Items

• 
  2020-03-13

  Plight of a single Father

  Forcibly grown neighborhood community in the height of a pandemic.
• 2021-10-06

  COVID-19: The Impact of Power, Gender, Race, and Religion

  Life during the COVID-19 pandemic is something that no one could have expected or prepared for. The way that our everyday lives instantly got disrupted and for many people their lives turned completely upside-down. We went from going to concerts, shows, and movies with friends and family, to lockdown in a brief second. Yet, for everyone lockdown, quarantine, and even work all looked different. There were many factors that went into trying to be able to stay safe and healthy during this time. Not everyone had the same advantages to try and protected themselves and their loved ones; some of the driving forces behind the advantages or disadvantage were power, gender, race, and religion. The more power, money, influence that you had during 2020 was what could almost guarantee that you and your family would be okay. By having money and power one was able to by as many masks as they wanted or by as much disinfectant as they could. Those people didn’t need to worry about if they could afford the inflated prices of hand sanitizers and Clorox wipes (if they could be found). Having power and money meant having information and accesses. This meant that those who possessed these things, could have accesses to doctors for healthcare purposes but also to get information about what was happening in their local area. With the possession of money also came space. Besides disinfectants and good masks such as N95s or KN95s, space was the next most luxurious thing people could have. Having space meant that you and your families weren’t all crowded on top of each other even if that’s how many people felt like they were because of lockdown. Having space also meant that if one of your loved ones got COVID-19, there was an area for them to quarantine and not but the rest of the people in the house at risk. Power and money were what separated those who could afford to stay at home and be safe and have minimal disruption to their lives, and those who still had to leave the house every day, if they were some of the fortunate ones to have jobs and put their lives at risk to try and provide for their loved ones. The way that gender was impacted by COVID-19, was that for lots of family’s stereotypical gender roles were reversed in some cases or even ceased for a bit. With everyone spending so much time at home, there was no more reason for any one person to be doing either the housework, looking after the children, or even doing all the cooking. While it is not just women that stay home with children, plenty of men to do, it is a stereotype that most women stay home with the kids and that the men work. Well with many people working from home or unfortunately being unemployed the jobs that typically might have fallen on mom became a mom and dad job. However, gender was not only impacted in these ways. While COVID-19 was already a hard, tough, and sad enough event domestic violence rose drastically during lockdown. Because people were forced to stay home, women especially since they are the dominant gender affected by domestic violence, had no option but to remain in the same environment as their abusers. This is not to say that men did not face the same situations but in America, 77% of domestic violence victims are female. Race played a huge part in the treatment of those with COVID-19 as well as accessibility to masks, disinfectants, and other forms of PPE. Areas all around the country that were not primarily made up of white people, were hit the harder with COVID-19. These groups of people were not given or provided the same level of care or protections that those where were white did, during this crisis. People who were any race other than white were treated as second class citizens to those who were white. They tended to be forgotten about by the healthcare system or were not prioritized the same way those who were white were. The color of your skin during 2020 could have been the difference between living or dying due to COVID-19. Religion was one of the biggest debates that surrounded the entire COIVD-19 pandemic. Religion was the cause for fights, violence, and even deaths of thousands of people. People used their belief in religion as a reason for why they did or did not believe in many parts of COIVD-19 crisis. One of the oldest debates in history is religion versus science, and this debate in modern times has never been so present in every part of the country and many parts of the world. Not only were people’s personal beliefs in religion playing a role in the chaos of the pandemic, but the attendance of religious gatherings such as church and temple causing issues as well. As a result of millions of people choosing to still attend religious gatherings, they were spreading the virus because of being in such close contact with many people. Even when there were executive orders in place prohibiting gatherings of over a certain size to prevent the spread of COVID-19, people still felt it was their right to go to these gatherings. The COIVD-19 pandemic impacted and altered the lives of billions of people. There are lots of factors that played a part of making the pandemic better and making the pandemic worse. However, at the end of the day the ones that were the most prominent were power, gender, race, and religion.
• 
  2021-08-16

