Latino Workers of LA Post-Fires

When driving through the streets of Pacific Palisades, Latino workers are seen sifting through debris in search of anything salvageable. Trying to clear the properties to prepare for the demolition and rebuilding process for their employers, people are seen at work throughout the neighborhood. In the distance, the crashing of the waves, the whistling of the birds, and the rustling of the winds can be heard, slowly guiding you to look at the now-empty community, a charred ghost town, weighed down by silence and grief. 

Los Angeles is a city where Latinos make up a huge part of the workforce. From housekeepers to landscapers, the effects of the fires affected a population of workers who might not have lost their homes but lost employment or lack work because of it. 35,000 jobs held by Latinos were temporarily or permanently displaced due to the LA fires. Trying to make ends meet with any work they can get, they continue to move forward, to let nothing, even these fires, take their American dream. 

Still, due to the fear of deportations and news coverage showing the suffering of the Latino community, many workers featured in this story were unwilling to give their full names. A fear that has a hold on the Latino community for not only their legal status but of the state of their community. 

Beside the mountain, on the ashes of a piece of land that only months ago was home to a beautiful house, three Latino workers can be seen working, searching for jewelry or anything that could be salvaged after the fires for their wealthy employer. The neighboring home was fully intact, unscathed by the fires.

“The owner wants to clear his property as soon as possible,” the worker said. “He wants to get married here in August in his backyard overlooking the mountain.” 

The worker mentioned how a lot of employees in Pacific Palisades lost their jobs, but like them, a lot of workers were also able to stay working by helping their employers in the process of reconstruction. He’s happy that he has work, unlike other Latino members who were affected by the fires. Working for his employer for years now, his employer has kept them busy with different tasks after the fires. 

Elvis Santiago, a landscaper who worked mostly in Pacific Palisades, began his business two years after moving to the U.S. On the day of the fires, he quickly, with a team of his workers, ran to Pacific Palisades to help a friend who works as a housekeeper, of the fires approaching her employer’s home. They were thankfully able to save the house by hosing the fires using the water pump from the pool. Since that day, he hasn’t returned to see the destruction. It pains him too much to see what has happened to a neighborhood he has been working in for decades. 

“Pacific Palisades, it’s burned blocks after blocks,” Santiago said. “The area is the same. It looks like an abandoned city. It’s full blocks. I can’t begin to explain to myself how this all happened in one day.” 

He feels the loss of everything as family, as it’s been decades of work he has done not only in the community but with specific homes. Following the fires, clientele for his business dropped, and he was forced to lay off some of his workers. 

“It’s a difficult thing to do, lay off the workers, they have their families too.” 

Santiago is worried about the housekeepers who had worked for families whose houses burned down. Some of the housekeepers who were displaced lived with their employers and made a living to support their kids through school. Losing their jobs and now their home, their future is not promised, as well as their children’s education. 

“The news is focusing on the fires, but what I have noticed they’re not talking about the strong impact on the schools burned down,” Santiago said. “They were good schools, and all those housekeepers, those young people who had the possibility of having an education in college. The moms lost their jobs; they were barely developing themselves. We want more Latinos in careers. We, as Latinos, have to focus on our population.”

More workers are noticing a decline in clientele for their businesses. Jefferson [unknown last name] works at a farm that supplies produce products to different restaurants around the Los Angeles area, as well as having a stand at flea markets in Pasadena and Santa Monica.

“A lot of people haven’t come, to be truthful, I don’t remember a lot of people. I have worked so little time here, that’s why a few customers that I do know, I don’t see. This farmers market, when I first started coming here, it was big, and now there are fewer people.” 

Even though their ranch wasn’t directly affected by the fires, their clientele has dropped, especially with restaurants they delivered products to that burned. He hopes that one day everything will go back to normal. 

“We deliver fruits to stores on the other side [of Los Angeles] or restaurants that burned down. Hopefully, one day everything goes back to how it was. Especially because they’re reconstructing and everything.” 

Paleteros and fruit stand workers are not fully seeing the effects of the fires yet. On the beach of Santa Monica, a paletero pushes his ice cream cart, calling out “paletas” in hopes of making a few sales. 

He mentions how the permit he has for selling only allows him to sell on the beaches instead of the actual sidewalks. After the fires, he hasn’t noticed a big difference in clientele for his business as the tourist season hasn’t hit Los Angeles yet, but he hopes that once the summer goes by, he will be able to make more sales.

A fruit stand worker in the mountains of Malibu says the same thing. Having people come in and out who are working and grabbing a snack, he is expecting to see the difference in clientele once summer comes around. 

Latino workers are going to continue to persist even through all of the deportations and the fear that has held the community. Working harder than ever before to make a living, the Latino community in Los Angeles will rise from the ashes and continue to fight every day.

---

This story is part of a semester-long investigative reporting project into the 2025 California wildfires. It was created by an advanced reporting class in the Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies program at UW-Milwaukee. Other stories from the project are available here.

This work was made possible through the support of MPC Endowment Ltd., the philanthropic affiliate of the Milwaukee Press Club.