times, moving from a shelter to a friend’s house to a city-funded hotel. It was there, where she was no longer sleeping on the floor, that she began to feel some comfort. She started seeing a therapist and getting medical care, and learned how to get her daughter into school.

But she didn’t know how long they would be able to stay, which caused her anxiety, and there were other problems. 

Therapy “opened up my eyes to the abuse that I was suffering at the hands of my partner, so I decided to leave him,” she said. “I didn’t have any family here and I didn’t have any friends. I just had my daughter.”

With the help of Compass Family Services and prenatal homelessness services, Leslie was eventually able to apply for permanent housing for her and her 7-year-old daughter. They moved in in September 2023.

“Now that we have found stable housing, she feels safe, we feel safe,” she said, noting the stability is good for her daughter.

The security has allowed Leslie to pursue an internship teaching preschoolers and sit on Compass Family Services’ Family Advisory Council to share her experiences about navigating homelessness in San Francisco. Going back to school has made her feel useful.

“It makes me feel like I have a better future here,” she said, noting that she wasn’t sure if she would be cleaning toilets for the rest of her life in the United States. “It really fills me up with life and I love to be with the children, and I love to learn.”

Madison Alvarado reported this story while participating in the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2023 Data Fellowship, which provided training, mentoring and funding to support this project.

Andrea Valencia of Linguaficient, a company that provides professional language services, interpreted our interview with Leslie, a monolingual Spanish speaker. Yesica Prado, a journalist at the San Francisco Public Press, interpreted our interview with Karen Rodriguez.

The post More Migrant Families Are Trying to Access Shelter While SF Underestimates Need, Service Providers Say appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Lee esta historia en español.

Every Saturday, Aurelia Ramirez fills a tote bag with pamphlets about local social support services, buys a few dozen slices of sweet bread and a box of brewed coffee, and walks through her Mission District neighborhood connecting with people living on the street.

“Our job is to check the people if they okay,” said Ramirez, who moved to San Francisco from Mexico 23 years ago.

Ramirez is a community ambassador for San Francisco’s Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs. She said she wanted a job that allowed her to help the Latinx community — especially people of Maya descent from the Yucatán, like herself.

“It’s sad,” she said. “They don’t know what they can do. Especially Yucatán people.”

While offering coffee and snacks, she provides information about where to go for medical care, social services, shelter, showers and doing laundry. She said the pandemic caused deep suffering in her community and many never recovered.

“They lost a job, lost the house. They don’t have money. What they can do?” Ramirez said. “You know, people selling drugs — they give you free the first time but after, you need to pay. That’s the problem. And now some people, it’s not okay anymore.”

In fact, the rate of overdose deaths among Maya from the Yucatán living in San Francisco has risen enough since the COVID-19 pandemic to alarm San Francisco’s Mexican Consul General, Remedios Gomez Arnau, who processes death certificates of local Mexican nationals before they are repatriated.

[ Read also: “Service Providers Demand Access to Latinx Jail Inmates” ]

On an unseasonably warm and sunny day in February, Ramirez roused people from their tents, and they appeared grateful for the coffee, snacks and information about when a free dental clinic would be open.

She urged Yucatecans to call their families back home from an office in Daly City called La Casa Del Yucateco that was launched by Yucatán Governor Mauricio Vila Dosal last October to provide Yucatecans in and around San Francisco with government advice and services.

Several unhoused people told Ramirez that what they needed most was housing and going into a shelter was out of the question because they feared violence and theft. Ramirez explained that even when people she encounters are interested in accessing resources, they confront obstacles.

“Sometimes they have wait lists — wait lists for shelter, wait lists for help,” Ramirez said. “And they don’t want to wait. They want the help at the same time.”

Seeking a Better Life

In Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, Indigenous Maya face systemic discrimination, limited access to education, health care and economic opportunities, and limited political representation.

The situation leads many to seek better opportunities elsewhere. And for generations, they have been immigrating to San Francisco and the Bay Area, according to Lydia Candila Chan, executive director of Asociacion Mayab, a San Francisco-based organization that offers cultural, educational and essential community resources.

Possibly as many as 70,000 Yucatec Maya live in and around the city, but there has never been an official count — it’s an estimate that Candila Chan gleaned from the Institute for the Development of Maya Culture based in Yucatán’s capital city, Mérida.

