When politicians attack immigrant rights, they’re also attacking the foundation of our care system. In this episode of Who Cares!, SEIU 2015 President Arnulfo De La Cruz is joined by CNA Robert Oronia and labor organizer Alejandra Quintero to unpack the real-life impact of threats to birthright citizenship and DACA. Together, they explore what these attacks mean for care workers, immigrant families, and the soul of the labor movement—and how we can fight back.
Transcript
Arnulfo De La Cruz: Welcome to Who Cares!, a podcast by SEIU 2015. I’m your host, Arnulfo de la Cruz, President of SEIU 2015, the largest union of long term care workers in the country. We represent over half a million caregivers in California who show up every single day to care for older adults and people with disabilities.
Today, we’re going to be talking about something personal, something that may be of a political nature, but also something that is urgent, as is no surprise to the folks listening. The Trump administration is again coming after immigrants, this time by trying to end birthright citizenship and also dismantling the wildly popular DACA program for young immigrants. These aren’t just policy attacks. These are attacks on our families, on our communities, and as I’ve said so many times, like so many sectors of our society, immigrant labor also makes up a core backbone of the care economy–caring for American citizens, caring for immigrants who live in this country, ensuring that their care needs are met.
Today, I’m excited–I’m joined by two people who bring deep, personal experience and powerful insight to this conversation. First, we have Robert Oronia, a certified nursing assistant, and proud SEIU 2015 member who works in a skilled nursing facility in the Los Angeles area in region one. And also joining us is Alejandra Quintero, labor organizer and founder of All Things Labor, who has written and spoken powerfully on Immigrant Justice and the future of the labor movement. Robert and Alejandra, welcome to Who Cares!
We always start Who Cares! with the care story. It reminds us why we do this work. Robert, why don’t we start with you. Can you share your caregiving story? I understand that it started, actually, with a friend who was in a car accident.
Robert Oronia: Yeah, actually, before I was a CNA, I started off as a caregiver. I was just a friend of mine was in a really bad automobile accident, and one day I came to visit him at home, and he pulled me aside and says, Hey, I have a question for you, like, Yeah, what’s up? He says, “Would you mind maybe possibly being able to come in a couple of hours a day and maybe helping me with certain things?” What happened was he was paralyzed from the legs down from the accident, and his main concern was he felt he was too old to have his mom help him shower.
And you know what? In a heartbeat, I was like, Sure, but in the back of my mind, I’m just thinking to myself, “I’m going to be responsible if anything happens.”
But that’s how it all started, and I took care of Steven for almost a good five or six years. His mom was a nurse, and, you know, one day she says, How come you just don’t go and become a CNA? I said, What’s a CNA? I had no idea what that was. You know, before I did this, I was an electrician. I helped my family in the family business as an electric electrical apprentice. It was her that told me, and that’s how I became a CNA. I’ve been working as a CNA for over 10 years now at two different facilities. I’ve been six years now at this current facility in Chatsworth. And I love the job I do. I love taking care of people.
Arnulfo De La Cruz: Thank you, Robert, that’s such a powerful story. And like so many folks who are in the care sector, you responded to a friend in need, and your calling was care, and that’s just such a powerful story. And Alejandra, I know you’ve done some work around the intersection of care and labor. Would you mind sharing your care story?
Alejandra Quintero: Yeah, of course. First of all, thank you so much for having me. I think being Latina, first generation American, you know, caregiving is very much part of not only our culture, but like our shared sense of responsibility. So when I think of caregiving, I think about the intersection of, for example, the work that I used to do. My coworkers and I unionized the two previous times–it was immigration nonprofit law firms that represented immigrant youth. You know, there’s often times where kids needed not only legal representation, but also all aspects of social services and support, whether it’s medical or, you know, housing needs, educational support, etc.
And I thought about the time of how old my parents were when they came to the United States. And there’s one particular story that makes me think of caregiving, and it’s when my parents were, I believe, barely 20 years old. My grandfather passed away, and, you know, my dad was trying to go to his funeral, but just didn’t have the funds. You know, they were really, they were really poor when they got here, like many, many immigrants.
