A Latino father and essential worker died of COVID-19. He was afraid of losing his job. – NBC News

Alisha Álvarez, 28, mentioned a final goodbye to her father at his funeral carrier Friday, calm questioning if she will be able to contain performed extra to convince him that he did not contain to transfer to work if he feared contracting coronavirus.

José Roberto Álvarez Mena, her dad, was once regarded as one of hundreds of very predominant team who showed up to work as California seen a surge in coronavirus cases after in part reopening its economic system earlier this summer. Álvarez Mena was once working because the head of upkeep for Mission Foods Corp. in Commerce, California, when he tested certain to COVID-19 on June 28.

Alisha’s mother and older sister, both of whom lived with José Roberto, moreover tested certain for the virus all the intention thru the an identical time period. While both ladies folks recovered, José Roberto’s symptoms worsened. On July 4, he was once hospitalized after struggling to breathe.

He was once then admitted to the medical institution’s intensive care unit on the next day. José Roberto, identified to folk in his Los Angeles neighborhood as “Beto Mena,” spent two weeks connected to a respirator except he died on July 20. He was once 67.

“It’s miles basically the most painful thing, especially because you need to maybe maybe’t stare them in person, you need to maybe maybe’t drawl bye. Other folk contain to do not omit that, when they are saying they make no longer are alive to to wear masks,” Alisha told NBC News. “Right here is no longer a political scenario. Right here is harming folk and ruining their lives.”

José Roberto, who was once an engineer by profession, emigrated to the USA from El Salvador in the 1980s “to work and present for his kids,” mentioned Alisha, adding that he was once the family’s sole provider. “This is why work was once repeatedly the finest thing to him.”

“My dad by no intention mentioned no to serving to folk. He was once repeatedly there for any family member it’s no longer truly predominant what. He was once the roughly guy who would skedaddle into work on his days off because his boss would call him for again,” mentioned Alisha.

The Los Angeles Public Health Division ordered the temporary closure of Mission Foods Corp. on July 29 for failing to document a COVID-19 outbreak that sickened a minimum of 40 of their team; they moreover closed two assorted food processors. The firm was once allowed to reopen its facilities in some unspecified time in the future later.

County officials were investigating the deaths of two Mission Foods Corp. employees, including José Roberto’s, the Los Angeles Instances reported.

The family has criticized the firm for failing to present protection to José Roberto. Alisha mentioned their actions were “straight up negligent.” One month sooner than Mission Foods’ closure, José Roberto told his family he was once hearing rumblings at work of folk getting unwell, in conserving along with his daughter.

“He would attain home and expose my mom that so-and-so is unwell or every other person is down,” mentioned Alisha. “Nonetheless nothing was once officially told to my dad.”

Alisha mentioned the firm’s behavior was once inconsistent with what her father had skilled again in Could presumably well also when he received an first rate letter from Mission Foods warning him about seemingly COVID-19 exposure at work after an worker contracted the virus. On the time, both of her fogeys tested negative to the virus.

“There are a broad selection of very predominant team and Latino team at Mission Foods, who’re there offering for their families, who attain no longer are alive to to keep up a correspondence up because they are scared,” mentioned Alisha.

Mission Foods mentioned that their “firm-huge neatly being and security features meet or continually exceed the necessities of neatly being authorities” and that they are hand-delivering a present to every worker of their respective facility when the firm is made attentive to a confirmed case.

Disquieted to lose his job, “or be replaced by anyone youthful”

As California began seeing a upward thrust in COVID-19 cases, Alisha and her siblings began to grief about their father’s exposure to the virus at work, especially because he suffered from diabetes and high blood rigidity.

Alisha and her siblings would expose José Roberto, “you need to maybe maybe objective contain rights” and support him to state his preexisting neatly being stipulations to his employer in present to achieve again to work at a later time when coronavirus cases weren’t increasing.

“Nonetheless he was once scared to lose his job or be replaced by anyone youthful,” mentioned Alisha. “And on our part, we did not take the time to analyze what his rights would were. I favor at the 2d, I’d contain gotten a authorized knowledgeable—that would imply that he would calm be here with me alive.”

The Álvarez family held José Roberto’s funeral carrier Friday. About two dozen folk showed up to a cemetery carrying face masks. Other folk sat on every assorted chair to care for bodily distance as a priest gave a mass in José Roberto’s title. About 40 folk tuned into the carrier by a Zoom video convention.

“We had to construct a limit on folk attending the funeral and we’re a broad Latino family, so it has been much,” mentioned Alisha. “Nonetheless in a style, it has moreover allowed us to mourn in a extra intimate intention.”

Alisha and her siblings helped their mother transfer out of the apartment closing weekend “proper because there’s too many recollections.” Alisha’s fogeys were together for approximately 35 years.

The family no longer too prolonged ago created the Beto Mena Foundation to honor José Roberto’s memory. Alisha hopes the nonprofit will again Latino families struggling to survive the pandemic, as neatly as assorted communities of shade. So a long way, they contain got been in a situation to ship basic medical provides and thermometers to families with out a safe admission to to COVID-19 testing in El Salvador, José Roberto’s native country.

Not presently, Alisha hopes that the muse can again very predominant team safe admission to bilingual labor legal professionals and host food drives as neatly as assorted neighborhood events spherical Los Angeles and Orange County in partnership with assorted foundations.

The coronavirus has killed a minimum of 5,136 folk in Los Angeles County, half of them are Latino.

“These don’t appear to be proper numbers. These are folk. They’re mothers, fathers, siblings, uncles that are no longer with us anymore,” Alisha told Telemundo in Spanish closing week.

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