Candila Chan said Yucatec Maya come to San Francisco seeking financial opportunities “to give their families a better life.” But the language barrier can be a major hurdle to finding a job, since many speak Spanish as a second language and are not fluent. More than 500,000 Maya from the Yucatán speak the indigenous Maya language, according to the latest Mexican census.

Some Maya do achieve success, and for many, Candila Chan said, that’s thanks to their renowned culinary skills.

“They are the best cooks here in San Francisco,” she said. “Any restaurant that you go, you will see one person from Yucatan.”

The population’s extraordinary representation in restaurants made it exceptionally vulnerable during the pandemic, when the industry was shut down.

“The American dream sometimes become very sad for them,” Candila Chan said. “They became so disappointed that when friends say, ‘Let’s go drink a beer and talk,’ from that, they start more and more and more. Suddenly, they living in the street. Suddenly they die. I see so many.”

Candila Chan does what she can to help by offering programs that provide essential resources as well as cultural activities that bring the community together in a healthy way.

More than 250 families benefit from the Asociacion Mayab’s weekly food pantry. The center also offers classes and performances of jarana, the traditional dance of Yucatán; arts and craft-making; Maya interpretation training; and an amateur baseball league that has grown to include eight teams and 144 players.

Indigenous Population Missing Fentanyl Warnings

Gomez Arnau, San Francisco’s Mexican Consul General, asked community partner Jorge Zepeda, director of Latinx health for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, about the elevated rate of overdose deaths she was seeing among Indigenous Maya.

At the time, Zepeda was consulting with San Francisco’s Department of Public Health to assess the health of Latinx populations in single-room-occupancy buildings, commonly called SROs. He told Gomez Arnau he was seeing the same trend and he brought it up with the health department.

“I said, ‘Do you know how many people have died of overdose who are Spanish speaking and Maya speaking?’ They said, ‘Not sure,’” Zepeda said.

From January 2020 to last December, 2,955 people died of accidental overdose in San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Chief Medical Examiner’s Office. Of those, 456 were categorized as Latinx. But it’s impossible to get mortality rates of subgroups in the Latinx population since health authorities at city, state and federal agencies lump all Latin Americans together.

That neglects to account for the diversity of languages that exists within its subgroups, which means vital information, like warnings over the dangers of fentanyl and where to get help for substance use disorders, may not be reaching them.

Categorizing all Latin Americans together leads to other problems as well, according to advocates like Dr. Seciah Aquino, executive director of the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, whose organization was part of a years-long campaign to get state departments to collect and disaggregate more detailed data for Latinx and Indigenous communities.

“We’re not a monolith,” Aquino said. “We need to understand and receive data back that drills down to those specific subgroups. If we don’t, then we’re losing quality data that could lead us to make better decisions in terms of funding that’s being allocated to the community, regionally, how it’s being spread out.”

State Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D- Long Beach) introduced a demographic equity bill to strengthen state data collection last year. The Legislature passed the bill but Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it last October, saying it was inappropriate because the U.S. Office of Management and Budget was updating federal standards for collecting race and ethnicity information.

Updated federal standards announced on March 28 did not account for Indigenous Latinx populations. Gonzalez reintroduced her demographic equity bill on Feb. 27, and it is making its way through the state Senate.

Dire Need for Drug Awareness and Health Services

After discovering the gap in knowledge over Latinx and Indigenous drug use, Zepeda partnered with Laura Guzman, executive director of the National Harm Reduction Coalition, and Dr. Carlos Martinez, a public health and medical anthropology researcher from UC Santa Cruz, to conduct a study with funding from San Francisco’s Department of Public Health. The report of their study, “Unido/xs Contra La Sobredosis (United Against Overdose),” was published in September 2022.

They discovered that most Latinx and Indigenous people in San Francisco who consumed substances were trying to achieve a specific goal and had very little knowledge of risks associated with those substances.

“They knew the effect that they wanted, whether it’s keeping working, or relax, or going to sleep,” Zepeda said. “When we ask them, ‘Do you know the name of the drug?’ ‘No. But I can get it from a person that I know.’”

They concluded that to minimize overdoses and drug-related harm in the Latinx and Indigenous communities, the city must educate target populations on types of drugs, drug use impacts and awareness that drugs are often tainted with the opioid fentanyl, which can cause lethal overdose.

The study also revealed a glaring gap in the availability of treatment services. Zepeda said the majority of community-based providers serving the Latinx community “didn’t feel comfortable making a referral to a current substance use or substance health service providers in San Francisco because they were not in the capacity to engage with the Spanish-speaking or Maya-speaking communities.”