And my mom was telling this story to a neighbor, and in the apartment complex that you know, we were used to live in, and that that neighbor also happens to be immigrant. It was a very diverse apartment complex. Actually, I was talking about about this with my dad the other day. It’s like, wow. We had like Cuban and Italian, and we had like a Guatemalan, everyone living in the same, you know, area, and it was, this was super nice.
But so I mention this story to one of the neighbors. He didn’t say anything. A few hours later, he comes back and basically said that a couple of people in the like, in the neighborhood put, like, put money together to help my dad, and they said, use this for your husband so he can get his flight back, so he can head back to the funeral and pay us back when you can. So that, for me, was really touching, because it was like the kind of a full circle of the work that I was doing and my coworkers were doing to support immigrant youth now, and realizing that we’re honestly just all paying it forward, right? Like it’s people in our lives have done in the past. And you know, it is our shared responsibility, because we do live in a community, to do it for others, and honestly, it’s shaped so much of the way that I move in labor organizing as well.
Arnulfo De La Cruz: That’s such a wonderful story. Thank you, Alejandro, for sharing. That really does speak to how important our communities are. In your community, kind of coming together to support your father, who was going through difficult times, I think, is just a wonderful story about care, about community.
So let’s talk about what’s happening now. You know the current administration is pushing a case to the Supreme Court that would end birthright citizenship. That means that if you’re born the United States, obviously, but your parents are undocumented, you may no longer be considered a United States citizen, something that we maybe would have thought a couple years ago would be the most outrageous idea that we’ve ever heard, given that it’s not just unconstitutional, it’s also dangerous. Robert, I know that you’re a birthright citizen. Your mom was born here. Your father, my understanding, came from Mexico, and you have some family members who are also birthright citizen. How is this moment affecting you and your family?
Robert Oronia: Yeah, my like, you mentioned. My mom was born here. My father comes from Acaponeta Nayarit in Mexico, as does the side of my, you know, majority of my relatives are all from Mexico. It angers me, and it brought in a sense of, what the hell? How could this–even you would never phantom something like this happening in our beautiful country, but it’s happening.
I have cousins right now and friends, even myself–my sister and I are actually speaking when this all started. Well, what do you think is going to happen? What’s going to go on? I told her, you know, we just got to write it out and see. We got to see what we don’t know what’s going to happen. I have cousins who are my age, who have kids who are born and raised in this country who are terrified that they might lose their parents. What happens if they take mom or dad away from us? That’s mainly what the conversation has been lately amongst my siblings and a couple of my co workers and my cousins, my family.
Honestly Arnulfo, it’s a very terrifying thing, not knowing what tomorrow may possibly bring. It’s crazy. I have a 14 year old, my 14 year old godson, having to explain that to him to make him understand what is actually going on in the world. It’s not a conversation you ever want to have with a teenager, you know? Especially when he comes up to me, says, Hey, what do you think of this? He’s a smart young man, but it’s a conversation you just don’t want to have. And unfortunately, es algo que nisamos que hablar. That’s something we talk about.
Arnulfo De La Cruz: That’s exactly right. You know, sometimes some of these crazy ideas that we’ve heard coming out of Washington, it’s also like you feel sometimes there’s a lack of empathy, or that people don’t quite understand what this actually would mean, right? These are people in our family. These are people in our communities, our children. They may be on the same little league team as them, or we’re going to birthday parties, they are a fabric of our community, right? And so the idea that you hear sometimes in the media, they say, well, they can just go back as a family. You’re talking about families that have been here for decades. The only life they know is right here in the United States, right? Which is why they’re American.
So even the idea is creating fear, regardless of where the Supreme Court goes with this. I think the thought that you could feel like you’re not welcome, and that this administration is really attacking everything that we’ve known as an American value, that the Constitution is very clear about, also, is just really, really scary and really upsetting.
And Robert, just to follow up, what do you say to people, even in your own family? I’m sure we all have folks in our families, some with different, varying political degrees, but who might support this idea, right? Who might support the president in this idea, or don’t maybe understand the impact or how serious this could be for millions of people.
