latimes--2020-06-09--'We can't prevent it': Farm workers paid low wages fear coronavirus spread in crowded housing

A bed fills most of the room that Odilia Leon shares with her five children .
In one corner , a dresser spills over with clothes .
For the cramped room in a two-bedroom unit behind a house in east Salinas , she pays $ 1,050 a month .
It ’ s what she can afford as a fieldworker picking strawberries , her job for the last nine years .
A couple with three children rents the other room .
In all , 11 people share a living room and kitchen .
There is one bathroom .
Every day , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fear that she could bring home the coronavirus , infect her children and possibly spread it to the rest of the household .
The couple in the other room also works to cover their half of the rent , she said .
“ Every time I leave the house in the morning , I worry about how I can come back and hug my kids , ” she said on a Thursday evening after arriving home from work .
Social distancing is challenging , if not impossible , in homes like Leon ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Salinas , the city where John Steinbeck was born .
As of Monday afternoon , COVID-19 had infected a reported 751 people in Monterey County , and many of the cases are concentrated on the east side of Salinas , where Leon lives .
It is an area that suffers from a lack of affordable housing , with families crammed into homes and renting out whatever space they can , sharing bathrooms , living rooms and kitchens .
Officials in the Salinas Valley , known as the “ salad bowl of the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ industry are acutely aware of just how quickly the virus can spread among farmworkers , both at home and at job sites .
In Monterey County , agriculture workers make up more than a third of confirmed COVID-19 cases , and Latinos make up nearly 80 % of them .
Karen Smith , spokesperson for the Monterey County Health Department , said she does not know if housing is a direct factor , but “ if you ’ ve got people close together with a virus that ’ s a respiratory virus , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Dr. Edward Moreno , the county public health officer , has said that the frequency of agriculture workers testing positive is tied with testing being concentrated in places like Salinas , the county ’ s most populous city .
Monterey County officials were among the first in the state to mandate face coverings at worksites and to ask companies to practice social distancing on buses used to transport workers .
The county lobbied the state for masks — receiving 750,000 — and sought alternative housing options for farmworkers and homeless people .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the economy , the agriculture industry , which never stopped because it is considered essential , will continue to struggle with stopping the spread of the virus .
The industry is dependent on low-wage labor , people who live in overcrowded housing and poverty .
Some , like Leon , have had their hours cut due to the pandemic .
Farmworkers often lack legal status , making them less likely to seek help through official channels , said Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner Henry Gonzales , who worked in the fields when he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Couple that with the crowded housing — it ’ s a bad situation , and we know it , ” Gonzales said .
“ We can ’ t prevent it .
There ’ s no way .
But what we ’ re trying to do is minimize it.
” He estimates that there are 45,000 farmworkers who live permanently in the county , and the population could swell to 60,000 as guest workers arrive for the summer to help pick cauliflower , lettuces , strawberries and other produce .
Carissa Purnell , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , said her organization delivers weekly supplies to farmworkers during their lunch breaks , offering free food , wipes and hand sanitizer , because many can ’ t afford such items or are too busy working to buy them when they ’ re in stock .
“ A lot of people don ’ t understand what it ’ s like , ” she said , describing situations in which multiple families squeeze into a single house .
“ It just breeds the spreading of the virus .
There ’ s no way for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Overcrowding in farmworker housing is severe in the Central Valley .
A 2018 study conducted by the California Institute for Rural Studies and California Coalition for Rural Housing found that 45,560 units of farmworker housing are needed in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties .
Residences averaged more than seven people , or five people per bathroom , a “ stunningly high ” rate , the report found .
“ Many are overpaying for their housing , living in squalid , substandard homes and/or doubling and tripling up with other households in overcrowded conditions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ de los Angeles Jimenez , 29 , who works at a salad-packing plant , learned how quickly the virus can spread on May 1 , when her feet began to ache .
She got tested the next day , and within a few hours learned she was positive for COVID-19 .
“ I started crying , because I wasn ’ t expecting it , ” she said .
She called her brother — who works at a different plant and lives with her — about getting tested .
Ultimately , her brother , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ became sick with COVID-19 .
They all live together , and she shares a room with her sons , she said ; they slept in the living room when she became ill .
Some agriculture companies have spent the past few years building housing for guest workers who come to work under the H-2A visa program , which requires the companies to provide accommodation .
In some cases , they have built complexes , rented motels or bought facilities to house employees for a few months in the U.S. before those workers return @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In King City , labor contractor Fresh Harvest houses nearly 300 guest workers in a converted tomato factory .
In each dormitory , 17 to 24 workers sleep in bunk beds , lying head-to-toe to create more distance , Linda Rossi , director of communications said .
On a Thursday afternoon , workers finished for the day were distancing in front of a television , one person on each couch , all wearing masks .
Some headed to another part of the common area in a line , keeping space between them .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ company has imposed a one-person-per-table policy , a few men sat , each with a pizza box in front of him .
Near the entrance where workers load into buses and head out to the fields , they now pause to have their body temperatures checked by a scanner that resembles a small tablet on a stand .
Sometimes they lean down and in until they get the go-ahead : “ Your body temperature is normal , ” a voice confirms .
The workers get checked twice a day , before they head @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rossi said .
Along the walls , signage in Spanish reminds the workers of the symptoms of COVID-19 and guidelines for maintaining distance .
So far , no field workers have tested positive for the virus , Rossi said .
“ They ’ re very good about keeping their space , ” she said .
On a recent weekday , farmworkers cut , bundled and packaged romaine hearts on a field southeast of Salinas .
Plastic vinyl sheets separated the rows of workers to provide a barrier , said David Scaroni , Fresh @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Crews are kept together in the dorms to avoid the wide spread of the virus , should an outbreak occur .
Pete Maturino , agricultural director for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5 , said some companies where union members work have made adjustments at work sites to allow for social distancing .
But some members come to him about precautions being ignored .
“ It matters because that person is going to go home and infect other people , ” he said .
The Grower-Shipper Assn .
of Central California @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in case they become sick or are suspected of having COVID-19 , said Christopher Valadez , president of the industry group .
So far , 55 workers have been housed in rooms , a number that fluctuates depending on when a person is cleared to return home , he said .
Monterey County in March requested 100 trailers from the state Office of Emergency Services for use in isolating residents but received just 15 .
The county Board of Supervisors urgently requested that the state send the rest .
“ The county is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ able to sufficiently address the COVID-19 pandemic , especially among our farmworker community , if these additional 85 trailers are not provided by the state , ” the supervisors wrote in the letter .
County Supervisor Luis Alejo said that by May , the request had not been met , so the county used its own resources to pay for extra housing to prepare for the worst-case scenario .
More than 150 individuals have been housed to date .
Before Brigida Rivero , 36 , started a family with her husband , she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rented a room and shared a bathroom with 10 others and worked in the fields .
It was uncomfortable to live so close to other people , she said .
“ And now , with this illness , ” she said , “ I think it ’ s a little worse.
” Rivero , a Salinas resident who works in the fields packing lettuce , takes the coronavirus seriously .
She lives with her husband and three children in a small , two-bedroom upstairs apartment .
She carries a pink spray bottle , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to work to disinfect items .
When she arrives home , she sprays the white gate and the banister along the staircase that leads to her front door .
She changes out of her clothes before picking up her children from a babysitter .
“ In reality , the virus is something no one can see , ” she said .
“ You never know.
” For Leon , the fear of contracting the virus at work has made her anxious .
She recently learned that a person who works in her field @ @ @ @ @ @ @ uncertain if it ’ s the flu or the virus , she said .
If she becomes sick , she ’ ll use the county ’ s alternative housing to stay away from her children to keep them safe .
“ I would give anything to get back to my children , ” she said .
“ I am the mother and father for them .
I have to keep going for them .
”

A bed fills most of the room that Odilia Leon shares with her five children. In one corner, a dresser spills over with clothes.
