Self Description - "I am a person on disability living in Ottawa, I am identifying as an artist. I, my disability is is is not physical. I am I have issues which of course, everyone had issues going into the pandemic, but everyone's issues got put into high gear. So that's, that's been fun. No, that's really not been fun. I apologize. And that was sarcasm. I, I live with my partner of 14 years, I met him. And two days later, we moved in together. We've been inseparable ever since. And we live with our three cats. I think that's it. "

Self Description - "Well, I am Eve Poythress, I'm from Georgia, born and raised in Georgia, and I am 47 years old."

Self Description - "Yes. I am a down home girl from the south. I know I'm a full adult. But I think of myself as a daughter at the south. I am a mother, I have two children, Josiah, and Zara. And I'm also a diviner I'm a spiritualist. So some of my work includes giving divinations giving readings for people offering spiritual care and support. And there's a big part of my work because it's ancestral for me, I know that I come from preachers who are also raised born and raised in the south. I come from medicine people and midwives, who were also born and raised in the south. And so although I may not be preaching in particular, you know, in the same regard, I don't have a church. Although I may not be birthing babies. I think that my work as a spiritualist is about helping folks birth their own purpose and purposes and like really define and discover their own destinies. And so I do that in a spiritual sense. And that's really important to me. So I'm also a writer. I'm a storyteller. And that is also a big part of my work. "

Some of the things we discussed include: Motherhood and breaking generational curses. Lineage in Ghana, plantation farmers in the Carolinas. Being raised Baptist, spiritual experiences as a young child. Being a first generation college student. Watching adult children come into their own spiritual awakening. Mainstreaming of spirituality; a mass spiritual awakening. Connecting with enlightened energy while sick with COVID; receiving healing energy. Surviving COVID twice, long-COVID, holistic healing. COVID as a cleansing. Preparing to die; purpose in suffering. People’s fears about the word “death”; working as a death doula. Feminine power and making life, the importance of the womb. Having worked in healthcare, family of nurses and healers and witch doctors. Vibrational energy. Connecting to the land, environmental destruction. Scarcity and abundance mindsets; generosity; giving. Taking one’s power back. Balance: women/men; good/evil; fans/haters. Bodies changing with age; intersections of sexism and ageism. Listening to the body. Losing work and workaholism. COVID’s impact on the economy; adult children moving home. Homeschooling. Spiritual healers and stigma. Social media. Working with a client with Lyme disease. Surrendering, letting go of control. That “It’s okay to not be okay”.

Self Description - "My name is again Jeanetta Hawkins and the name of my company is Personal Touches by Jeanetta. It's a family owned Christian based specialty event decorating company and event rental company that's located in St. Louis, Missouri, right downtown. We're right on north, north of downtown. And we've been in business for over 34 years. All of my children were raised in the business. And now I'm so excited that my grandchildren are now in the business as well and doing pretty pretty well with it."

Self Description - "Well, let's see, I, I love working in the service of other people. Many of the things that I do currently are really just about how can I help someone thrive in the role that they're in? Part of my title is to mentor, so it's a natural, a natural thing that happens often. But it is something that I find great joy in and desire to continue to do, so yeah."

Self Description - "I am Christie Peetoom. And I now live in Idaho, I came from Washington State, just last December, and my current career is in real estate. And prior to that I own the dance studio and was a high school cheer coach."

Self Description: "I Antonia Okafor I, I would say profession wise, first, I'm the national director for women's outreach for Gun Owners of America. I'm second, I'm an advocate. I'm a mother of two little ones, too, specifically babies a toddler as well, and husband to a pastor grew up in Dallas, Texas, most of my life. And then after got married, moved here to Houston. So I'm here. But essentially, my biggest passion is empowering women. And the means to do so has been through the Second Amendment and in my work and advocacy through Gun Owners of America, and also the organization I started Empowered2a, which was in 2017. And now as part of GOA,"

Self Description: "my name is Arti Kumar-Jain and I'm the Executive Director of Diya Holistic Life Care, which is a nonprofit organization."

Self Description: "Yeah, my name is Jackie Casimire. I am adult division director of Mothers Of Murdered Columbus Children. Hence, I am a mother of a murdered Columbus child."