Robert Oronia: You know, it’s funny. You mentioned that because I have a tio. I have an uncle who is a die hard Republican MAGA Man, and the day I explained to him was priceless to watch his face drop when I let him know that his mom and dad, my abuelos, would have been considered birthright citizens, because their mom and dads were born in Mexico. The look on his face was like, Oh, my God, what are you talking about? How could you say that to me?
And I told him, mira, hombre, you know what? We’re gonna have a sit down and have a talk. Because just because your son–you’re forgetting something. His last name is Cordova. They don’t care what you look like. They’re going to see that last name Cordova. And what are you going to do the day your 14 year old gets questioned? Were you born in this country? And the look on his face was like, What are you talking about? he says.
You know what? This is what you voted for. This is what you wanted. This is what’s happening. What do you think about it? And there was a pause, and he couldn’t believe it. He just like, Oh my God. I go, yeah, oh my god. But yet, you run around the house. You run around at family gatherings. MAGA this, Trump that, Trump’s gonna save this. Now, look, you can’t even afford to go out and buy an avocado. You can’t even afford to go to the market. You’re having a hard time getting parts for your vehicles, and now you’re there’s a possibility that you’re going to lose some of your disability, your social security, or, better yet, his Medicaid. What do you say now?
But there’s always that, that answer, he’s gonna, it’s gonna be fine, don’t worry. But I think it’s slowly starting to hit him, little by little. It was that whole he himself, his parents, were birthright citizens, and I think that’s what finally knocked him through the head.
And what made it even better was when I explained to him, What are you going to do if all your nieces, your nephews are taken away? Because all my nieces and nephews, including myself, all his nieces and nephews, including myself, we’re birthright citizens. He may have been considered not because my abuelos and abuela were born here, but my great grandparents came from Mexico. He was born here. My mom was born here. My tio was born here, but they all married people from Mexico. My aunt married a man from El Salvador. That makes all those kids and myself birthright citizens, which make us eligible to be deported, which will leave him with no family.
And I wanted him to just sit there and ponder and think about the decisions that he sponsors, and the decisions he champions, and the man he champions. And I proved that, especially about my godson, my cousin, the 14 year old, I reminded his dad. His last name is Cordova. What are you going to do when that happens?
It’s very difficult, because sometimes we have good conversations. Sometimes our conversations turn into–because we’re both opinionated, we’re both hot headed, and we both have our own political beliefs, and we still have our family values. But at the end of the day, and I hate to say it this way, but you have to make a choice. And it’s that choice is either your family or the man with the red hat that looks like a Cheeto. You make that choice.
Arnulfo De La Cruz: Yes, it sounds like you’re knee deep into it Robert. Having conversations with family members. And like I always say, unless you’re Native American, we’re all immigrants to this country, to this land, right? And the exception being the African diaspora that was actually forced to come to this country.
So it’s funny how quickly people can forget that their ancestors either immigrated here. You know, it’s in some instances, only a couple generations away, and it’s already like, well, we’re okay if it happens to others, but not us, right? Or in this case, not understanding that it’s actually his his abuelos and his parents that could be impacted by this idea that’s being proposed right now by the administration. So thank you for sharing that.
And Alejandra, you know we’ve you know, from a legal and organizing perspective, what do you think is the significance of attacking birthright citizenship? How does this kind of tie into the bigger anti immigrant agenda that we’re seeing coming from this administration?
Alejandra Quintero: We know that the attack on birthright citizenship is just part of the strategy to be able to redefine who belongs in this country, and therefore who is entitled to rights of this country. And, you know, from a legal perspective, it’s just, you know, a challenge to the 14th Amendment. This is a way for this administration and for, honestly, for those in power, because even after this administration is gone, to be able to take advantage or create, like, a second class of people and citizens that can be exploited. And if you think yourself, for example, well, you know, I’m a citizen, or my parents, who you know, were born here, so I’m okay, etc.
