Addressing COVID-19 vaccination equity for Hispanic/Latino communities by attending to aguantarismo: A Californian US–Mexico border perspective

“We left the crop there lying in the field”: Agricultural worker experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic in a rural US-Mexico border region

“…Our results also highlight the importance of diversity and redundancy across scale as agricultural workers discussed local community-based organizations, statewide resources, and national rules and regulations. However, while the diversity and redundancy of resources available certainly helped, we in no way claim that the agricultural workers nor the agricultural system in our study were particularly resilient in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic due to the pre-existing systemic, economic, and social inequities ( Xiuhtecutli and Shattuck, 2021 ; Sobo et al, 2022 ). Rather, the experiences, choices, and strategies of borderland agricultural workers can inform how we can design more equitable and accessible systems of agricultural worker healthcare and workplace protections.…”

“…In Imperial County, barriers to vaccine access for agricultural workers included inconvenient locations, such as Imperial Valley College, online registration for appointments in English, and appointments filling up quickly ( Brown, 2021b ). In a study of the vaccine rollout among Hispanic/Latino communities in southern San Diego, California, Sobo et al (2022) identified the cultural standpoint of aguantarismo , which celebrates human resilience in the face of hardship, as both undermining and supporting vaccine uptake. This supports the need for culturally-responsive interventions, and not just interventions that address the structural barriers identified in our study.…”

“… Lastly, as highlighted by the agricultural workers in our study, trusted Spanish-speaking community-based organizations can play a critical role in public health outreach. In this context, community is not just a geographic community, but also an ideological, social, and cultural community ( Brown, 2021b ; Sobo et al, 2022 ). As highlighted by AuYoung and colleagues (2022), it is these types of organizations that are best positioned for effective, culturally- and contextually appropriate education and action as they are often trusted more by community members than the government.…”

Change and Continuity in Preventive Practices across the COVID-19 Pandemic among Rural and Urban Latinx Immigrant Worker Families

“…The responses observed to these structural forces—to work even when protecting oneself is not possible—is supported by recent work on cultural supports for such behavior among the Latinx population in California [ 34 ]. Sobo and colleagues argue that the need to work and take care of family even while exposing oneself to risks of COVID-19 are rationalized by the concept of aguarantismo , which loosely translates as “to put up with” situations.…”

Syndemic aspects between COVID-19 pandemic and social inequalities

“…Vaccine access also is affected by the way that the communities are structured, since the necessity to work during the vaccination periods, the mistrust of the health system, documents pending related to immigration, religious negativism, and political opposition are individual factors that have contributed to decreasing the vaccine access by Latin and Hispanic people in the USA[ 94 ]. Similarly, studies have demonstrated a greater hesitation to vaccination by the people belonging to minority groups, mainly the Black population in the United Kingdoms and the USA, which could be related to possible historic disbelief of these people about the health system due to events like the Tuskegee Experiment[ 95 , 96 ].…”