For the cramped room in a two-bedroom unit behind a house in east Salinas, she pays $1,050 a month. It’s what she can afford as a fieldworker picking strawberries, her job for the last nine years. A couple with three children rents the other room. In all, 11 people share a living room and kitchen. There is one bathroom.
Every day, Leon, 40, is gripped with fear that she could bring home the coronavirus, infect her children and possibly spread it to the rest of the household. The couple in the other room also works to cover their half of the rent, she said.
“Every time I leave the house in the morning, I worry about how I can come back and hug my kids,” she said on a Thursday evening after arriving home from work.
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Social distancing is challenging, if not impossible, in homes like Leon’s and for many other farmworkers in Salinas, the city where John Steinbeck was born. As of Monday afternoon, COVID-19 had infected a reported 751 people in Monterey County, and many of the cases are concentrated on the east side of Salinas, where Leon lives. It is an area that suffers from a lack of affordable housing, with families crammed into homes and renting out whatever space they can, sharing bathrooms, living rooms and kitchens.
Odilia Leon pays $1,050 a month for one room, where she sleeps with her five children. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Officials in the Salinas Valley, known as the “salad bowl of the world,” and leaders in the agriculture industry are acutely aware of just how quickly the virus can spread among farmworkers, both at home and at job sites. In Monterey County, agriculture workers make up more than a third of confirmed COVID-19 cases, and Latinos make up nearly 80% of them.
Karen Smith, spokesperson for the Monterey County Health Department, said she does not know if housing is a direct factor, but “if you’ve got people close together with a virus that’s a respiratory virus, you’re bound to see more.”
Dr. Edward Moreno, the county public health officer, has said that the frequency of agriculture workers testing positive is tied with testing being concentrated in places like Salinas, the county’s most populous city.
Monterey County officials were among the first in the state to mandate face coverings at worksites and to ask companies to practice social distancing on buses used to transport workers. The county lobbied the state for masks — receiving 750,000 — and sought alternative housing options for farmworkers and homeless people.
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Farmworkers, separated by newly installed vinyl curtains to help protect them from the spread of the coronavirus, cut and package romaine hearts for Fresh Harvest in Chualar. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
But as the state restarts other sectors of the economy, the agriculture industry, which never stopped because it is considered essential, will continue to struggle with stopping the spread of the virus. The industry is dependent on low-wage labor, people who live in overcrowded housing and poverty. Some, like Leon, have had their hours cut due to the pandemic.
Farmworkers often lack legal status, making them less likely to seek help through official channels, said Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner Henry Gonzales, who worked in the fields when he was younger to pay for college.
“Couple that with the crowded housing — it’s a bad situation, and we know it,” Gonzales said. “We can’t prevent it. There’s no way. But what we’re trying to do is minimize it.”
He estimates that there are 45,000 farmworkers who live permanently in the county, and the population could swell to 60,000 as guest workers arrive for the summer to help pick cauliflower, lettuces, strawberries and other produce.
A farmworker with a donation bag containing masks, gloves, food and a hygiene kit, all items collected from the community and handed out by the Alisal Family Resource Center in Salinas. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Carissa Purnell, director of the Alisal Family Resource Center, said her organization delivers weekly supplies to farmworkers during their lunch breaks, offering free food, wipes and hand sanitizer, because many can’t afford such items or are too busy working to buy them when they’re in stock.
“A lot of people don’t understand what it’s like,” she said, describing situations in which multiple families squeeze into a single house. “It just breeds the spreading of the virus. There’s no way for it to not be passed around.”
Overcrowding in farmworker housing is severe on the Central Coast. A 2018 study conducted by the California Institute for Rural Studies and California Coalition for Rural Housing found that 45,560 units of farmworker housing are needed in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. Residences averaged more than seven people, or five people per bathroom, a “stunningly high” rate, the report found.
“Many are overpaying for their housing, living in squalid, substandard homes and/or doubling and tripling up with other households in overcrowded conditions,” the report said.
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Maria de los Angeles Jimenez, 29, who works at a salad-packing plant, learned how quickly the virus can spread on May 1, when her feet began to ache. She got tested the next day, and within a few hours learned she was positive for COVID-19.
“I started crying, because I wasn’t expecting it,” she said. She called her brother — who works at a different plant and lives with her — about getting tested. Ultimately, her brother, mother and one of her two sons became sick with COVID-19. They all live together, and she shares a room with her sons, she said; they slept in the living room when she became ill.
Some agriculture companies have spent the past few years building housing for guest workers who come to work under the H-2A visa program, which requires the companies to provide accommodation. In some cases, they have built complexes, rented motels or bought facilities to house employees for a few months in the U.S. before those workers return south, often back to Mexico.
Farmworkers check their temperature before and after working in the fields at Fresh Harvest’s dormitories at Meyers Farm Worker Housing in King City. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Practicing social distancing, farmworkers relax at Fresh Harvest’s dormitories. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
In King City, labor contractor Fresh Harvest houses nearly 300 guest workers in a converted tomato factory. In each dormitory, 17 to 24 workers sleep in bunk beds, lying head-to-toe to create more distance, Linda Rossi, director of communications said.
On a Thursday afternoon, workers finished for the day were distancing in front of a television, one person on each couch, all wearing masks. Some headed to another part of the common area in a line, keeping space between them. In the dining area, where the company has imposed a one-person-per-table policy, a few men sat, each with a pizza box in front of him.
Near the entrance where workers load into buses and head out to the fields, they now pause to have their body temperatures checked by a scanner that resembles a small tablet on a stand. Sometimes they lean down and in until they get the go-ahead: “Your body temperature is normal,” a voice confirms.
The workers get checked twice a day, before they head to work and when they return, Rossi said. Along the walls, signage in Spanish reminds the workers of the symptoms of COVID-19 and guidelines for maintaining distance. So far, no field workers have tested positive for the virus, Rossi said.
“They’re very good about keeping their space,” she said.
On a recent weekday, farmworkers cut, bundled and packaged romaine hearts on a field southeast of Salinas. Plastic vinyl sheets separated the rows of workers to provide a barrier, said David Scaroni, Fresh Harvest’s vice president of operations. Crews are kept together in the dorms to avoid the wide spread of the virus, should an outbreak occur.
Pete Maturino, agricultural director for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5, said some companies where union members work have made adjustments at work sites to allow for social distancing. But some members come to him about precautions being ignored.
A farmworker loads boxes of romaine hearts for Fresh Harvest in Chuala. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
“It matters because that person is going to go home and infect other people,” he said.
The Grower-Shipper Assn. of Central California has reserved hotel rooms to house workers in case they become sick or are suspected of having COVID-19, said Christopher Valadez, president of the industry group. So far, 55 workers have been housed in rooms, a number that fluctuates depending on when a person is cleared to return home, he said.
Monterey County in March requested 100 trailers from the state Office of Emergency Services for use in isolating residents but received just 15. The county Board of Supervisors urgently requested that the state send the rest.
“The county is extremely concerned that we will not be able to sufficiently address the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among our farmworker community, if these additional 85 trailers are not provided by the state,” the supervisors wrote in the letter.
County Supervisor Luis Alejo said that by May, the request had not been met, so the county used its own resources to pay for extra housing to prepare for the worst-case scenario. More than 150 individuals have been housed to date.
Brigida Rivero, who works in the lettuce fields, carries bottles of bleach mixed with water to disinfect her home and work area. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
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Before Brigida Rivero, 36, started a family with her husband, she lived alone in a home where she rented a room and shared a bathroom with 10 others and worked in the fields. It was uncomfortable to live so close to other people, she said.
“And now, with this illness,” she said, “I think it’s a little worse.”
Rivero, a Salinas resident who works in the fields packing lettuce, takes the coronavirus seriously. She lives with her husband and three children in a small, two-bedroom upstairs apartment. She carries a pink spray bottle, a mixture of water and Clorox, to work to disinfect items. When she arrives home, she sprays the white gate and the banister along the staircase that leads to her front door. She changes out of her clothes before picking up her children from a babysitter.