Like we know, you know, in labor world, in the Union world, we say, a rising tide lifts all boats or ships. The same thing is said of the opposite, right? So it’s a race to the bottom. If you get more and more people that are scared, more and more people that are stripped away of their rights, then you create literal chaos that is going to impact–negatively impact–everybody else, including citizens.
Arnulfo De La Cruz: Yeah, that’s exactly right. And I felt like, Alejandra, sometimes, I guess history repeats itself, right? This is not the first moment that we’ve been in where immigrants are being demonized, where they’re stoking a fear. We had proposition 187 in California and lived through that. A lot of the best organizing and understanding and education came out of that attack. You know, them trying to divide and pit people against each other based on race, ethnicity, type of work. How do we push back against that narrative?
Alejandra Quintero: Yeah, yeah, this is such an important question. And, you know, I think one of the things that Robert was stating, too, was about having these difficult conversations is a great way to do this, right? It’s won by telling the truth, right? But it’s also, anyone who’s ever organized in your workplace, whether you’re bargaining for your contract or for your new contract, or whatever it may be–you know how difficult it is to talk to other people who are in the same boat as you. For example, you know, your co-workers, and still, there’s a lot of fear, right? There’s a lot of fear because a lot of workers are infantilized, and we’re treated, as, you know, as if we didn’t know what we’re talking about, when no one knows our experiences or knows the issues of the workplace better than the workers.
So one of the things that they want to do is instill this fear, right? We have to be honest. We have to keep fighting with the truth, but also having those conversations.
I’ll give an example. I also am, you know, first generation. There are some members of my family who voted for Trump, the first administration. You know what I did back in 2016? I cut them off. I was like, You know what? Now I don’t want to talk to those primos anymore. I’m done, you know, I don’t care about family drama, but that was, like, my line. Where did that get me? Nowhere, absolutely nowhere.
And, you know, to each their own. There’s some people who are going to say, well, I can’t handle that because, you know, my well being, you know, like, everybody says, do what you can. But what I understood is that if I stopped having these conversations with my family members, then who is going to have those conversations with my family members?
Then this is where I talk about shared responsibility, like we talk about community all the time. We talk about solidarity. But what does that actually mean? It means doing the work that sometimes is not easy. And most of the time it really is not easy, and it’s difficult and it sucks, right? It’s not fun, but it needs to get done.
And I think if you have, like, a goal or a vision of what it means to support working people, that means including all working people. People in power want to divide and conquer. That’s exactly what the boss does, and that’s exactly what’s happening with immigration. So one of the things that we can do, especially right now, is for labor to have a really strong stance. And this happened in May Day. You know, at least here in Los Angeles, it was like a lot, and I know nationwide as well, with May Day Strong Coalition, there was such a strong stance of the labor movement, basically saying, “No! Immigrants are welcome. Immigrants are part of the labor movement. We’re going to be fighting for our rights as a collective.” And that’s what we need to do when they want us to be more frightened or to not speak up, we need to do it even more.
Arnulfo De La Cruz: That’s wonderful. That’s powerful. And I appreciate you recognizing that it can be scary, it can be challenging. And I appreciate you being flexible, saying, Look, if you feel like you don’t want to have those tough conversations and it’s about taking care of yourself because it’s too difficult. That’s okay, but that you yourself feel a personal responsibility to kind of lean in to your power and have challenging conversations, and I from the union’s perspective, that’s really the only way that we’re able to change things is when we take action, when we speak up, when we challenge power and share our own stories, right?
Let’s talk about DACA. For those who are listening and don’t know, DACA is the program that protects hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. It protects them from deportation, right? It gives them the right to be able to work legally in this country. The administration has hinted that they also want to end it potentially again. Robert, I know you have cousins and friends who are DACA recipients. You’ve talked about the fear that’s settling in, not just among them, but also among your coworkers. What are you hearing in your facility? How is the fear affecting people, even on the job in skilled care facilities?
