Immigrant families like mine work hard to provide for our families and contribute so much to our communities. I work in maintenance at a local hospital to support myself and my son. With the layoffs brought on by COVID-19, I, like many of us, lost my job and had to seek out unemployment benefits.
Even though I am eligible for unemployment, I was never able to successfully submit my unemployment insurance application because I couldn’t get help in Spanish.
There were no Spanish instructions on the online application to help me with an issue that I had. I called the Department of Workforce Solutions to ask for help, but all of my calls except one went unanswered. The person I got a hold of did not speak Spanish, and there was no interpreter available. He told me that they would call me back, but no one ever did.
People who qualify for unemployment should be able to submit an application. For the process to be fair for all, it should accommodate the different languages of our state’s communities.
My experience trying to apply for unemployment made me feel powerless, like I didn’t exist. I didn’t get the unemployment my family desperately needs and that I qualify for just because I don’t speak English.
Like so many other people in our state, I worry about surviving this pandemic and getting back on my feet. I worried constantly about how to pay the bills, take care of my son and buy basic necessities for weeks without my income or unemployment benefits.
I am really worried about my community. Many of my Spanish-speaking friends have had the same kinds of problems with their unemployment application and haven’t received any benefits. They can’t support their kids. They can’t afford basic necessities for their families. I worry about them constantly, and I try to support them in any way that I can.
Even though we are resilient, my community is hurting. We have been left behind to fend for ourselves during this pandemic. We deserve better.
I support the efforts of the Asian Family Center, El Centro de Igualdad y Derechos, Catholic Charities, New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty and many others that wrote a letter to DWS urging the department to provide the language support and other services our communities need to access unemployment insurance. I encourage the Department of Workforce Solutions to not delay taking action any longer.
Unemployment benefits are a lifeline during this time when work opportunities are scarce.
Now more than ever, everyone that qualifies for unemployment needs equal access to it so we can keep our families healthy and strong and come out the other end of this pandemic with the means to rebuild our communities.
Elisa Cibils, who interned at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, assisted the author with writing this in English.
