'COVID's Hidden Toll' covers injustice agriculture workers face amid the pandemic

Photo provided by Kayla Bennett.

At the Schuneman Symposium on Tuesday, Daffodil Altan, "FRONTLINE" director, producer, and correspondent, and Andrés Cediel, documentary filmmaker and "FRONTLINE" contributor, spoke with the audience about "COVID's Hidden Toll" after a viewing of the film.

The film takes place in California in Salinas Valley and follows the stories of individuals who work in the agriculture industry. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, agriculture workers were part of the essential workers who were still expected to go to work after lockdown. However, the workers were treated poorly and unfairly regarding COVID-19 protocols.

The film focuses on one woman, Sinthia, and the hardships she faces as an agriculture worker. With her increased risk of health due to her cancer and diabetes, the working conditions she is put through are detrimental. However, she still has to work because she is the only one in her family that can – no one else would be able to pay the bills.

At the beginning of the once-in-a-century pandemic, agriculture workers were not given any guidelines to keep them safe in the workplace, aside from mask-wearing and social distancing, which was nearly impossible. 

There were places in the food industry, like Central Valley Meat, that disregarded the COVID-19 outbreak and fire workers for wearing masks or trying to protect themselves. The company's leadership believed mask-wearing would "scare" people away. One worker at the company even said, "it doesn't feel like we're essential workers; it feels like we're slaves."

Workers within the food industry were forced to choose between their job and health. If they felt the need to stay home because of their health, they were laid off. So, many people continued to work in unruly conditions due to fear of losing their job and having nowhere else to work. 

Through the fear of obtaining the virus, many workers were nervous about returning home after a day of work due to fear of infecting their family members. As a result, the film ended, leaving the audience wondering where the people in the film are today.

"COVID's Hidden Toll" was powerful, and Altan and Cediel were able to speak on the film's behalf.

"As journalists, we're often chasing stories, we're trying to catch up, but one of the important things is when you're trying to figure out 'what is the story,' you don't have to figure it out by yourself," Altan said. "What's important to learn to do is to listen."

The journalists talked about how navigating how to report during a pandemic was difficult – it was doing the reporting, interviewing, and editing all simultaneously. 

"It (was about) building in self-care practices throughout and learning how to take care of each other," Cediel said. "It was a scary time, and nobody knew what was happening."

The 52-minute film covered a heavy topic and showed how reporting needs to be adaptive and can be full of twists, turns, and learning curves.