Dear Subscriber,
I've written multiple stories about how the pandemic has disproportionately hit Latinos, immigrants and African Americans. While doing a month-long investigation on how Latino businesses have struggled with lockdowns and further restrictions in September, I learned that the art industry hadn't seen a rebound after lockdowns were eased.
I tried to gather factual data to see the impact of COVID-19 among artists of color in the city, but there wasn't any. During October and November, I contacted local artists, museums, dance groups, theaters, unions for artists, local representatives, national arts organizations, art activists and scholars in the city. All of them said they intuited that artists of color were disproportionately affected, but there was no hard data to support that claim.
Just when I decided to write about this issue using anecdotal information, Americans for The Arts shared with us preliminary data collected since April about the impacts of COVID-19 on national and local arts organizations and artists.
I found that Latino artists have lower rates of health insurance, greater economic losses, higher unemployment, and a larger number of them have seen their health or their family's health affected by COVID-19 compared to White artists. Another more troubling finding was that funding for Latino cultural institutions decreases each year, and smaller Latino-led or Latino-serving institutions have a greater possibility to cease operations by 2021.
It took me more than two months to assess the true impact COVID-19 had on Latino artists in New York City. I contacted more than 30 sources, and dug around to find factual evidence to support all the anecdotes I had gathered and adequately show the funding disparities in the arts industry.
This type of journalism takes time to produce. We work very hard to present solid and factual investigations to you.
Will you support City Limits to ensure we keep producing this type of data-driven, investigative journalism?
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All donations will be tripled until Dec. 31st.
With gratitude,
Daniel Parra
Spanish-Language Reporter/Editor
City Limits
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