Into the Shadows: Celia Jimenez on Immigrants in Monterey County

Reporter Celia Jimenez does a deep dive into how people’s behavior and actions are changing as a result of fears of detention and family separation by ICE. Her cover story in Monterey County Weekly takes a comprehensive look at how immigrants are faring in an era of fear and mistrust driven by increased ICE raids in California communities.

Transcript:

Hello and welcome to talk of the Bay brought to you every weekday afternoon at five o’clock right here on Community Radio. I’m your host, Rachel Anne Goodman, and today we take a look at a major article. Is the cover story actually from Monterey County Weekly called Into the Shadows.

Immigration Raids have not yet come to Monterey County, but the fear that they could. Is changing people’s lives. Reporter Celia Jimenez is our guest for the first half of this program. I’m very pleased to bring her into the conversation. This is a very amazing article and I think you should be commended for all the work you did on it.

It’s quite something. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you very much. It was kinda like a last minute story. And then I think last minute in a sense that we normally plan our stories like three or four months in advance. And this one took less time than others, but we thought that it was time sensitive and it was something that we should we’re wondering, what was happening in the region.

And I actually was surprised with what I found out. You did a lot of research in a very short amount of time, and we’re gonna go through some of the information you managed to get from people who wanted to be anonymous for very obvious reasons, but they were willing to talk to you about how their lives have changed.

So I wanna spend some time on the individuals you talk. To, and then I wanna spend some time on the amazing amount of research you did to bring forward just what the profile is of the workforce in the agricultural and construction industry. So we’re gonna set the stage in a moment for. Exactly how many people are in Monterey, in San Benito counties.

Do we think? Of course, those numbers are quite hard to come by, but you managed to get a lot of information in a very short amount of time. So let’s just talk about what you saw when you talked to businesses who have seen a real drop in participation in commerce, basically. I walked down in, on, in Greenfield along, along with Camino, and I also visited several businesses in Seaside.

Actually, one of the people that I spoke with, Catalina, I spent two hours at her shop and only two people showed up in that amount of time. And what was her shop selling? They sell like Mexican goods. Yeah. And only two people. That’s quite down from what she’s used to.

Is that what you found out? Yes. And then especially because she, her business is like in the major street, so there’s a lot of traffic. Or, but you barely, no one showed up to the store. So places like Seaside Marina that cater to a lot of the immigrant community, Paro you’re, they’re seeing a real drop in business.

Yes. Like some of the people that I spoke with they couldn’t really quantify how much in Salinas there was this woman who has a, oh my God. I’m sorry. I need to think a little bit. English is not my first language, so sometimes I struggle a little bit. You’re doing great. But she has a nightclub and it’s a restaurant during the day and nightclub at night, and she also has a bar and she was saying that about 50% of attendance has dropped.

In her business. And this is like in a commercial area where the Cardinal store is in east and Sanborn. And then she mentioned that most of the businesses were seeing at least 50% drop in sales. That’s huge. Most businesses. Didn’t even have that during COVID. ’cause they managed to get food to go out to customers.

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