Zepeda said he’s seen some progress since the report came out — namely the public health department’s requests for proposals for behavioral health have recently included Spanish-speaking and Maya-speaking programs.

Department of Public Health officials declined requests for an interview. In an email, the department stated that it offers 10 beds in the Managed Alcohol Program for Latinx and Indigenous patients. And it just launched an initiative called Health Access Point, which provides harm reduction services to Latinx clients through a program led by the Instituto Familiar de la Raza, the Mission Neighborhood Health Center and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

Also, the department anticipates that a planned, 33-bed expansion of a mental health and substance use treatment facility for women who have been arrested, charged, convicted or incarcerated will be Spanish-language competent.

Culturally Sensitive Programs Needed

Service providers say language competency is not the same as culturally sensitive programs, however, and those are nearly impossible to find for Latinx communities. The Latino Commission is the only organization providing that kind of residential treatment in San Francisco — and it only has 10 beds.

Latino Commission Executive Director Debra Camarillo said connecting with one’s own culture is fundamental to healing.

“We come into recovery, and we get to connect and find a sense of self,” Camarillo said. “And in finding that sense of self and building that self-esteem, then there becomes value that we understand at the end of the day, as humanity, as human beings we’re sacred. In that is sacredness.

“If I can understand that place, and I can live in that place, then my actions are going to be different. I’m not going to treat you like maybe I would treat you in the past. I’m not going to treat myself, and I’m not going to accept treatment that maybe I have done in the past.”

Increasing linguistically and culturally sensitive programs for Latinx populations will require more Latinx physicians, said Dr. Marlene Martin, a UCSF associate professor who co-authored a study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine in January 2022, titled “Lack of Racial and Ethnic Diversity Among Addiction Physicians.”

The study’s authors concluded that diversifying the physician workforce would require increased funding for medical schools in under-served communities, financial aid for students without access to generational wealth, more comprehensive loan repayment policies, and programs to expose students to medical careers.

Martin is also director of addiction initiatives at the UCSF Latinx Center of Excellence, which is helping to fill the need for culturally sensitive treatment by partnering with the National Harm Reduction Coalition on new substance use education for Latinx community-based organizations in San Francisco.

Sylvie Sturm reported this story while participating in the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2023 Data Fellowship, which provided training, mentoring and funding to support this project.

The post Overdose Deaths Swell Among SF’s Maya Residents, Highlighting Urgent Need for Culturally Competent Drug Health Services appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

The article was originally reported and published by MindSite News, a national nonprofit news outlet that reports on mental health.

When Mayra Barragan-O’Brien was 14 years old, she and her mother were smuggled across the U.S.-Mexican border in a truck. What she remembers most about the 1,300-mile journey from Guadalajara was the sweltering heat. It was so hot that the bottom of her mother’s black tennis shoe melted from hiding underneath the backseat, and she fainted so often that Mayra lost count.

They were coming to America because the violence in their neighborhood had become life-threatening. Her mother had applied unsuccessfully for a visa several times, and she felt she had no choice but to flee. So she hired a coyote to get them across the border in secret and on to a safer life in San Diego, where they would reunite with the other half of their family.

Their first stop was a Denny’s. As they walked into the diner, Mayra felt an overwhelming sense of relief for more than the air conditioning. She was grateful for her mother, who was still alive, and the menu in front of her since she hadn’t eaten for hours. She ordered a piece of chocolate cake.  

While they waited, she noticed an older white couple at a nearby table were looking at them and talking quietly. One of them pulled out a phone. Mayra didn’t understand English, but the coyotes, who were listening, knew the couple had called ICE, the U.S. agency that enforces immigration laws and detains undocumented immigrants for deportation. “Vámanos, vámanos!” they whispered urgently, hustling the startled Mayra and her mother out to the truck. They drove quickly to another Denny’s, where she finally got her cake. Her mother, shaken, ordered nothing.

From that moment on, Barragan-O’Brien knew she couldn’t talk about how she came to America. A good student, education became her singular focus instead. She went on to graduate high school with honors, but it took her ten years to get an associate’s degree because she had to work — mostly at a warehouse packing frozen meat or driving a forklift. Then came the California Dream Act in 2011, which extended financial aid eligibility to undocumented students. Barragan-O’Brien seized the opportunity. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and then a master’s in counseling psychology from Cal State San Bernardino. 

