For my Mellon Public Scholar project, I worked with CapRadio and Local Voices Network to facilitate a series of virtual community conversations centered on Stockton’s Latinx community and the impact of Covid-19.

Since mid-March, we have all been grappling with the pandemic’s impact on our families, schools, work and communities. For black and brown communities, this impact has been devastating. The latest CDC data shows that Latinx and Black Americans are dying at rates 3.2 times higher than white Americans. In Stockton, where the majority of residents are Latinx, this impact is being felt in everywhere—essential workers to farmworkers, multi-generational households to undocumented families. Some of the issues that came up again and again in our community conversations were livelihood, food insecurity, childcare, healthcare access and mutual aid resources.