Self Description: "My name is Amanda Lohman Yeu and I am an end of life doula"

Self Description - "I have three titles. In essence, I'm a separation and divorce coach, I'm a family mediator. And I'm also a relationship transition, relationship transition coach. And they all sort of work together in tandem, depending on where my clients are, at any given time in their relationship with another with themselves, that sort of thing. Yeah, and I'm a coach. So I help people, I help people from where they are today to where they want to be in the future in terms of personal growth, understanding how they got here, when it comes to separations and divorces, very relationship oriented. "

Self Description: "I'm a longtime activist, boots on the ground organizer. I'm originally from New York. I started the first BLM Hudson Valley Chapter outside of New York City. And that was when Mike Brown actually died. And I am based on going to Ferguson when Mike Brown was murdered. I started called black line, but a bunch of black femmes and Call BlackLine has been really live since 2016, but really became official in 2017. I'm a mom of two queer children. Nayisha and Haquin I came who are my, my joy, you know, my reason that I do live and do organizing work. I moved to San Diego four years ago, and was lucky to do some civic engagement with organization in San Diego, and then secured a county job recently, about a year ago when they created the newly Office of Equity and race of justice. So that is kind of in a nutshell who I am. I mean, my both my my mom was the organizer. You know, she was a I call it professional organizer and my grandmother, I think I got a lot of my spirit from my grandmother, my grandmother was a bomb, really a community organizer. So I always want to lift up those two Pearly Mae Height and my mom, Jean Grey."

Self Desription: "I am an African American female. And I will tell you why that's important later on. I am a mother. I am self employed. But most of most of my work is around my family. And so I work, I'll say I'm self employed, and I worked part time, that's a better way of describing it. I'm also an artist, during the pandemic, I became a podcaster. And I am also a doll expert. And my primary focus is in how minorities, you know, in the DEI space, and having more representation with dolls. So that's how all of that's going to play in later with what happened for me, during the pandemic."

Betty es una mamá soltera y peluquera que tuvo que cerrar su salón en Lima cuando comenzó la pandemia. A medida que la ciudad comenzó a reabrir, Betty trabaja en 2 o 3 trabajos para tratar de llegar a fin de mes para poner comida en la mesa y pagar las facturas. La pandemia la ha vuelto más reflexiva y señala que la pérdida de seres queridos ha impactado a casi todos los que conoce.

Self-description: “I’m a Voodoo Priestess. I’m a spiritual worker. I’m a small business owner, a mother, and instructional designer of online courses; so, you can imagine what my life has been like the last couple of years. And, you know, community servant. You know. I do the things I do, not just to help myself, but to help the other people in my community spiritually.”

Self Description - "So I'm Dionne. I live in St. Louis, Missouri, born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, both of my parents born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. spent some years in Atlanta, Georgia going to college there, I went to the historically black college and university Spelman College. And I was in a dual degree program in math and engineering. And so I spent two years at Georgia Tech getting an engineer degree in civil engineering. And then I joined, let's see, no, I came home, I did some substitute teaching. And then I found a job as an engineer with our water division, St. Louis City Water division. After that, I got the bug as far as wanting to travel, which had been implanted in me with by my parents by my mother specifically. And I joined the Peace Corps, because that's something my aunt did in the early 60s, and she was my favorite aunt. And so I followed in her footsteps and became a Peace Corps volunteer. So that was the start of my international travel."

Self Description - "My name is Meeka Caldwell, I'm currently I'm a mom, a wife, I'm a sister I have, we have six kids total. We're a blended family. Just very diverse. Uh my occupation, I'm an HR talent director for nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC. And I'm also a children's book author. I actually specialize in writing children's books for those communities that are unheard. So, my son who was eight years old, has Down syndrome. And he is a wonderful black child. And I noticed that we didn't have any books that, that highlighted black children with Down syndrome, much less Down syndrome at all. So that's why I became a children's book author."

Self Description - "So I am a professor at the, Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm an associate professor. And I'm also the director of a program that is called Global Media and cultures. it's a joint master's program between my school at Georgia Tech, which is called the School of Literature, Media and Communication, and another department that is called the School of Modern Languages. And, so that's sort of my, my life in terms of how I have built a career. for the last 20 or so years. I've been here in Atlanta since 2003, which is hard to believe. So I've lived here for a long time but I grew up in, living a life that was much more about moving and mobility. So, I'm the child of Pakistani diplomats. so I kind of grew up growing up around the world. I was born in Turkey, my father had a lot of postings kind of throughout the Middle East and Europe. And so as a child, I grew up moving about every two to three years. and then I went to graduate school in upstate New York, and from there, moved to Virginia for two years, and then came here and started teaching at Georgia Tech, in 2003. So, that's sort of who I am in terms of my, professional career. but I also have been a yoga teacher for the last, 20 or so years as well. yoga is something that I've practiced, really pretty consistently, since college. And it actually really got me through writing a dissertation and getting through graduate school. And soon after that, I started doing training. And then when I moved to Atlanta, I continued studying and practicing yoga. And in 2018, opened a studio"

