Mexican migrant workers rattled by earthquake
“They carry Mexico in their hearts when they come here.”
Although they left their country thousands of kilometres away, Joanne Navarro said the 7.1-magnitude earthquake that claimed at least 237 lives and devastated much of the country’s capital city hit close to home for many of the thousands of Mexican agricultural workers who spend the summer months in Niagara.
“They might be from very far away, but their minds and hearts are there,” said Navarro, chair of the Niagara Migrant Workers Interest Group.
She said there are often as many as 4,000 Mexican workers in Niagara, employed through the federal government’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program at farms, orchards and vineyards throughout the region for an average of three to four months at a time. Although none of Niagara’s Mexican workers she knows of have lost loved ones, Navarro said others have reported that their homes were extensively damaged as a result of the earthquake — the second to strike the country since an 8.4-magnitude quake hit near Mexico’s southern Pacific coast less than two weeks earlier.
In addition to the migrant workers, there are also a substantial number of former Mexicans who now call Niagara home, including Claudia Rothman.
“For me it feels horrible. What can I do, I’m so far away and I can’t be out on the street and helping,” said Rothman, who works as a community connections coordinator at the Niagara Folk Arts Multicultural Centre.
“How do I know that everybody’s OK and where are they?” she asked.
Rothman has many family members and friends still living in Mexico, including one friend that was living in one of the at least 44 buildings that completely collapsed in Mexico City when the quake hit Tuesday afternoon.
Although her friend made it safely outside before the building collapsed, Rothman said the disaster left the woman homeless.
“She messaged me saying, ‘I don’t know where to go,’” Rothman said.
Even from Canada, Rothman was able to help, by reaching out to other friends and family in Mexico to find someone her friend could stay with.
However, she could do little to help another friend who was dealing with the looting and crime that came in the aftermath of the earthquake.
“On the horrible side, another friend sent us a voice message and she was crying and yelling, ‘They’re shooting. They’re shooting. I don’t know what’s happening,’” said Rothman, who has lived in Canada for the past five years.
Rothman said there are ways that people here can help.
For instance, she said Red Cross is collecting donations for Mexican relief efforts on its website, and internet retailer Amazon is pitching in, too.
“They have partnered with the Red Cross, so you can go onto Amazon.mx and buy goods there” to be donated to people in need in Mexico.
She said Topos de Tlatelolco, a Mexican nonprofit rescue team, is also accepting donations at www.topos.mx to assist in its efforts.
“Everybody from all over the world is coming together. And it’s not just Mexico. You have the hurricanes and fires and flooding,” Rothman said.
Meanwhile, Navarro said the Niagara Migrant Workers Interest Group plans to meet with Mexican workers to learn how people from local communities can help.
“We need to have an emergency meeting to talk about this, and see what we can do,” she said. “We’re going to look into organizing a meeting with the workers to see what it is that they would like to do and take our cue from them.”
For many of the Mexican workers who send the bulk of their pay cheques home to their families on a weekly basis, Navarro said having to leave loved ones behind for the job opportunity is already difficult.
“They’re already concerned when they have to leave their families to come here, because they aren’t home. Imagine if you add on top of that the fact there’s been an earthquake and there are damages, and you’re not there to help with that either,” Navarro said. “If you’re already concerned when you come here, just imagine how concerned you are when you hear about a natural disaster.”
Navarro invited people interested in the issue to email her at joanne.navarro@outlook.com. Despite the adversity, Navarro said Mexicans “are a strong people.”
“They’re impressed by the humanity and the solidarity of the people back home,” she said. “There’s devastation, yes, but also solidarity and hope.”
Rothman, too, has heard stories of friends and loved ones in Mexico pitching in to help.
“My friend’s brother, he’s in Puebla … helping to get kids out of a school,” she said.
The earthquake epicentre was in the state of Puebla.
“It’s nice to see that people are coming together, and people from all classes … Everybody is one the streets helping and that’s really nice to see,” she said.
“There’s a lot of people helping.”