“In reality, the virus is something no one can see,” she said. “You never know.”
For Leon, the fear of contracting the virus at work has made her anxious. She recently learned that a person who works in her field became ill, but it’s uncertain if it’s the flu or the virus, she said.
If she becomes sick, she’ll use the county’s alternative housing to stay away from her children to keep them safe.
“I would give anything to get back to my children,” she said. “I am the mother and father for them. I have to keep going for them.”


latimes--2020-06-09--A perilous balancing act: Reopening L.A. County as coronavirus still stalks communities

With businesses reopening and people beginning to get back to old routines , Los Angeles County is entering a perilous phase of the fight against the coronavirus : Trying to boost the battered economy without sparking new outbreaks .
One concerning sign is that the coronavirus transmission rate in Los Angeles County — the California epicenter of COVID-19 , with more than 2,600 deaths — appears to be climbing again .
The increase was reported after the county allowed many retail stores , restaurants and churches to reopen with social distancing rules and as more people left their homes for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Officials said it will take a few weeks to see if the calculated rate of disease transmission has actually increased , causing hospitals to see more coronavirus patients .
But authorities also say it is still possible to strike the right balance between reopening society and strict safety rules .
“ This is not an impossible task , ” Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Monday .
“ This is entirely possible : To be able to reopen and do it in a manner that continues to slow the spread @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we make progress on our reopening.
” At its worst , the county ’ s “ effective transmission rate ” of the coronavirus was quite high — 3 to 3½ — meaning one infected person on average transmitted the virus to an average of 3 or 3½ other people .
That high point came in early March before Gov .
Gavin Newsom implemented California ’ s stay-at-home order March 19 .
Eventually , the stay-at-home order worked , and the effective , and then .
That means that , on average , each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less than one other person .
But on Friday , Dr. Christina Ghaly , director of health services for L.A. County , said the effective transmission rate had now risen above 1 and was gaining ground .
“ If transmission has indeed increased , ” she added , “ then the model predicts that we will have a continued increase in hospital patient volume over the next two to four weeks , and we would anticipate beginning to see that change happen over the coming one to two weeks.
” Weekly coronavirus deaths @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time since mid-April .
There were 284 deaths reported for the seven-day period that ended Sunday , up 12 % from the previous week ’ s tally , 254 .
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 in Los Angeles County did not significantly decline last week compared to the previous week .
That ’ s the first time that has happened since hospitalizations were at their peak on the last week of April .
There were an average of 2,010 hospitalized patients daily last week with confirmed or suspected coronavirus infections , down 0.1 % from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of 2,012 .
The number of new weekly confirmed cases is down , with 8,849 reported in the seven-day period that ended Sunday compared with 9,967 the week before .
Ghaly said it was possible the number of intensive care beds could become inadequate in the next two to four weeks based on the number of currently available beds in daily surveys among the county ’ s public and private hospitals .
“ We must all do everything we can to keep the [ transmission rate ] from continuing to increase , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seen a disproportionate share of both coronavirus deaths and cases , which now top 64,000 .
That represents nearly half of the more than 134,000 cases in California , even though L.A. County is home to just one-quarter of the state ’ s population .
The coronavirus toll has hit minority communities particularly hard .
Black , Latino and Pacific Islander residents of Los Angeles County are now twice as likely to have died from infection by the coronavirus than white residents , officials said .
While officials say the rising death toll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ optimistic signs about the COVID-19 fight .
Nursing home residents have made up almost half of the coronavirus deaths in Los Angeles County .
But the number of new daily deaths among nursing home residents , while still high , has dramatically come down in the last two weeks , Ferrer said Monday .
Ferrer credited the reduction with two changes : ramping up testing of residents and staff , regardless of if they have symptoms , and having everyone in the facility wear appropriate protective personal equipment , like a surgical mask @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what ’ s appropriate .
“ That was a big change … but it also introduced an extra layer of protection , and it has taken a while for us to see the impact of these changes , ” Ferrer said .
Last month , The Times reported that L.A. County was struggling to get everyone tested at nursing homes in the county .
L.A. County had instructed nursing homes with no cases that they could skip testing staffers and test only 10 % of residents weekly .
California health officials subsequently issued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to test everyone , a move that overruled the more lax testing policy allowed by Los Angeles County .
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has voted to appoint an independent inspector general to look into the county ’ s oversight of nursing homes , including the county health department ’ s slow testing .
L.A. County ’ s case rates are high because there has been a lot of testing in the nation ’ s most populous county , Ferrer said .
She also said the overall rate of positive tests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fewer than 8 % of people tested for the coronavirus have tested positive , but in the last seven to 14 days , that rate has declined to about 5.5 % , she said .
Los Angeles County officials have so far defended their reopening strategy , which has been generally speedier than that of the San Francisco Bay Area .
Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger noted at Monday ’ s news conference that L.A. County has been a week behind its nearby counties — San Diego , Orange , Riverside , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its reopening .
“ Make no mistake : we are doing this in a very deliberate and cautious way , and actually had been one step behind the surrounding counties , ” Barger said .
Barger said if the county can reopen in a responsible way — with social distancing and universal wearing of face coverings in public — “ we should.
” “ We need to get back to work and get the economy back working and we can do both .
It ’ s not an either/or , ” Barger said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they do not open soon , “ they will not open ever again.
” More openings could come soon .
State officials have paved the way for most California counties outside of the Bay Area , including Los Angeles , San Diego , Orange , Riverside , San Bernardino and Ventura , to decide to reopen movie theaters and gyms as early as this Friday .
The latest rise in cases can not be linked to the thousands who have taken to the streets in the last week to protest the police killing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The incubation period for the virus can be up to 14 days , so numbers currently reported generally reflect actions from previous weeks , officials have said .
That ’ s not to say that activities at the protests won ’ t affect the case count in the coming days .
Officials have continued to commend peaceful protesters for exercising their 1st Amendment rights while also reminding them to remain cautious .
Ferrer on Monday said the risk of exposure at protests is the same as other crowded settings where there may be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ malls , restaurants and the beach .
In such instances , government disease investigators won ’ t know that people were in such an environment , which raises the risk of exposure to the highly contagious virus .
“ Nobody knows you were there , ” she said .
“ No one will call you.
” Ferrer encouraged protesters Monday to be proactive and get tested in certain circumstances , especially those with underlying medical conditions and those in close contact with a person who later tests positive .
She pointed out , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to two weeks for the virus to cause symptoms .
Taking the test too early after exposure could result in a negative result , in which there simply are not enough viral particles in the body to show up , experts say .
“ A negative test result doesn ’ t mean you can ’ t become infected during the 14-day incubation period , ” Ferrer said .
Those who came into contact with someone who was not wearing a face mask or had a known case of exposure should self-quarantine during the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that other people in public are infected as they return to work , the beach and the mall , Ferrer said .
Federal officials estimate 20 % to 50 % of people infected with the coronavirus will never show significant symptoms , but may be just as contagious as those who are visibly sick , and that ’ s why wearing face coverings and keeping six feet away from others in public is so important .
“ The risk is still there .
Even though it may not be a huge risk , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for everyone to take these universal precautions , ” she said .

Rong-Gong Lin II, Colleen Shalby, Iris Lee

With businesses reopening and people beginning to get back to old routines, Los Angeles County is entering a perilous phase of the fight against the coronavirus: Trying to boost the battered economy without sparking new outbreaks.
One concerning sign is that the coronavirus transmission rate in Los Angeles County — the California epicenter of COVID-19, with more than 2,600 deaths — appears to be climbing again. The increase was reported after the county allowed many retail stores, restaurants and churches to reopen with social distancing rules and as more people left their homes for parks, beaches and hiking trails.
Officials said it will take a few weeks to see if the calculated rate of disease transmission has actually increased, causing hospitals to see more coronavirus patients.
But authorities also say it is still possible to strike the right balance between reopening society and strict safety rules.