Robert Oronia: I hear a lot of no sabemos que what’s going to happen. One lady, one of those ladies like, I’m losinias, one of the older CNAs, came to work one day panicked, crying, upset. We asked her what was wrong. We thought something had happened to her or some family member, and then she just went in, que me mapassad aminieto. Like, oh, her nephew, she was so concerned about what would happen to the nephew. What happens if anything happens to him? He’s never been, he was really young, apparently, when he came to this country, this is all he knows, is this country. What happens if he gets sent back? What’s he gonna do? He’s not going to be able to function. Those are some of the things I hear.
And most importantly, I have cousins who were DACA recipients, and they say the same thing. You know, they’re like, I don’t know what to do. Bobby, que mos assad. And at the end of the day, it’s just fear. I hear a lot of fear, and it’s a type of fear that’s in a person’s voice that you don’t just hear it, but you feel it. I don’t know if you though a person is just so emotional that you can feel that fear. And it hurts. It doesn’t just hurt them. It hurts you as a person, me as an individual, to know that this is happening to this family member or to this co worker who you know a friend.
But once again, you know it’s telling them, hey, you know what? We gotta wait and see what happens. You maybe raise your voice and say something. Be part of the larger movement. Don’t just sit back and let it carry you away. Be part of something that’s going to help you at the end of the day, I don’t know, no tengo los palabras. I don’t have the words that can honestly comfort a person that’s in that deep of an emotional problem. I don’t know if anyone else can, but I can’t find those words. It’s hard for me to look at a person and try to tell them it’s going to be okay when I myself, personally, don’t know.
Arnulfo De La Cruz: Yeah, that’s a great point, Robert. And we’ve often talked about, given the significance of the number of immigrants that are in the care workforce, and also what we’ve known on the nursing home side is that we’ve had a care crisis for a while where nursing homes aren’t able to hire enough CNAs, and that then means that a certified nursing assistant has way more patients than they should be caring for, which impacts not just the person who’s caring for the patients, but the patients themselves and receiving the quality of care that they’re deserving of, because so much is placed on one person. What do you think would happen, Robert, if immigrant workers start disappearing from nursing homes in California?
Robert Oronia: Shut us down? It’s that simple. Let me tell you, in my nursing home, it’s migrant workers, Filipinas, Filipinos, Latinas or Hispanic El Salvador, Iranians, Guatemala. That’s what runs our nursing home. That’s what I see every day. I see a sea of different colored people because remember, like, like they say in our union, our union was started by Colored Women. Well, guess what? Till this day, it’s still Colored Women and now colored men who make what we have and that feel that nursing facility, all the way up to the LVNs. I have coworker, two LVNs who are from Nigeria. There’s two CNAs who are from Nigeria.
Can you imagine if we lost even just 30–let’s just say even 15 people were missing? You know how devastating that would be to a schedule or an assignment? We’re so short handed. I alone have almost 16, 17 residents to care for, and that’s at night. I understand. We have a short, you know, we’re on a skeleton crew, but there’s no quality of care there. So now imagine all these people, all these caregivers, these healthcare workers, these healthcare professionals, these people who care every day, to care for others. Imagine them gone. Who’s going to do that job? Who’s going to take care of one of these days my mom, because my mom, you never know, but imagine that a neutral imagine how devastating that would be.
Arnulfo De La Cruz: That’s a great point, Robert. Let’s not kid ourselves. We’re an aging population, right? The United States is aging. There’s more people now and in the next several years, they’re gonna need care than ever, and such a big part of the workforce, especially here in California, as immigrants.
If you take away the thousands of DACA recipients who are working in healthcare legally right now, working in the healthcare industry, it has the potential to have a devastating impact on Americans and everyone who receive care–whether it’s in skilled care, whether it’s home care, whether it’s in a hospital. Americans are going to need care as our population ages, and we should be talking about how we improve caregiving. How do we attract people to the workforce, not how we take away people’s ability to be able to work in healthcare–which I know would probably lead to us having a sicker community, maybe visiting the emergency room more often, right? So I think these are these are all very much related.