Self Description: "My name is Sid Azmi. I am an immigrant, foremost. First personally in in the United States. And now in France. I was highlighted for this interview, because of my work at a shop called Please. And I would like to talk a little bit about that. So Please, is a pleasure shop and I call it Please is a Pleasure shop in Brooklyn, New York. And I started it in 2014 as part of my work to normalize sexuality, while working with cancer patients in my work as a radiation therapist. And I'm a sex educator, I'm a hedonist. I'm a mother of three. I am. That's me."

Self Description: "Sure. So again, I'm Cherylin Holloway, I am the founder and current president of pro black pro life. We were created in 2020, after the George Floyd murder, where I just felt like kind of an outsider in the pro life movement, because I had just this deep appreciation for racial justice work, and also a deep appreciation for life in general, no matter where it was located. And the two just never seem to match, or. And so I created out of just hoping that this I could have a space where other people that may be out there that felt the same way could join in. So we've been around for now two years. And we focus on education, as well as messaging and understanding the history of racial inequality, the history of systemic racism, and how that equates to every aspect of the black community's lives."

Self Description - "I was born and raised where I am in Lima. So this is the traditional homelands of the Shawnee, Kickapoo, Miami relatives as well as Wyandotte, Erie relatives. And so I always think it's important to kind of name place and name the peoples here who have been removed from their original home place. I understand that as being important in part because I have always felt that place and location and connection to land is important. It's been a theme, I think, for many people, but in my life, it's played a significant role. And I find that to be true as I navigate, you know, living, navigate my own personal experiences, heal from intergenerational trauma, as a mother, as a partner; all of that really informs place, and place informs all of my identity and who I am for myself and for others. I would want first and foremost people to know that about me. I come from sharecroppers and farmers in Ohio and Northwest Ohio and in Kentucky. And then further in my matrial- matriar- matrilineal line coming also from people who are stewards of the land in the Carolinas, indigenous folks and black folks. "

Self Description: "Hi, everyone. My name is Analucía Lopezrevoredo. I am the founder and executive director of Jewtina y Co., which is a is a Jewish and Latino organization on a mission to nurture Latin Jewish community, identity, leadership and resiliency."

Self Description: "As an artist. I'm expressing my feelings in clay. And I documented the history of the Holocaust in my work. As a survivor from Slovakia, I focused my work on World War Two and the Holocaust. So the years I did 50 Holocaust related sculptures. I published an art book, The agony of the Holocaust that is available on my website GabrielleKarin.com When the pandemic started, I felt secluded in my home and aware of the fact that it will not go away quickly. "

Self Description: "I am an oncology social worker, I work with cancer patients and an outpatient cancer clinic and infusion center. I support family members, patients, with just the various challenging situations that they've, you know, that they encounter with a cancer diagnosis. And I've been doing this for about 15 years."

Self Description: "I recently started doing my death doula work. But I've been doing nursing since about 2006. If I'm correct. I'm also been studying shamanic…shamanic Andean shamanism up around 2018. And the way you found me is because I merged them together death doula with shamanism."

Self Description: "Well, my name is Veronica. And I am the mother of four. And I'm married. I went through a lot of trauma growing up. So to be introduced, another traumatic experience shows the resilience that has been cultivated me over time."

Self Description: "my name is Shay Koloff, and I am a master entrepreneurs, a creative a person who really has no rhyme or reason or plan, but can make things happen. That's who I am"