“This is not an impossible task,” Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Monday. “This is entirely possible: To be able to reopen and do it in a manner that continues to slow the spread. ... It’s essential that we make progress on our reopening.”
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At its worst, the county’s “effective transmission rate” of the coronavirus was quite high — 3 to 3½ — meaning one infected person on average transmitted the virus to an average of 3 or 3½ other people. That high point came in early March before Gov. Gavin Newsom implemented California’s stay-at-home order March 19.
Eventually, the stay-at-home order worked, and the effective transmission rate fell to 1 , and then even a bit below 1 . That means that, on average, each infected person was transmitting the virus to less than one other person.
But on Friday, Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of health services for L.A. County, said the effective transmission rate had now risen above 1 and was gaining ground.
“If transmission has indeed increased,” she added, “then the model predicts that we will have a continued increase in hospital patient volume over the next two to four weeks, and we would anticipate beginning to see that change happen over the coming one to two weeks.”
Weekly coronavirus deaths in L.A. County rose for the first time since mid-April. There were 284 deaths reported for the seven-day period that ended Sunday, up 12% from the previous week’s tally, 254.
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 in Los Angeles County did not significantly decline last week compared to the previous week. That’s the first time that has happened since hospitalizations were at their peak on the last week of April. There were an average of 2,010 hospitalized patients daily last week with confirmed or suspected coronavirus infections, down 0.1% from the previous week’s daily average of 2,012.
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The number of new weekly confirmed cases is down, with 8,849 reported in the seven-day period that ended Sunday compared with 9,967 the week before.
Ghaly said it was possible the number of intensive care beds could become inadequate in the next two to four weeks based on the number of currently available beds in daily surveys among the county’s public and private hospitals.
“We must all do everything we can to keep the [transmission rate] from continuing to increase,” Ghaly said.
Los Angeles County has seen a disproportionate share of both coronavirus deaths and cases, which now top 64,000. That represents nearly half of the more than 134,000 cases in California, even though L.A. County is home to just one-quarter of the state’s population. The coronavirus toll has hit minority communities particularly hard. Black, Latino and Pacific Islander residents of Los Angeles County are now twice as likely to have died from infection by the coronavirus than white residents, officials said.
Tracking the coronavirus in L.A. County The latest maps and charts on the spread of COVID-19 in Los Angeles County, including cases, deaths, closures and restrictions.
While officials say the rising death toll is troubling, there are some other optimistic signs about the COVID-19 fight.
Nursing home residents have made up almost half of the coronavirus deaths in Los Angeles County. But the number of new daily deaths among nursing home residents, while still high, has dramatically come down in the last two weeks, Ferrer said Monday.
Ferrer credited the reduction with two changes: ramping up testing of residents and staff, regardless of if they have symptoms, and having everyone in the facility wear appropriate protective personal equipment, like a surgical mask or an N95 respirator, depending on what’s appropriate.
“That was a big change … but it also introduced an extra layer of protection, and it has taken a while for us to see the impact of these changes,” Ferrer said.
Last month, The Times reported that L.A. County was struggling to get everyone tested at nursing homes in the county. L.A. County had instructed nursing homes with no cases that they could skip testing staffers and test only 10% of residents weekly.
California health officials subsequently issued new instructions to all skilled nursing facilities to test everyone, a move that overruled the more lax testing policy allowed by Los Angeles County.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has voted to appoint an independent inspector general to look into the county’s oversight of nursing homes, including the county health department’s slow testing.
L.A. County’s case rates are high because there has been a lot of testing in the nation’s most populous county, Ferrer said. She also said the overall rate of positive tests is shrinking in the county — slightly fewer than 8% of people tested for the coronavirus have tested positive, but in the last seven to 14 days, that rate has declined to about 5.5%, she said.
Los Angeles County officials have so far defended their reopening strategy, which has been generally speedier than that of the San Francisco Bay Area.
California California to allow movie theaters to reopen in most counties California counties that have been allowed to accelerate their reopening of their economy could decide to reopen movie theaters as early as Friday, according to new state guidelines released Monday.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger noted at Monday’s news conference that L.A. County has been a week behind its nearby counties — San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura — in managing its reopening.
“Make no mistake: we are doing this in a very deliberate and cautious way, and actually had been one step behind the surrounding counties,” Barger said.
Barger said if the county can reopen in a responsible way — with social distancing and universal wearing of face coverings in public — “we should.”
“We need to get back to work and get the economy back working and we can do both. It’s not an either/or,” Barger said. There are businesses that, if they do not open soon, “they will not open ever again.”
More openings could come soon. State officials have paved the way for most California counties outside of the Bay Area, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura, to decide to reopen movie theaters and gyms as early as this Friday.
The latest rise in cases cannot be linked to the thousands who have taken to the streets in the last week to protest the police killing of George Floyd and racial inequality. The incubation period for the virus can be up to 14 days, so numbers currently reported generally reflect actions from previous weeks, officials have said.
That’s not to say that activities at the protests won’t affect the case count in the coming days.
Officials have continued to commend peaceful protesters for exercising their 1st Amendment rights while also reminding them to remain cautious.
Ferrer on Monday said the risk of exposure at protests is the same as other crowded settings where there may be people not wearing masks, including indoor malls, restaurants and the beach. In such instances, government disease investigators won’t know that people were in such an environment, which raises the risk of exposure to the highly contagious virus.
“Nobody knows you were there,” she said. “No one will call you.”
Ferrer encouraged protesters Monday to be proactive and get tested in certain circumstances, especially those with underlying medical conditions and those in close contact with a person who later tests positive. She pointed out, however, that it can take up to two weeks for the virus to cause symptoms.
Taking the test too early after exposure could result in a negative result, in which there simply are not enough viral particles in the body to show up, experts say.
“A negative test result doesn’t mean you can’t become infected during the 14-day incubation period,” Ferrer said.
Those who came into contact with someone who was not wearing a face mask or had a known case of exposure should self-quarantine during the 14-day incubation period.
People should assume that other people in public are infected as they return to work, the beach and the mall, Ferrer said. Federal officials estimate 20% to 50% of people infected with the coronavirus will never show significant symptoms, but may be just as contagious as those who are visibly sick, and that’s why wearing face coverings and keeping six feet away from others in public is so important.
“The risk is still there. Even though it may not be a huge risk, it’s enough of a risk for everyone to take these universal precautions,” she said.
Times staff writer Jack Dolan contributed to this report.


latimes--2020-06-08--How do you sign 'Black Lives Matter' in ASL? For black deaf Angelenos, it's complicated

The phrase begins with four fingers cut across the brow , followed by two thumbs drawn up like breath from navel to chest , ending with a fierce tug with two hands down from the chin into fists toward the heart .
This is how Harold Foxx and many other black deaf Angelenos sign “ Black Lives Matter , ” though it is by no means a universal translation .
As little as two years ago , it may have been signed quite differently .
Even now , many still end the phrase with the gesture for “ worthy ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like two “ OK ” signs held together at mid-chest and arched up and around to meet again at the top of an invisible ring .
But the death of George Floyd and the national uprising that has followed caused many black deaf Americans to once again reconsider the phrase .
As with everything in American Sign — a language that many hearing people have been exposed to regularly since the outbreak of the coronavirus — nuance shows up in translation .
“ It ’ s hard to describe in English ... but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” said Jonathan Webb , the president of the national Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf , who lives in Anaheim and grew up signing with the black deaf community in Ferguson , Mo .
“ To me , the sign ‘ important ’ is more a concept that resides in the head .
The sign that happens on the chin [ “ cherish ” ] , there ’ s an emotional context.
” Indeed , in the seven years since “ Black Lives Matter ” first entered the popular lexicon , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ far more than three words could ever do in English .
For many , they reflect a painful reality : Though the coronavirus pandemic and police violence both impact black deaf Americans disproportionately , the interpreters they rely on for information about those twin crises are often not “ as clear and understandable ” to them as federal law has long promised .