As she pursued this work, she reached back for inspiration to her encounters with a psychotherapist who’d taught her a mantra of hope at her most difficult moment. It was a year before the Dream Act, when she was going through a deep depression after a failed relationship, on top of feeling like there were no opportunities because of her undocumented status. At one point, her family experienced homelessness, but even some subsequent successes backfired. She discovered a relative had called ICE on her family, jealous that they had saved up enough money to buy a house. 

She’d gone to the therapist bawling, she recalls, saying that she had feelings of not wanting to live anymore. He walked her through a guided meditation that kept repeating “And remember there is hope.” She felt lighter after that session, she said, and wanted to be able to do the same thing for others — to ease people’s pain.

California led the way in 2014, allowing undocumented people to obtain licenses as doctors, therapists and for other professions. Illinois and Nevada followed five years later.

Looking back, she is now able to see her despair as a form of “immigration-related trauma — all of the experiences of being a newcomer in a world you don’t know,” she says. “A lot of people aren’t able to name that. ‘Why am I feeling sad? Why am I feeling anxious? Why am I feeling on edge? Why am I snapping for no reason?’ And it’s because of all the trauma that our bodies and our minds endure.”

Barragan-O’Brien’s insights fueled her desire to help others who’d been through the same traumatic experiences she had. She realized she might even have the skills to become a mental health healer and give back in some of the ways that her therapist had given to her. But there were some huge obstacles: As an undocumented person, it was hard enough for her to work legally. How could she ever hope to become a credentialed therapist, licensed by the state to do this work?

Indeed, for her and other undocumented people who want to address the mental health needs of their community, the route to becoming a licensed professional therapist is a hard one. But in California, it’s at least possible: In 2014, the state passed a law permitting undocumented residents to earn professional licenses, including as doctors and therapists. Nevada and Illinois followed suit in 2019.

In California, the biggest hurdle is obtaining 3,000 hours of client work supervised by a licensed professional, a requirement in the field to be able to practice on your own. Immigrants Rising, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that helps immigrants get into college and start careers, aims to facilitate the process through its Mental Health Career Program.

The goal is to increase the number of undocumented therapists so those in need can work with someone who can relate to their experience.

“We really want to send the message that there are so many contributions folks can bring outside of their immigration status,” says Rocío Preciado, director of mental health and career services at Immigrants Rising. “It’s only when we’re able to connect with others to help process the day-to-day challenges that are oftentimes amplified by the political messages we receive, that we’re able to contribute to the healing of our community.”

The glaring need for Latino therapists

Estimates of the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. range from 10.5 million to 12 million.  Some 80% come from Latin America, followed by regions in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Since each country and culture is different, so are the mental health needs of each group. No matter where they come from, undocumented immigrants face a slew of chronic stressors — constant fear of deportation, demanding work schedules, manipulation from unscrupulous employers, experiences of trauma from their journey to the U.S. and in their home country. Together, these experiences create  enormous risk of mental health conditions and challenges.

Access to therapy is also more difficult. Getting a therapist — especially an affordable one — is challenging for everyone these days, but for communities of color, finding a therapist who looks like them or speaks their language makes it even harder. In California, for example, only 9% of clinical counseling psychologists identify as Latino, followed by Asian at 8% and Black at 3%, according to data from the Healthforce Center at UCSF.

Immigrants Rising sees the need firsthand. It offers free Wellness Support Groups led by mental health professionals — including groups for women and LGTBQ+ people — to anyone around the country via Zoom. Its Mental Health Connector program, launched in 2019, links undocumented immigrants in California with therapists who are donating their time. So far, over 1,100 people have applied and 174 have been matched. Those who are uninsured or have limited resources are prioritized to see practitioners who have experience with the undocumented community.  

The organization’s Mental Health Career Program began a year later. It allows therapists-in-training to become part of the Connector program and accumulate the hours they need for licensure. It also pairs them with a private practice for clinical supervision and provides professional and leadership training opportunities. Best of all, it gives participants a stipend: $14,000 for year one and $20,000 if they continue on for a second year. 

Currently in the pilot phase, seven participants have completed the program to date, mostly Latina women.  Some, but not all, are currently allowed to stay in the country through DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — the program created during the Obama administration to protect young adults brought to the U.S. as children from deportation and provide them with temporary work authorization. This year, 12 undocumented applicants vied for just six spots, due to the limited financial support the program has obtained from foundations and private donors. Preciado hopes to bring in new funds to increase the stipend and the number of participants.