Alejandra, this is not the first time that DACA was under attack. I remember this young group of immigrants who kind of inspired the nation in the world on why DACA, in that moment, was an important idea and proposal. It feels like in this moment, maybe, there’s not that same aggressive campaign when it was first won. And I don’t know if that’s related to fear, but I know that we feel strongly about the impact that this has had on hundreds of thousands of young people in this country. What should we know about where DACA stands now and what’s at stake?
Alejandra Quintero: Yeah, so of course, we know that there’s a lot of fear, especially for the people that are being directly impacted by this. So many things are up in the air, right? Because we know that they are defying–when I say them, them in this administration–are defying the our balance of powers that we have now, including defying what the Supreme Court Justice is saying around immigration, the example of Kilmar Garcia, the individual immigrant that was sent to a prison in El Salvador right? Like that could have been any one of us.
We have to think about it from the workers perspective. If you strip away the rights of workers, and you not only are now paying them below, you know, minimum wage, or whatever it is, you are now creating a workforce that is scared to speak up. So if you are, for example, if you have DACA and you’re working in a factory that is making, like, poultry, or you’re working in the restaurant, you’re working in the back and you see a rat running or an infestation of rats in the restaurant that you’re working at. Are you going to likely say something, knowing that you might get fired for bringing this up? Probably not, because you need to put food on your table.
We saw this happen with the pandemic as well, you know, like, oh, well, if you’re sick, stay home. Well, how are you going to say that to people if they don’t go to work there? And we don’t have, you know, you know, Medicare for All, we don’t have all these other services that we should be receiving from our government because we pay taxes, including immigrants. They’re not going to stay home, which means now whoever is eating at this restaurant can get sick or worse, right? Or whoever is going into this, you know, building, you don’t know what the infrastructure of that building is and how it actually is safe. So now you, even if you do not care from an ethical or humanitarian perspective, for another person, stripping away the rights of other workers is going to negatively impact you and become dangerous for you and your family, like that’s the bottom line.
Arnulfo De La Cruz: That’s a great analogy. Really illustrates what’s at stake. And if DACA recipients lose their ability to lawfully work and live in this country. It doesn’t just impact us on the healthcare side. It impacts all of the different sectors that DACA recipients are currently working in. And that has a direct impact on union members, right? Many of them are union members, so many of them are essential workers in this country. How can unions be a part of protecting DACA recipients and pushing for a more permanent solution?
Alejandra Quintero: Yeah, absolutely. As a worker who has organized the workplace with my coworkers at three different locations, and the reason why, you know, I have made the labor movement my entire life now, is because there is a power in unions. Union power is political power, it’s storytelling power, it’s people power. I have not in my years of activism, in my years of being someone who always was fighting for justice, even as a kid, I have never seen another way for us as workers to get together collectively, because we have something in common, and that’s the fact that we’re all workers.
So what we can do–especially what unions can do–is to be very, very clear that we are in support of our immigrant brothers and sisters and our siblings. We have to be and you know, we saw that happening in May Day, but we need to see more of that. We need to continue to be fighting for very inclusive policies when we’re bargaining, when we’re talking about supporting union members.
It’s something that I learned actually, from some other friends that I have that work at different unions. They were telling me about all these different benefits that they obtained through their union. For example, if you yourself are married to someone who or, let’s say your parents are legal residents, but they want to become citizens, etc. There are certain unions that have, like, a whole legal aid support system for the members, where they can actually speak to an attorney and have an attorney represent them or submit an application for citizenship for their parents, right or their children, or whatever it may be. So that is incredible. Those are actual wins that we’re seeing that is happening because of unions.
So we need to continue to be fighting very, very proactively and very honestly, just really aggressively. And we need and we need to be saying it boldly and proudly. You know, we’ve seen it in other moments. Being raised in Southern California, where, you know, immigrant rights have always been the strikes or the walkouts that were happening back when I was like in high school. But we need to be having that with labor, and it needs to be very, very clear, and we need to make sure that us as members are pushing it, and also our leadership is pushing that as well.
Because, you know, the minute that we allow them to divide us is that we’re falling into the same tactics that the boss has been using against workers forever. And this is not the time for us to be like, well, you know, I’m going to be safe if I stay quiet or if I don’t say anything that has never worked in history. And I hope us as workers and as working class people recognize that.