“ It ’ s how they process and convey the message and how they translate — not just the wording but the meaning behind it , the tone , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a producer at the ad agency BBDO Los Angeles .
“ We need to see all the different levels of information , especially during this time.
” Actress Natasha Ofili was among scores of deaf students who massed in Hollywood three decades ago to celebrate the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act , groundbreaking civil rights legislation that guaranteed their right to equal access , including qualified interpreters like the ones who now populate news conferences from City Hall to the state Capitol .
But on a recent visit to her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ found herself mesmerized anew by the sign language interpreter on TV .
Something about the way she signed just felt different .
“ I ’ m not sure her name — she ’ s a black woman with braids , ” Ofili said .
“ She seems to match whatever she ’ s interpreting .
And that ’ s the key .
The person who ’ s interpreting should be matching the speaker , their tone , their affect .
She ’ s just so enjoyable to watch.
” That interpreter ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sign language as a child , from friends — a far cry from the collegiate training programs where most ASL interpreters learn their trade , but a common career path for the tiny minority who are people of color , and the even smaller cohort who are black .
Since Burton began appearing at L.A. County news briefings in March , many hearing viewers have declared themselves “ obsessed ” with her distinctive style , while others have mocked it .
But to deaf locals , and particularly black deaf Angelenos like Ofili @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ongoing struggle for equity , representation and authenticity in ASL , a language deeply scarred by racism and exclusion .
“ The deaf community sees themselves as one world , one body , but there are so many subcultures and intersectionalities within that , ” Ofili said .
“ Black deaf people have rights to be successful and rights to education and rights to be themselves and express themselves authentically .
” But success , education and even expression must often be negotiated through white , hearing interpreters , who make up close @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Whenever Ofili goes out on an audition , visits the doctor or sits for an interview , it is nearly always a white woman who acts as her voice for the hearing world .
“ Sometimes white interpreters are not fully confident or comfortable or even trained enough on how to culturally mediate , ” wrote Rezenet Moges-Riedel , a lecturer in the ASL Linguistics and Deaf Cultures Program at Cal State Long Beach and a deaf scholar of sign language .
“ It can be frustrating.
” For hearing people , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be hard to grasp .
Many see ASL as mimed English , with a five-fingered lexicon and syntax .
( There is a distinct variety of ASL called Black American Sign Language , which is likewise mischaracterized as a gestured Black English . )
Any cultural dimension is often assumed to be superficial .
But the ADA recognizes American sign as a separate language , “ dissimilar from English ” in its structure and vocabulary .
It also nods to the state ’ s outsize role in teaching sign language to deaf children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to hearing parents and learn sign primarily in public school .
What it doesn ’ t do is ensure that all deaf children ’ s schools are good .
The deep racial inequalities that plague public education , and the communal ingenuity to adapt to them , shape many deaf Americans ’ natural language .
“ Most of the time , as black deaf people , we come from mainstream programs , ” rather than specialized programs for the deaf , said Foxx , a black deaf comedian who performs often with Deaf @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ASL is not as prevalent in our schools.
” Though the law requires all public schools to offer “ equitable access to communication , ” the nature and quality of that access can vary widely .
Publicly funded early interventions are not uniform , and the first kindergarten readiness standards in the country to promote ASL for deaf children were adopted just five years ago in California .
“ I ’ ve spoken to so many black deaf people who are like , ‘ I understand you , but I don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Burton said .
Interpreting for the county , “ my concern was with more marginalized deaf people , and by that I mean black and brown deaf people who have traditionally had less access to education.
” L.A. ’ s many deaf immigrants , whose sign languages are distinct , also struggle to comprehend classically trained interpreters ’ more erudite ASL .
When hearing children of deaf adults become sign language interpreters , they often do better than those who trained as adults , having grown up with the language .
But the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nic Zapko , who has risen to prominence in her work for Minnesota Gov .
Tim Walz , and Linda Bove , the beloved deaf actress best known for her 31-year run on “ Sesame Street.
” “ I ’ m thinking about kids who are 2 , 3 , 4 and even older than that who have parents who don ’ t sign , ” said the actress , who worked alongside a black deaf interpreter signing for the CNN/Sesame Street Town Hall on Racism on Saturday .
“ You have kids @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say , Mommy ?
’ And they have a parent who can ’ t sign to them to explain.
” To hearing officials responsible to federal accessibility law , such concerns were all but imperceptible .
Interpreters , too , had struggled to articulate them .
Then came the death of George Floyd .
“ It was amazing to actually see a black woman interpreter on screen during the memorial service — that was really very smart , ” said Smith , who recently made a video with Ofili about the unique fear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police .
“ To see that , that ’ s intense , it really is .
It hits the heart.
” In the space of a few hours between Sunday and Monday , Burton went from marching in the street to signing about Floyd ’ s death for L.A. County Health Commissioner Barbara Ferrer .
Webb got an email from Mayor Eric Garcetti ’ s communications office Tuesday seeking his service , as well as “ any guidance or recommendations ” he might have .
Meanwhile , a TikTok of an apparently white @ @ @ @ @ @ @ minor outrage in deaf social media circles , where black deaf users blasted the translation of “ matter ” as wrong .
Yet the debate over what ’ s correct is still far from settled .
For some , like Dallas-based interpreter Deon Harrell , “ important ” is simply more accurate .
“ This sign can be readily interpreted into ‘ crucial , ’ ‘ signifiant , ’ or ‘ vital , ’ ” said Harrell , who is black .
“ I think we have to be clear in that lexical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ important ” / ” cherish ” have evolved from competing interpretations into complementary synonyms , used by many black signers to convey different shades of meaning .
Both Webb and Ofili use them this way — “ cherish ” with certain people and contexts , and “ important ” with others .
Webb said he often finds himself defaulting to “ important ” when interpreting white speakers , and “ cherish ” when signing for black ones .
When speaking for himself as a black man , he signs “ cherish ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deaf activist in Compton , said “ cherish ” reflects a particular sense of vulnerability among black deaf people .
“ It translates better for deaf people , ” Agyin wrote .
“ We feel the same way a hearing black person feels , on top [ of ] being deaf too , which makes things two times as hard and two times scarier dealing with the police.
” Studies suggest that between one third and one half of the people killed by police in the U.S. every year are disabled .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nonwhite . )
Deaf people are at greater risk because they often can not understand spoken commands and need their hands and bodies to communicate .
“ I worked as security at a club , I was on a 15-minute break and I decided to go to my car to rest .
Suddenly somebody ’ s banging on my window — I look up , and it ’ s the police , ” Foxx recalled .
“ They grabbed me .
I tried to gesture , I tried to point to my ear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deaf .
And I can vocalize a little bit , but in that moment you ’ re overwhelmed .
It could have been much worse.
” That ’ s why he and others say that while “ important ” is technically correct , “ cherish ” often feels more accurate .
“ In this # BLM context , we ’ re stating that our lives are so precious , valuable and irreplaceable , ” wrote Moges-Riedel , the professor .
But American sign contains another subtlety , one freighted with meaning but invisible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ signs “ black , ” , she uses four fingers .
This acts as a kind of emphatic for a word that is more commonly signed with just one finger .
As in English , the one-finger sign for “ black ” can be either a color or an identity marker .
But the four finger sign is only ever used for the latter .
It means Black , and its usage is highly specific .
“ If I ‘ m signing for someone who is talking about the black community , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ m going to use the ‘ B ’ hand shape for Black , ” Webb explained .
“ If the person who ’ s talking about the black community is white , I ’ m not going to use the ‘ B ’ hand shape , because that ’ s not a sign for white people .
That ’ s a sign that ’ s used for black folks.
” For Foxx , the B-shape is intrinsic to the meaning of the phrase .
“ That ’ s all Black people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
Since she began working for the county in March , Burton has quietly signed Black — a word used almost exclusively by one of the most marginalized communities in America — thousands of times on TV .
“ That was a recent discussion Rorri and I had , ” interpreter Neil Cordova wrote in a message on Instagram .
