Items

• 
  2020-03-15

  Daycares empty during the Pandemic

  For my primary source I selected a picture of a daycare. This daycare is where my kids used to go. Before the pandemic started, I used to take them there because I have to go to work. One of them was 7 months old and the other one was 5 years old. I used to take them to the daycare six days a week except Sunday, then go to work and when I finish working, pick them up in the daycare around 5pm. I selected this source because I want Historians of the future to know how the pandemic hit ‘’daycares’’. This photograph was before the pandemic. I took it in the daycare in a birthday party that we did for my son. There is the babysitter, her assistant and other kids that used to go to the day care. I feel Historians will learn how difficult was the life for mothers who have to go to work and leave their kids in daycare and what happened to me when the day care was closed. Everything was normal until I heard about COVID 19.I have been working in a hospital and in march 15 2020 my Babysitter told me that in 3 days the daycare was going to close for undefined time because of the covid 19.I was scared to go to work because I did not want that nothing happened to my kids. I had to go to work in the hospital, but I did not want to because I know that I was going to be more exposed to the virus and I may bring it to my kids. But the other reason was that I don’t have nobody to take care of my kids after they close the daycare. In addition, my Babysitter also told me that she was desperate because she was not making money in the daycare. I decided to stay at home with my kids. I remember that the school also was closed. But I was not getting pay when I stay at home. It was a very difficult time for me because I had bills to pay, including the rent. I was feeling bad because I have some savings, but 2 months after march I realized that I did not have money to pay the rent. I realized that I need to go back to work, even thought I was thinking that I was going to be on risk to get the COVID, I found somebody to watch my kids and then I went back to work. I pray God for protection every day, in the bus, streets and the train. In august the daycare opened again, the Babysitter was happy because she was going to work again, but I was scared because I did not know if anybody in the day care could be sick and get my kids sick. I have to take my kids to the daycare, but it was not like before that Babysitter had many kids in the daycare, only my two kids were in the daycare. Today, my son is back to school and the other one is still going to the day care, but every day I pray for theme because I know that other kids are with them, and I don’t know who may be sick and they are always on risk, but I don’t have other choice because I need to work to get money to pay my bills as I say before. When I arrived home, I leave my shoes on the front door, go straight to wash my hands, take clothes of, take a shower and them pick them up in the daycare. Every day my kids are on risk, but I am also on risk at work. The situation is difficult, but we have to continue our lives, be wise and do our best to keep our family safe all times.
• 
  2020-05-20

  LaGuardia’s Ghost Town

  For my primary source, I selected a photograph I took of the gate house area in LaGuardia Airport in mid March of 2020. In the picture it shows several employees, sitting around doing nothing at all, the whole airport was a “ghost town”, meaning there were no passengers to assist with there tickets and gate claims, or any questions in general. During this time we were all nervous, not just nervous about COVID-19 and from the horrific scenes in the news, but also as an 11 year veteran in the airline industry, our jobs were on the line because of the decrease in flying, fear of flying, and the travel restrictions of no flying. With the airline burning 35 million dollars a day how can they pay 80,000 employees system wide I told myself. The airline soon told us system wide that it’s recommended we take a leave of absence at least a year with no pay to save the company or else there would be cuts, not including the 25% cut in our salary we took already. All week I was on the phone with my work partner talking everyday trying to figure what’s the plan. All these thoughts came racing three my head. What are we going to do? Do you think we will be fired or let go since we have seniority? Why I didn’t finish college 13 years ago and became lawyer or something. My job made us an offer, hey said take the year off with no pay, and your still have flying benefits for you and your family as always, and you will still have full medical benefits and we will pay your medical as well. After talking with my family, my fiancé, my partner from work, I decided on March 26th 2020, I was going to take the leave of absence. A whole year later April 26th of 2021 I finally came back to work full time, and the airport passenger count is starting to increase. The reason why I seated this primary source is because I would like historians to know the insides that us airline employees faced during these challenging times. I know many airline companies asked Congress for help in payroll support for the employees which majority of them did get including us, but we never saw that payroll support, nor did they call us back Early to work since they got some kind of support from the government, instead that money went in the stock market, and for bonuses to the CEO, and managers in the company. While I am happy and very fortunate to be back at work, it was very challenging as I’m sure it was for everyone, but one good thing that came out of it, 13 years later, a year ago from today. I was able to join the family of bronx community college, and focus on my education while I was off.
• 
  2021-05-18

