Tips, tests and take-out: Local groups help Spanish-speakers stay informed on COVID-19
If you go onto the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control’s website and click on the globe icon at the top of the page, you’ll be greeted with a drop down list of 81 different languages, everything from A (Afrikaans) to Z (Zulu).
Spanish is, of course, one of the available languages in which visitors can access COVID-19 testing site information and case numbers by county and ZIP code, among other items.
Community health worker Yajaira Benet is helping lead the effort to bring more Spanish-language resources to Lowcountry Latinos so they know how and where to get help during the global pandemic that has disproportionately affected Latinos.
And she is urging local leaders to accommodate the Latino population, which makes up 11.2% of Beaufort County and 13.2% of Jasper County, according to 2018 Census Bureau data. In Beaufort County, 8.9% of people speak Spanish at home. That figure is 11.8% in Jasper County.
“I’ve been a pest around the community saying you need to have bilingual stuff,” Benet said. “You always need to have bilingual stuff.”
A number of area towns and counties have COVID-19 information available in both Spanish and English on their Facebook pages and websites, including Hardeeville and Hilton Head Island. That information also can be translated by Google.
But not all COVID-19 information is as easily accessible in Spanish as in English. That’s where Benet and others come in to fill in the gaps.
The navigators
Benet is a helper, an ayudante. She makes connections in the growing Lowcountry community she has lived in for decades, sees who needs help and links them up with appropriate services, be it primary care or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Benet is a program coordinator for PASOs, a Columbia-based community health organization that works to connect Latinos across South Carolina with health resources in their area. She and two community health workers are embedded with Beaufort Jasper Hampton Comprehensive Health Services as members of PASOs’ Lowcountry branch.
During the pandemic — when Benet and her team cannot be on the ground — that work has taken the form of answering questions over the phone, assisting with Medicaid applications and posting information on PASOs’ Facebook page.
“We’re finding that Facebook is working well,” Benet said. “It’s been years … we’ve had a PASOs Facebook page. We try to keep information that is local.”
One of the major concerns clients have surrounds supporting their kids when school starts in September. Benet said many parents struggle with reading and writing — a difficulty that could be exacerbated if curriculum is virtual, as it may be in Beaufort County schools.
“Some families don’t have internet, so how are they going to work?” she said. “Some families are working very few hours. Transportation is an issue.”
Some issues working Latino families face can increase their risk for COVID-19.
In Beaufort County, where the fair market rent — the cost of safe, decent rental housing in a certain area as determined by Housing and Urban Development — reaches $1,028 for a two-bedroom apartment, those who cannot afford adequate housing often live in crowded apartments, where social distancing is difficult.
“Rent is very expensive here, and the numbers are affecting the community,” Benet said. “Three or four families in an (apartment), everybody living in the same room. That’s why we’re having so many (COVID cases).. If you have to isolate, where do you go — the street?”
She said it has been hard to reach everyone who needs help, especially those without internet access and recent immigrants.
“Language is a barrier, transportation is a barrier, isolation is a barrier,” Benet said.
PASOs is trying to work through those barriers while trying not to “overload” community members with information.
PASOs and the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center have teamed up to share information specific to the Latino community. The two groups created a Spanish-language webpage with a laundry list of legal, medical, financial and housing-related resources on the center’s website
“We are part of coalitions, working and sharing information that is specific to the Latino community,” Benet said. “We’re working all together.”
The news gatherers
Alberto Ortega is the director of VaQueVa la Revista, a Latino media company based in Bluffton that produces a monthly Spanish-language magazine and Spanish-language video and radio programs.
His staff of four has turned its focus toward making sure Latinos know how to stay safe during COVID-19.
The staff has begun “Lowcountry Noticias,”a nightly news program streamed through Facebook Live. Presenters discuss COVID-19 news relevant to Beaufort and Jasper counties, as well as other local, national and international events. It airs from 8 to 9 p.m. weeknights.
The show has been a success since it premiered a month and a half ago, Ortega said. Each hour-long episode has 1,000-2,000 views. The Facebook page for the company has nearly 5,000 likes.
Both the magazine and the show also promote businesses in the area through advertising. Swipe through a copy of VaQueVa la Revista, and you’ll see ads for everything from La Tampiqueña Mexican Restaurant to Alfred’s Carpet Cleaning and More, alongside features on community members and tips for staying safe during COVID-19.
“The businesses should connect with the Hispanic people, because the Hispanic people are hardworking,” said Ortega, who is from Mexico. “It’s important that the people are informed.”
Fifteen hundred issues of the magazine are printed each month and can be found in restaurants, law offices, bakeries and stores around Bluffton, Ortega said. The next issue comes out Aug. 6.
Eric Esquivel said that, when his family moved to Hilton Head Island in 1983, they were an “abnormality” in that they spoke Spanish.
His father was from Colombia and his mother from New Jersey. Esquivel immersed himself in Latin culture throughout college before moving back to Hilton Head. He founded La Isla, a glossy Spanish-language magazine published monthly from Charleston to Hinesville, Georgia, in Octobter 1999.
As president and publisher, Esquivel leads a team of six in producing the magazine, its online news component LatinxToday.com and a pre-recorded weekly news program streamed through Facebook.
The magazine, like VaQueVa, promotes local businesses through advertising and includes short features and COVID-19 safety tips.
About 25,000 copies are issued a month, Esquivel said.
The news site provides daily information, including details about COVID-19 mask ordinance mandates and translated press releases from local governments, plus articles about sports, politics and immigration.
Esquivel said La Isla pays Latin American freelancers to source some articles, while others come from the Associated Press and other wire services.
“One of our slogans is ‘news from a different perspective,’” Esquivel said. “We like them to write without cultural bias, (American bias). News nowadays in the United States is either left or right.”
While coronavirus statistics, testing site details, FAQs and recovery predictions continue to take up much of the space on LatinxToday.com, Esquivel continues to focus on an issue that’s close to his heart — immigration reform.
Esquivel is a co-chair of the Lowcountry Immigration Coalition, an organization that targets anti-immigrant legislation.
Esquivel see himself as a voice for the Hispanic community and is willing to break the traditional rules of journalism to advocate for Latino immigrant communities.
“For some reason our immigration system is broken, but the reality is, who are you if you’re not willing to stand up for those core beliefs and values?” Esquivel said.