“ During the COVID-19 press conferences , they give mortality rate by race and ethnicity .
The hearing person says African Americans .
When that is said , Rorri signs Black , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ level , that ’ s Burton ’ s ethos : African American is a complex sign that ’ s changed a lot over time ; black is one toddlers know .
At another , it ’ s a reflection of how the information she ’ s charged with conveying is also intensely personal .
“ At the press conference [ Monday ] there was quite a bit that was said regarding the Black Lives Matter protest and the murder of George Floyd , ” Burton said .
“ It ’ s hard to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so deeply.
” Yet that ’ s precisely what Smith and Foxx and Agyin and Ofili find so valuable about work like hers , and why they feel it ’ s so different to be watching black interpreters now .
For many deaf people — though far from all — a caption can convey information .
But a good sign language interpreter also conveys affect , including whether the speaker is sincere .
As with the B-sign Burton uses , the true meaning is often imperceptible to hearing people .
“ With what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really need to put an emphasis on Black people .
We ’ re talking about this collective of black deaf people — our lives are precious , ” Foxx , the comedian , said .
“ When we sign ‘ matter , ’ it ’ s holding on , ” both in the meaning and in the mechanics of the sign .
“ We ’ re not trying to lose our people .
We ’ re here to protect them.
” He signed it again : Four fingers saluting across the forehead for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a cry from the chest — life— ending with a grip of two fists at the base of his chin , as though clutching a jewel — cherish .

The phrase begins with four fingers cut across the brow, followed by two thumbs drawn up like breath from navel to chest, ending with a fierce tug with two hands down from the chin into fists toward the heart.
Black. Life. Cherish.
This is how Harold Foxx and many other black deaf Angelenos sign “Black Lives Matter,” though it is by no means a universal translation. As little as two years ago, it may have been signed quite differently. Even now, many still end the phrase with the gesture for “worthy” or “important,” which looks like two “OK” signs held together at mid-chest and arched up and around to meet again at the top of an invisible ring.
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But the death of George Floyd and the national uprising that has followed caused many black deaf Americans to once again reconsider the phrase. As with everything in American Sign — a language that many hearing people have been exposed to regularly since the outbreak of the coronavirus — nuance shows up in translation.
“It’s hard to describe in English ... but they most certainly have different meaning,” said Jonathan Webb, the president of the national Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, who lives in Anaheim and grew up signing with the black deaf community in Ferguson, Mo. “To me, the sign ‘important’ is more a concept that resides in the head. The sign that happens on the chin [“cherish”] , there’s an emotional context.”
Indeed, in the seven years since “Black Lives Matter” first entered the popular lexicon, the competing ASL translations have come to convey far more than three words could ever do in English. For many, they reflect a painful reality: Though the coronavirus pandemic and police violence both impact black deaf Americans disproportionately, the interpreters they rely on for information about those twin crises are often not “as clear and understandable” to them as federal law has long promised.
1 / 82 A protester dances on top of Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame during a demonstration by members of Refuse Fascism who are calling an end to the Trump administration on June 20, 2020. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 82 Deborah Jay Winams cries after singing a song at a Black Lives Matter Los Angeles rally to call for justice in the fatal shooting of Kenneth Ross Jr. by Gardena police in 2018. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times) 3 / 82 People participate in the All Black Lives Matter march in West Hollywood on Sunday, June 14. Thousands of demonstrators marched for racial justice and LGBTQ rights. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 82 A protester waves a rainbow flag on Sunset Boulevard during the All Black Lives Matter march on Sunday. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 82 Thousands hold up signs and march in the All Black Lives Matter solidarity protest on Hollywood Boulevard. The procession started at Hollywood and Highland and moved into West Hollywood. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 82 Jason De Puy of West Hollywood wears a mask that reads “Black Trans Lives Matter” as people fill Hollywood Boulevard during a solidarity march called All Black Lives Matter on Sunday, June 14. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 82 Protesters hold up signs at the All Black Lives Matter march, which was organized by Black LGBTQ leaders and organizations in place of a previously planned event by the group behind LA Pride. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 82 Protesters march, raising fists and signs in the air, on La Brea Avenue in Hollywood on Sunday. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 82 The Compton Cowboys ride horseback down South Tamarind Avenue, joining thousand of protesters Sunday during the Compton peace ride, which ended at City Hall. (Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times) 10 / 82 Houston Rockets star Russell Westbrook speaks to the crowd of protesters and the Compton Cowboys at the end of a peace walk at Compton City Hall on Sunday. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 82 Elijah Estrada, 6, holds up his fist for 8:46, the length of time George Floyd was held down by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, at the conclusion of a peace ride and walk with the Compton Cowboys at Compton City Hall on Sunday. (Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times) 12 / 82 A family member of Breonna Taylor, right, is hugged by another woman after speaking to protesters in Beverly Hills Saturday. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times) 13 / 82 A woman tries to get between Black Lives Matter protesters and pro-Trump counter protesters during a demonstration at the intersection of Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach on Saturday. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times) 14 / 82 Los Angeles Police Deputy Chief Regina Scott takes knee next to Johnathan Jasper, brother of slain teen Anthony Weber, during a rally in front of LA City Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson’s office Saturday. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times) 15 / 82 A protester yells in front of a Black Lives Matter mural with the names of victims on Fairfax Ave. during a march Saturday. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times) 16 / 82 David Blackgold hugs Huntington Beach police officer K. Wood during a Black Lives Matter protest in Huntington Beach Saturday. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times) 17 / 82 A National Guardsman holds a rose given to him by a protester along Fairfax Ave. during a march Saturday. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times) 18 / 82 A Black Lives Matter protester blows bubbles by a police line in Huntington Beach on Saturday. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times) 19 / 82 A protester lies on the ground under his horse with his hands behind his back as demonstrators including some on horseback rally in front of LA City Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson’s office in Los Angeles Saturday. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times) 20 / 82 Tempers flare between Black Lives Matter demonstratiors and pro-Trump counterprotesters in Huntington Beach on Saturday. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times) 21 / 82 Black Lives Matter demonstrators raise clenched fist in Huntington Beach on Saturday. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times) 22 / 82 Mek Bitul held up a sign with the words, “This Is The Tipping Point!!!” in front of City Hall, joining nearly 1,000 people gathered to protest the death of George Floyd and in support of Black Lives Matter, in downtown Los Angeles. (Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times) 23 / 82 Katyana DeCampos, a citizen of France visiting California, marched with a sign with the words “Anti Racism,” joining nearly 1,000 people gathered to protest the death of George Floyd and in support of Black Lives Matter, in downtown Los Angeles. (Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times) 24 / 82 Zoe Perkins, 4, of Glendale and her mother brought flowers to the Hall of Justice in downtown Los Angeles to protest the death of George Floyd. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 82 LAPD Chief Michel Moore, left, talks with community leaders outside police headquarters after a candlelight vigil for George Floyd on Friday. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 82 A man lays a rose at the Hall of Justice in downtown Los Angeles. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 82 Braydon Deauce White, 4, fist-bumps a National Guardsman at LAPD headquarters Thursday morning. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 82 Allison Bracy of Fontana hugs daughter Brielle Bracy, 10, while attending a rally in Riverside on Thursday. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 82 A protester drapes himself with a flag during a demonstration in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 82 Gustavo R. Ramirez of Pomona kneels in front of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. statue in Riverside. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 82 Protesters at Moonlight State Beach in Encinitas. (Gabriella Angotti-Jones / Los Angeles Times) 32 / 82 Crowds gather in downtown L.A. to protest the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. At 9 p.m., for exactly 8 minutes and 46 seconds, protesters shone lights into the sky. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 82 Protesters dance on Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles as a march attracted thousands of people. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 34 / 82 Thousands of protesters gather at the Los Angeles Civic Center. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 35 / 82 Thousands of protesters gather at the Los Angeles Civic Center. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 36 / 82 Thousands of protesters gather at the Los Angeles Civic Center. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times) 37 / 82 Stephen Chang, 32, left, of Silver Lake, with an American flag draped over his head, joins other demonstrators at the intersection of Spring and Temple streets in downtown Los Angeles, as they protest against L.A. Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey and also demand justice in the death of George Floyd. (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times) 38 / 82 Miles Miles, 8, left, and Memphis Miley, 6, center, of Newport Beach, join protest against racism in Newport Beach. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times) 39 / 82 Protester Vailing high-fives National Guardsmen as they march through Hollywood to demand justice for the killing of George Floyd in Hollywood. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times) 40 / 82 Protesters march through a residential neighborhood in Hollywood. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times) 41 / 82 Protesters walk through a residential neighborhood in Hollywood. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times) 42 / 82 A L.A. Sheriff’s deputy watches as protester Annik Chung holds a sign while cheering on marchers along La Brea Ave. in Hollywood. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times) 43 / 82 Mustafa-Ali, 27, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, joins other demonstrators as they protest on Spring St. in downtown Los Angeles. (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times) 44 / 82 Paul Villalobos, 28, from Oakland, joins other demonstrators as they protest on Spring St. in downtown Los Angeles. (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times) 45 / 82 A huge crowd gathers in downtown Los Angeles to protest the death of George Floyd and in support of Black Lives Matter. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times) 46 / 82 Protestors march through downtown Los Angeles. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times) 47 / 82 Protestors march through downtown Los Angeles. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times) 48 / 82 Protestors march through downtown Los Angeles. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times) 49 / 82 Riverside County Sheriff Lt Chris Durham tries to calm nerves after hundreds of demonstrators that marched to the police station protest the death of George Floyd in Moreno Valley. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times) 50 / 82 In a sign of peace, protesters reach out to Riverside County Sheriff deputies, who were there to enforce an 8pm curfew during a demonstration to protest the death of George Floyd’s in Moreno Valley. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times) 51 / 82 Hundreds of demonstrators block traffic as they march down both sides of Balboa Blvd. to protest against racism in Newport Beach. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times) 52 / 82 Protesters march through West Hollywood to demand justice for the killing of George Floyd during march on Wednesday. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times) 53 / 82 Protesters march through West Hollywood to demand justice for the killing of George Floyd during march on Wednesday. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times) 54 / 82 Protestors rally on the steps Anaheim City Hall steps against last week’s in-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times) 55 / 82 Protestors rally on the steps Anaheim City Hall steps against last week’s in-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times) 56 / 82 Protestors rally on the steps Anaheim City Hall steps against last week’s in-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times) 57 / 82 Protestors rally on the steps Anaheim City Hall steps against last week’s in-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times) 58 / 82 Bando Kev prays along Hollywood Blvd. in front of the National Guard and near TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times) 59 / 82 A couple promote peace on Highland Ave. in Hollywood as protesters continue to demonstrate. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times) 60 / 82 Makenzie Anderson, 2, rides on her father, Shawn’s shoulders as they join hundreds of protesters marching throughout downtown. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times) 61 / 82 Marcus Owen, yells out chants for George Floyd as hundreds of protesters gather outside City Hall in a daylong protest. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times) 62 / 82 Hussain Sharif, left, Mari Drake, and Thomas Rosado chant as they ride along with hundreds of protesters at a downtown demonstration. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times) 63 / 82 Hundreds of protesters march throughout downtown ending with many arrested for curfew violations. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times) 64 / 82 “Hands up. Don’t shoot,” say hundreds participating in a march against the of George Floyd on Abbot Kinney Blvd. in Venice onTuesday. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times) 65 / 82 Members of the California National Guard flash peace signs after protesters had marched by in support of Black Lives Matter in Venice. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times) 66 / 82 Protesters shoot hoops while taking a break from marching against the death of George Floyd by police on Abbot Kinney Blvd. in Venice on Tuesday. The basketball hoop was attached to the front of a bus that followed the protest for a while. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times) 67 / 82 Several hundred protesters take a knee and hold their fists in the air during a moment of silence to honor George Floyd during a peaceful protest march from Manhattan Beach to Hermosa Beach. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times) 68 / 82 A woman stands next to an image of George Floyd as hundreds participate in a march against the in-custody death of Floyd in Venice. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times) 69 / 82 Terrence Burney, 36, left, and Commander of the LAPD Operation West Bureau Cory Palka, right, talk together peacefully in front of Getty House in Hancock Park. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times) 70 / 82 Protestors gather outside Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Hancock Park house as they continue to demonstrate against police brutality. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times) 71 / 82 Jessica Jordan takes a knee as she joins other protesters at Sunset & Vine in Hollywood on Tuesday. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times) 72 / 82 A young woman reacts to a group chant, while gathered with a couple hundred people to protest the death of George Floyd and in support of Black Lives Matter, near the Manhattan Beach Pier. (Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times) 73 / 82 Jayse Garcia, 27, of Los Angeles takes part in a demonstration in Hollywood. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times) 74 / 82 Protesters sit in front of National Guardsmen closing Sunset Blvd at Vine Street in Hollywood. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times) 75 / 82 Mira Ercingoz,16, from Palos Verdes, center in red hat, holds a poster with an image of George Floyd alongside protesters in Manhattan Beach. (Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times) 76 / 82 Demonstrators take a knee during protests in Hollywood on Tuesday.
(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times) 77 / 82 A mother and daughter pass protestors in Hollywood. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times) 78 / 82 Several hundred protesters gather to demand justice for George Floyd at the Manhattan Beach Pier Plaza Tuesday. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times) 79 / 82 Janie Hill,15, from Lawndale, receives a hug from a friend, following an emotional discussion with a Manhattan Beach Police officer, at the conclusion of a protest in Manhattan Beach. (Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times) 80 / 82 LAPD Cmdr. Gerald Woodyard takes a knee with clergy members from the Los Angeles area as they participate in a march and demonstration outside LAPD headquarters in Los Angeles. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) 81 / 82 L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti walks out to address protesters and clergy members outside LAPD headquarters on Tuesday. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) 82 / 82 Several hundred protesters take a knee and hold their fists in the air during a moment of silence to honor George Floyd during a peaceful protest march from Manhattan Beach to Hermosa Beach. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
“It’s how they process and convey the message and how they translate — not just the wording but the meaning behind it, the tone,” said Storm Smith, a native Angeleno and a producer at the ad agency BBDO Los Angeles. “We need to see all the different levels of information, especially during this time.”
Actress Natasha Ofili was among scores of deaf students who massed in Hollywood three decades ago to celebrate the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, groundbreaking civil rights legislation that guaranteed their right to equal access, including qualified interpreters like the ones who now populate news conferences from City Hall to the state Capitol.
But on a recent visit to her mother in Sun Valley, she suddenly found herself mesmerized anew by the sign language interpreter on TV. Something about the way she signed just felt different.
“I’m not sure her name — she’s a black woman with braids,” Ofili said. “She seems to match whatever she’s interpreting. And that’s the key. The person who’s interpreting should be matching the speaker, their tone, their affect. She’s just so enjoyable to watch.”
That interpreter’s name is Rorri Burton. She learned sign language as a child, from friends — a far cry from the collegiate training programs where most ASL interpreters learn their trade, but a common career path for the tiny minority who are people of color, and the even smaller cohort who are black.
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Since Burton began appearing at L.A. County news briefings in March, many hearing viewers have declared themselves “obsessed” with her distinctive style, while others have mocked it. But to deaf locals, and particularly black deaf Angelenos like Ofili, it is a reminder of an ongoing struggle for equity, representation and authenticity in ASL, a language deeply scarred by racism and exclusion.
“The deaf community sees themselves as one world, one body, but there are so many subcultures and intersectionalities within that,” Ofili said. “Black deaf people have rights to be successful and rights to education and rights to be themselves and express themselves authentically. ”
But success, education and even expression must often be negotiated through white, hearing interpreters, who make up close to 90% of the workforce, reports show. Whenever Ofili goes out on an audition, visits the doctor or sits for an interview, it is nearly always a white woman who acts as her voice for the hearing world.
