Items

• 
  2020-03

  Covid Time: Letters from Brooklyn March-May 2020.

  These are weekly emails I wrote to my brother Gil in Brewer, Maine and sister Barbara in Naperville, IL during the height of the 2020 pandemic lockdown, to describe to them our experiences. I am also enclosing a photo of my daughter, Olivia -- a screenshot from a Good Morning America broadcast showing her wheeling a patient into the emergency department at Maimonides Hospital.
• 
  2021-12-28

  COVID-19 Infectious Snowballs

  COVID-19 gave us a tough time, and many of us haven’t had a chance to stop and check in with ourselves about what has actually been happening around us. Coming to New York was a new beginning for me that came with additional responsibilities. I had to balance my personal and academic life, family’s financial needs, extracurricular activities, and work. Just when I felt that everything was going smoothly, I was shattered to hear that it had been three months since my I-20 was terminated because of an academic document transfer issue. I could not go back to my country as I was part of “Hizmet,” a faith-inspired civil society movement, which at that time was facing oppression and persecution due to the bogus allegations of orchestrating a failed coup in Turkey. Therefore, I had to apply for asylum, which caused me a lot of stress, and it affected my academic career as I had to focus on court procedures. Even though due to the pandemic, the scheduled hearings got canceled, prolonging this challenging period, and I lost my job which was the only source for me to pay for my college tuition and support my family, still I tried to engage rather than focus on the negative side of the situation and depress myself. I put all of my efforts into being academically productive and doing something one day I could be proud of by boosting my academic performance leading me get several scholarships, involving myself in research programs, and focusing on advocacy as a student leader. As the responsibilities got heavier and more stressful, I just kept telling myself: "The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory." Life goes on... This funny story comes to my mind when the topic is about COVID-19. This past winter, the weather got really cold and snowy, and the lake behind a rental Pocono house froze over. With all the snow around us, we inevitably enjoyed a good-old fashioned snowball fight where the snowballs were called the "COVID-19" infected snowballs. Once you get hit, you get the virus. However, we soon found ourselves chasing one of our friends on top of the lake due to the ferocity he threw the snowballs with. One by one, we raced our way towards the middle of the lake. It may be obvious what happened next, but it took us all by surprise at the moment. The ice that once was had cracked, and I found my body submerged in the ice-cold water. As I tried to make myself back to solid ground, the image of my other friends frantically trying to stay calm caught my attention. When we finally did make it to safety, I couldn’t help but laugh at the events that just transpired.
• 
  2022-03-02

  burnout

  I think these are the years of burnout. I felt so isolated during quarantine. I worked so hard to occupy myself while I heard sirens blaring from ambulances rushing. I worked so hard when things started to 'go back to normal' but people were still dying. It's years later and it's still not over. I'm so tired. Don't want to work when the world feels like it is still ending.
• 
  2021-04-07

  A Mother's Anxiety

  My mom worked in a nursing home. For a while, she did her job and came home with gloves and disinfectant. We all kept distance in our small home. One day, she came home with COVID-19. Burnt out by incompetent managers, menopause, and long-standing mental issues, they became tenfold. They all consumed her while she was sick. When she recovered from COVID-19, everything else stayed. She was severely mentally fragile. She would cry every day and wanted to be in the same room with everyone, all the time. She could not be left alone for months. My father did not remain compassionate and sympathetic. My sister struggled to be my mom's friend. I used all my energy to keep her head above tears. The emotional toll on everyone in my family was the worst we have have ever faced. We all struggled to help her. She eventually recovered and not goes on walks everyday, by herself.
• 
  2021-04-20

  My Story Reflecting The Impact of COVID-19 on My Life

  I personally never thought for a second that the COVID-19 pandemic would have had the power to take someone close from my life. I remember waking up that one morning, thinking that it was just going to be an ordinary day. My father's phone starts ringing in his room, and he picks it up. In the living room, I remember seeing him proceed to listen and nod his head. He finally hangs up and slowly makes his way towards me. He tells me that his boss passed away alone in his sleep the night before from complications associated with heart disease as he had also been infected with COVID-19 several days before. Eddie had always been there for my dad the past four decades. He watched me grow into an adult from day one and also gave me these large birthday gifts every year. For the first time in a long time, I remember seeing pain in my father's eyes, and it was definitely something that I'll never forget. This memory of losing someone close to me will always be something that I'll always associate with the COVID-19 pandemic. I also think that losing someone close or a loved one to the pandemic says a lot about the impact a pandemic can have on both mental health and physical health.
• 
  2020-04-15

  Financial Hardship due to covid 19

  When Covid 19 hit the USA in March 2020. The biggest impact me and my family faced was income. Both I and my spouse were working before the pandemic but the places where we worked closed resulting in us being unemployed. We tried to file unemployment so that we could have some sort of income but our applications were not accepted by the system for a long period of time. In just a few weeks all our savings were almost finished and it was a very stressful period for both me and my father. we were forced to find something to work even though covid cases were still surging at that particular time. working under such conditions was very hard and stressful but, luckily things got better with time and our situation got much better with the passage of time.
• 
  2020-03-17

  First time.