  Changes during the pandemic

  I chose this photo because of the differences between a before and after the pandemic. I took the first photo from Google, from an article titled "What Keeps People Coming Back to a Restaurant?" (Carol Lin Vieira) because I do not have an old one where access to eat was allowed, since for me it was common. The second photo was taken at my current job, it is located at 2065 Jerome Ave, Bronx, NY 10453. Before the pandemic started, we could go out and share with our families and friends, we could order food and eat in the restaurant, hang out, have fun and laugh, no need to be making reservations all the time. The pandemic changed our lives in a whole new way. Before we could be in groups and go to the park without the need to worry about whether other people could infect us. We had so much more fun because we didn't have to worry about whether restaurants would be open or not, whether we could go out and eat quietly away from home. During the pandemic, we can no longer do these kinds of things because we are separated. This is something sad, not being able to see your friends or family for fear of infecting us or infecting the people we love. Not being able to shake hands, give hugs, kisses on the face or share our food with other people. It makes me nostalgic to see how in my work the tables are empty and it is forbidden to eat, to remember how the restaurant was full with many people who laughed and told how their day, shared stories or dated someone. It is hard to listen to the sad voices of the customers when they ask when they can go eat. As I mentioned earlier, COVID-19 left many losses and many broken hearts along the way, it is a disease in which it showed us the value that each person has. Sometimes as teenagers we do not realize what we have, I chose this photo as an example of how little we valued the little things before and now we really need it. A single walk without a mask, sitting in large groups with your family in a restaurant, being next to someone who has already died due to this disease, among many other details. I think everything happens for a reason and from something so negative we learned something positive, we learned to appreciate the little things in life, to be more united with the family and to love more every day.
• 
  2020-05-07

  A College Student During The Pandemic

  For my primary source, I selected an essay that was written by me my first semester in my Psychology class. I don’t exactly know the date it was made or submitted, there were question we were supposed to respond in our own way but it’s not able to be provided anymore. But we wrote it as a final in order to express the way we felt during the pandemic, also to see how our mental and our physical changes during this rough time. My professor which was called Dr. Marjorie wanted to know everyone’s story in our own words and the different perspectives that came from the students, which she enjoyed doing. I lived in New York the area of the country hardest hit by the first wave of the pandemic. I was afraid when the outbreak got worse day by day, watching how this changed every human being because no one was prepared for all this chaos that was happening. I didn’t know on March 10 that this outbreak was on campus which is why we couldn’t come back until further notice to protect us from contracting COVID. Seeing the news and watching the death tolls go up by the hour of the amount of people dying in the hospitals and others contracting the virus was horrifying and sad to watch. That’s all they gave on the news which made me paranoid and decided to stop watching it during the entire quarantine. The way I saw how the streets were empty, New York wasn’t the same anymore it looked very dull and sad as if it was the end of the world not seeing anyone outside walking or any cars either. Everything was limited especially in the supermarkets having a limit capacity of people in it, the long lines were unbearable. Not being able to go out being of how paranoid I was being around people, I lasted about 1 month and 3 days home without going out only when it was necessary to go out. I selected this important source because I want historians of the future to understand my situation as a college student living through this pandemic. Having to go from classes in person to virtual classes in a snap of a finger that’s when my frustration started, not being able to understand anything without seeing the professor to explain it to me. I had to do everything on my own without anyone’s help. Stressing me out completely, which caused drastic changes to me during quarantine. My appetite wasn’t at its best having to do so much work at a time with all my classes especially being a full time student wasn’t easy for me because I never took breaks only when I was called to eat. My body started to fail on me feeling weak, tired, and constant headaches. That’s when it all went downhill my anxiety started to crawl up on me, I didn’t know how to control it anymore because coping with it was difficult having all of these constant breakdowns, feeling tight to the chest and shaking as if I was nervous. I’ll have all that through the stress and overthinking it caused because I didn’t want to feel like a failure. Putting pressure on myself caused lots of harm which had consequences to it later on. Then I started to lose weight, not being able to wake up the same anymore as if I had no energy to do anything throughout the day. I was afraid of having a panic/anxiety attack which were the worse. I endured depression along the way as well, I started to get sick out of nowhere without having anything. The pandemic really messed me up mentally.
• 
  2020-03-22

