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We happen to be in a testing site that has
one of the highest levels of confirmed Covid cases
throughout the city and county of San Francisco.
"What I do want to just share with you"
"is that some people do not know how to write"
"so you may have to write it for them."
Everybody that shows up to volunteer,
including myself,
we're exposing ourselves --
to a virus that could be potentially deadly.
But we're there to provide a service,
and we're there to be public servants for people.
You're jumping into action
to ensure that you can save and protect as many people
as you possibly can.
🎵
The bread and butter of the Mission District
is the working class community.
The Latinos,
the folks that have migrated like my parents did
and my grandmother did
to create a better life for their offspring.
Those same people are the ones that then go out
and ensure that the grocery store is fully operational,
that the restaurants are cooking the food that people want.
The Mission has a rich history of organizing and activism
that dates back really to the '60s and the '70s.
All of those fights have led us to this particular moment.
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In early April, the Latino Task Force and UCSF
decided to partner, to conduct a study--
the first testing in the field of a census tract
in a Latino neighborhood in the country.
Nobody had done it to that point.
All of the testing that was occurring
was only happening in the hospital.
So if you think of a pyramid,
they were only testing the very top portion,
meaning the people that were already sick with symptoms.
And so our committee treated this like a political campaign.
You knock on doors, you talk to people, you flyer, you phone bank, you do it all.
And when I say that we knocked on doors,
I don't just mean we left a flyer -- we did that too--
but we literally knocked on every door in the census tract
and we ended up testing a little north of 4200 people in 4 days.
I knew that we were going to find a disparity.
I never imagined we were gonna find the disparity that we did.
About 44% of the respondents of the testing were from the Latino community.
About 31% were white or Caucasian.
Of all the people that tested positive,
95% were from the Latino community.
Zero were white or Caucasian.
The other painful reality
was that 90% of the people that tested positive
said that they did not have the privilege to shelter in place or work from home.
One of our original demands from the study
was that we wanted a testing site in the Mission District.
It gave us the ability to say
you can't hide from this particular truth
and you, city and county of San Francisco, need to jump into action
to provide the resources and the things that are needed
in a community that's being hit the hardest.
"And remember to practice kindness"
"so in the way that you ask is very important..."
So now, every single Thursday,
individuals can show up to get tested for Covid-19
without and appointment, without needing to pre-register, without ID.
And simply show up and provide the basic information
so we can contact you in case you are Covid positive and get results.
"We're here and it's our leadership here that needs to be respected."
"And I want to thank DPH because they come in a very humble way, our partners here."
"You are helping out this community so much, so thank you, thank you."
"When we're talking to people in line, when we're working with our comunidad,"
"we treat them with love and respect, and compassion..."
The kind of community work that we do,
there's something deeply spiritual about it.
This fight against Covid-19, this weekly testing is also deeply spiritual..
But it's that same spirit and that same energy
of being able to make something out of nothing
that our community inherently holds within itself.
The Latino Task Force is a beautiful manifestation of that.