  I remember exactly the day before they shut down workplaces and college on Tuesday St Patrick's day I went out to go eat dinner with my friends at Outback Steakhouse and we were all saying how everything will be shutting down and how this will be a one month thing, like in a joking manner, I even went to cancel my gym membership and all that just incase without knowing what was to come after. School went online, I got a call from work that they were closing for awhile until they allowed dine-in again and they did not do take out at all, so there was no work at all for my coworkers or myself. School then was shut down for 2-3 weeks while they transitioned online which was a weird thing for both professors and students to get adjusted to. Then walking outside in Bay Ridge and not seeing 86st full of people and just looking like a ghost town area which was just a scary sight to see. All of this was just weird and kind of stressful, because there was no work at that moment, no hanging out with friends as much as you would want to or seeing family and then seeing your neighborhood go from busy to empty was a weird sight to see. Not being able to see friends or family for a long time really affected me seeing them online games or on social media helped, but it was not the same as seeing them in person. I did not have that many bills to pay off at that time, but not having a job worried me a bit when it came to paying phone bill and other items.
• 
  2020-03-11

  A New Normal For COVID-19

  The story I uploaded expresses my experiences overall during the pandemic and how it has contrasted and compared with another epidemic as well as how it contributed to people's perspective (worldwide) on COVID-19.
• 
  2021-03-01

  First Job

  So I had never had a job before, which made it hard to find a job while in a pandemic. After months of trying to find a job, I found a place that took a chance with me. Getting that job helped me get out of my sad state of people telling me that I'm doing nothing with my life since I still didn't figure out what I wanted to get my bachelor's in. Also, getting that job required me to work with people, so I had improved my communication skills. Now, I feel more comfortable introducing myself to people.
• 
  2020-04-05

  work school balance

  The pandemic didn't have all negative effects on virtue students
• 
  2020-04-08

  Life as a full-time students and full-time worker

  Some students who were doing online learning were able to manage their work/life balance more easier
• 
  2020-03-15

  Working the ENTIRE Pandemic & not reaping any REAL BENEFITS.

  COVID-19 in my opinion came out of nowhere and our former president didn't take it serious enough hence why we had to quarantine in the first place. I worked various jobs throughout the pandemic. I worked at Burger King & I was a Home Attendant during quarantine. My favorite part with working two jobs and going to school was getting off early, not having to clean after people and school was FULLY ONLINE. That had to be my favorite part. I'm not a fan of Brooklyn College AT ALL, so being online mad it easier to like school. At the time I was a BIO major and the Biology Department was not attentive.. Its like people became lazy and didn't want to do the job THEY GET PAID TO DO. Anywho, Around May I left Burger King and went to Amazon & was still a Home Attendant. Left Amazon & went to PLS a Check Cashing company by far my favorite job thus far. There were various job opportunities around, everyone should've been making money in the pandemic. Not to mention stimulus checks. Lots of people definitely reaped the benefits from the pandemic and unfortunately some lost families to the pandemic.
• 2020-04-16

  Happy Birthday...

  Today is April 16th, 2020. Instead of waking my mom up with breakfast in bed, she sends me a photo of herself layered in protective gear. At the time my mother was working at one of the largest hospitals in Queens. She went from working four days a week to working six-seven days a week as the rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations increased. Today is her birthday and instead of celebrating life, she is surrounded by fear, death, and uncertainty. Thank you Mom for being strong and putting your life at risk as an essential worker. Happy Birthday
• 2021-08-02

  Giving The Family Covid

  One day I woke up fine and normal like every other day and I went to work. At round 2 pm that day I started getting headaches and my body was cold. It was really hot that day too while my body was cold. I told me boss I'm not feeling too well and I wanted to go home. I called my friend who works in a pharmacy my symptoms and he said its possible to be covid-19. He went to my house and waited outside with a rapid test and I met him there. We did a test in the car and after 15 minutes it came out positive. I called my dad who was in my house to come outside so I can break the news to him before the rest of my family because they would've freaked out. I told my dad that I'm positive for covid-19 and he went to setup the house for me and seclude me from everyone else. I went upstairs and I saw my family waiting for me and my uncle had his hand out to greet me and I ignored all of them without giving eye contact and went straight to my room. I rarely ever get sick from anything really. Im sitting in my room thinking I really got covid-19 thinking I'm immune and invincible because I'm a healthy 21 year old and I never get sick. Also no one in my family previously got covid I was the first. This pandemic has showed me what I'm not and I'm just like every other person. The good thing is I mentioned it to my boss and asked my friend to test me right away. This is what everyone should be doing, check up on yourself right away.
• 
  2020-03-28

  Life During A Pandemic

  Personal experience during the Covid-19
• 
  2021-08-22

  What COVID-19 Meant for My Mother: A Latina Small-Business Owner’s Experience in the Bronx.