  Masks at the Child Development Lab on Campus

  Today, after 2 weeks without daycare, ASU reopened its daycare on campus. I dropped my son off at the CDL daycare this morning, and all the kids are now required to wear a mask. This was not a big deal, because I won't let my son go grocery shopping with me unless he wears a mask, he sees his older sister wearing a mask, so the process is normalized. Last night CVS was selling kids masks with a 2-for-1 sale. Since masks always going missing at home, I bought a new one for each of them. This morning I gave one to my son Juli, and it disappeared. He claimed it was in his backpack, but I looked over the bag and didn't see it. So I gave him the second mask, the only clean one left and when I put him in the car I noticed he didn't have the mask. He said it was in his backpack, which I checked quickly and didn't see. I was frustrated and grabbed a mask out of the dirty laundry. On arriving at the CDL, he didn't want to wear the third mask because it was "stinky." I'm sure it was. I told his caregiver what happened and she said they could give him a disposable mask. I took the stinky mask and shoved it in my purse. 10 minutes later the caregiver texted to say she found both cloth masks in his bag, and everything was fine. My poor 3-year-old was right, and I was too frantic to see the truth. I feel like a hot mess mom today.
• 
  2021-04-10

  Child Care Concerns Persist Despite Returning to In-Person Instruction in Californian Schools

  Californian schools are opening back up, but there continue to be concerns over employees and their families. Although there have been some employees working at schools the past year (i.e. custodians), those working remotely (i.e. teachers) continue to face challenges in child care. Due to this, "Los Angeles Unified School District earlier this week announced it would provide a day care stipend of $500 a month for each child under age 5 to all full-time employees, including teachers." The Service Employees International Union (SEIU 1021) did clarify within the article by Sacramento Bee that some demands could not be met. Among the demands was a one-time stipend amount of $1,500 for employees with children aged 3 - 14. This is an ongoing issue with its latest update on April 10, 2021 being: a weekly stipend of $125 for employees with children aged under 14. This represents one of the issues employees of educational institutions are facing. They’re hesitant to return to in-person instruction. Although there’s a fair amount of news coverage of children returning to school, the ones hesitant (especially those responsible for the school to run smoothly) should also be acknowledged.
• 
  2020-07-22

  The Domino Effect of the California Child Care Crisis

  This highlights how much the pandemic has affected child care workers and programs in California as health concerns continue to rise. It's yet another industry that was impacted greatly as many were out of a job and struggling financially. Not only does it emphasize the economic impacts on an industry, along with the needs for more health safety measures and the need to increase budgets for that, it’s effectively keeping those who need the child care services away.
• 
  2020-11-17

  Women Face Unique Issues During Pandemic

  For millions of working women, the coronavirus pandemic has delivered a rare and ruinous setback. Job losses, childcare closings and remote schooling are not just pushing women out of jobs they held, but also preventing many from seeking new ones.
• 
  2020-05-13

  School Cancellation News Article

  2. This news article, although short and not very informative, is important to my experience with the coronavirus because it was when I had first learned that schools had started to close. My mother had sent it to me about when as the news had just come out. This was a big moment and a turning point for lots of people because although we had heard lots about the coronavirus and had seen the numbers and read the articles, this would be the first time it would affect us directly. The pandemic, at this time, had finally started to feel real and it had dawned upon me, and likely many others, that this would be something that would really impact me and my life, and it was no longer just something you heard or talked about. This, to me, shows how quickly the pandemic grew and took people by surprise. It also reminds me of times when people would claim that the coronavirus was being exaggerated by the media, or when others would guess that the virus would be gone before summer, because this was the moment that disproved those theories to me.
• 
  2020-07-31

  Courts dramatically rethink the jury trial in the era of the coronavirus

  One of the consequences of a huge Covid outbreak in the U.S. is the halt of court proceedings, especially criminal trials. While many proceedings have been conducted virtually, the trial by a jury of your peers has not in most cases. Washington D.C. and nine states have postponed jury trials indefinitely. This has consequences for those awaiting trial, especially anyone awaiting trial from a jail cell. Courts have considered installing HEPA filters, having everyone wear masks, installing plexiglass, putting the jury out in the gallery to allow for proper social distancing but even with all of these mitigation efforts there is still a problem because jury service is compulsory and many don't feel safe performing their civic duty. Still other problems include jurors having to afford child care because their children are not in school due to Covid. This can limit the jury pool.
• 
  2020-03-27

  ‘White-Collar Quarantine’ Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

  Article in the NY Times about how class affects people's ability to socially isolate or quarantine during the pandemic, and how, in turn, the pandemic is highlighting class divides.