And I’ll give a quick example, the two places, the first time that we unionized, there was a couple of people that were like, you know, maybe buddy, buddy with management. Or they said, you know, I’ll be fine. Like, I don’t need a union. I’m good. I’m good, you know. I mean, you might even throw the word scab a little bit there, right? Like they were acting a little scabby, giving things to management, telling the secrets of our union. You know what happened every single time on both those occasions–those two people that I’m thinking of got fired. Why? Because at the end of the day, they’re going to also come for you, and what is going to happen when you’re when you look back and no one is behind you.
So this is not only about doing what is the right thing for us as the labor movement, but it’s also about taking care of yourself, and we have to see ourselves as workers. The labor movement and the health of the labor movement depends on how well we’re protecting the people that are most vulnerable, and right now that is immigrant workers.
Arnulfo De La Cruz: That’s exactly right. You could be a union member right now thinking, Well, how does this impact me? But understanding that every union member has something to lose if DACA recipients lose their status, because it’s going to impact all of our industries. This isn’t just a fight about immigration policy, really. It’s a bigger question around who they’re saying belongs, who gets to stay, who gets to receive care and be cared for, and who doesn’t? I think you’re right. That’s really what’s at the heart of the strategy, not just questions around status.
And so, Robert, last word from you. I know that you’ve messaged your representative before– you’ve taken action. What do you say to a fellow worker who’s scared but doesn’t think calling Congress or showing up matters? I get that it’s not an easy thing to do for someone like you who’s done it many times, what do you say to a coworker who says, Well, I don’t know, Robert, if this is really what I should be getting involved in.
Robert Oronia: You know, what I’ve done before is I’ve made the calls in front of them and showed them how easy it was. And after the call, I’d explain to them: You know what? I understand how you feel. But isn’t it better to take some kind of action than to sit back and say, Woe is me? Look what they’re doing to me? At least at the end of the day, you could say, you tried something. You fought for you, you fought for your amigos, you fought for your family. I just, I ripped the band aid off, like when I go to talk to them about the contracts that are coming up, or if I need something from them signed, you know, being a steward, I ripped a band aid, and I just, I’m direct with them, because I realized with certain people, if you can’t be direct with them, they’re just not going to get it.
I want them to understand that they have the opportunity to do something, instead of sit back and let this man run you over. You have the opportunity to stand and be proud of who you are, where you came from, and you could say, I did something. And you’re showing the younger people that you work with, and you’re showing the younger people of your family that you know what, Si se puede. And that’s the only way I can do it with them, is just to be as abrupt as possible and as honest as possible. And then I’ll lead by example. And sometimes I’ll make a call here and there in front of them and show them if I can do it, they can do it.
Arnulfo De La Cruz: There you go. Si se puede, they can do it, leading by example. There you have it, folks. Alejandra, Robert, thank you both for sharing your stories and insights.
For those of you who want resources about DACA and birthright citizenship, you can find that on our SEIU 2015 website, SEIU2015.org. There’s links that will take you to resources and knowing your immigration rights the fight for birthright citizenship, the fight to protect DACA, the fight to ensure that immigrants in our country are being recognized and valued.
Given that we’ve always been a country of immigrants, and we believe that immigrants to this country have enriched and made America what it is right. And we’re in a moment where we risk breaking the entire system, and that falling apart, not just for workers, but for the people who depend on our care every day, among them, millions of Americans who are cared for by immigrants in the healthcare delivery system.
And that’s why this is such an important issue. It’s about people’s dignity, about people’s humanity, about the ability to receive quality care, but also for those who are caregivers, to also be able to care for your own family, especially in 2025 and care for yourself.
So here’s what you can do. You can call your member of Congress at 1-800-719-0332. Again, you can call your member of Congress at 1-800-719-0332. Let them know: protect DACA, defend birthright citizenship and keep families together. My name is Arnulfo de la Cruz, and this has been another episode of Who Cares. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other, and we will see you next time.