Some of the things we discussed include: Beginning of the pandemic: canceling travel plans, nature taking back the city, shortage of PPE and toilet paper, uncertainty about the seriousness of the problem Young kids learning through mailed-out packages from the school, transitioning to online learning, sending children back to school Talking with kids about the pandemic without scaring them Positive experiences with a doula, becoming a doula in wanting to serve Black women so those women could have doulas who look like them; needing more Black healthcare professionals in general Hospital pandemic policies separated doulas from their clients Virtual doula work Medical hierarchies in the birthing process, physicians dismissing doulas, certification Hospitals making decisions for birthing people that are about speed and money, not the birther’s needs “Birthing person” word choice, inclusive language Staying away from the news Not wanting to get on a plane, go to a mall or a concert, avoiding and missing out on celebratory events, becoming less spontaneous Health policy weaponized against vulnerable people; racism and maternal mortality rate; home births being criminalized or not covered by insurance Government policy and healthcare access; universal healthcare Impersonal, for-profit healthcare Pollution and the poor quality of food making people sick; climate change and a dying planet; planets for sale Driving rather than taking public transit The new experience of worrying about asymptomatic illness Love and health; warmth and safety Finding hope in the work of younger generations: the student led walkout in Florida over “Don’t say gay” Bill, youth working for clean water Getting support from friendship and family, providing support to clients and receiving support from clients: feeling “seen” and “loved” Preparing for first vending event Moving back in with mother after eviction Comparisons between the USA and other government policies to support citizens with housing, unemployment, and health needs during the pandemic Easy application for government pandemic assistance; slow turn around on getting assistance Consequences of inadequate unemployment support Unaffordable housing and minimum wage; site unseen renting Landlords rejecting Rent Assistance Funds Landlords and apartment management companies exploiting the housing market The importance of regular people in history; those most impacted by legislation and policy that exploits and harms them Police brutality, policy murdering Black people without consequence Fatal homophobia and transphobia The freedom to “just be” Men controlling women’s bodies and pregnancy Other cultural references: Beyonce, Lysol, Saturday Night Live, Florida’s HB 1557, Baltimore Gas and Electric, Baltimore Birth Festival (https://marylandfamiliesforsafebirth.org/event/new-2nd-annual-baltimore-birth-festival-may-15-2022/), Love After Lockup, Pearl Burk’s “the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members” See also: https://www.msfdoula.com

Self Description: "I am a 58 year old woman who has had some very strange experiences in my life. I'm a mother of three grandmother of 1 2 3 5 I had to count their weight. No, yes. 1 2 3 4. Yes, five. And I am a published author, I wrote a book about my UFO experiences, my family's UFO experiences, including my children. My husband and I both have had experiences together. And we both are, in a sense, UFO investigators. Not active but we have been doing this for about 30 years."

Self-description: “I am a mother. I’m a wife. I’m a doula. And I’ve always found myself at the intersection of serving my community, and working with families from more of a nurturing perspective. I’ve been working with children, honestly, since I was 18. So that’s been about 18 years now. I’ve been able to kinda see the progression of both babies to children, adolescents, young adults, teenagers. It seemed like there was a transition in the ages, especially from when I grew up. And so I feel like this time, during this season, during this time, during this pandemic, it definitely has brought on different challenges and different changes in our society, particularly around those areas: concerning children, concerning giving birth. There’s definitely some things that I’ve seen and experienced firsthand when considering the changes that the pandemic has brought about. I really think that now with the advancement of this age, and we have so much access to information and technology, I still find that the holistic practices that I’m able to participate in and to employ with my clients is still superior to anything that has come out.”

Self-description: “My name is Shanika King. I am a mom. I’m a doula. I am a leader in my community. And, yeah, I love people. I love this world. I love birthing moms. I’m just an all around loveable person.”