Rorri Burton, who learned sign language as a child, has been a regular presence at L.A. County news briefings. “She’s just so enjoyable to watch,” an actress says of Burton. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
“Sometimes white interpreters are not fully confident or comfortable or even trained enough on how to culturally mediate,” wrote Rezenet Moges-Riedel, a lecturer in the ASL Linguistics and Deaf Cultures Program at Cal State Long Beach and a deaf scholar of sign language. “It can be frustrating.”
For hearing people, the degree to which race inflects sign can be hard to grasp. Many see ASL as mimed English, with a five-fingered lexicon and syntax. (There is a distinct variety of ASL called Black American Sign Language, which is likewise mischaracterized as a gestured Black English.) Any cultural dimension is often assumed to be superficial.
But the ADA recognizes American sign as a separate language, “dissimilar from English” in its structure and vocabulary. It also nods to the state’s outsize role in teaching sign language to deaf children, 90% of whom are born to hearing parents and learn sign primarily in public school.
What it doesn’t do is ensure that all deaf children’s schools are good. The deep racial inequalities that plague public education, and the communal ingenuity to adapt to them, shape many deaf Americans’ natural language.
“Most of the time, as black deaf people, we come from mainstream programs,” rather than specialized programs for the deaf, said Foxx, a black deaf comedian who performs often with Deaf West Theatre and the Groundlings. “ASL is not as prevalent in our schools.”
Though the law requires all public schools to offer “equitable access to communication,” the nature and quality of that access can vary widely. Publicly funded early interventions are not uniform, and the first kindergarten readiness standards in the country to promote ASL for deaf children were adopted just five years ago in California.
“I’ve spoken to so many black deaf people who are like, ‘I understand you, but I don’t understand that other interpreter,’” Burton said. Interpreting for the county, “my concern was with more marginalized deaf people, and by that I mean black and brown deaf people who have traditionally had less access to education.”
L.A.’s many deaf immigrants, whose sign languages are distinct, also struggle to comprehend classically trained interpreters’ more erudite ASL.
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When hearing children of deaf adults become sign language interpreters, they often do better than those who trained as adults, having grown up with the language. But the gold standard is certified deaf interpreters like Nic Zapko, who has risen to prominence in her work for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and Linda Bove, the beloved deaf actress best known for her 31-year run on “Sesame Street.”
“I’m thinking about kids who are 2, 3, 4 and even older than that who have parents who don’t sign,” said the actress, who worked alongside a black deaf interpreter signing for the CNN/Sesame Street Town Hall on Racism on Saturday. “You have kids going, ‘What’d they say, Mommy?’ And they have a parent who can’t sign to them to explain.”
To hearing officials responsible to federal accessibility law, such concerns were all but imperceptible. Interpreters, too, had struggled to articulate them.
Then came the death of George Floyd.
“It was amazing to actually see a black woman interpreter on screen during the memorial service — that was really very smart,” said Smith, who recently made a video with Ofili about the unique fear black deaf people feel in interactions with police. “To see that, that’s intense, it really is. It hits the heart.”
In the space of a few hours between Sunday and Monday, Burton went from marching in the street to signing about Floyd’s death for L.A. County Health Commissioner Barbara Ferrer. Webb got an email from Mayor Eric Garcetti’s communications office Tuesday seeking his service, as well as “any guidance or recommendations” he might have.
Meanwhile, a TikTok of an apparently white hearing teen signing Black Lives Matter sparked minor outrage in deaf social media circles, where black deaf users blasted the translation of “matter” as wrong.
Yet the debate over what’s correct is still far from settled.
For some, like Dallas-based interpreter Deon Harrell, “important” is simply more accurate.
“This sign can be readily interpreted into ‘crucial,’ ‘signifiant,’ or ‘vital,’” said Harrell, who is black. “I think we have to be clear in that lexical equivalence.”
But for many others, “important”/”cherish” have evolved from competing interpretations into complementary synonyms, used by many black signers to convey different shades of meaning. Both Webb and Ofili use them this way — “cherish” with certain people and contexts, and “important” with others.
Webb said he often finds himself defaulting to “important” when interpreting white speakers, and “cherish” when signing for black ones. When speaking for himself as a black man, he signs “cherish” exclusively.
Michael Agyin, a black deaf activist in Compton, said “cherish” reflects a particular sense of vulnerability among black deaf people.
“It translates better for deaf people,” Agyin wrote. “We feel the same way a hearing black person feels, on top [of] being deaf too, which makes things two times as hard and two times scarier dealing with the police.”
Studies suggest that between one third and one half of the people killed by police in the U.S. every year are disabled. (The majority of those people are also nonwhite.) Deaf people are at greater risk because they often cannot understand spoken commands and need their hands and bodies to communicate.
Rorri Burton, an American Sign Language interpreter who has been working for Los Angeles County, breaks down how to sign “Black Lives Matter” in ASL and explains why not everyone signs it the same way. (Claire Hannah Collins / Los Angeles Times)
“I worked as security at a club, I was on a 15-minute break and I decided to go to my car to rest. Suddenly somebody’s banging on my window — I look up, and it’s the police,” Foxx recalled. “They grabbed me. I tried to gesture, I tried to point to my ear, you know, I’m deaf. And I can vocalize a little bit, but in that moment you’re overwhelmed. It could have been much worse.”
That’s why he and others say that while “important” is technically correct, “cherish” often feels more accurate.
“In this #BLM context, we’re stating that our lives are so precious, valuable and irreplaceable,” wrote Moges-Riedel, the professor.
But American sign contains another subtlety, one freighted with meaning but invisible to most hearing viewers. When Butler signs “black,”, she uses four fingers. This acts as a kind of emphatic for a word that is more commonly signed with just one finger.
As in English, the one-finger sign for “black” can be either a color or an identity marker. But the four finger sign is only ever used for the latter. It means Black, and its usage is highly specific.
“If I‘m signing for someone who is talking about the black community, the richness of the black community, then I’m going to use the ‘B’ hand shape for Black,” Webb explained. “If the person who’s talking about the black community is white, I’m not going to use the ‘B’ hand shape, because that’s not a sign for white people. That’s a sign that’s used for black folks.”
For Foxx, the B-shape is intrinsic to the meaning of the phrase.
“That’s all Black people, the entire race,” he said.
Since she began working for the county in March, Burton has quietly signed Black — a word used almost exclusively by one of the most marginalized communities in America — thousands of times on TV.
“That was a recent discussion Rorri and I had,” interpreter Neil Cordova wrote in a message on Instagram. “During the COVID-19 press conferences, they give mortality rate by race and ethnicity. The hearing person says African Americans. When that is said, Rorri signs Black,” with four fingers.
At one level, that’s Burton’s ethos: African American is a complex sign that’s changed a lot over time; black is one toddlers know.
At another, it’s a reflection of how the information she’s charged with conveying is also intensely personal.
“At the press conference [Monday] there was quite a bit that was said regarding the Black Lives Matter protest and the murder of George Floyd,” Burton said. “It’s hard to maintain your professionalism when something affects you so deeply.”
Yet that’s precisely what Smith and Foxx and Agyin and Ofili find so valuable about work like hers, and why they feel it’s so different to be watching black interpreters now. For many deaf people — though far from all — a caption can convey information. But a good sign language interpreter also conveys affect, including whether the speaker is sincere. As with the B-sign Burton uses, the true meaning is often imperceptible to hearing people.
“With what’s happening right now, we really need to put an emphasis on Black people. We’re talking about this collective of black deaf people — our lives are precious,” Foxx, the comedian, said. “When we sign ‘matter,’ it’s holding on,” both in the meaning and in the mechanics of the sign. “We’re not trying to lose our people. We’re here to protect them.”
He signed it again: Four fingers saluting across the forehead for — Black — thumbs dragged up like a cry from the chest — life— ending with a grip of two fists at the base of his chin, as though clutching a jewel — cherish.
“Black lives matter.”