Thread by @TorontoStar

For 29 years, Juan Mendoza de la Cruz came to Canada every spring to work 8 months and take his earnings back to family in Mexico.

A week after Mendoza arrived in Ontario, he learned there was a COVID-19 outbreak on his farm.

Part 3 @AtkinsonCF @snolen
thestar.com/news/atkinsons…

On farms like the one where Mendoza worked, COVID raged through the communal bunkhouses and enclosed workspaces, through workers with limited personal protective equipment. More than 1,700 were infected in the spring, and three died. thestar.com/news/atkinsons…

In 2020, Mendoza was one of an estimated 1.6 million people in Canada who did not have citizenship or permanent residency. Lack of PR meant they also did not have the same legal rights, workplace protections or access to health care as Canadians thestar.com/news/atkinsons…

More than a decade ago, Mendoza began to organize farm workers into small groups to talk about the conditions in which they worked, brought to Canada to do jobs Canadians didn't want to do for far less money while missing major family milestones.
thestar.com/news/atkinsons…

That activism sprang into an artistic form of protest: dance. Inspired by Heryka Miranda, a dance artist and community cross-cultural educator with a longtime interest in migrants’ rights, the two used dance to send a message, performing across Canada.
thestar.com/news/atkinsons…

In December 2020, Mendoza flew home to Mexico. After facing an outbreak, he was returning to his home country in a 'red zone' of COVID-19. He lost a brother and a sister to the virus.

Here he sits with his family:
thestar.com/news/atkinsons…

Through the first months of 2021, Mendoza found himself once again considering travelling to Canada for work.

Then, before his 31st trip back to Canada, he contracted COVID-19.

Read the full story by @snolen, part a 5-part @AtkinsonCF series here: thestar.com/news/atkinsons…