Thousands of Indigenous migrants toil on California farms, cut off from mainstream health care by language & cultural barriers. Amid the pandemic, new activists from within the community now work to bridge the gap. Silvia Garcia is one out of 165,000 migrant indigenous farmworkers in California. Her story highlights the barriers this community continues to face. Overlooked, yet considered essential, indigenous farmworkers not only lack access to healthcare but experience discrimination more often than other labor workers. Language is the main obstacle.  

Overlooked and Exposed was part of the 2021 USC/Annenberg Center for Health Journalism Fellowship and was published in October 2021 by palabra, NAHJ.

Words by Abraham Marquez and Zaydee Sanchez

Images by Zaydee Sanchez