We want to send the message that there are many contributions folks can bring outside of their immigration status.”

Rocío Preciado, Immigrants Rising

She says many undocumented people want to pursue a career in mental health but are daunted and unsure about whether it’s even possible for them to become a licensed therapist. Preciado hopes to replicate the California training program in Illinois and Nevada, the two other states that have paths to clinical licensure for undocumented therapists. 

A license provides the ability to start a private practice, which provides more flexibility and pay. And while those without DACA status can’t be legal employees, they can start a business or work as independent contractors.

After Barragan-O’Brien graduated with her masters degree in 2020, she needed to accumulate 3,000 supervised hours in order to get licensed. But since she didn’t have work authorization, she had to volunteer her time as an associate clinician in the San Bernardino County School District.

In addition to her time with clients, she spent hours writing clinical notes and evaluations, while also taking on paid workshop gigs with two other organizations and taking care of a young daughter. Barragan-O’Brien calculated it would take her five years to rack up the hours so she could take the licensing exam and officially become a marriage and family therapist. But there was little margin: Applicants must take the exam within six years of obtaining their associate number, which they can apply for after receiving a graduate degree, or start the process over. After two years, she found herself burnt out. 

So she quit volunteering and started researching how she could make a therapy career sustainable. Eventually she came across a single sentence in a California Board of Behavioral Sciences FAQ that said associate clinicians could get a stipend as long as they’re part of a program that encourages underrepresented groups to enter the profession. 

That was the catalyst for her to co-found the Mental Health Career Program. She worked with Immigrants Rising to get it off the ground and eventually went through the program herself last year. It was the first time she didn’t have to worry about paying bills.

“Creating space for us to share our stories and be able to say that I’m not the only one who feels burnt out — it helps us feel like we’re not alone.”

Julio Zamarripa, therapist in training

These days, when she’s not roller skating, spending time with her daughter, podcasting with her sister or listening to the band Hanson, she runs UndocuMental Health. The nonprofit provides training to organizations and educational institutions on best practices when working with the undocumented community — such as hanging art by undocumented artists to signal that it’s a safe space or not calling the police as a first response in case of a mental health crisis. 

Barragan-O’Brien became a legal permanent resident in September. She’s still 250 hours short of the licensing requirement and continues to work with her supervisor, determined to be of service to her community. 

“There’s so much potential among undocumented folks but often they’re not able to see it,” she says. “That’s when I feel the most motivated — when I get to see their face the moment they realize what their potential is and begin to tap into their own agency. That really keeps me going.”

Stranger in a strange land

Julio Zamarripa grew up in a small rural town in Mexico with a big sense of community. As a kid, he’d wake up early to help his grandfather feed the cows or play “farm” with his toys. One day, when he was 10 years old, his mother told him he wasn’t going to school and instead, going to see his dad in America. They abruptly left. He never had a chance to say goodbye to his hometown. 

Zamarripa was angry when he came to the States because he didn’t know the language or culture, and was bullied a lot. In his family, they didn’t talk about emotions. He was a male and was supposed to hold it all in. The feeling of being lost and disconnected continued as he got older, amplified when he was placed in remedial courses at community college.

A career in anything didn’t seem likely until he became part of the Puente Project and met a counselor who was also a licensed marriage and family therapist. Even though she was a citizen, she shared parts of her own journey and made him see the different possibilities for himself. He told her he wanted to be like her one day. She responded, “Mijo, you will do that and more.” 

In 2013, he got DACA status and seven years later, his masters in counseling at the University of LaVerne in California. He was a part of the inaugural Mental Health Career Program cohort. The first year, he saw ten clients through the Connector program; the second year, where he was allowed to continue, he saw 15 clients. In total, he was able to accumulate 1,500 hours. The stipend also covered additional expenses for Zamarripa, like renewing his associate number and some specialized training. Most importantly, it gave him a network of people who shared similar experiences.

“Even within our undocumented community, we’re all experiencing so many different challenges,” he says. “Creating that space for us to share our stories and be able to say that I’m not the only one who feels burnt out — it helps us feel like we’re not alone.”

Zamarripa now has only about a third of the supervised hours left to complete the requirements. Because participants can only accumulate 300 to 500 hours over the course of 10 months, the program is allowing them to continue into a second year. Another challenge is ensuring that clients in the Connector Program show up for therapy sessions, since it impacts not only their progress but the ability of the therapists-in-training to log needed hours. 

