Contributor Nana Brantuo pens a personal essay as she helps her mother navigate losing her job due to the coronavirus.
My mother and I have an unspoken agreement with each other. The terms and conditions were quickly crafted and consented to after my father left the U.S. permanently for Ghana following my high school graduation. His departure, abrupt and poorly planned, ushered in a host of unanticipated financial worries and responsibilities that we rarely, if ever, discussed at length or in detail. As my mother picked up shifts as a server at a prestigious Washington D.C. hotel, I increased hours at my part-time job and we handled business because no matter the level of financial need, we would make sure the other was taken care of. The outbreak of COVID-19, however, disrupted what used to be an effective system of financial support.
When she told me that she had been laid off, I didn’t even have time to process the shock. The initial call was brief. She gave me her local union number and other bits of information so that I could assist her with her unemployment application. She shared her date of employment, casually mentioning that she had been with the hotel since it opened. We took a collective pause, probably the only moment we would process this new reality, rushed I love yous, and ended the call.
At nearly 70 years of age, she had worked too hard and had sacrificed too much to wonder what survival would look like in a nation near collapse. And she’s not alone. But cultural mores transferred from homelands to the unforgiving socioeconomic terrain of the United States make way for suffering in silence—a coping strategy used by African immigrant women throughout the United States.
Immediately after our conversation, I went into crisis response mode. My tax return and stimulus checks would be transferred to her bank account—initial, very short term responses to a new reality and new responsibilities. I updated my budget sans amenities, luxuries, and entertainment line items in anticipation of increased financial responsibilities. I spent hours in front of my computer screen researching unemployment benefits and insurance, service worker relief funds and grants, and guidance from advocacy groups on supporting laid off workers.
Between navigating multiple tabs and categorizing file downloads, the sobbing started. Angry sobs. Sobs of frustration. I cursed myself for not pursuing a more lucrative profession and for failing to have met expectations as the “responsible” girl child. After nearly four decades of service, my mother—and her mostly Black immigrant colleagues—were to exhaust their PTO, file for unemployment, and await updates from their employer and union. They had known and worked together for decades, supporting each other through homesickness and the racism and xenophobia that came with serving the dining and hospitality needs of Washington D.C.’s elite. They too had unspoken agreements that would soon be broken. They had obligations that soon wouldn’t be met. They weren’t the African immigrants with masters and doctorate degrees. They were servers, attendants, and cleaners who had worked together while enduring conflict, structural adjustment programs, and big men who refused to relinquish power. Now, with no work and the fear of a new virus with high mortality rates among the elderly, silence was no longer an option.
In the middle of a public health emergency, Black immigrant women are navigating an uneven, inequitable society with health and economic infrastructures that have repeatedly failed us and our needs. In so many ways Black immigrant women sit at a dangerous intersection of risk and exclusion during this pandemic—and I find myself both infuriated by it and pushing myself to share my and my mother’s story to amplify the collective narrative of Black immigrant women and girls across the country who often struggle in silence.
The circumstances facing my mother and I mirror those of Black immigrant women across the country. 4.2 million people in the United States are Black immigrants, according to a 2018 Pew Research Study, and across various Caribbean and African communities, women and girls are generally half of the population.
Constantly grinding to attain economic security in the United States, Black immigrants undoubtedly contribute significantly to the U.S. economy. New American Economy found that In 2018 alone, Black immigrant households earned $133.6 billion, paid $36.0 billion in taxes and had a spending power of $97.6 billion.
These economic contributions do not necessarily guarantee socioeconomic safety and security, however. In a 2019 study on sub-Saharan African immigrants, about 19 percent of sub-Saharan Africans lived in poverty in 2017. A similar trend was found to be true in another 2019 report from the Migration Policy Institute on Caribbean immigrants, showing that approximately 17 percent of Caribbean immigrants were living in poverty.
In addition to the higher likelihood of living in poverty, Black immigrant women are also faced with barriers to accessing the job market. Tanvi Misra of City Lab reported in her 2015 article that Black immigrant women “were particularly disadvantaged when it came to employment.” Faced with compounded systemic barriers to overall socioeconomic security, Black immigrant women are also faced with unique and potential lethal circumstances as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In another troubling paradox similar to that of Black immigrants’ economic contributions is that the significant presence of African and Caribbean women in the medical industry in the United States doesn’t offset the medical discrimination faced by, and fought against by, Black women for centuries—even among those in working in the medical field. While Black immigrants serve in critical roles in the healthcare industry—an industry facing unprecedented labor shortages, the disproportionate risks faced by the overall Black population by the U.S. surgeon general in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic are exacerbated for Black immigrants. Recent studies on maternal mortality, breast cancer, HIV/AIDS, gynecological care, self-reported racism experiences among pregnant women, health care barriers and encounters, and scarcity of research on Black immigrant health provide insight into the pervasiveness of healthcare disparities and discrimination faced by Black immigrant women.
My mother and I are now initiating formerly delayed conversations. Our once standing agreement is now null and void. Hushed bank account transfers and bill payments to keep our heads above water will no longer sustain the very real and pressing economic instability and insecurity we both battle as Black immigrant women in the United States. The uncertainty of the future keeps us both up at night, prompting either one of us to call and discuss the rising number of confirmed cases, the underwhelming, federal government response to pandemic, and our hopes for the future.
With each call, the shame we thought we should feel lessens. Our comfort in our humanness grows. We breathe, process, and slowly let go of the images we had of our former selves, pre-coronavirus. We are no longer superwomen who suffer in silence. We are fully human, leaning into the comfort of each other’s voices, laughter, and tears as we navigate our new normal.
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Nana Brantuo is an educator, policy strategist, and scholar. She can be found on Medium, Instagram, and Twitter.
