Items

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  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.
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  2020-03-09

  Future Historians

  Dear Historians of the Future, In 2020, there was a pandemic that occurred known as COVID-19 that made drastic changes in terms of restaurants, traveling internationally, school and work. One of my biggest pieces of advice is to ensure the president you have is not a narcissist or a leader who does not take responsibility for the bad things that happen. According to the article “Donald Trump owns the Coronavirus,” published on March 9, 2020, by a senior economist Dean Baker, this document explains how COVID impacted the community and what experiences people faced. Reading this article will allow you to understand the ability to have directorship in guiding the country to a better path then shifting it to the left. For instance, the reading states “It is very likely that we will face a recession as people cancel travel plans and are reluctant to go out to restaurants, sporting events and other public places.” Because of Trump, Americans and the people that live in it had to cancel many of their plans as a result of Trump not taking accurate information into consideration. He was mainly focused on putting blame towards China or the democrats, rather than looking for solutions with CDC. During the pandemic, many people believed Donald Trump was responsible for the Coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. in the article, Baker concludes: “In short, the fact that we are likely facing a serious pandemic, unlike any we have seen in more than a century, is 100 percent Trump’s fault. Because of his vanity and ineptitude, people will die, and many more will get sick.” This article demonstrates how Trump did not care to take action when the pandemic initially began. Because of this, one can say when it comes to having a narcissist president like Trump, leadership plays a role in situations like this for the world. In conclusion, I chose this source to explain my experience of the pandemic and what challenges people faced. In other words, this article will help you understand how the pandemic had an impact on many people's lives. If president Trump initially took action when he first started receiving news about the COVID, people would still be employed and parents would not have to stay home with their children. The negative aspect of this is some families struggled financially as a result of the pandemic and staying unemployed.
• 
  2020-03-11

  CUNY's Response

  Where to even start? 2020, the year where everything and everyone changed forever. 2020 did not just consist of the Covid Virus it consisted of many other threads that harmed everyone’s mental health including students. It was hard for all students during this time but in my perspective College students. This documents faithfully explain 2020 and I will be here to give you future historians a more in depth look at how it really was during these times. The document I chose not only explains how we went from going in person to virtual but also how it made me feel as a visual learner and as a college student of course. CUNY mentioned we were going to have a “Instructional recess from March 12-18th”, this day I will never forget because I did not know that March 11th was going to be the last day of my two-years of college. When I received this email on Twitter that CUNY had stated this I was overwhelmed and shocked. The thought of everything being virtual just didn’t seem right to me, although I did have all the access from computers to internet access, it just did not sit right. As a visual learner this was tough for me, this was a moment of you get classwork and you basically have to teach it to yourself, not seeing my professors in person and through a screen was very hard to get used to, the internet sometimes would not work and it would cut off and I would miss most of the important things said during the lesson, it was honestly very difficult, this was not just tough on students, as well as professors having the same issues. This era was honestly tough, but technology really saved a whole year worth of schoolwork. To the historians reading this in a couple of years from now, I, as a person who lived through these times want you to understand the rough time we went through, from masks to face shields to many deaths and virtually going to school. These were moments in time that no one anticipated. It shaped the future into what it had become, masks may become the new norm, working from home may be allowed for certain jobs and companies, schools just might let people continue to be fully virtual and things may be extremely dependent on technology from now on. To conclude this 2020 document, though it was a rough year where millions of people died worldwide, I can only be thankful that me and the ones I love are safe and okay. We now know how to take proper precautions in case anything like this happens again, though I don’t wish for a repeat of 2020. The year of 2020 is one for the books and one that will go down in history.