All of my supervisors were white. Nobody was talking about how ICE raids were heightening hypervigilance or there might be an increase in domestic violence.”

Mara Sammartino, founder of First-Gen Therapy

Still, feedback from clients who show up has been overwhelmingly positive. And for the trainees, knowledge about paid opportunities and trauma-informed practices has grown. In an evaluation survey Preciado did for the past two years, there was a 113% increase in knowledge around establishing a private practice. Immigrants Rising will soon also provide pro-bono business coaching for participants who completed the program to help build a caseload of clients.

Zamarripa now works as a counselor and instructor at two community colleges, and is also an associate therapist with First-Gen Therapy. Founder Mara Sammartino started First-Gen Therapy as a Vacaville-based private practice in 2022 to provide culturally responsive therapy and create a safe space for budding therapists to learn under her license — something she wishes she’d had when she entered the field 13 years ago.

“One of the hidden pitfalls of becoming a therapist is that you also don’t have supervisors who are bilingual or bicultural,” says Sammartino, who is Nicaraguan-American. “All of my supervisors were white. There was nobody talking to me about how ICE raids were heightening hypervigilance or how there might be an increase in domestic violence.” 

Sammartino hopes efforts like Immigrants Rising can help boost the number of therapists who can relate to their clients’ experiences. As Zamarripa’s clinical supervisor, she trained him on taking progress notes and assessments and acted as a sounding board for him to work through client issues. When she brought him on as an associate at First-Gen Therapy — “our practice,” she called it — it allowed him to continue working with clients paying a sliding-scale fee through the Mental Health Connector Program while also taking on new ones as an independent therapist. 

As a therapist and a trainer, Sammartino recognizes the emotional challenges of vicarious trauma. She’s unafraid to be vulnerable, and doesn’t hesitate to share parts of herself as a way to connect.

“Do you know how many times I’ve told abuelitas I work with that I have to cancel because my son is sick? And they’ll be like, ‘Put Vicks Vapor Rub on his feet and make sure you put some socks on. And please send me a picture of your son to make sure you did it correctly,’” Sammartino says, adding that she promptly sends them a picture. “That’s the thing about providing culturally-responsive care. I am not bound to the white experience. Nor am I bound to the Latino experience. I am bound to the experience that I’m living in at the moment.” 

She encourages Zamarripa — whom she calls “the platinum golden goose,” since being male and Latino in the field is rare — to do the same. Many of his clients identify with him. He lets them know they don’t have to share their story over and over again if they don’t want to — and that ultimately, they’re the expert in their own lives. His job is to give them tools and to bear witness.  

But when it does happen that a client says something that echoes an experience of his own, and he feels it in his core, he’s learning to draw from his own story. Recently, he had a man who was trying to hold it together in a session. Zamarripa could tell he was in distress and wanted to let his emotions out. 

“I told him, ‘You don’t have to be strong right now. What would happen if you were to let it go?’ As soon as I said that, the client started crying for a good minute,” Zamarripa says. “At the end he said, ‘No one has ever told me I didn’t need to be strong at the moment. And I felt so free letting go of all of that.’”

Reporting for this story was supported by the California Health Care Foundation and the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation. Sign up for the MindSite News Daily newsletter here.

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Yet for years, Cameron remained more of a tale than a real person in Tom’s mind. Until this Monday, when she stumbled upon pages of Cameron’s handwritten notes while digitizing century-old records stored at Cameron House, one of the oldest organizations in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

“It felt like stepping through a door into the past,” she said.

Tom is part of a volunteer group, led by community historian David Lei and University of California, Berkeley lecturer Anna Eng. They are working on a week-long project to scan boxes of documents — memos, letters, photos and other archived items.

The scanning project is a collaborative effort between historians striving to increase access to alternative historical sources and community organizations wanting the history to be restored and told.

The physical copies will be preserved at UC Berkeley, where researchers from around the world will have easy access to them.

Race Against Time

Community organizations often have limited capacity to store and preserve archives with proper temperature and climate control, especially when they are handling a hundred years’ worth of fragile records. The digitization project is a race against time, as many originals have deteriorated or been lost.

The team recently finished digitizing a portion of the archive for another organization in Chinatown, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, also known as the Six Companies. 

