Virus kills her cross-border job in San Diego

“All of us that had to leave our families for the American dream, we paid a high price: not living with who we love,” said Amanda López, a 50-year-old Mexican woman who worked in San Diego for 18 years with only a tourist visa. She lost her job due to the pandemic and the partial border lockdown, but she doesn’t plan on returning once the border reopens.

Amanda López (fictitious name) asked to be anonymous because she fears the US government would be able to identify her and cancel her visa.

Amanda started her workdays by waking up at five in the morning. She’d take public transit to the border and wait in line to cross. “Straight from my house all the way to work took about three hours,” she said. Her boss first gave her work when she was 33 years old. Amanda was a chef working on feasts of up to 400 people. Her employer, who gave work to her and approximately 20 other tourist visa workers, paid less than minimum wage and didn’t respect overtime wages. “I worked a minimum of eight hours but often 10, 14, 15, sometimes even 18 hours – hours that should have been paid double but she wasn’t paying that,” she said.

It’s not possible to cross every day with a tourist visa, so she would stay in the U.S. and sleep at her employer’s house to work three or four days out of the week. What she earned in the US was much more than what she’d earn in Mexico for the same job, but at times she would only get to sleep at her own house and see her daughters twice a week. Thanks to the money she was making, she was able to be the sole provider for her three daughters (one of whom is ill), while sending money to the rest of her family. She comes from an indigenous Mazahua family, who migrated to Tijuana from Sitácuaro, Michocán.

But everything changed when the Covid-19 virus outbreak reached the U.S. in March, and California tried to contain its spread by canceling public events.

“She just called me and said, ‘I got all my events cancelled. I’m sorry, we won’t be able to work until new notice,” Amanda said. In that moment she realized that she was alone. “That opened my eyes. I thought she really appreciated my work, my presence, but she just got rich from my efforts."

After she realized her employer wouldn’t support her economically during the Covid-19 crisis, she decided to start again on her own and go after a new horizon. “I’m going to stay in Mexico now. I’m opening my own business and it’s going well.”

Even as she works more days per week and earns 50 percent less income, she feels better now that she doesn’t have to do the long waits to cross the border. She gets to spend more time with her family and is free from all the pressure she’d receive from her former boss.