Collected Item: “One Way to See Family During a Worldwide Crisis”
Give your story or documents a unique title.
ONE WAY TO SEE FAMILY DURING A WORLDWIDE CRISIS
Tell us a story; share your experience. Or describe the item you are submitting. What does the object or story you've uploaded say about the pandemic, and/or why is it important to you?
Primary Source Essay
Wildania Hernandez
The primary source I’m using for this project is a picture of my family on a zoom call celebrating my father’s birthday on march 12, 2020. This is how my family and myself had to gather together to actually spend some time since the virus started. Our family is a very united family, we are very close and before COVID-19 started we used to get together in somebody’s house and just cook and dance and talk, and enjoy every second of it but everything changed when the virus started it was spreading too fast, and everybody was scared.
I remember how my mom was always watching the news and you could see all the videos of all those people that died in Queens and they had so many bodies that they didn't have a place to put them. Funeral homes were full and all I could think was about those families who lost a loved one and how some people were thinking that COVID was fake.
The first time we use zoom was to celebrate my fathers’s birthday, it was something new and not something like we usually do but at least we got to see some of our family members. We were always home since we stopped working because of the pandemic. We used to work for a medical transportation company so we were “Essentials Workers”, we transport people to get dialysis treatment 3 times a week and after the virus started to get stronger we had to stop working because almost every patient we transported died of COVID-19 before the wave of summer even started. Sadly the COVID ended the life of two members in my family, at the end of June we got the news that one of my aunts was at the hospital on life support, three weeks later one of my uncle was in the same situation. We couldn't see them or say goodbye, everything just happened so fast that we were in shock and this is how we started our “Weekly zoom meetings”.
The reason why I selected this source is because I want to show historians of the future how families use to communicate in a group without getting together. We used this tool to so much that we had an schedule, every Friday we had a zoom meeting to just talk about our week. To talk about our different point of view of the pandemic and not only that but all of the events that happened last year, like the protest that started shortly after George Floyd was killed, and the election in November but most importantly those zoom meetings was just to make sure that everybody was good and to support each other since some of my family members were still working outside. Crazy how everything started last year and now we have a vaccine and hopefully everything will go back to normal in no time but for now we need to live with the memory of what started in the year 2020 that affected the whole world.
Wildania Hernandez
The primary source I’m using for this project is a picture of my family on a zoom call celebrating my father’s birthday on march 12, 2020. This is how my family and myself had to gather together to actually spend some time since the virus started. Our family is a very united family, we are very close and before COVID-19 started we used to get together in somebody’s house and just cook and dance and talk, and enjoy every second of it but everything changed when the virus started it was spreading too fast, and everybody was scared.
I remember how my mom was always watching the news and you could see all the videos of all those people that died in Queens and they had so many bodies that they didn't have a place to put them. Funeral homes were full and all I could think was about those families who lost a loved one and how some people were thinking that COVID was fake.
The first time we use zoom was to celebrate my fathers’s birthday, it was something new and not something like we usually do but at least we got to see some of our family members. We were always home since we stopped working because of the pandemic. We used to work for a medical transportation company so we were “Essentials Workers”, we transport people to get dialysis treatment 3 times a week and after the virus started to get stronger we had to stop working because almost every patient we transported died of COVID-19 before the wave of summer even started. Sadly the COVID ended the life of two members in my family, at the end of June we got the news that one of my aunts was at the hospital on life support, three weeks later one of my uncle was in the same situation. We couldn't see them or say goodbye, everything just happened so fast that we were in shock and this is how we started our “Weekly zoom meetings”.
The reason why I selected this source is because I want to show historians of the future how families use to communicate in a group without getting together. We used this tool to so much that we had an schedule, every Friday we had a zoom meeting to just talk about our week. To talk about our different point of view of the pandemic and not only that but all of the events that happened last year, like the protest that started shortly after George Floyd was killed, and the election in November but most importantly those zoom meetings was just to make sure that everybody was good and to support each other since some of my family members were still working outside. Crazy how everything started last year and now we have a vaccine and hopefully everything will go back to normal in no time but for now we need to live with the memory of what started in the year 2020 that affected the whole world.
What sort of object is this, and where did you find it? (Examples: text story, photograph, screenshot, drawing, meme, personal essay, street art, etc.)
PHOTOGRAPH
Are you the sole creator of these materials? Then select "I am sole creator." If no, please select "I have co-creators" and list the names of the content co-creators, their contact information, and the circumstances of how you came to have the materials. IMPORTANT: Each co-creator must fill out this form in order for the item to be accepted by the archives. However, only one co-creator is required to upload any document.)
I am sole creator
Name of the item creator, unless anonymous. If creator is unknown, leave blank.
Wildania Hernandez
Use tags (separated by commas) to describe your story or documents. For example: Does it relate to a particular neighborhood? Does it relate to a particular aspect of the pandemic?
Pandemic, Family, Zoom, Meeting, Call, Covid-19
Give a date associated with this story or documents.
2020-04-12
What is your affiliation, if any, with Bronx Community College?
Undergrad majoring in Criminal Justice
If what you are submitting was created as part of a Bronx Community College class, please indicate the course code (i.e., ENG1010) semester, and professor:
HIS 20 Professor Culkin
Select this box to agree to the Creative Commons NC-ND license as described in the above Submission Agreement.
I agree to a CC-ND-NC Licence