Established in the 1850s, it was once regarded as Chinatown’s City Hall and was known for helping newly arrived immigrants. It played a pivotal role in many civil rights lawsuits against the Chinese Exclusion Act, notably the 1898 Wong Kim Ark case, which established birthright citizenship in the United States.

The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association retains a significant trove of records such as meeting minutes and letters, revealing how Chinatown leaders aided members facing immigration challenges and detention. Until the recent document scanning session, many of its century-old source materials had not been thoroughly studied by historians and were at risk of deterioration.

Boxes of records were stored in a moldy back room and closet. On the second day of the scanning process, heavy rain flooded the floor where the boxes were stored. “Luckily, we were there,” said Lei. “The very reason why we need to scan it is just in case no one was there when the flood came.”

Digitizing archives is just the first step of preservation. Lei’s goal is to encourage organizations to protect original copies by sending them to a major institution to assist in long-term archiving and preservation.

Untold History

Lei, the community historian, has a passion for traditional Chinese culture. Upon retiring and selling his consumer product sourcing company in 2003, he shifted his focus to studying Chinese American history, which had been a longtime interest.

Lei noticed gaps in existing writings on Chinese Americans, as the sources he found often did not capture the full range of experiences, nor details about the regions and ethnicities of those who first immigrated to the U.S. Limited records from the first 50 years of Chinese immigration led historians to rely heavily on unreliable sources, like articles published in English-language newspapers.

Eng echoed Lei’s concern: “As historians, we cannot write the history, or we cannot write a different history, if we cannot access new sources that will add more complexity to the story.”

San Francisco is home to several organizations that played key roles in Chinese American history. Many lack digital copies of their own archives. Scholars sometimes seek access to the physical copies, but coordination challenges often lead these groups to decline such requests.

Having grown up in Chinatown, Lei stays connected with the community, which helps him initiate conversations about records conservation. He started the scanning project on a smaller scale with friends before expanding it to include the two oldest entities in Chinatown.

While sorting through files about women rescued at Cameron House, Tom discovered details that both amazed her and shifted her perspective. “These are all cursive,” she said, pointing to the letters likely written by women who were English learners. “For them to have perfected this language to the level of these writings is impressive,” she said.

It may take time for the Cameron House archive to become public and open to closer examination, but progress is underway.

The One-Point-Five Generation

Lei said many volunteers he has recruited are retirees with valuable cultural and language competencies. Their expertise is crucial in the archiving process, especially in identifying and recording dates.

“There’s a lunar calendar, a Republic of China calendar and a Western calendar,” explained Gregory Li, an experienced volunteer who is well versed in Chinese history.

Li, a retired lawyer, was born in America and can fluently speak and write Mandarin, Cantonese and Taishanese. He and other volunteers are what Eng would describe as “one-point-five generation” — those with strong connections to both their American communities and the immigrants who brought their families here.

The pattern of Chinese American migration has changed over time. Many early waves of immigrants came to San Francisco from Cantonese communities in and around southern coastal China. Eng said that members of the one-point-five generation often relate to the history of these groups because many of their families also came from that region or speak the same dialects.

Parts of Eng’s family have lived in the United States for five generations, but some relatives, including her mother, were kept out of the country under the Chinese Exclusion Act until an immigration law change in 1965. This personal connection fuels her commitment to ensuring that records from the era are preserved, and that this part of the community’s collective memory is not lost.

The post Volunteers Race to Preserve Culturally Significant Records in Chinatown appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

The swiftness with which Afghanistan’s former government collapsed and the Taliban reclaimed power in the war-ravaged country took the world by surprise. The withdrawal of American and NATO forces from the country exposed the sandcastle structure the former government was built on. Its collapse in August left tens of thousands of people who had worked for the government or for international organizations vulnerable to reprisals from the Taliban, who had previously ruled the country under a harsh interpretation of Islamic law. It also left women who had gained a degree of autonomy under the former government vulnerable to being removed from their jobs or their studies. 

San Rafael-based Roots of Peace remained in the country after the fall, working to clear minefields and convert them to productive agricultural land. This is work the group has done for more than 20 years around the world, from the former Yugoslavia to Vietnam. Roots of Peace’s founder and CEO Heidi Kuhn felt a responsibility to help any of her Afghan employees get out of the country with their families if they desired.

“I was not equipped to handle the volume, the unprecedented amount of foreign policy that I had to instantly understand in order to navigate through this maze,” Kuhn said.