  Essential worker

  I selected primary sources on my personal experience of the covid-19 pandemic as an essential worker. I was employed by Autozone which was qualified to be essential to the public and for that time period where majority of my friends where at home quarantined, I was constantly at work due to the fact that many of my fellow co-workers at the time either caught covid or had a medical excuse to stay home. Life as an essential worker was very hard at the time because I had to take care of my health as much as I could so I wouldn't impact the people who lived at home. At the time I lived at home with my mother and my pregnant sister so I took extra precautions every day whether it was wearing two masks at work, constantly washing my hands and trying everything possible to stay healthy just so I wouldn't impact anyone at home. Working almost 6 days a week and going to school remotely was hard but I made an agreement with my professors at the time to make exceptions regarding classes because I explained due to the pandemic I was essential and I was required to work more due to the lack of workers. Life during this pandemic was interesting being stopped by the cops after curfew cause we closed a little later then we were supposed to and just being no traffic out on the road going home from work. I legitimately had to work 6 days a week and be tired constantly while hearing my friends say they were tired of being home. I Submitted a meme I had on my phone my older sister had sent me as a joke because while she was working from home, I had to go out and work. The meme was funny to me and I felt it was perfect for this project because as a Full time student during the pandemic I was working full time. I always would brag about working during the pandemic and doing school work because the majority of my friends were doing bad in school and I was able to keep up with both.
• 
  2020-05-01

  Social Distancing - Self Distancing

  When the Covid-19 pandemic caused New York City to go into lockdown the second week of March, it never once crossed my mind how large of an impact this shutdown would have in my personal life. In the picture below I show a poem I wrote during the sixth month of quarantine: My days felt like they were going on a loop. Everyday felt like a continuation of the day before and my mind was tired of it. In my poem I expressed that I felt like a bird that crashes on the windshield of a car, signaling the repetitiveness of my life in my small NYC apartment. I think that this time was one of the most difficult times for my mental health and I tried desperately to find a way of coping. Essentially, this poem represents the mental state I found myself in trying to find different ways to deal with the fact that life had paused abruptly and that nothing was certain anymore. One of the ways that I found myself doing a lot during this time was sleeping. I began to get worried when one day I woke up at 4pm and felt as if I had woken up at 9am. I knew my sleep schedule was a disaster, but I think that this represents how monotone life felt. On another hand, I think that the lockdown served as an opportunity to reorganize my priorities and discover new likes and dislikes. Since I had recently changed my major from Biology to English, this time helped me realize how much I enjoy writing and learning about other writers and their work. I never thought I would enjoy my major as much as I am enjoying it, especially since I can dedicate more time on it thanks to the spare time staying at home gives me. I think that this poem will benefit future historians in their study of the effects the COVID-19 lockdown on people’s mental health. Specifically, historians will be able to be exposed to the anxiety the world felt knowing that there was little we could do to reverse the effects the lockdown was having in our mental stability. Basically, historians will be able to analyze how much the pandemic affected us beyond the physical aspect but the detrimental effects it held against our mental health. All in all, COVID-19 surely fits the line by Charles Dickens, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”.
• 
  2020-02-09

  Covid

  My first mask was given to me by my dad.
• 
  2020-03-29

  Paranoia to Peace

  I struggled with anxiety around the time the news said there was a pandemic going on, and I healed as time went on and the world around me played a part in that.