Overcoming Crises in Immigrant Communities Through Collective Effort

Recent years and the global pandemic have highlighted the vulnerability of immigrant populations in New York to major health and economic crises, particularly in the metropolitan area. Unfortunately, these communities have been facing barriers to healthcare for a long time, with limited access to fedral and state social welfare programs.

There is hope, however. In 2020, thanks to the collective effort of donors and organizations, millions of dollars were distributed to immigrant New Yorkers left out of federal stimulus funding. Make The Road NY helped spread a share of the donations using prepaid debit cards, while The Undocu Workers Fund utilized online payment services like Venmo; organizations like Mekong NYC, which helps refugees from Southeast Asia, and Adhikaar, which is committed to improving the lives of the Nepali-speaking community, also worked to distribute funds directly to community members.

These non-profit-led initiatives are a testament to the power of collective effort in overcoming crises in immigrant communities. This collective work is not just an isolated phenomenon, but happens continuously as needs and crises arise. Let’s take a closer look below at how collective efforts have helped immigrant communities overcome severe challenges and barriers they’re facing, as well as times of crisis.

Challenges for immigrant communities

A report on 2021-2022 census data from the Citizens’ Committee for Children (CCC) of New York tells us that immigrant households have the highest rates of overcrowding across all major race groups. This is exacerbated by immigrants’ high rent burden (59 percent) and lower incomes, which limit their access to better housing.

In fact, the CCC further explains that 45 percent of foreign citizens living in NYC earned incomes below or near the federal poverty level in 2020. This is despite the fact that immigrants comprise 45.2 percent of the labor force, with undocumented immigrants having higher average labor force participation (76.6 percent compared with U.S.-born populations), according to initial results from the NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity.

Lower incomes for immigrant populations and overcrowding in immigrant households can aggravate issues in food insecurity and health. 2022 data from the Center for Migration Studies (CMS) indicates that nearly a quarter of immigrants across New York City reported being food insecure. The pandemic has only further intensified this food insecurity, according to 2022 research published by the National Library of Medicine. Here, socioeconomic position accounted for 43 percent to 66 percent of the relationship between immigration status, ethnicity, and food insecurity.

These structural inequalities are aggravated by social discrimination and can lead to poorer health outcomes. In fact, according to CMS data, 17 percent of immigrants don’t seek healthcare treatment in part because of fear of discrimination. Research published in SSM – Qualitative Research in Health found that because immigrants were less likely to seek care due to discriminatory healthcare experiences and structural inequalities, containing public health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic becomes more difficult, and immigrant populations become more vulnerable to the effects of these crises.

The effects of collective effort

Fortunately, a series of community initiatives provide support to immigrant communities to address the challenges of food insecurity, lack of housing affordability, and discrimination. The Food Bank for New York City, for example, has been operating to end food poverty since 1983. It has a decades-long history of volunteers working to organize and provide more than 100,000 free meals each month to New Yorkers.

Meanwhile, La Morada and Centro de Artes outings have been launched by schools and parents to help immigrant students navigate systems and feel supported amidst the crises. On a nationwide scale, countless individuals and organizations banded together to launch the #KeepFamiliesTogether movement. This helped mobilize communities and further spread awareness across the United States, and even across the globe, of how misguided the fear of immigrants is and how immigration bans were subjecting families to maltreatment.

Moving forward

Our collective efforts have to be amplified if we are to proactively protect immigrant communities today. Meaningful initiatives are continuously organized at the community level, and individuals can also opt to pursue roles in social work and in the private sector to contribute to these initiatives.

Work at the community level includes highlighting the social determinants of health that impact community safety. Research published in Springer emphasizes that social work practice must collaborate with legal service organizations along a human rights-based approach. In particular, social workers can play an important role in assisting immigrants in accessing various domains of integration, such as child welfare, education, employment, and health.

The private sector also plays a crucial role in increasing the resiliency of immigrant communities to social and economic challenges. Funding and support for immigrant entrepreneurs are essential in this process. Research from MIT shows that better professional opportunities for immigrants can lead to better prospects for even native-born Americans. Immigrants are more likely to start businesses than their native-born counterparts, creating more jobs with higher wages and innovations. According to a survey, immigrant-owned businesses make up almost half of New York City’s 220,000 small businesses.

Additionally, there’s a growing call for established businesses to rethink their approaches to diversity and inclusion at the recruitment and hiring levels. Businesses must make more concentrated efforts in defining diversity and inclusion targets and broadening the concept of candidate qualifications. Companies must also ensure that diversity is reflected in hiring teams, as a lack of diversity in these teams can ultimately frustrate these efforts.

To help support these efforts and spearhead more policies and initiatives that protect immigrant communities, you could also consider joining a nonprofit organization as a volunteer. Whatever help you can offer is vital in the continuous, collective efforts to overcome and eradicate crises and challenges in immigrant communities. To learn more about the struggles and victories of immigrant women in New York, learn more about New Women New Yorkers’ work to empower immigrant women to secure meaningful employment, and read other posts on its blog.