warning Hi, we've moved to USCANNENBERGMEDIA.COM. Visit us there!

Neon Tommy - Annenberg digital news

South L.A.'s Low-Wage Workers: The Medical Assistant

Christine Archer |
May 21, 2013 | 10:11 a.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

Medina reading with her sons. "I tell [Jimmy] he can be anything he wants to be, even President,” she said. (Christine Archer)
Medina reading with her sons. "I tell [Jimmy] he can be anything he wants to be, even President,” she said. (Christine Archer)

This story is part of a Neon Tommy series exploring the lives of low-wage workers in South Los Angeles. In his State of the Union address this February, President Obama unveiled a plan for the minimum wage to be raised to $9 an hour from its current level at $7.25.

The issue of minimum wage became one of renewed pivotal importance in the final weeks of the L.A. mayoral election, with candidate Wendy Greuel pledging to support an increase in the wages of hotel workers to $15 an hour. Workers featured in this series earn wages below, at, or slightly above the California minimum wage rate, which currently stands at $8 an hour. These are the workers who would be affected by a new policy.

Isabel Medina is a medical assistant by day, an immigrant rights volunteer by night, and she is a mother. 

A tear rolled down her cheek as she watched two of her sons, Jimmy, 7, and Ryan, 4, flip the pages of “Star Wars: The Legendary Yoda” at another table nearby.

“I want a better life for them,” Medina said. “We hoped that we would find that here in the United States.”

In 1996, Medina came to Los Angeles from Mexico with her husband and her oldest son, Christian, who is now 18. “Coming to the U.S. is a dream for people like me,” she said. “We hoped that we would find more job opportunities here and that our kids would get a better education.”

Since their arrival in 1996, Medina said she and her family have faced countless struggles due to the fact that she and her husband are undocumented immigrants. 

“The biggest problem we have faced is finding jobs,” she said. “When you’re trying to get a job, you don’t get treated the same as others if you don’t have papers. I could say it’s racist.” 

Since they arrived in California in 1996, Medina and her husband have moved from one minimum wage job to the next. 

“It’s like a cycle,” she explained. “My husband works in factories, and it has been so difficult whenever he gets laid off. We go through the same struggles each time he applies for a new job: Hoping they won’t find out that you’re not legal and that they won’t get you.” 

During her first nine years in the United States, Medina worked a variety of low-wage jobs. Then in 2005, she was fortunate to obtain her current position as a medical assistant at a clinic. Eight years later, however, Medina is still making just slightly above minimum wage.

Although Medina is grateful for finding a steady job, she says, what she hates most is missing out on time with her children.

“We are working so hard, but we still don’t even have enough money for the basics,” Medina said. “My husband and I don’t have time to raise our children, to be there for them and to help educate them, because one salary is just not enough.”

She added that many other families in her community face similar challenges. “I see so many of our neighbors and kids in Jimmy’s class who are already struggling because their parents are not there for them,” Medina said. “And it’s not because they don’t want to be there for them. It’s because their income is not enough for rent, food, shoes, and everything else.” 

Although Medina said she believed that Obama’s proposal to raise minimum wage to $9 an hour is a step in the right direction, she said the changes need to be more extreme. 

“Minimum wage would have to be even higher in order to have a real impact on families,” Medina said. “If wages were high enough so that we could support a family off of one salary instead of two, then I think it would make a big difference for our kids.”

And for Medina, current immigration policies serve as another obstacle in advancing her career. “Being a medical assistant is a very basic job,” she said. “But I can’t go for the next step, like a registered nurse, because I don’t have social security and I can’t continue my education. People like me would like to study, but they have these barriers because of legal status and so we can’t contribute more to the U.S. and to our families.” 

Despite these challenges, Medina said she remains hopeful that a brighter future awaits her family. “I really think Obama’s immigration reform is going to happen this year,” she said with a smile. “I have big expectations for all of my kids. My son Jimmy, for example, is so bright. I tell him he can be anything he wants to be, even President.”

Throughout the city, Medina remains an active participant in the immigration reform debate, volunteering at various immigrant rights events in the hopes that her children will have opportunities that she never had. 

“This is not the time to be afraid,” she said. “We’re here, we are contributing and because of that we deserve the same respect as anyone else.”

For more stories from this series, click here.

Reach Staff Reporter Christine Archer here.


 

Buzz

Craig Gillespie directed this true story about "the most daring rescue mission in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard.”

Watch USC Annenberg Media's live State of the Union recap and analysis here.

 
ntrandomness