Self description: “I introduced myself traditionally. I am a Ponca member, as well as I work for my Tribe. I am the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. And I am also the museum curator, and many many other hats. I am also a direct descendent of Chief Standing Bear. And I’m a mom.” Some of the things we spoke about included: Indigenous family oriented culture Death of Tribal members, from COVID directly or aftereffects Lost language speakers/keepers, story tellers, medicine men and women; the pandemic taking away knowledge Father in assisted living; losing visitation access The negative health impacts of isolation An outbreak of COVID at the nursing home in Fall 2020; father caught COVID; father, Andrew Laravie (Ponca name Walking Strength) died in 23 April 2021; lost grandmother to COVID Not being able to have a traditional pipe ceremony for father’s death, he was a pipe carrier The Ponca Tribe’s loss of federal recognition in the 1960s, father’s activism for federal recognition Raised by great grandfather; learning how to live off the land, learning language and culture from father Touch as a love language and giving up physical contact when visiting father, slow normalization of physical distance and no/minimal physical contact Rushed vaccination distribution; vaccine mandates; deciding to get vaccinated Easy access to vaccination, masks, cleaning supplies, tests, and other outreach from the Ponca Tribal government; getting kits and care packages together for people isolating; COVID pay; vaccine distribution at Ponca run clinics Indian Health Services Being unable to perform funerals and ceremonies; being in charge of ~11 funerals in 2021 The shutting down of their museum and cultural center Different circumstances on large reservations and poor reservations in contrast to personal experiences in Ponca service areas War metaphors Being a caretaker for family; mental health in the pandemic; plant medicines and pharmaceuticals; disabling grief, being low functioning as a single mother; appearing high functioning and learning to reach out for help; guilt Land as church; stopping gardening in a state of grief, preparing to plant again Being a busy person pre-pandemic, but one who was balanced and with routine; feeling busier now that projects postponed by the pandemic are coming back up Comparing Ponca Tribe, Nebraska State, and USA Federal governments’ COVID response Becoming more introverted Having children with medical conditions, asthma, learning disabilities Caught COVID twice, once pre-testing Contradictions in the federal government’s handling of the pandemic, eg. masking Boarding schools striping children of cultural knowledge and connection; history repeating itself in the theft of religious and cultural identity for indigenous peoples during this pandemic; resonances with those children in boarding schools who could only perform ceremony in secret; spiritual safety The federal government had no advisement on cultural awareness for spiritual protections; patriarchal and colonial governance Colonization as a mental status, not defined by demographics That the expansion of mental health care digital infrastructure isn’t enough without spiritual support Survival mode and making art Children watching a parent learn to cope in a healthy way The pandemic as a genocide of the generation Worries that histories will forget many of this moment’s failings Marginalized people losing more during the pandemic Other cultural references include: NAGPRA, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Zoom, memes See also: https://www.poncatribe-ne.org/culture/historic-preservation/ https://www.wowt.com/2021/10/08/standing-bear-high-school-breaks-ground-with-descendants-attendance/ https://nativeamericacalling.com/friday-february-18-2022-the-worst-date-ever/ https://www.ashburnfh.com/obituaries/print?o_id=7453898

Self-description: “Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening to anyone that is listening. Again my name is Ife Adebowale and I am the founder and owner of Cherishing Life Beginnings Doula, Birth, and Educational Services, LLC here in Columbus, Georgia. Our mission here in Columbus, Georgia right now, we are a community based service organization, so, our mission here in Columbus, Georgia is to be able to provide low cost affordable care to those mothers that aren’t able to afford a doula or a birthworker in general. We are here to aid with alleviating the systematic and structural racism in the healthcare system, and we are also here to just be advocates. We are a organization that is advocate of home births, natural births and assisted, and advocates for breastfeeding. In a nutshell we are here anything and everything that a Mother Earth needs while she is going through pregnancy, labor, and postpartum.”

Self-description: “I think the most pandemic relevant thing about me is that I run a national nonprofit called MedSupplyDrive that does PPE donations across the country, as well as doing health equity education for high schoolers. So I’m one of the national logistics directors; I’ve been in that position since April of 2020, though I started working with the organization in March. So, I’ve been in this seat for kind of as long as the US has been experiencing the pandemic. The other hat that I wear that’s been particularly salient is that I’m a medical student, I’m a rising first year, and have been operating in various healthcare roles or healthcare adjacent roles: I was a scribe, I’ve been street medic, I’m a crisis counselor. I spend a lot of time in healthcare space and a lot of time in nonprofit PPE space.”

Self-description “I live in Houston, Texas. I call myself a seasoned saint, ‘cause I’m 60+, 65+. I live at home with my husband who is disabled, and my son; one of my sons is disabled. [I have two sons at home, and one is disabled.] And I work for a non-profit agency that does CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program] and children’s and Medicaid advocacy.” Some of the things we spoke about included: Having a disabled son (right side paralyzed) on dialysis, changing dialysis procedures from pre- to mid-pandemic; medical advocacy; new COVID protocols in the hospital Mother passed away in March 2021, not being allowed in an emergency room, no one comforted her as she was passing Opted not to have a memorial service, being in a large family where travel would have been necessary The stress of new higher stakes decisions over everyday tasks, like going for groceries or going for a walk Being a social family staying home; not visiting another son; being a hugger No crowds at all, very few gatherings at all; safety boundaries when there are visitors… masking + vaccination Decisions from head office about working from home; stopping outreach work in the community for safety First hearing about the pandemic preparing for a fundraiser: Beat the Odds Scholarship for high schools seniors; 5 students chosen to receive the scholarship, Zoom celebration; those students different experiences of college moving online and not getting the experience of going to campus; homeless students The upcoming cold snap, and the cold snap that happened in March [Feb?] 2021; losing electricity for ~4 days; risks of going to a shelter; strategies of staying warm Universal healthcare The decision to become vaccinated, and communication with family; comparisons with the flu shot, as well as mandatory vaccines Hope and uplifting narratives The apathy of others, hoaxers Other cultural references include: Maya Angelou, Lysol, Macy’s, Zoom, Sidney Poitier, James Baldwin

Self-description: “I work as a healthcare worker, I’m a pediatric dentist. I’m coming from that perspective. I’m coming in from the perspective of a mother. And also as somebody who needed healthcare during the pandemic.”