Siawash Safi, director of technology at Roots of Peace, left Afghanistan in 2019 to join family here in the Bay Area. He had been working to get his wife and children to join him in the U.S. for the past couple of years with Kuhn’s help. That task took on new urgency after the Taliban takeover.

Kuhn went down her contact list of influential people and met with lawmakers including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to help get Safi’s family and other stranded Afghans out of the country. Safi’s parents, his wife and two children reunited with him in January. The family now lives together in Pleasanton.

Safi still has siblings and other friends and relatives in Afghanistan. He said they’re telling him the political situation there has stabilized to a degree, but also that the economic situation has become dire.

“When I talk to my family and friends who are behind in Afghanistan, they say ‘the security has improved, but there is no money and no food,’” Safi said.

“Under the Taliban regime, people don’t have anything to eat, and people are sleeping with empty stomachs. People are very worried about their future,” he said.

Safi said that even though the war is over and U.S. troops have left, he hopes Americans will continue to think about Afghanistan and want to help the country and its people.

The post Afghan Employees of Bay Area Nonprofit Hope Americans Will Help Those Living Under Taliban appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

San Francisco residents who are not citizens but are parents may vote in school board elections, including the upcoming recall election that could remove three members of the board. The Board of Supervisors in October made this enfranchisement, originally enacted through a 2016 ballot measure and scheduled to sunset in 2022, permanent.  

Amos Lim, who manages the economic justice program at the nonprofit Chinese for Affirmative Action, said he votes in school board elections as a noncitizen because he wants to influence education policy in the district where his 14-year-old daughter is a student.  

“I always feel that a lot of times, our voices are not being heard. Because we don’t get a choice in voting for any other federal or state election,” he said. “Locally, because education affects, starting on the ground level, our kids — as a parent, I would like to be able to have some say in the education policy or who we appoint to the SFSUSD board.” 

For Lim, voting is a family affair. He and his husband began teaching their daughter the importance of voting and introducing her to sample ballots to practice on, at an early age. 

“I think we started filling out her first ballot, the sample ballot that was sent to us in the election booklet, when she was maybe 4 or 5 years old,” he said.  

Lim has long been an LGBTQ and immigration activist, and recognizes the power and limitations of direct action and trying to influence policy without the ability to vote. 

“It’s kind of been impossible to talk to any federal officials right now. I mean, you can try calling your senators and you will get a voicemail and half the time the voicemail is full,” he said. “Half the time you don’t know if they’ve listened to you or they’ve even read your emails, you just get a pro forma reply back that says, ‘Oh, thank you for contacting my office.’” 

It all comes down to voting to keep elected representatives accountable to their constituencies, he said.  

“If you don’t think that you can get through to your representative, the only tool that you have, at the end of the day, is in November when there’s an election and you make your feelings known,” he said. “But for noncitizens, for green card holders, people like me, we basically just have to cross our fingers and hope that those people who vote will vote in their best interest and in the best interest of their city and their country. So we have to kind of rely on their goodwill.” 

Lim said he understands that “citizenship has its privileges.” But noncitizen voting has a long history in the United States. According to Ron Hayduk, an associate professor of political science at San Francisco State University who has studied noncitizen voting, 40 states allowed those without citizenship to vote in local, state and even federal elections from 1776 to 1926. Several municipalities around the country, including New York City, are restoring that right, if only for local elections.  

In San Francisco, the process of registering and then casting a ballot as a noncitizen is different from the process for citizens. The registration form asks different questions, and it is submitted to the Department of Elections in San Francisco, not the California Secretary of State. It notes that information provided to the elections department may be made available to federal immigration authorities. It also suggests that registrants consider checking with an immigration attorney before deciding to vote, so as to ensure that nothing about voting in the local election could jeopardize future applications for citizenship. The ballots themselves include only school board contests, since most races aren’t open to noncitizen participation. Noncitizens must also re-register before every single school board election in which they intend to participate, and they must be parents.    

Lim encouraged those on the fence about participating to do so.  

“Your voice is important. Whether you agree or disagree with where the school board is bringing the learning education policy for the last few years, this is where you get to make your voices known. So, you know, make the most of it,” he said. “Don’t just complain on Facebook or Twitter or whatever social network there is out there, and do something about it, and vote.” 

A segment from our radio show and podcast, “Civic.” Listen at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at 102.5 FM in San Francisco, or online at ksfp.fm, and subscribe on Apple, Google, Spotify or Stitcher. 

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