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  2020-06-09

  JBS Meatpacking Plant Outbreak

  I wanted to include these news articles about an event that happened in my community. 287 workers at JBS meatpacking plant tested positive for COVID-19 at the beginning of Summer 2020. I am ~somewhat~ familiar with this meatpacking plant. When I attended Mountain Crest High School in Hyrum, I ran cross country and one of our running routes required us to pass this building. I usually did not like this route because the smell combined with running often made me nauseous. I believe it was bought or acquired since my running days by JBS because we used to refer to this place as “Miller’s”. Fast forward about nine years later when these news articles were published. This was the first huge outbreak in Cache Valley. It took some time before COVID-19 hit Northern Utah. Yeah, I think we had a few cases here and there. But it always felt “manageable” to me before this event. But with this outbreak, I began feeling unsafe in my corner of the world. I was especially upset at the injustice of this situation because most of the workers at JBS were Hispanic/Latinx. It felt like no measures, like paid leave or free testing services, were being taken to protect these workers. According to a Bear River Health Department report for June 1, 2020, Hispanic/Latinx accounted for more than 40% of COVID cases. Yet, only about 10% of the population here is Hispanic/Latinx. I strongly feel that this is because of JBS. I feel frustrated living here in Utah during the pandemic. So many people do not care about the situation we are in. Meanwhile, there are people who make sacrifices by working on the “front lines”. For the Hispanic/Latinx community in Cache Valley, it doesn’t feel like a voluntary sacrifice. But rather, another example of unfair systemic racism. Meanwhile, it seems so trivial and unjust that my community still insisted on having a county fair and little league baseball this year. I understand the economic consequences and reasons why people are hesitant to take precautions in certain situations. It is complicated and we don’t really have a great safety net for people in America. That being said, I hate seeing the flippant attitudes while people are literally dying. This weekend, we reached a record spike in COVID cases in Utah. And Election Day is this week. I feel so anxious all the time. And I am trying to reach for some peace wherever I can find it. I really hope that soon we will start taking this pandemic seriously.
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  2020-03-20

  A Sight to Be Seen

  The photograph that is attached is a picture that I took while in the grocery store on March 20, 2020, and I remember the sight and the moment vividly. Much like the rest of the nation, I wasn't really sure how to make meaning of the recent events that were taking place across the world and, beginning in March, starting to take place in our very nation. COVID-19 was still something I didn't quite understand, but what I did know is that it was coming, whatever that meant. My apartment is roughly three blocks from this grocery store, so naturally I went there often to buy things that I needed. On this day, earlier in the morning, I remember showing up to the front door and there were massive crowds of people not only outside, but in the aisles as well, and especially in one specific aisle. I began to ask myself "why is everyone cramming into that specific aisle? There isn't even food over there on that side of the grocery store." Come to find out, these people, much like people across the nation, were mobbing the stores and buying massive amounts of...toilet paper? Yes, exactly - toilet paper. I decided that I wasn't going to get what I needed in these crowds, so I left, aiming to come back later that evening. The attached picture is on my return trip on the night of March 20, when I walked down the aisle that everyone was clustered into in an attempt to see the aftermath. Every shelf that had toilet paper that morning was completely empty, which was a sight that I can't say that I have ever seen before. I was left not only amazed, but confused as to what prompted these people to collect toilet paper in the face of a global pandemic. If the nation were shutting down for a period of time and a national quarantine was on the brink, wouldn't canned foods, water bottles, and various other items take precedent over toilet paper? Just a thought. This event made my mind up that the year 2020 was going to be a year that would not be forgotten, and this picture, to me, stands as a picture of the very moment I had that realization.