Self description: “I’m a investigative journalist and a science writer. I’ve been researching and writing about issues related to health topics for over 15 years. And I have written, or co-written 8 books, I just submitted my 9th manuscript to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. I’d want people to know that I'm an avid researcher. I do have a PhD, but my PhD is in the humanities. And that I’m very well versed in issues that have to do with health.”

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Ashley Tibollo interviewed stay-at-home mom, Lauren Pease about her experience with the Covid-19 pandemic. In this interview, they discuss her experience with the lockdown, her worries about the pandemic, and what life was like during lockdown with her foster child. This interview also touches on political protests, virtual learning and her husband's transition to working from home.

Curator for the JOPTY program, Angelica S Ramos interviews mother of three, Dr. Marissa Rhodes. In this interview she discusses her role as a professor and how COVID-19 halted all the plans she had for her classes. She also discusses her pregnancy with her third baby and the struggles that came with prenatal care and birth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Rhodes also relates her birthing experience and how different the pandemic made it from her first two pregnancies; she discusses the complications that she faced and the stresses she dealt with. Dr. Rhodes also discusses how her social life was impacted and the struggle to find a balance between work, children, virtual-learning and a new baby. Lastly, she reflects on her personal silver lining and the lessons that she hopes will be learned from this experience.

Mother interviewing 5 year old daughter about the pandemic.

Collett Hall talks about her fears about her daughter getting the virus, her system for obtaining groceries, and her experiences working as a special education teacher.

This was an interview from Jennifer Botenhagen who is a preschool teacher living in a tiny mountain town. This interview details her experience adapting to teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Living in military housing with their spouse and two children in California, the narrator chooses to remain anonymous. Throughout the interview, the narrator speaks at length about their COVID-19 pandemic experience. They go on about how they go tackle socialization, especially for their children, as they are not able to travel very far from home. They talk about what precautions they take whenever they leave the house, and how they would not let the pandemic restrictions completely dictate their new norm. Although their children are none the wiser considering their young ages, they continue to create a sense of normalcy that would simulate a pre-pandemic lifestyle. Delving deeper into safety measures, the narrator expresses their thoughts and hopes about how people in their community are taking precautions. This includes how they would hope that everyone is being honest and doing their part in assuring everyone’s mutual safety, such as informing them if they or their children are sick.

Alejandra Diaz lives in Tracy, California with her two children. Throughout the interview, social interaction was brought up frequently. It is a major factor that the COVID-19 pandemic had negatively impacted for herself and her children. As family is an important topic, Alejandra shares how their lifestyle used to be compared to how it was presently. Socialization is prevalent in her common interactions with family, friends, and in her children’s academic lives. As the questions shifts from lifestyle to academics, Alejandra talks about how her children’s education has been like during the pandemic, and about schools reopening in California. Alejandra has good things to say about the teachers as they would help where they could. Even before her children returned, she expresses her support towards in-person schools starting back up. She feels that this is necessary, under the right safety measures, for her children to learn and develop as it can prove difficult in isolation.

This is an oral history of Heather Martens by Monica Ruth, about her experiences of the pandemic. Heather shares her experiences as an administrator and facilitator of staff in her work role, her thoughts on pandemic life at home, and as a mother and partner. Heather also speaks a bit about conflicts over mask wearing, and what she hopes the future holds.

Michael Levesque was a paramedic working on an ambulance at the start of the pandemic. He had a pregnant wife at home and was in the process of switching his career into nursing. He recalls the memories of working on the ambulance and taking care of Covid patients, as well as how Covid impacted the EMS services overall. He also discusses how it felt to be starting his career as an Emergency Room nurse during a global pandemic. In both cases, his job put him directly on the front lines of medicine. He discusses the early problems of lack of knowledge and equipment to properly handle this pandemic. He also explains the mindset of an expecting father, working in a high risk environment, and then coming home to his pregnant wife. Michael’s unique life circumstances and career path gives his interview a perspective that few people experienced.

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