An immigrant’s struggles to survive in Las Vegas

The casino has been closed for months. The hotel rooms are empty. Out front, the three-story sign that once beckoned to gamblers with $1.99 margaritas now advertises a food bank in the parking lot every Thursday.

“8 a.m. until all food is distributed,” says the sign at the Fiesta Henderson.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this in America.

“I came here to conquer the United States, to say ‘This is the place where I want to be, where I’ll build my empire,’ ” said Norma Flores, a Mexican immigrant who spent two decades working as a waitress at Fiesta before COVID-19 descended and she lost her job.

As of now, her empire is a concrete block house crowded with six grandchildren, most of them attending school online.

She dreads when she overhears a teacher asking what students had for their lunches and snacks. She rarely has enough food for both.

To be an immigrant in Las Vegas is to see the coronavirus economy at its worst.

Visitor volume to Las Vegas and surrounding areas plummeted by more than 90% in a little over a month as the pandemic spread. Nevada’s unemployment rocketed to 31%, the worst in the nation and a level not seen even during the Great Depression. Every day, thousands of cars lined up at emergency food distribution centers, the lines stretching for block after block, past pawnshops and casinos and law offices.

Across the U.S., immigrant workers suffered disproportionately after COVID-19 struck. But their outsized presence in Las Vegas’ hospitality industry, where they form the working-class backbone of countless hotels, casinos and restaurants, meant a special kind of devastation.

At night, Flores often lies awake, worrying about paying the rent, buying gas, getting enough food. Like millions of other people across the U.S., her unemployment benefits run out the day after Christmas. She’s terrified her family could end up homeless.

“I’m scared I might wake up tomorrow and I won’t have anything,” she says, sitting outside her little house.

A block away, traffic rumbled past on the six-lane road that cuts through town. “I’m scared to be there, you know?”

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Three of us — a reporter, a photographer and a videographer — came to Las Vegas on the Associated Press’ road trip

WONG MAYE-E / AP Norma Flores carries groceries into her home last month in Henderson. Flores is a Mexican immigrant who spent two decades working as a waitress at Fiesta before COVID-19 descended and she lost her job. She lives in a concrete block house with six grandchildren, most of them attending school online. She dreads when she overhears a teacher asking what students had for their lunches and snacks. She rarely has enough food for both.