After the fires, job losses and deportation threats, L.A.’s migrant workers are under immense stress

It started with a pounding headache that wouldn’t go away. When Maria Cardenas tried standing up, the room began to spin and she couldn’t catch her breath.

She wondered what was happening to her. The 52-year-old hadn’t been able to sleep since her last day at work on Jan. 7; the day the Palisades fire swept through Malibu, forcing her to flee her employer’s home. That was only part of what kept her up at night. Her husband’s income as a gardener had abruptly stopped that day, along with her own.

“It was just too much,” Cardenas said.

She worried about rent, bills and danger lurking outside their southeast L.A. home. Cardenas’ son told her about news reports of people being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in cities across the country. She and her husband decided it was too risky for him to go to the Home Depot parking lot where he’d found day labor work in the past.

“There’s also all these emotions that come with what we’re living,” Cardenas said. “The anxiety, being unable to sleep at night, being worried, the stress.”

All of it led to Cardenas experiencing headaches, shortness of breath, vomiting and vertigo. She went to the emergency room and spent one night in the hospital at the end of January. She was released and told that stress was likely the cause of her illness.

Across Los Angeles, an untold number of immigrant domestic workers and service workers are grappling with not only the loss of their jobs and incomes due to the fires that destroyed thousands of homes across the region, but also the threat of mass deportations under the Trump administration, which is making it difficult for some to look for new jobs or feel safe accessing services.

All of it has put major pressures on immigrant workers who do not have easy access to support.

California

These gardeners, housekeepers, nannies kept Pacific Palisades going. Fire took their jobs

Housekeepers, gardeners, pool cleaners and other workers have been left grappling with a loss of income and grief for longtime employers they considered family.

Jan. 14, 2025

“Immigrant communities are facing a mountain of obstacles, of adversities that of course will impact our mental health,” said Germán A. Cadenas, associate professor at Rutgers Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology.

He runs the Lab for Immigrant Rights and Mental Health, and his current research shows that anti-immigrant policies are linked to poor working conditions and a negative impact on mental health.

Because many Latino immigrants are in precarious work situations, they may not have access to the benefits other groups get and need for their well-being, such as a fair wage, feeling safe at work, having access to health insurance and being able to take time off of work for illness or vacation, Cadenas said.

“It’s a really basic standard that unfortunately many immigrants, many Latino workers are not able to have,” he said.

There are many layers to the trauma domestic workers are experiencing, said Nancy Zuniga, director of worker health at the Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California (IDEPSCA).

Maria Cardenas has worked for the same Malibu family for nine years. The Palisades fire was not her first, nor was it the first for many other workers in the community

“The fact that workers are constantly having to deal with this is not normal, and it has an impact,” Zuniga said.

At the same time, President Trump’s threats of deportation are keeping workers from getting help, advocates said. The number of people coming to IDEPSCA’s day laborer centers has dropped since Trump took office again, Zuniga said. To address that, they’ve tried to get out into the community to reach those in need.

But many federal and local relief programs are not accessible to undocumented workers.

Often in natural disasters, domestic workers are the first to lose their income and the last to receive financial assistance, said Jenn Stowe, executive director of the National Domestic Workers Assn.

The association created a “We Care: Domestic Worker Relief Fund” for domestic workers affected by the Palisades and Eaton fires that has so far raised more than $1 million. The funds will be distributed through local affiliates including IDEPSCA, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, also called CHIRLA, and the Pilipino Workers Center and will be used to help with temporary shelter, financial support and protective gear, which will be needed during recovery efforts and in case of future disasters.

“We know that care workers and domestic workers sometimes have to be first-line responders,” Stowe said. “We know that domestic workers have to help evacuate their clients and are exposed to dangerous conditions. We want to make sure they can protect themselves.”

California

As the worst disaster raged around them, hired hands kept working to pay the bills

Even as fire turned Santa Monica an apocalyptic shade of orange, hired hands went about their business as if it were just another day on the job. “We gotta pay bills,” said one UPS driver. “It’s not like they’re gonna pay us to stop working and leave.”

Jan. 9, 2025

Zuniga said she hopes people realize that homeowners are not the only ones experiencing loss as many housekeepers, nannies and other staff have worked in Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods for many years. Zuniga hopes that the recovery plans include the people who work in these areas.

“The recommendation for homeowners that are trying to recover and put all the pieces together, is to make sure that workers, housekeepers, people that clean their homes, take care of their loved ones, take care of their gardens, that they’re part of their recovery plans,” Zuniga said.

Rebuilding will take several years, and Latinos will be the backbone of the recovery effort while also being the most vulnerable, said Silvia González, Director of Research for UCLA’s Latino Policy & Politics Institute. Latinos make up 34% of the workforce in the Palisades fire zone that encompasses Pacific Palisades, Topanga and Malibu. Yet they are only 7% of the population there, she said.

“This is going to be a five-, six-, seven-year recovery effort,” she said. And it’s imperative that organizations don’t forget workers so they continue to have access to resources “after the cameras are away.”

Based on recovery from the Woolsey fire, workers could face long-term unemployment, IDEPSCA Executive Director Maegan Ortiz said.

Cardenas has talked to her employer, whose house is still standing, to ask when she can return to work, but he said she must wait until the water is turned on, she said. She hasn’t been paid for the time she was out of work and said she doesn’t feel comfortable asking her boss about it. He also hasn’t brought it up.

Employers have a responsibility to help their workers get through this immensely stressful time and “it shouldn’t be up to the worker to ask for pay,” Zuniga said

Since her ER visit, Cardenas continues to experience headaches and has a follow-up visit scheduled with a doctor. Her husband has been collecting recycling to earn money while she is working with a case manager at IDESCA to apply for jobs.

She worries about how she will pay her share of the rent for the house she and her husband share with her two adult children, son-in-law and four children ages 4 to 13, but she is grateful her family is together and safe.

Yvonne Condes is a freelance writer and contributing editor to Picturing Mexican America, a project that works to uncover the whitewashed history of Mexican Los Angeles. You can find her on Instagram: @yvonneinla.