Name: For these unemployed Bay Area hospitality workers, free time meant helping Biden win Nevada
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For these unemployed Bay Area hospitality workers, free time meant helping Biden win Nevada

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An endless number of things ran through Oakland native Tony Evans’ mind when he felt his body tiring during a long day of canvassing in Reno, Nevada the week before the 2020 presidential election.The 66-year-old thought about his three daughters and 10 grandchildren. He thought about losing his job as a bartender at the due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He thought about being Black in America, about police brutality, and most of all, about how he wanted President Donald Trump out of office.In the week leading up to the 2020 election, Evans was among 75 newly laid-off Bay Area food industry workers who traveled to the swing state of Nevada as part of the largest union-led door-to-door canvassing operation in the country. The effort was orchestrated by Unite Here, with around 300,000 active members who mostly work in the food service, hotel and casino gaming industries.A majority of the participants from the Bay Area were members of the union. Overall, Unite Here sent more than 1,700 of its members to the battleground states of Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Florida. President-elect Joe Biden went on to win all of those states except Florida.Evans said he was inspired to travel to Reno because of frustrations he had concerning police reform under Trump, and how he did not “want any of my grandsons to become Trayvon Martin or George Floyd.”“It’s not a good life for Black people under this administration. So I was doing what I can for my neighborhood and people I know,” he said.In Nevada, canvassers like Evans knocked on the doors of 745,000 voters, including including half of all Black and Latinx voters in the state. He was joined by Jordan Aylesworth, 30, a cook at Flagship at Facebook San Francisco, who said she felt the need to participate in Reno because over the years in the restaurant industry during Trump’s presidency, she saw a rise of open harassment and misogyny in kitchens against women and people of color. She didn’t think it was a coincidence considering his behavior, she said.“I never stood for that kind of behavior in kitchens I worked in from former bosses and coworkers alike, and I wasn’t going to stand for that sort of person running our country for another four years,” she said. “I just couldn’t do it.”Not having a job gave these workers time to canvass — but it also gave some of them the drive to do it, too. Cody Afshar was a longtime bartender at , one of the city’s most exclusive, secretive and male-only clubs, before being laid off early on during the pandemic. It’s his first time decades without a job, the 56-year-old Afshar said.Afshar, who immigrated from Afghanistan to the U.S. at age 14, said he felt Trump mishandled the pandemic, which cost him his job. The situation jeopardizes his ability to pay for his four daughters’ educations and affects his family’s access to health insurance.“This was an important election for my life. Trump knew about COVID-19 yet he did nothing about it when he could have saved all of America’s workers,” he said. “He didn’t care. He messed up everyone’s life.”The hundreds of canvassers spread between Las Vegas and Reno, most of whom were hospitality workers from the union, were responsible for 130,000 in-person interactions with voters, making 2 million phone calls (in 6 different languages), and sending 5.6 million pieces of election-related mail. their 2020 general election results, formally awarding the 26 electoral votes from the battleground states to Biden. Biden won Nevada by more than 33,000 votes, according to the secretary of state's office.Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.Related StoriesThe canvassing effort by Unite Here was tweaked to accommodate the pandemic — participants didn’t socialize outside of the hours of canvassing during the day. All of the members monitored themselves for symptoms of COVID-19, and each day, the discussions for how to approach voters, and what areas they would visit, were done over video calls.Carmen Velasquez, a 30-year-old a former hospitality worker at the Oakland Airport, said she joined in on the canvassing work because she wanted to set a positive example for her 13-year-old daughter. Though she’s always been active on a local level, this election was the first time she saw how a large-scale, organize effort could quickly result in change.The experience wasn’t always easy, she said. One day, she said a vehicle tried to run her off the road and shouted at her to leave the neighborhood. The moment, she said, made her just want to speak to more people about the election.“If you really want to make things better, you have to get involved in your city or your state,” she said. “In doing this, I saw the power of how people can come together and change things...It’s something I hope my daughter can see and learn from.”Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: . Twitter:Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

An endless number of things ran through Oakland native Tony Evans’ mind when he felt his body tiring during a long day of canvassing in Reno, Nevada the week before the 2020 presidential election.The 66-year-old thought about his three daughters and 10 grandchildren. He thought about losing his job as a bartender at the due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He thought about being Black in America, about police brutality, and most of all, about how he wanted President Donald Trump out of office.In the week leading up to the 2020 election, Evans was among 75 newly laid-off Bay Area food industry...

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For these unemployed Bay Area hospitality workers, free time meant helping Biden win Nevada

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