  The item I am submitting is a pandemic auto-ethnography detailing the disproportionately negative impact of COVID-19 on Latinx businesses. I do so through the narrative of my own family's experience, specifically my mother, as well as supporting academic research of general demographic trends. This piece speaks to how the pandemic, while in and of itself does not discriminate, has proportions of its impact that demonstrate a systemic bias leaving certain racial and ethnic groups less protected and far more targeted than others. The piece also connects how these discrepancies are not products of the pandemic, but rather were already systemically there and exacerbated by the pandemic.
• 
  2021-03-26

  Choosing between Work and Health

  This short piece shares the struggles and experiences of choosing between working as an essential worker and worrying about my family's health during the peak of the pandemic.
• 
  2020-12-10

  Burnout: A Sociological Analysis of the 24/7 Work Mentality and Its Impact on the City That Never Sleeps

  The item we are submitting is a reflection of society at large, something imperative as we have all been forced to self-reflect on a personal scale during this pandemic. Being forced to recharge and take a breath from the tech-fueled, on-the-go, culture we are entrenched in is a psychological challenge in and of itself. Therefore, starting a conversation as to why work is seen as a means to an end rather than as a self-fulfilling contribution to society and, consequently, something that leads to burnout is a conversation worth having before we enter into a society once again that causes severe stress and anxiety for most people. This is important because we must look at not just our personal lives, but the society we live in so that we can properly address the factors leading to major decline in the mental health of so many, as well as whether or not we want to re-commit to such a society once life returns to some sense of normalcy.
• 
  2020-03-26

  The day it all went south

  From the beginning of quarantine till now the simple, everyday things I used to do has now become a difficult. Such examples would be going to the bodega or going to my therapy appointments or even going to work. There’s now so many extra steps and protocols as if my job wasn’t already stressful enough. While I personally haven’t been affected by corona virus in terms of health, I can still say that it has turned everything upside down. I still can hang out with friends but I’ve missed so many events that I was looking forward to. Anime event to birthday event, all of those experiences missed. The biggest thing about COVID for me was that it showed me just how selfish and ignorant others are by not only people refusing to wear masks but some even denying it’s existence.
• 
  2020-09-27

  How covid-19 changed my life.

  It is important because it affected my employability.
• 
  2020-03-13

  "The Corona revolution"

  This passed year has been a journey for everybody all over the world. We each were forced to figure out what to do, how to deal with our problems and adjust to it. The Corona pandemic changed everybody's lives with out a choice as well as some permanent changes. The corona virus also did change my personal perspectives on life and towards how I feel. When the corona virus began I lost my job, I wasn't able to see my friends ,I was forced to do things I never done and I felt miserable. Now looking back this journey was super important and it opened my eyes to the idea of change and to be grateful. The corona virus allowed me to work and change many of the habits I didn't like about myself like my eating habits. The corona virus forced me to try to figure out how to use a computer better. The corona virus also allowed me to understand the importance of what patience. Another thing I gained was realizing how important family is especially in a miserable time and why support is needed. Overall we can say go bad and how much damage there is or we can look at the greater picture and look at many of the changes we went through and look at that as an opportunity to be grateful like appreciating health and coming out of this alive and well!
• 
  2020-03-31

  Hate Speech: Community and Family

  The covid-19 pandemic has shaken the world in an unexpected way including myself. Several Americans have been affected by the pandemic losing jobs with panic wreaking havoc across the nation. My family was also affected with the pandemic as they operated a family owned restaurant. Many customers started to slowly disappear until my family was forced to close the restaurant from quarantine. Everyone that I knew was affected mentally as they did not know what to do indoors and eventually broke down. During this time, I was also in my second semester of my freshmen year looking forward to interacting with new people and professors. My first semester was enjoyable as it was a whole new experience that I was exploring. The pandemic made all classes remote and the atmosphere just did not feel the same as being in person. I was overwhelmed as most of my family lost their jobs including myself and the transition to online was unexpected. I lost all motivation to even focus on schoolwork as I was also affected mentally, but I managed to get through. The reopening phase of New York slowly recovered my family as they were able to open back their restaurants, but there was still a decrease of customers. The pandemic was not the only cause of the decrease of customers, but also my family being Asian was a factor. Many people engaged in targeting Asians around my area as the form of hate speech grew more severe as time passed by. My family did not feel safe operating their restaurant as they would not know what would happen to them. The community around me were mostly Asians and there was an increase of violence around my area. The community used to be lively with neighbors interacting with their kids constantly with everyone knowing each other. However, everything changed as everyone is staying indoors and is afraid to walk out in fear of being victims of the pandemic and hate speech. This story is important to me as the pandemic not only affected my family, but the community I live in. family, hate speech, restaurant, job, college, community, Asian